Match Engine - feedback

[anpa]

Hi, I have to start by saying the game is amazing, congrats to everyone at SI and specially Marc.

There are some things regarding the match engine of the game that seem a bit off to me:
1) the speed of the game does not seem to change when I choose a different setting,
it seems very fast all the time, you have to be very careful or you might miss the play scenes
2) a "Game Detail" option would be nice to have, because right now very few scenes from the game are shown,
just the goals and some big chances. I would like to see more of the game, not only the commentary,
I think maybe the most important part of the game is the 2D graphic pitch, so we should be able to see
as much of it as possible, maybe even the full game at normal speed, 90 real minutes, why not?
3) another issue that really bothers me is that you can't replay anything, not even the goals from your own matches
I want to be able to see replays and also watch other games or at leas the goals of other matches.
I understand this implies much data to be stored, but at least for a limited period of time, lets say a month,
the game data/replays should be stored at least for the important matches. Currently I think that
no replays are stored. Also a "view" option for other matches would be nice.

The graphics and gameplay are awesome, but I want to see more of it.
All the best.

[Marc Vaughan]

Firstly - thanks for the kind comments and I'm glad you're enjoying the game

1) the speed of the game does not seem to change when I choose a different setting,
it seems very fast all the time, you have to be very careful or you might miss the play scenes

The speed only affects the text commentary shown - not the 2d view, this is intentional and part of how it was designed (simply put I didn't want 101 controls for the match screen).

2) a "Game Detail" option would be nice to have, because right now very few scenes from the game are shown, just the goals and some big chances. I would like to see more of the game, not only the commentary, I think maybe the most important part of the game is the 2D graphic pitch, so we should be able to see as much of it as possible, maybe even the full game at normal speed, 90 real minutes, why not?

I'm considering expanding this side of things slightly for next years version - please do bear with me unfortunately theres a lot to do in the game outside of the match, so I don't get as much time to spend on this side of things as I might like.

3) another issue that really bothers me is that you can't replay anything, not even the goals from your own matches
I want to be able to see replays and also watch other games or at leas the goals of other matches.
I understand this implies much data to be stored, but at least for a limited period of time, lets say a month, the game data/replays should be stored at least for the important matches. Currently I think that
no replays are stored. Also a "view" option for other matches would be nice.

Noted - going forward at some point I think this would be very neat - not least because it opens up 'goal of the week' style items etc. ... that being said it might be a year or two before all supported mobile devices can support such an option, time will tell.

[dixie29]

Actually marc what i liked about the psp version was being able to watch highlights or extended highlights,this would be a great feature for iOS

[Tafkans]

This seems as good a place as any to plop a bit of match engine feedback of my own...

(1) The majority of highlights (I'd say in the region of 50%-60%) really need a couple of extra seconds on the front of it. Far too often the highlight begins with a player in a one-on-one situation, when I'd really like to see who played the through-ball to him, or which of my defenders messed up. Much of that can be derived from the match stats, and I understand the restrictions of the format, but just that little bit of added time would make a massive difference to the highlights.

(2) I've also encountered what I'm sure must be a match engine bug, though I need to spend some time trying to reproduce it. On a few occasions I've seen players seemingly passing the ball in the wrong order, in a way that doesn't match up with the commentary. For example, a player clean through on goal, who hoofs the ball back to a player in his own half (the commentary says he's playing a "through ball"!), and that player then scores from his own half (the commentary says it's a "simple tap-in"). I'll try to get a video of it happening, so you can look at whether it's a bug, or whether it's because my team are playing like the Harlem Globetrotters.

[tylerazevedo]

I've seen this a few times: Player A has the ball in the box and passes to player B ON THE OTHER END OF THE PITCH who then launches a shot from his own box that some how goes in. Either way, when it doesn't go in...why would the guy in the box pass the ball backwards to the other end of the pitch? Is it just a graphics bug and the guy really wasn't at the other end of pitch but the graphics engine thought he was???? It's crazy funny when it happens though.

[Marc Vaughan]

I've seen this a few times: Player A has the ball in the box and passes to player B ON THE OTHER END OF THE PITCH who then launches a shot from his own box that some how goes in. Either way, when it doesn't go in...why would the guy in the box pass the ball backwards to the other end of the pitch? Is it just a graphics bug and the guy really wasn't at the other end of pitch but the graphics engine thought he was???? It's crazy funny when it happens though.

It'll likely be a graphics oddity, the way it works is the game maps the 2d onto the existing match engine (which was originally one of our ones from the 2001 era) - then refines the resolution of players etc. (as they're fairly low res in the match engine) and animates what they're doing in the 2d view.

It sounds like for some reason that players position was placed incorrectly on the 2d view, I've fixed a few oddities like that before, its mainly seemed to occur where a player had been off the pitch bounds himself for some reason close to the event being visible, I'll track it down - thanks for your patience.