Our beloved FM's got some real competition now?

[Gooner82]

I'm not slagging anything off. I'm casting doubt on their being able to make it work. I'll give few some reasons.

1: The example on the video is nothing like any set piece I've ever seen. I'd suggest a good 90% of set pieces are either direct shots, crosses or taps to the side for a shot. This editor is going to encourage a plethora of set piece moves, which I believe will detract from realism.

2: In relation to the above, the sheer number of variables that such a system will create is likely to make the AI defence a total farce.

3: Given the general consensus BSG have fallen a long way behind in ME development since the SI/Eidos split, I think it is a big ask for them to pull something so ambitious off.

They may pull it off and design an ME and set piece creator that immerses the user in a realistic game of football, but given the technical difficulties of the project and their limited experience, I think it is a big ask. However, if they do succeed, it will be a major step forward and a large feather in their cap.

Fair point.

Sorry I'm new to all this so what do the terms ME and wibble wobble mean? Sorry if that sounds dumb but really I don't understand:thup:

Your right in saying BGS havnt the experiance that SI have but I think that by having 2 major Football sim creators can only be great for the fans of ANY football management games.

No one is saying that CM09 or CM10 what ever it maybe will be perfect the first time round as this is all going to be new but I'm sure this is a big step in the right direction for all football manager games. Its a case really of being able to clear up as many bugs as possible next.

I think that both CM and FM could learn a lot from eachother in terms of making great games and it would be even better for all of us fans if maybe one day they can share some ideas and make one hell of a football game which we can all be proud of

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

I'm not slagging anything off. I'm casting doubt on their being able to make it work. I'll give few some reasons.

1: The example on the video is nothing like any set piece I've ever seen. I'd suggest a good 90% of set pieces are either direct shots, crosses or taps to the side for a shot. This editor is going to encourage a plethora of set piece moves, which I believe will detract from realism.

2: In relation to the above, the sheer number of variables that such a system will create is likely to make the AI defence a total farce.

3: Given the general consensus BSG have fallen a long way behind in ME development since the SI/Eidos split, I think it is a big ask for them to pull something so ambitious off.

They may pull it off and design an ME and set piece creator that immerses the user in a realistic game of football, but given the technical difficulties of the project and their limited experience, I think it is a big ask. However, if they do succeed, it will be a major step forward and a large feather in their cap.

A plethora of free kick moves would be a good thing, most players hammer it into the wall in real life it is true so "real" would mean mostly FM players doing the same, however every now & again you see a club with an adventuous new routine IRL which in most cases leads to a great chance to score, of course the AI would need to learn these & counter them.

To illustrate I recall Terry Venable's Crystal Palace in the 80's (he was a fan of original set piece ideas!), in one match players lined up along the defensive wall & peeled of in all directions then 2 quick passes set a midfielder free in space with a shot on goal - the keeper saved it as I recall and that routine was never as effective again due to other managers awareness of it.

My concern with the set piece editor which I think others should focus on too is that if I spend the 1st 5 games of the season "introducing wonderful set piece routines to the FM football world", will they then be shoved down my throat for the rest of the season by my oppositions - that would be galling indeed!.

I think for set piece artistry to be allowed there must be a pay off of the negative kind in time for training being saturated - maybe fitness levels would drop by a point of two due to gym time being wasted fannying around with the set pieces training?.

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

I think if a feature is going to be announced on any football management sim, it needs to be well thought out and properly constructed. Hopefully BGS can deliver on their promises - I'm sure they have the funds to ensure that the expertise is there to implement it.

I would also imagine that they have secret agent spies patrolling the forums here to gauge user reaction to the features in FM09. I wouldn't be surprised if they noted down a lot of the I-H8-3D threads as a 'programmer beware' before they attempted creation.

I also think SI will be sweating a little on the pending release of CM, because, after alienating some (I don't know the figures, but I imagine there are some here and there) users with the latest iteration - they are likely to concede some of their monopoly market on football simulation to BGS. More incentive for BGS to spend capital on getting it right, more incentive for SI to sort their issues out to retain their mostly loyal userbase.

Two football sims can't be a bad thing, though, can it?

2 good games - nothing wrong with that, though if either is poor & "a waste of money" then that is not so good! I have to say, if CM09 comes out soon, and if it is as excellent as it proposes to be (and that is a big ask!) ..and if FM10 is released with any suggestion of DRM attached then FM10 will be the first FM ever that I will probably not buy, not on release day at least.

Lots of "if"s and a "probably" thrown in for good measure but you get my drift. Was so looking forward to the FM10 tactical design assitant, but the CM09 videos made me totally forget all that for a few days - I feel bad now!

[SFraser]

A plethora of free kick moves would be a good thing

A plethora of free kick moves would indeed be a good thing but this feature smacks of poor design and a product reliant upon gimmicks rather than gameplay to drive sales. This shiny, pretty set peice editor does not exist because it will improve gameplay and it will very likely do the exact opposite of improving gameplay. It exists solely because the first time it is included in CM it will increase sales. Second time around users may well say "I am not buying that bore fest, bug riddled junk" but not the first time, and this is the only reason for its development.

This is not a step forward for the series. It is very much a massive step backwards as it shows the studio to be highly reactive and not pro-active in its approach to development. The game will inevitably proliferate with shiny feature after shiny feature after shiny feature desired by the target audience without having any unified vision and direction for the game other than to satisfy the unco-ordinated and random desires of the user base. You cannot commit to the perfection of individual features and the perfection of their interaction while being lead in the development of features by the demands of the user. Certainly you must listen to userbase but you cannot delegate product vision, direction and feature choice to the mean of their united wishes if you desire a functional and holistic game.

There is a nice parallel to be drawn between the direction of FM and CM and the implimentation of successful and unsuccessful tactics in FM. The successful tactic is the one that functions as a whole with each peice fine tuned to improve the function of the whole. The unsuccessful tactic attempts to fine tune individuals without understanding or relating to the whole. Twenty ingenious features produced with a high degree of professional finish and entertainment value do not make a game.

[we6boss]

I havent read the 3 pages but I like FM's 3d match engine and I also like the game mechanics. Up until recently, I have been considering other games but for me FM is just really fun man. Sure patches are needed for it to be fun but FM seems to be very rich with input of hardwork by the developers of the game. Kudos to all the workers on this game and I am anticipating next years addition and congratulations on the success of the series.

[we6boss]

And even though FM2009 is the first game in the series with a 3d match engine, my players are playing JUST how I would imagined them playing in my head. now that is some crazy Stuff! Excellent job considering this is their first go at it.

[iamjerome]

i like a lot of the ideas but i'm skeptical because of i can't see the game not being hugely breakable due to some of the ideas but at the same time i'm more than willing to give the demo a try.

[peter-evo]

Anyone would think that you have played it SFraser. Why don't you stop using all of your fancy words to shoot down a game that hasn't even got a demo yet?

Seriously, you can base a solid opinion of FM as a game because you have played it a lot and some of your stuff is a pleasure to read, but it is so frustrating seeing you bend over backwards to prevent anybody suggesting that Championship Manager 2009 could be half-decent.

You may well be correct, but, at the moment you are talking a lot of rubbish and even comparing the tactics in FM to something we know nothing about in CM. Get your facts sorted before you comment.

[bardock]

What Sfraser trying to say (at least what I think he's trying to say) is simple and I believe quite right.

FM are the best because they choose fine tune the ME and AI. Two of the most essential parts of any football management sim.

CM produces a fun game that might look realistic on the surface (set piece creator and all the other things) but if you check underneath the hood you're going to find a simple AI and an even simpler ME. The fact that players choose to leave the danger area to chase other players kind of proves his point. It doesn't happen in real life for a good reason.

He doesn't believe that CM can come up with an ME or an AI as sophisticated as FM after all that's really what a separates the men from the boys.

He doesn't have much faith in CM's people and rightly so because FM have spent years fine tuning their baby. CM have just recently given birth to theirs so to speak and probably won't even come close to challenging FM's sophistication. Then again they could've made some incredible breakthroughs since the last CM but again highly unlikely.

[peter-evo]

What I am trying to say is that SFraser and now you aswell, are calling FM better when CM has not yet been released. How do you know that the ME in CM isn't better? Wait until you play the game before jumping to conclusions.

[dankrzyz]

The interface looks very sharp, much more "updated" and sleek than FM's stock skin. The scouting "network" interface and approach seems more realistic. The set piece editor just haunts me with visions of exploitation or frustration. The practice field feature - to practice tactics vs reserve team - would be tremenously helpful and is a nice addition.

[Temp]

I saw the video... i think like Si theres a want to make the game a little overcomplicated.

You cant expect to control players movements on the pitch... their mental stats should be doing that.

[peter-evo]

I also liked how Eidos actually spent most of the video showing off the features. SI should take a leaf out of their book and stop showing Miles at 154 different angles.

[ahmufcwafc]

What I am trying to say is that SFraser and now you aswell, are calling FM better when CM has not yet been released. How do you know that the ME in CM isn't better? Wait until you play the game before jumping to conclusions.

Surely it works both ways though? A lot of people here have been hyping CM09 to be way better than FM from watching what, 10 minutes of video footage? They are jumping to conclusions as well. Some people are bound to get frustrated by that.

[peter-evo]

Surely it works both ways though? A lot of people here have been hyping CM09 to be way better than FM from watching what, 10 minutes of video footage? They are jumping to conclusions as well. Some people are bound to get frustrated by that.

Definitely. That is also very irritating. The game looks good by this viewing, but not one person on these forums knows how it will end up.

[SFraser]

What I am trying to say is that SFraser and now you aswell, are calling FM better when CM has not yet been released. How do you know that the ME in CM isn't better? Wait until you play the game before jumping to conclusions.

You only need to look at where the development resources are being focused and the motivation behind the new features to know exactly what kind of product you are going to get. It would be unfair to judge CM prior to release if it wasn't for the precedents set by the entire gaming industry across the last decade and my experience of reading about, testing and playing PC games. If CM does not completely fail on gameplay, does not completely fail in producing a logical and holistically entertaining game, does not completely fail with incorporating these new features in a balanced fashion into currently existing gameplay then it will be the exception to the rule.

CM will not be better than FM because it is already inferior in the core aspect of gameplay and it is devoting development resources to arbitrary and tangental features designed to draw in the "protest vote" football management gamer rather than improve its basic premise. CM is not interested in building a better product, it is interested only in providing the alternatives that the gaming community has asked for, irrespective of the relevence and overall improvement/detriment those features have upon the basic game, because those features will bring in customers. It is the equivelant of those pre-built "gaming" PC's you get from PCWorld that offer 8 GB of the slowest RAM alongside the cheapest possible quad-core, mounted ontop of a 10 year old "designer" motherboard with a second tier version of the latest NVidia GPU series, and comes equipped with a 5000rpm 1TB harddrive, all for triple the price and 1/10th the speed of a four channel 2GB DD3 corsair system packing a 12,000 rpm 250GB raptor and a 4ghz each way dualcore. It looks good untill you realise it is a whole package, and the package stinks.

Call me cynical but I didn't grow up with PC's and PC gaming only to remain ignorant of blatant marketing and the trends of game design. The overwhelming majority of game studios intend only to milk a brand or genre for all it is worth while doing the minimum possible development and the maximum possible marketing. It is something of an unwritten rule in gaming that quality of marketing is inversely proportional to quality of gameplay.

[SCIAG]

A plethora of free kick moves would indeed be a good thing but this feature smacks of poor design and a product reliant upon gimmicks rather than gameplay to drive sales. This shiny, pretty set peice editor does not exist because it will improve gameplay and it will very likely do the exact opposite of improving gameplay. It exists solely because the first time it is included in CM it will increase sales. Second time around users may well say "I am not buying that bore fest, bug riddled junk" but not the first time, and this is the only reason for its development.

This is not a step forward for the series. It is very much a massive step backwards as it shows the studio to be highly reactive and not pro-active in its approach to development. The game will inevitably proliferate with shiny feature after shiny feature after shiny feature desired by the target audience without having any unified vision and direction for the game other than to satisfy the unco-ordinated and random desires of the user base. You cannot commit to the perfection of individual features and the perfection of their interaction while being lead in the development of features by the demands of the user. Certainly you must listen to userbase but you cannot delegate product vision, direction and feature choice to the mean of their united wishes if you desire a functional and holistic game.

There is a nice parallel to be drawn between the direction of FM and CM and the implimentation of successful and unsuccessful tactics in FM. The successful tactic is the one that functions as a whole with each peice fine tuned to improve the function of the whole. The unsuccessful tactic attempts to fine tune individuals without understanding or relating to the whole. Twenty ingenious features produced with a high degree of professional finish and entertainment value do not make a game.

I know the features there seemed half finished, and the ME more so, but how can you talk about the implementation of tactics or the gameplay of a game you haven't tried yet?

It's all well and good talking about "market patterns", but when was the video released? A while before it appeared here iirc. Between then and whenever they release it, they'll have improved the gameplay, and regardless, it isn't the sort of thing you can judge without trying it, precedents or not.

The issue with wibble wobble, and indeed, the arrows, is not totally the 'two positions' element, although that has a lot to do with it, but how they made players movement robotic. With either tool, the players wold ignore where the ball was on the pitch and rush blindly to their set position. The two positions they were asked to play thus overrode eveything else that was happening on the pitch, which is a totally illogical state of affairs. Likewise, clever manipulation of the system allowed the user to completely undermine the AI by producing patterns it couldn't deal with.

To understand why they were removed we need to unpack this further. Firstly, we need to consider the difference between drawing on a chalkboard and players actual interpretations of instructions. If, in reality, a player just shuttled between two fixed points as determined by his manger and paid little or no attention to the rest of the game, the team would get hammered by the more dynamic, ball-related movement of the opposition. In FM, however, this movement was used to win matches by moving players around in a pattern the AI couldn't read. There is a big gap between using wibble wobble as an indication of positions and a determiner of positions.

Surely that should result in a reworking of the system, to make players more aware of phrase play whilst working their way to their new position?

Arrows did the same thing and, from FM06 onwards, users were having to devise crazier and crazier patterns to 'break' the AI. Football simply doesn't work in the manner the control mechanisms were enforcing. The AI's football was fine, because it stayed within certain parameters, but many users' tactics were crazy and would never work in real life. Although the recognition of this factor came through exposure to FML, its transmission into FM has made the ME more logical and more robust. What it has also achieved is to make explict just how much trouble people have understanding the slider system. Because you can't use wibble wobble or arrow positioning to undermine the AI (i.e. do stuff it can't read and thus can't defend) you need to understand the slider system and tactical design holisitically in order to succeed. This has lead to SI's promise that they will replace the slider system with a new tactical interface for FM2010.

This does not mean the slider system will be removed (as its mechanics underlie the ME), and those who still feel comfortable using it can do so, but it does mean tactics will be far easier to understand. Matches will also be far more dynamic. It will be easy to change things in a tactic, or change tactics, and you'll know what you are trying to do. Things should also be a lot more fun.

The irony. It is completely right that "carrow" formations (for the reader in the dark, that's "crazy arrow") wouldn't work in real life unless you had 11 Johan Cruijffs.

Isn't the new system going to be based on TT&F?

I can tell you now that large portions of TT&F would not work in real life. The 08 version and previous versions would, but this one certainly would not. Parts simply aren't how real football works. It is a guide designed for a game, and if a real manager tried to implement the ideas in it, he would find himself in trouble.

I don't see the difference between arrows that were deemed to be something that wouldn't work in real life (and were therefore removed) and 09's TT&F, yet TT&F is niow being force upon msot users (I know the slider system will still be there, but how many users will know or choose to use it?) and even the AI (which won't be able to use sliders).

One could argue that the unrealistic parts of TT&F are in fact exploits, as they do not follow real football. There were less of these in previous versions, if there were any at all (I don't remember any).

The 'why worry about exploits' argument is one that fails to understand what SI are trying to do. In real life football, there is no super-tactic, no method of scoring 35 goals from a corner, no possibility of an MC running half the length of the pitch before scoring an unmarked goal 40+ times a season. When such things are discovered, it highlights a weakness in the ME that must be fixed for it to move a step closer to simulated reality. the FML/FM player v player/player v AI has nothing to do with it. All FML did was make new weaknesses explicit.

Are you insinuating that, for example, SI should make playing with three MCs impossible in the new version? That's an exploit, like the arrows were. I know the difference is that the arrows limit the awareness of players until they are in their new positions, but why couldn't the same sort of solution be found as will probably be found for the 3 MC exploit? I'm thinking altering the effects of the arrows, and possibly limiting length.

The majority of users didn't exploit the ME with their tactics, or at very least, this wasn't their intention. I used a formation (inc. arrows) used by the AI. My tactic was different, but that's an irrelevance. If that can be contested, which I'm sure you won't, having a tactic can be too

The only major problem with FM09 is the slider system. That it hadn't been realised before is because people patched things up with arrows and thus could design OK tactics without really understanding the system as a whole. NB: this doesn't mean I don't think the ME is flawed, just nowhere near as horrible as many would suggest. In response, SI have promised development focus on tactics for FM2010. Personally, that excites me a lot more than the option of designing 40 plus set piece routines each with 5 stages each involving the multiple shifting of players, which a) will get tired very quickly and b) will be an exploit-fest.

Again, I disagree. I used a tactic that wasn't patched up with arrows. I have been distributing three main tactics to users of FM07 recently. Two of them use a formation used by the AI, including arrows, although one switches farrows for barrows. The other does admittedly have one arrow that may cause a minor exploit, although that arrow only increases the performance of the individual, not the team. I'd love it if arrows could be implemented in a more realistic way, as that would make the arrow do the job I would have liked as opposed to the half-hearted one it does at present, causing an abject lack of movement and defensive stability. It isn't possible to instruct the player to do so without the arrow btw, so currently it is the best solution.

[SFraser]

I know the features there seemed half finished, and the ME more so, but how can you talk about the implementation of tactics or the gameplay of a game you haven't tried yet?

Because it has animated flags, 250 animations per outfield character, and sold significantly less copies than football manager when they released their last game. Logic is not an esoteric concept.

It's all well and good talking about "market patterns", but when was the video released? A while before it appeared here iirc. Between then and whenever they release it, they'll have improved the gameplay, and regardless, it isn't the sort of thing you can judge without trying it, precedents or not.

You can accurately judge their potential by their previous endeavours. In this context the doom of their brand seems inevitable unless they happen upon some heroin like feature through pure chance.

I can tell you now that large portions of TT&F would not work in real life. The 08 version and previous versions would, but this one certainly would not. Parts simply aren't how real football works. It is a guide designed for a game, and if a real manager tried to implement the ideas in it, he would find himself in trouble.

I don't see the difference between arrows that were deemed to be something that wouldn't work in real life (and were therefore removed) and 09's TT&F, yet TT&F is niow being force upon msot users (I know the slider system will still be there, but how many users will know or choose to use it?) and even the AI (which won't be able to use sliders).

One could argue that the unrealistic parts of TT&F are in fact exploits, as they do not follow real football. There were less of these in previous versions, if there were any at all (I don't remember any).

I completely disagree with these points because the fundamental importance of managing individuals within a unified concept could not be more obvious in football. TT&F is a guide to getting footballing ideas working within the framework of an incredibly accurate footballing simulation. Your points are completely wrong on all counts, from accurate implimentation being an exploit to intelligent concepts being unrealistic.

Parts are entireally how football works. Cristiano Ronaldo being the most blatantly obvious example, but likewise the "Gerrard Cup Final" or indeed Stuart Pearce's penalty. One could add to that Sol Campell in 1998, Steve McManus for Celtic and Scotland 2 years ago, or the revival of John O'Shea as a footballer at critical time periods for Manchester United. Dirk Kuyt is another epic failure enjoying a new lease of life, and if it was not for his time under the management of a Scot there would be no Gattuso dominating the midfields of the games within which he plays. Learning to manipulate the personalities of players so that they apply their abilities in the manner you expect to the strategies you have designed is something no one should have to explain to a football fan.

Managing the parts so that they fit into and improve the whole is a point that should be stuck to the very top of each of these forums.

[SCIAG]

You misunderstood my use of parts- I meant "parts of TT&F", or "sections/paragraphs/areas of TT&F"

[SFraser]

You misunderstood my use of parts- I meant "parts of TT&F", or "sections/paragraphs/areas of TT&F"

That has no relevence upon the fact that your entire post is rediculous.

[peter-evo]

That has no relevence upon the fact that your entire post is rediculous.

So is your spelling.

[AcidBurn]

So the tactics wizard works based completely on a guide written by posters on this forum?

I take it we will be able to design tactics not using the TT&F designed wizard. I have never used anything in that guide but its seems alot of people assume that is the only way to go.

People are judging this game too early in both ways people saying its going to be better or worse than FM are being idiots in my opinion. You need to test FM10 and CM09 to get a proper answer as to which is better. People are moaning about the exploits that can be created using the set piece creater, have these people forgotten about the corner bug. People saying the match engine has mistakes are you joking there are alot of mistakes in the FM one.

As for bugs on release that is the best one there were alot of bugs in FM09 when that was released most of all one that made Spain virtually unplayable due to managers of the B team giving crap players contracts of 100k. The game crippling bugs can happen in either game. I for one am an FM fan and have never bought a CM game but after viewing this video I will be taking a look at the demo and may even buy it.

It is possible to buy and play both games.

[SFraser]

So is your spelling.

And there was me thinking FM didn't appeal to children.

[peter-evo]

I like you dude. I just didn't think calling SCIAG's post 'ridiculous' was fair at all.

I am sorry for my pop at you but your pop was equally harsh.

[SCIAG]

That has no relevence upon the fact that your entire post is rediculous.

The words of somebody who has lost. Seeing as your entire argument against my point on TT&F was that "parts are how football works", which I did not even call into question, you seem to have been outmaneuvered.

I see you are not prepared to look beyond certain difference of opinion, although I have been very much trying my best to. Did you even read my PM?

I know I am not alone in my opinions. At least one of the finest posters in T&T agrees with me. I know far more think that a more realistic implementation of arrows would be a fine idea, and I struggle to see how that could be deemed ridiculous. The point is that the ideas of two men (in the main) are being forced upon many, when sections of them simply aren't realistic. I cite the passing schemes. Since when did telling players to pass short lead to them "kicking for touch" if they didn't have an option or even just the one, for example? In a short passing system, players would be offering options if at all possible. According to TT&F, slightly lengthening passing options would offer better chance of a player finding the closest player. In the BETA for the new tactics system, even selecting a "control" system leads to multiple players getting free roles. I could go on.

It's a shame that what was once the premier guide on tactics in FM which encouraged methodology that would work in real life, now only leads users up an alley where tactics are designed to win in a game. You and wwfan have forgotten that this game is meant to be a simulation of football. You're also incapable of losing an argument or even conceding a point, so I don't know why I'm bothering to post.

[dassyboy]

Still think I'll be sticking with FM

[Celts1888]

I think this game looks good and will definately try it out even though I am a devoted fm player, things I like are the crowd, weather effects, training schedules, and the overall look of the match engine looks smooth compared to what we have at the minute with fm and to be honest I can`t see fm improving that much in fm 10 apart from a few changes in the match engine but thats just my opinion, I hope there will be a big improvement in fm 10 match engine wise with things like crowd, better sound options during match, better tactics options, more in depth ways to promote your club and players around the world through going on tours and getting feedback from your club on how well your club is doing in certain countries, like say your club goes on tour in the USA and when you come home you get a report like you get with season ticket sales reports saying something like this, "After returning from our sucess in this years tour of the USA we have noticed an increase in our shirt sales for (player a) and (player b) after their good performances against New York and LA Galaxy, it seems the Americans are now fans of these players" or something similar im sure you know what im trying to say though I already put my ideas forward when testing fm 09 this season so heres hoping:), anyway thats my input.

[PGB_SPURS_FM09]

I might have to look into this as i have really found fm09 dissapointing. I think SI should be slightly worried. We'll have to wait and see.

[Munchkin]

both will be brought

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

You only need to look at where the development resources are being focused and the motivation behind the new features to know exactly what kind of product you are going to get. It would be unfair to judge CM prior to release if it wasn't for the precedents set by the entire gaming industry across the last decade and my experience of reading about, testing and playing PC games. If CM does not completely fail on gameplay, does not completely fail in producing a logical and holistically entertaining game, does not completely fail with incorporating these new features in a balanced fashion into currently existing gameplay then it will be the exception to the rule.

CM will not be better than FM because it is already inferior in the core aspect of gameplay and it is devoting development resources to arbitrary and tangental features designed to draw in the "protest vote" football management gamer rather than improve its basic premise. CM is not interested in building a better product, it is interested only in providing the alternatives that the gaming community has asked for, irrespective of the relevence and overall improvement/detriment those features have upon the basic game, because those features will bring in customers. It is the equivelant of those pre-built "gaming" PC's you get from PCWorld that offer 8 GB of the slowest RAM alongside the cheapest possible quad-core, mounted ontop of a 10 year old "designer" motherboard with a second tier version of the latest NVidia GPU series, and comes equipped with a 5000rpm 1TB harddrive, all for triple the price and 1/10th the speed of a four channel 2GB DD3 corsair system packing a 12,000 rpm 250GB raptor and a 4ghz each way dualcore. It looks good untill you realise it is a whole package, and the package stinks.

Call me cynical but I didn't grow up with PC's and PC gaming only to remain ignorant of blatant marketing and the trends of game design. The overwhelming majority of game studios intend only to milk a brand or genre for all it is worth while doing the minimum possible development and the maximum possible marketing. It is something of an unwritten rule in gaming that quality of marketing is inversely proportional to quality of gameplay.

How totally ridiculous to judge the CM corp on their "motives"!. The backers of CM09 just like Sega (no really its true, get over it!) is.... to make money!, pure and simple. It just so happens that Sega, and indeed SI, and the CM team all realise that the way to make most money is to make a consistantly good product, and as this is an annual type of product they are not going to risk long term gain for short term gain.

The CM09 "motivation" will be driven primarily by what FM09/ CM08 fans feel they have previously missed out upon - "give them what they want and they will buy". Of course hitting the right quality / playability standards will be hard but according to many, FM09 fell short of that (a point I personally do not agree with).

I do agree that previous CM's (Post Eidos-SI split) have been awful, at least in relation to the corresponduing year's FM offering. BUt lets not also forget what an abomination CM4 was and SI had a hand in that "baby".

I do however find it really sad, the high-moral-handed opinion of some in this thread on a game that is not even playable yet!, and I start to wonder about these critics and their motivations. Even wwfan and the like (well respected FM supporters who could be forgiven some bias), and even SI staff themselves have been fair and reserved in judgement awaiting a playable offering.

Unless the CM team issued you with a full report on their "distribution of development resources" (and, call me a cynic, but I suspect they did not do so!), then your initial statement & the penultimate paragraph contain some seriously non-"representative" opinion presented as fact. Please do us all a favour and stop that!

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

You cant expect to control players movements on the pitch... their mental stats should be doing that.

Interesting thought on wibble wobble, that. Its probably the only impartial reasoning for wi wo not being a good idea. I dont agree with you but it is an excellent & thought provoking thought.

[SCIAG]

How totally ridiculous to judge the CM corp on their "motives"!. The backers of CM09 just like Sega (no really its true, get over it!) is.... to make money!, pue and simple. It just so happens that Seag, and indeed SI, and the CM team all realise that the way to ake most money is to make a consistantly good product, and as this is an annual type of product they are not going to risk long term gain for short term gain.

The CM09 "motivation" will be driven primarily by what FM09/ CM08 fans feel they have previously missed out upon - "give them what they want and they will buy". Of course hitting the right quality / playability standards will be hard but according to many, FM09 fell short of that (a point I personally do not agree with).

I do agree that previous CM's (Post Eidos-SI split) have been awful, at least in relation to the corresponduing year's FM offering. BUt lets not also forget what an abomination CM4 was and SI had a hand in that "baby".

I do however find it really sad, the high-moral-handed opinion of some in this thread on a game that is not even playable yet!, and I start to wonder about these critics and their motivations. Even wwfan and the like (well respected FM supporters who could be forgiven some bias), and even SI staff themselves have been fair and reserved in judgement awaiting a playable offering.

Unless the CM team issued you with a full report on their "distribution of development resources" (and, call me a cynic, but I suspect they did not do so!), then your initial statement & the penultimate paragraph contain some seriously non-"representative" opinion presented as fact. Please do us all a favour and stop that!

Good post. I've been called a fan boy in the past, but this year's offering was below the standards of playability of past games. The fact that a good number of the forum regulars (or at least GD regulars) are playing older versions of the game only highlights that.

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

A plethora of free kick moves would indeed be a good thing but this feature smacks of poor design and a product reliant upon gimmicks rather than gameplay to drive sales. This shiny, pretty set peice editor does not exist because it will improve gameplay and it will very likely do the exact opposite of improving gameplay. It exists solely because the first time it is included in CM it will increase sales. Second time around users may well say "I am not buying that bore fest, bug riddled junk" but not the first time, and this is the only reason for its development.

This is not a step forward for the series. It is very much a massive step backwards as it shows the studio to be highly reactive and not pro-active in its approach to development. The game will inevitably proliferate with shiny feature after shiny feature after shiny feature desired by the target audience without having any unified vision and direction for the game other than to satisfy the unco-ordinated and random desires of the user base. You cannot commit to the perfection of individual features and the perfection of their interaction while being lead in the development of features by the demands of the user. Certainly you must listen to userbase but you cannot delegate product vision, direction and feature choice to the mean of their united wishes if you desire a functional and holistic game.

There is a nice parallel to be drawn between the direction of FM and CM and the implimentation of successful and unsuccessful tactics in FM. The successful tactic is the one that functions as a whole with each peice fine tuned to improve the function of the whole. The unsuccessful tactic attempts to fine tune individuals without understanding or relating to the whole. Twenty ingenious features produced with a high degree of professional finish and entertainment value do not make a game.

Are you having a laugh? Seriously, one of the biggest critiscisms of FM year-on-year is SI not listening to feed back & implement the requests. How can CM be "bad" for listening?, unless the game does end up being kack of course.

To accuse CM09 of gimmickary for set piece editors & training routine editors is the same as accusing FM09 of the same because of 3d, and the biggest "gimmick" in CM/FM history IMHO was SI's introduction of player photos! - that stank of desperation & cheesiness beyond belief - it just so happens that I love that feature/aspect, though.

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

Good post. I've been called a fan boy in the past, but this year's offering was below the standards of playability of past games. The fact that a good number of the forum regulars (or at least GD regulars) are playing older versions of the game only highlights that.

Yeah Im playing CM0102 right now - enough said, but I do still like FM09.

[kopitelewis]

I like that drill thing about 3 mins in. I would like to see something like that in FM because it takes the training into a lot of detail. Scrap it, I like the whole game.

[onimkron]

to be fair, the prozone feature in the last CM game (can't really remember if it's in the latest one) *looked* pretty darn good, but in the end the whole game around it, in particular the match engine, was horribly flawed. Like again though, i'm going to try out the demo before I make a judgment- that's what they're for, after all.

I don't really like having attributes going up to triple digits though- maximum of 20 would be fine by me

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

By the way, full respect to SI for not closing this thread - it is about a competitors product after all and it is very pro CM for the most part so thanks again to SI for their Magnanimuos attitude, they are true footy management game fans!. I almost believe that if CM was excellent and FM wasnt then the SI crew would say "sod it" and play CM instead of doing what they do. No worries though, the quality gap between CM & FM will always be relatively close, closer than previously if the CM 09 game delivers as the videos suggest it will.

[antonjw]

What I think SFraser misses, is that once you start rendering the Match Engine in 3d, this opens up almost a whole new world of opportunities to provide additional realism and tactical control over your players and your team.

When you had text commentary, and dots moving around a pitch, you called realism much less into question - as long as you got better results with better players, and when 2d came along, as long as things looked reasonably right, positionally, and you could see that positionally things would react to your tactics, then perhaps that was enough.

But when you start rendering in 3d, and then suddenly you're really watching your team play, well, now you want it to look as real as possible, and have as much tactical control over that as possible (whilst hopefully still being intuitive for the manager to implement).

A Set Piece Editor goes hand-in-hand with the new world of 3d Match Engines, for me. This is not a gimmicky feature. This is something that, implemented well, will make the game more realistic and offer the manager more tactical control of his players, and make the game play out more realistically. Look at FM's Free Kicks. How can you deny that a Set Piece Editor of some kind is required? It's a gaping chasm in the current ME.

Drills, personally, I don't think I would have thought of, but I think the idea deserves some credit. Again it ties in with the new era of 3d realism in Football Management simulations.

CM have understood this well, I think, and they are breaking new ground here, and for that they deserve credit. Whether these things will be implemented really well or be buggy, none of us know, so this speculation is pointless and redundant in the conversation really - nobody knows... except we do know that they have put the release back to keep working on these features, which seems a sensible thing to do if they're not yet right - so they deserve some slack even in this respect.

SFraser, you are a FM die-hard, and you have your heels dug in. Not really a problem with that, everyone's entitled to their opinion - and that includes those with a different one to you!

I think you do have a point about the quality of the AI and the game engine, and lots of other logic, and development, that underpins FM. It's been refined over years, and there's not a lot wrong with the traditional areas of the game, in fact they are excellent.

Which is why it's the only Football Management series I've played for the last 15 years as well.

However I've had quite a few years away from it, what with life and that, but what brought me back, was the 3d Match Engine. This is the new world. This is where Football Management simulations are heading.... serious, visual realism territory, and bring it on, I say.

Yes, you need everything else under the bonnet otherwise it's all for nought, but CM are taking the Football Management sim where it is inevitably (and rightly, in my view) headed. I'm surprised not everyone can see this... I really am.

CM seem to me to have embraced the concept and now they're running with it. I'm excited to see where it goes, and I hope, and I think, SI will follow.

At least one of them will get all this right, so I don't think there's any need to worry about that. And if you're right about the history of the PC game, and the development pound versus the marketing pound, then FM & SI will win - so what are you so worried about?

But for me I do not accept that CM's new features are 'here today, gone tomorrow' marketing features (and BGS seem to have spent rather a lof of development pounds on this, do they not?) - for me, they are the future, and it this kind of visual realism that pulled me back into Football Management games and FM09.

The world's moved on... up to you whether you move with it.

It's an interesting debate, though... for me, I think SI will head in the same direction, and I think SI will do things well (eventually - the transition into the 3d ME has been a little painful for them). But in the meantime, it will be very interesting to see how BGS's leadership in this area fares, and I'm very interested and excited to see it, myself.

[wwfan]

Mainly @ SCIAG, but happy to engage with anyone:

I'm quite happy to to lose any argument that engages at the right level. In order to justify your various points, you need to expand upon the following concepts:

1: Do wibble wobble or arrows exist as deterministic movements in real life, or are they just a illustrative method by which a manager can get instructions through to his players? I think we can quickly agree it is the latter. Unfortunately, in FM they worked as the former. There is no technology that can make them exist like the latter, therefore they had to go as they are harming the quality of the ME simulation. What could be introduced is a visual wibble wobble/runs screen that illustrates to the manager roughly where each player would run to/be in each stage of phase, but it cannot be more than a visualisation of the tactic, not an input method, unless the dragging around of the elements changed slider settings. How exactly do you visualise it working in a genuinely realistic manner, given the technical requirements of the problem?

2: Various parts of TT&F are unlike real life football? Given that the bit about passing has been horribly misquoted/interpreted twice in this thread, I'd be interested in having a run down of exactly which areas are so flawed. I've heard this many times before, but in every case the critique has either misunderstood/misquoted parts of TT&F or avoided producing examples. This critique is also undermined by the suggestions that previous versions of TT&F weren't flawed, whereas this one is. We haven't changed anything significant at all. The underlying fundamentals are still exactly the same as they were in FM07. We've just added extra options.

For the record, TT&F just states it is pointless telling players to look for short passes if you have set all the players around the passer to make forward runs, thus ensuring they are outside the range of the pass. This is akin to the following instruction 'You, look for the short pass, all the rest of you, run away from him the moment he gets the ball.' The most common example in user tactics is telling the FB to make short passes and then having the wingers and midfielders rush up field away from him, leaving him two options, to either pass inside to the DC (often a dangerous choice) or clear the ball safe. For anyone who has watched real life football, FBs always, always play direct balls down the flanks as well as short passes inside (look at the Guardian chalkboards for an example of FB passing range), meaning that they should be given a longer passer setting unless you want the wingers to drop deep and pick up the ball (which means giving them no FWRs). The passing advice warns the user to watch forward runs settings rather than saying short passing is impossible. Designing a short passing system needs to take that into account.

Likewise, why are multiple free roles ridiculous? All the free role does is tell the player to look for space rather than hold a fixed position when the team has the ball. I fail to understand that in a strategy that aims to play keep ball, such a thing is illogical? PS The AI does it too. Oh, and you can also turn that off in the new interface if it doesn't float your boat. I need a list of explanations illustrating exactly how and where TT&F is anti-realism, with real life comparisons, before I can accept that argument. Currently, it seems to be a combination of assertion, subjective opinion of real life football, misunderstanding of slider/AI/ME technicalities and an assumption that TT&F exists as a game-breaking guide.

3: If this year's version was so sub-standard, why is the SI tactical forum so full of excellent theory threads? Why has the general level of complaining threads significantly dropped from last year? Why have a number of posters taken the time to post that they think FM09 is by far the best of the series and has the best ME yet? Why does FM09 come first in the 'best version' polls? Saying it is sub-standard is total assertion based on your subjective experience, your desire for tactics to work in a manner that suits your slider conceptualisation, and cherry-picking posts in GD. For the record, my own opinion is that FM08 was a worse game than FM07, but FM09 beats them both.

Once we can start working from the same page as each other regarding these issues, we can then move on to my response to some of your other arguments.

4: The tactics wizard is not a carbon copy of TT&F. It was used as a departure point for development as all involved believed it was a better conceptualisation of real world tactical ideas than anything the AI used. During the development of the FML wizard, it became far more sophisticated. Users also have options to change many settings within the wizard (while still remaining in logical ME parameters) or returning to the sliders for full creative control.

5: Insinuating that 3 MCs should be verboten!! Absolutely crazy. All that needs to happen is for the AI to understand how to deal with a formation not in its database, such as the 3MC 4-3-2-1. Currently it has no idea how to handle the MCC. Give it the tools to do that and then there is no problem. In real life a manager would hardly fail to notice that a player was never being marked or closed down and would do something about it. The AI doesn't. Hence, exploit. Also, bad ME, but that isn't the point. You can choose to beat the ME within its own parameters or find something it can't handle (such as the MCC or corner cheat routine). SI's vision is to make the latter impossible. In order to do that and still keep the game playable for the majority, they need to facilitate a more logical and clear method of designing and employing tactics, so people understand what they are trying to do and can thus take on the AI at its own game.

6: I agree that the manager should have more control over lateral movement and was surprised that didn't happen for FM08. However, arrows are not the answer, at least not as determiners of movement. As a secondary tactical screen in which arrows could encourage movement into channels, wingers spreading wide or cutting outside and change sliders accordingly, then they have a place. As a deterministic movement tool, they do not.

7: The respected T&T poster. I'm pretty certain I know who it is, but no names, no pack drill. However, you need to take this into account when comparing us. I am trying to create a holistic tactical guide from which the reader can take ideas in order to design his own tactics following his own interpretation of how football should be played. The other poster is trying to design tactics, usually single-flavour, that beat the ME. That is not my intention and part of the point of TT&F is that your tactics won't always win. They just put you on a level playing field with the AI. This poster has regularly challenged me to 'prove' my tactics are great, which is totally missing the point of TT&F. As I deliberately avoid any possible formation/set-piece exploits, they often won't do as well as somebody who is making use of them, at least until the user understands how to read the ME and deploy the right strategy at the right time. Failure to do that will lead to defeat.

All I do is translate the sliders and explain how they work together. Hence, I haven't released a single tactic for download outside of the original 72 alternate defaults. The other poster gives you a tactic that wins. I try to teach people how to play the game, even though I might fail in the attempt. Completely different methodologies. Comparing us is like comparing chalk and cheese.

[Stevicus]

I always try the demo to Football MAnagement games if they have demos.

CM will be no different.

It's up to the demo to appeal to me.

[wwfan]

Yes, you need everything else under the bonnet otherwise it's all for nought, but CM are taking the Football Management sim where it is inevitably (and rightly, in my view) headed. I'm surprised not everyone can see this... I really am.

CM seem to me to have embraced the concept and now they're running with it. I'm excited to see where it goes, and I hope, and I think, SI will follow.

The major arguments against the set-piece creator are thus:

1: The deterministic movement of the players has a huge likelihood of leading to ME busting moves. Getting it so it doesn't happen is a massive technical challenge. If they manage it, kudos to them. However, ...

2: In reality, teams do not have 40 set piece moves with 5 phases each. They work on very few and try to perfect them, as you simply don't have time to do anything else. Given that any 'unusual' move will likely only work once, it is a waste of resources to spend weeks perfecting something that brings such a small reward. For important matches, such a thing makes sense as the unusual move could be the difference between defeat and victory, but as a general training element, sadly, it doesn't.

[Petros7]

A midsummer night's dream!

All that I am hoping for EIDOS's player-base is that their product does not have the problems that CM4 had (though the circumstances seem conspicuously similar)...

SI learned from that experience. Will BSG have to as well?

[iamjerome]

i don't think anyone can seriously argue that this year's release was any better than 'sloppy' considering the ludicrous amount of game breaking bugs and do not retort to that saying there wasn't because i had 2 long term games ruined due to them, one on 9.1 and another on 9.2 (july 24, bojan respectively) not to mention the injuries in the 9.0 and the half arsed inclusion of features like press conferences. the match engine has come a long way but that alone doesn't make a game. for all the progress fm has made in it's core of a football simulation (ish) it's lost a lot of it's ease and fun in playability because i can't imagine than it's more than a small % of fm users who play PURELY to enjoy tactical instruction extrapolated onto the match engine (which itself requires, as we can all hopefully see, a large base of fans to read documents such as tt&f) rather than fm a game as a whole.

i see the points sfraser is making and to be honest it's fair apart from being completely oblivious and rose tinted regarding si / fm's own development cycle/style here. i think we've completely forgotten that it's taken 3 bloody patches to get a 'complete' game out; now for me, mostly enjoyable. although i'm still completely disinterested in the media,player interactions, team talks, training etc because i feel they are all horribly underdeveloped and yes i've read all the threads in T&T and i do understand how to get the best out of the training module as well as understand squad personality, motivation etc - it doesn't take away from the fact that none of it is designed as well as it should be. i also keep reading about fm's genius AI, what? ai's shocking squad composition / transfer system still ruins any credibility in games that go for longer than 5 seasons for me. anyway, i digress too much into a rant about fm. si/fm aren't gods to game designers here. fm 2009 9.3 is very, very good but let's not take apart from cm are trying to do here because it will hopefully incite faster improvement in fm.

[Champion]

The issue with wibble wobble, and indeed, the arrows, is not totally the 'two positions' element, although that has a lot to do with it, but how they made players movement robotic. With either tool, the players wold ignore where the ball was on the pitch and rush blindly to their set position. The two positions they were asked to play thus overrode eveything else that was happening on the pitch, which is a totally illogical state of affairs. Likewise, clever manipulation of the system allowed the user to completely undermine the AI by producing patterns it couldn't deal with.

To understand why they were removed we need to unpack this further. Firstly, we need to consider the difference between drawing on a chalkboard and players actual interpretations of instructions. If, in reality, a player just shuttled between two fixed points as determined by his manger and paid little or no attention to the rest of the game, the team would get hammered by the more dynamic, ball-related movement of the opposition. In FM, however, this movement was used to win matches by moving players around in a pattern the AI couldn't read. There is a big gap between using wibble wobble as an indication of positions and a determiner of positions.

Arrows did the same thing and, from FM06 onwards, users were having to devise crazier and crazier patterns to 'break' the AI. Football simply doesn't work in the manner the control mechanisms were enforcing. The AI's football was fine, because it stayed within certain parameters, but many users' tactics were crazy and would never work in real life. Although the recognition of this factor came through exposure to FML, its transmission into FM has made the ME more logical and more robust. What it has also achieved is to make explict just how much trouble people have understanding the slider system. Because you can't use wibble wobble or arrow positioning to undermine the AI (i.e. do stuff it can't read and thus can't defend) you need to understand the slider system and tactical design holisitically in order to succeed. This has lead to SI's promise that they will replace the slider system with a new tactical interface for FM2010.

This does not mean the slider system will be removed (as its mechanics underlie the ME), and those who still feel comfortable using it can do so, but it does mean tactics will be far easier to understand. Matches will also be far more dynamic. It will be easy to change things in a tactic, or change tactics, and you'll know what you are trying to do. Things should also be a lot more fun.

The 'why worry about exploits' argument is one that fails to understand what SI are trying to do. In real life football, there is no super-tactic, no method of scoring 35 goals from a corner, no possibility of an MC running half the length of the pitch before scoring an unmarked goal 40+ times a season. When such things are discovered, it highlights a weakness in the ME that must be fixed for it to move a step closer to simulated reality. the FML/FM player v player/player v AI has nothing to do with it. All FML did was make new weaknesses explicit.

The only major problem with FM09 is the slider system. That it hadn't been realised before is because people patched things up with arrows and thus could design OK tactics without really understanding the system as a whole. NB: this doesn't mean I don't think the ME is flawed, just nowhere near as horrible as many would suggest. In response, SI have promised development focus on tactics for FM2010. Personally, that excites me a lot more than the option of designing 40 plus set piece routines each with 5 stages each involving the multiple shifting of players, which a) will get tired very quickly and b) will be an exploit-fest.

I agree with you

[tigerhgrrrrrr]

Mainly @ SCIAG, but happy to engage with anyone:

I'm quite happy to to lose any argument that engages at the right level. In order to justify your various points, you need to expand upon the following concepts:

1: Do wibble wobble or arrows exist as deterministic movements in real life, or are they just a illustrative method by which a manager can get instructions through to his players? I think we can quickly agree it is the latter. Unfortunately, in FM they worked as the former. There is no technology that can make them exist like the latter, therefore they had to go as they are harming the quality of the ME simulation. What could be introduced is a visual wibble wobble/runs screen that illustrates to the manager roughly where each player would run to/be in each stage of phase, but it cannot be more than a visualisation of the tactic, not an input method, unless the dragging around of the elements changed slider settings. How exactly do you visualise it working in a genuinely realistic manner, given the technical requirements of the problem?

2: Various parts of TT&F are unlike real life football? Given that the bit about passing has been horribly misquoted/interpreted twice in this thread, I'd be interested in having a run down of exactly which areas are so flawed. I've heard this many times before, but in every case the critique has either misunderstood/misquoted parts of TT&F or avoided producing examples. This critique is also undermined by the suggestions that previous versions of TT&F weren't flawed, whereas this one is. We haven't changed anything significant at all. The underlying fundamentals are still exactly the same as they were in FM07. We've just added extra options.

For the record, TT&F just states it is pointless telling players to look for short passes if you have set all the players around the passer to make forward runs, thus ensuring they are outside the range of the pass. This is akin to the following instruction 'You, look for the short pass, all the rest of you, run away from him the moment he gets the ball.' The most common example in user tactics is telling the FB to make short passes and then having the wingers and midfielders rush up field away from him, leaving him two options, to either pass inside to the DC (often a dangerous choice) or clear the ball safe. For anyone who has watched real life football, FBs always, always play direct balls down the flanks as well as short passes inside (look at the Guardian chalkboards for an example of FB passing range), meaning that they should be given a longer passer setting unless you want the wingers to drop deep and pick up the ball (which means giving them no FWRs). The passing advice warns the user to watch forward runs settings rather than saying short passing is impossible. Designing a short passing system needs to take that into account.

Likewise, why are multiple free roles ridiculous? All the free role does is tell the player to look for space rather than hold a fixed position when the team has the ball. I fail to understand that in a strategy that aims to play keep ball, such a thing is illogical? PS The AI does it too. Oh, and you can also turn that off in the new interface if it doesn't float your boat. I need a list of explanations illustrating exactly how and where TT&F is anti-realism, with real life comparisons, before I can accept that argument. Currently, it seems to be a combination of assertion, subjective opinion of real life football, misunderstanding of slider/AI/ME technicalities and an assumption that TT&F exists as a game-breaking guide.

3: If this year's version was so sub-standard, why is the SI tactical forum so full of excellent theory threads? Why has the general level of complaining threads significantly dropped from last year? Why have a number of posters taken the time to post that they think FM09 is by far the best of the series and has the best ME yet? Why does FM09 come first in the 'best version' polls? Saying it is sub-standard is total assertion based on your subjective experience, your desire for tactics to work in a manner that suits your slider conceptualisation, and cherry-picking posts in GD. For the record, my own opinion is that FM08 was a worse game than FM07, but FM09 beats them both.

Once we can start working from the same page as each other regarding these issues, we can then move on to my response to some of your other arguments.

4: The tactics wizard is not a carbon copy of TT&F. It was used as a departure point for development as all involved believed it was a better conceptualisation of real world tactical ideas than anything the AI used. During the development of the FML wizard, it became far more sophisticated. Users also have options to change many settings within the wizard (while still remaining in logical ME parameters) or returning to the sliders for full creative control.

5: Insinuating that 3 MCs should be verboten!! Absolutely crazy. All that needs to happen is for the AI to understand how to deal with a formation not in its database, such as the 3MC 4-3-2-1. Currently it has no idea how to handle the MCC. Give it the tools to do that and then there is no problem. In real life a manager would hardly fail to notice that a player was never being marked or closed down and would do something about it. The AI doesn't. Hence, exploit. Also, bad ME, but that isn't the point. You can choose to beat the ME within its own parameters or find something it can't handle (such as the MCC or corner cheat routine). SI's vision is to make the latter impossible. In order to do that and still keep the game playable for the majority, they need to facilitate a more logical and clear method of designing and employing tactics, so people understand what they are trying to do and can thus take on the AI at its own game.

6: I agree that the manager should have more control over lateral movement and was surprised that didn't happen for FM08. However, arrows are not the answer, at least not as determiners of movement. As a secondary tactical screen in which arrows could encourage movement into channels, wingers spreading wide or cutting outside and change sliders accordingly, then they have a place. As a deterministic movement tool, they do not.

7: The respected T&T poster. I'm pretty certain I know who it is, but no names, no pack drill. However, you need to take this into account when comparing us. I am trying to create a holistic tactical guide from which the reader can take ideas in order to design his own tactics following his own interpretation of how football should be played. The other poster is trying to design tactics, usually single-flavour, that beat the ME. That is not my intention and part of the point of TT&F is that your tactics won't always win. They just put you on a level playing field with the AI. This poster has regularly challenged me to 'prove' my tactics are great, which is totally missing the point of TT&F. As I deliberately avoid any possible formation/set-piece exploits, they often won't do as well as somebody who is making use of them, at least until the user understands how to read the ME and deploy the right strategy at the right time. Failure to do that will lead to defeat.

All I do is translate the sliders and explain how they work together. Hence, I haven't released a single tactic for download outside of the original 72 alternate defaults. The other poster gives you a tactic that wins. I try to teach people how to play the game, even though I might fail in the attempt. Completely different methodologies. Comparing us is like comparing chalk and cheese.

To me the concept of wib wob is sound, it is how I would instruct a team to play IRL, so taking on borad that the FM ME cant handle the concept, as with farrows, why not introduce either:

a/ a mentality setting for wib and wob (2 different ones), or whatever other 2 "instructions" that drives pitch position, or

b/ display 2 different 2d dot tactical overviews showing "most advanced" (wibble) and "most withdrawn" (wobble) positions. It may not be wise that we could drag the dots around (if the ME cant deal with it) so maybe the other tactical interfaces that you allude to (for FM10) will do that for us in the future but if I want my AML to tuck back to MCleft when we are wob then I should like to be able to "see" that before the match, when planning my tactics. To me the wib wob overviews made more sense than almost any FM/CM tactical aid.

Is that not sensible?, or does the hardcore FM top table just despise the concept of player positioning wib/wob per se?

Also, why did FM never impliment "feeds" arrows as in the CM games of late. That seems like a simple & obvious progression, long overdue.

Back to the CM09 thread, I agree that 5 phases of play at set pieces sounds like trouble - mainly for the attacking team that is overcomplicating things though, I suspect. IRL the most complicated set pieces are often foiled by a defensive player getting in the way rather than by design, as after 4-5 play shifting touches the players are all over the place and the clarity of planning that makes phase #5 "work" gets muddled to the point of killing the plan.

[abojep]

From the other site, one of the game developers has just posted this:

I can understand your confusion but I just want to briefly explain how the 2 parts of your formation work. The With Ball gives the position your players will take up when you are attacking, with their run (if they have one set) showing where they can also move to. So a winger will be wide to beging with and then they might be instructed to cut in or run to the byline, or have no run set at all. If a player has a backwards run this is still where they will move to during the attack. For example I could give Rooney a run just dropping him deeper from his starting position - this would have nothing to do with what he does when he is defending though, the game will not interpret a run going backwards as defensive.

The without ball is the position your players will try and take up when defending, allowing you to drop a midfielder infront of the back 4, or tucking your full-backs in to make them more compact or whatever you choose to do. If there is a huge disance between the with and without ball positions it means that your players are unlikely to get back in position quickly enough (unless the opposition attack is quite a slow build up) and your players will be doing lots more running.

Hope that helps.

[SCIAG]

Mainly @ SCIAG, but happy to engage with anyone:

I'm quite happy to to lose any argument that engages at the right level. In order to justify your various points, you need to expand upon the following concepts:

1: Do wibble wobble or arrows exist as deterministic movements in real life, or are they just a illustrative method by which a manager can get instructions through to his players? I think we can quickly agree it is the latter. Unfortunately, in FM they worked as the former. There is no technology that can make them exist like the latter, therefore they had to go as they are harming the quality of the ME simulation. What could be introduced is a visual wibble wobble/runs screen that illustrates to the manager roughly where each player would run to/be in each stage of phase, but it cannot be more than a visualisation of the tactic, not an input method, unless the dragging around of the elements changed slider settings. How exactly do you visualise it working in a genuinely realistic manner, given the technical requirements of the problem?

I visualise it working as saying "try to get to this position if the oppurtunity presents itself." The player would then use attributes like decisions and anticipation to decide whether he would. This would be a "simpler" (for the user, probably not for the programmer, admittedly) way of implementing instructions like "cut inside" and "drop deep".

2: Various parts of TT&F are unlike real life football? Given that the bit about passing has been horribly misquoted/interpreted twice in this thread, I'd be interested in having a run down of exactly which areas are so flawed. I've heard this many times before, but in every case the critique has either misunderstood/misquoted parts of TT&F or avoided producing examples. This critique is also undermined by the suggestions that previous versions of TT&F weren't flawed, whereas this one is. We haven't changed anything significant at all. The underlying fundamentals are still exactly the same as they were in FM07. We've just added extra options.

For the record, TT&F just states it is pointless telling players to look for short passes if you have set all the players around the passer to make forward runs, thus ensuring they are outside the range of the pass. This is akin to the following instruction 'You, look for the short pass, all the rest of you, run away from him the moment he gets the ball.' The most common example in user tactics is telling the FB to make short passes and then having the wingers and midfielders rush up field away from him, leaving him two options, to either pass inside to the DC (often a dangerous choice) or clear the ball safe. For anyone who has watched real life football, FBs always, always play direct balls down the flanks as well as short passes inside (look at the Guardian chalkboards for an example of FB passing range), meaning that they should be given a longer passer setting unless you want the wingers to drop deep and pick up the ball (which means giving them no FWRs). The passing advice warns the user to watch forward runs settings rather than saying short passing is impossible. Designing a short passing system needs to take that into account.

That sort of seems to be a shortcoming in what you can implement, no? If I want my midfield to have lots of positive movement, I want them to be making runs for each other, and trying to make themselves avalible ahead of the ball carrier. Strikes me as a flaw in the UI, no, not the UI exactly. Basically, if you know the team is playing a short passing system and you're told to make forward runs, logic would dictate that you make yourself avalible for a short pass whilst also looking to make forward runs if the chance presents itself, for example, if the ball is on the other side of the pitch. I'm not saying that the ME should make up for user's short comings, even if it sounds like it. I hope to create a thread that would illustrate my points in T&T in the coming weeks.

You're not even close on the user front btw.

I can't answer the rest of your points at this moment in time, I hope to at a more convenient point.

[abfc]

The major arguments against the set-piece creator are thus:

1: The deterministic movement of the players has a huge likelihood of leading to ME busting moves. Getting it so it doesn't happen is a massive technical challenge. If they manage it, kudos to them. However, ...

2: In reality, teams do not have 40 set piece moves with 5 phases each. They work on very few and try to perfect them, as you simply don't have time to do anything else. Given that any 'unusual' move will likely only work once, it is a waste of resources to spend weeks perfecting something that brings such a small reward. For important matches, such a thing makes sense as the unusual move could be the difference between defeat and victory, but as a general training element, sadly, it doesn't.

1.Okay maybe the 5 stages are a bit much but lets say your teams best freekick taker is 12 but another player has long shots of 19. You would want to take advantage of that, that means being able to place a player in relation to the freekick taker and also where to place the ball.

2. With FML my i have 3 cm's, 1 dm and no wingers. My left-handed cm with fwr is Kieran Gibbs, he has the ppm of "runs down the left". Now this means that not only is his operating area the left side of mc and amc but also will make runs down the wing also, creating more space. My right hand mc doesn't have that PPM (my next purchase will) and so only operates on the right side of mc and amc .I think FM's tactics should allow me to instruct a player to do that and not have to rely on a players ppm. Its the same with "cuts inside etc"

This in my opinion is where FM's tactics fail us. Don't get me wrong I love FM09 and FML's ME, it's just now that it is so advanced that anything left out is now so glaringly obvious and frustrating because you know what you want to do but are unable to do it. I hope you understand what I mean and I'm sure that I'm not the first to say it:)

[SFraser]

That sort of seems to be a shortcoming in what you can implement, no? If I want my midfield to have lots of positive movement, I want them to be making runs for each other, and trying to make themselves avalible ahead of the ball carrier. Strikes me as a flaw in the UI, no, not the UI exactly. Basically, if you know the team is playing a short passing system and you're told to make forward runs, logic would dictate that you make yourself avalible for a short pass whilst also looking to make forward runs if the chance presents itself, for example, if the ball is on the other side of the pitch. I'm not saying that the ME should make up for user's short comings, even if it sounds like it. I hope to create a thread that would illustrate my points in T&T in the coming weeks.

It makes no sense to have Forward Runs Often equal drop deep when that behaviour already exists in players with neutral instructions, Free Roles and sufficient attributes. Infact one of the major improvements in FM09 over FM08 was the supporting behaviour of players with Free Roles. Likewise it makes no sense to have support for possession or come short a direct tactical instruction when that behaviour is profoundly a personal attribute behaviour relative to positioning and instructions.

If such an individual instruction as "come short" did exist then one of two things would occur. A: players like Cristiano Ronaldo would play like Roy Keane or B: the Teamwork attribute would be made irrelevant.

As it stands it is my opinion that the current means of producing or allowing supporting runs is slightly complicated but none the less brilliantly accurate. You cannot ascribe behaviour such as supporting the ball carrier to a tactical instruction across 90 minutes of play, because it does not function like this in real life. It is a player specific attribute in real life football and the only way to get around the deficiencies of those that refuse to support the team is to construct the team with their deficiencies in mind.

Logic would dictate that if he is not coming short to you then you must be able to pass to him. The decision to come short must rest with the player, as must the decision as to what to do with the ball. You can restrict these options by increasing FWR, shortening passing, ignoring Free Roles or setting extreme mentalities but you cannot directly control these behaviours and that is the entire point of football and the strength of this game.

[SCIAG]

It doesn't even have to be that short, it just has to be "make yourself available to him". Again, it would depend on attributes. However, if 14 year olds can understand it, and not even academy standard fourteen year olds, then I'm sure most professionals would. It's pretty obvious to most footballers that a short passing system would require

Furthermore, it would make more sense if short passing simply meant "pass to the closest realistic option" with increases in the slider allowing freedom to make a longer pass if need be, rather than "any pass must be under X length", as it seems to be at the moment. I think any manager would rather a player tried a longer pass than kicked for touch.

I'd like to request that you stop filling your posts with meaningless jargon, SFraser, it adds little to the discussion. You hype this game to be something only a rocket scientist could understand. I'm sure SI love the propoganda you're spreading, but members who seek help in tactics do not need to be given an impression that the game is even harder than it is.