If SI could only improve one thing for FM11, what would you like it to be?

[Rynny]

As titled.

If those hard working chaps at SI Towers only had time to improve one area of the FM game for FM11, what area would you like them to concentrate on?

Which area of the game is most frustrating to you? Which is most unrealistic? What would make your life easier?

Please submit your vote, so the chaps can see which option is swaying public opinion the most

[GillsMan]

Press conferences.

[Hershie]

Training.

10char.

[Rynny]

Personally I would like work to develop the training aspect of the game, and the ability to train players in more specific skills.

Separating team based fitness and tactics training, from individual based training such as finishing for strikers or tackling for defenders.

[bleventozturk]

My only problem with improving the training is that this will be further in human players' advantage. Even with the current simple training module, AI teams are not as good as us to utilize it, and they are not as good as us when it comes to developing players. Yes, make the training more detailed if you want, but make sure that the AI managers can use it as good as human players.

As an example, just take the affiliated club option. We human managers can make a very good use of this tool, whereas AI teams completely ignore the fact that they have affiliated clubs. Tools like this provide an unfair advantage to us.

[Weller1980]

Regens and Newgens for me.

[Blanchflower1]

The match engine needs to be improved dramatically!

[Rynny]

My idea for training is to have default training templates for different positions, that players are put on at the start of the game, and that the AI uses.

Striker training would train them in the necessary areas, defender training for their areas. Different AI managers could do more or less with this dependant on their own training attributes.

Game players could tweak them as they wish, and would probably gain a small advantage over the AI if they chose to balance it carefully.

The ability to train a player to do a specific job would also be brilliant. For example train a young striker to become a target man or poacher, or a young midfielder as a playmaker. He could then focus his training on the attributes he needed to perform that role, perhaps with the aid of a mentor.

[Elrithral]

Processign speed for people who can't afford a new computer.

[looknohands]

None of the above.

My vote is for a dynamic world, wherein clubs/leagues/nations reputations can fluctuate as time passes based on on-field results.

[hursty2]

Training, Dynamic League Reps, Media and player interaction.

I voted for training though.

[Koki]

Dynamic League Reps, Processing speed, player interaction.

I want to talk to my players and my players to talk to me before they complain in the media. At least sometimes.

[vskalex]

Match engine - Improved AI, get rid of the oddities in game such as the moonwalk, players acting like a deer in headlight when the ball is coming towards them etc etc. Introduce "basic football intelligence" as suggested by another user - that is for example, no matter on what level your team is at, players should at least be able to take one step forward and hoof the ball away if need be.

[SCIAG]

Match engine is the central hub of the game, and improving it should be the main focus every year.

[Hazzydeepy]

As well as obviously developing the ME, I think a revamp is needed for the player interaction, media and training. It does its job - but they all need freshening up and improving IMO.

[Serdar]

It is hard to say. ME is an obvious pick and with the indtroduction of 3D there is a big room for improvement, if not AI then at least the visuals.

BUT if I think it from another view I can say ME can be improved but its current state is already good enough for 2011 on the other hand for instance player/staff/media interactions are not contributing anything valuable to game at the moment. So I somehow feel that interactions might benefit more if we have only one shot.

[phnompenhandy]

Not on the list. I love the new competitions editor. I'd love SI to prioritise improving it for next year since for me it's almost as important as the game!

[whilewolf2]

Match engine is the central hub of the game, and improving it should be the main focus every year.

+1

Even though I have been most active in the Regen threads the Match engine is the most important thing.

1 Match engine

2 regens

3 Press conferences

4 player staff interaction

5 Training

6 scouting

SI could leave the last 4 totally the same and if they had significantly improved the first two id buy FM11.

But if the regens aren’t fixed and the long term pool of players still looks significantly different to the real world I will give it a miss.

[Sleepydude]

1. Newgens

2. Match engine

3. Press conferences/media interaction

[Rynny]

Thanks for the answers so far, it's interesting to see what other people get out of the game.

For those that have stated match engine, do you want improved graphics/animations, or improved 'mechanics' that control the match?

[arsenal fan 123]

Regens/Newgens

Also league reputation for example in FM10 and previous versions if a team from sweden win the champions league and another team from sweden wins it the following year and then a different team from sweden wins it after that year the reputation of the league stays the same and you can't attract world stars.

If it happened in real life the chances are low but you never know anything in football and swedish teams be alot more succesful in europe then the all the best players would probably want to play for a swedish team.

[Rynny]

With regards to newgens, what do you want to see? Better distribution of stats? More world class young players?

[Reddogg99]

Guess this ties into the match engine. It's not a make or break for me, but it's been annoying me for years and if it isn't taken care off in 11 or 12 I reckon it will become my #1 most hated thing. Anyhow my issue is that the game cannot recognize games taking place at a neutral site realistically. In 07 and 08 it was incredibly horrible with a designated "home" team for a cup final. All well and good, but suddenly your team was playing in front of a hostile crowd in a large stadium and the other team was dominating possession and scoring changes. Every blue moon I would get homefield advantage in a final and reap these benefits, but it didn't feel right -- would Man United have more fans at a CL final than Barca?

In 09 this was tweaked down a bit but then I played the CL final at the Santiago Bernabeau with Real Madrid...and the fans booed me and the other "home" team (Inter) had the benefit of a home match. This was beyond stupid for obvious reasons. I also imagine the same thing would happen in a World Cup with the host country being given the away status and being booed. In 10 these things still occur and they are aggravating to me. Either make it truly neutral or at the least recognize that special circumstances mean a team in a neutral site is playing at home.

[nine_iron]

Keep improving the editor, it has come on leaps and bounds but us guys always want more!! (not on the poll though)

[Wee Aja]

Everything could be improved. But if I'm pressed to list just one it'd have to be training. I've long been a critic of the current training system because in my honest opinion it is still a load of old balderdash.

[i'll add here before continuing that I love FM10 and I'm a fanboy, this is not a rant, merely an answer to a thread]

How are we supposed to accept that players at a professional football club will know exactly how to train via a group of sliders which determine various intensities of training criteria?

"Right son, go out there and give me 9 clicks of tactical training, 4 clicks of attacking and 6, no, 7 clicks of technical...."

Have you ever seen that Rountree's Randoms advertisement, the football one?

Half time and the manager goes through a load of old nonsense to which the players just stare back at him blankly.... I'd imagine my own players doing this as I present my new 'ingenious' sliders schedule I've just devised for them.

"I'm sorry... what's that boss? 5 clicks of what?" :confused:

Why can't we go back to what it was like on FM05, where we could actually pick from a whole selection of pre-set drills, work-outs, runs and all that? It made sense back then.

[nev147]

I went for newgens but i very much agree with Aja regarding training.

[Katarian]

I went for training. If the training was made better, then a lot of the regen complaints would disappear. If we were able to target specific weaknesses in regens rather then the broad training we can do now I believe it would iron out a lot of the problems.

Why can't we go back to what it was like on FM05, where we could actually pick from a whole selection of pre-set drills, work-outs, runs and all that? It made sense back then.

That training system was exactly the same as the current one, just with a different much more complicated GUI.

[The Smudge]

Think they could all do with improving but the match engine certainly needs a kick up the back side.

[monkeezgob]

Definitely the Match Engine for me. i don't mind the crude 3d and the limited animations, but the ME really needs some serious work, closng down, tackling, fullbacks who constantly play too high up the pitch and get caught out of postion (no matter what instructions they're given) players running away from the ball and making utterly bizarre runs, players kicking the ball into a teamates back, or the back of their head and it travelling twenty yards, it all needs looking at.

[gunner86]

I think the ME will improve with time anyway, so for me it's player/staff interaction as I think there needs a fair bit doing to it.

[Cravien]

Getting the newgen thing done right from the beginning.

[101east]

There should be no fm 11 there should be a near perfect fm 12 with no bugs and it would be a top game but then again thats too much to ask forsince money greedy sofbs run this thing

[lance101]

For as much as the newgen system is currently flawed (and probably easier to fix), I would have to go with the ME.

[Dicko99]

the match engine is the most important part of the game, a bad match engine ruins the whole game

[Saevel]

Regens / The way teams go about their business buying/selling players.

I want as realistic regens as possible, well rounded players that have appropriate attributes for their positions (And I'm not saying I want homogeneity among all players in a position, but much more sensible distribution of attributes than right now).

And I want teams to develop a reasonable amount of talents themselves, buy a reasonable amount of youngsters from abroad, from other teams in the same contry, etc. I don't need a perfect real world simulation, but I want the general trends to be followed. Right now, there are some very crazy things going on in terms of buying/selling/playing players.

If these 2 things are "fixed", FM will be perfectly enjoyable for me for a long, long time, and SI can spend their time developing whatever they want further.

[Grecian_03]

RAM usage. It's become very RAM intensive especially if you want a long term game with more players/leagues.

[ParkLife]

to be honest, all of them, if they concentrate on improving all of the things that they already do well, then it could be the greatest management game ever!

[Wee Aja]

That training system was exactly the same as the current one, just with a different much more complicated GUI.

I've no doubt about that Katarian, but even if it means simply replacing the sliders with text/drills and what not, that'd make it much more realistic.

Or even do as they have done with the tactics this year - replace the sliders with a training wizard (of sorts) that you can configure according to your preference. You are then taken to a 'finished' training schedule that contains more that just sliders. Of course, just like the tactics in FM10, managers could switch back to the basic training sliders if they so desired.

Why you'd want to switch back though is anyone's guess

[arsenal fan 123]

With regards to newgens, what do you want to see? Better distribution of stats? More world class young players?

For newgens i'd like too see more world class youngsters, since i started playing FM which was since FM08 i have not seen one regen who is someone like Messi, Ronaldo, Kaka..

I know players like these are rare and only come like once in what every 30 years or so, but there should be more world class regens who would be classed as worlds greatest if they were real.

Also newgens who are world beaters at a young age

i.e Fat Ronaldo was world player of the year aged 18 also world record fee transfer breaker as a teenager.

Also potentially could have been the greatest player ever if he hadn't of gotten injured a lot and the right guidance.

[SCIAG]

I've no doubt about that Katarian, but even if it means simply replacing the sliders with text/drills and what not, that'd make it much more realistic.

Or even do as they have done with the tactics this year - replace the sliders with a training wizard (of sorts) that you can configure according to your preference. You are then taken to a 'finished' training schedule that contains more that just sliders. Of course, just like the tactics in FM10, managers could switch back to the basic training sliders if they so desired.

Why you'd want to switch back though is anyone's guess

I can't see a training wizard working in a way that will be less time consuming than the current system without being a "perfect" system.

[Wee Aja]

I can't see a training wizard working in a way that will be less time consuming than the current system without being a "perfect" system.

Was just an idea, to get away from the current sliders. I genuinely don't understand why SI have neglected this area of the game for so long. How do you justify slider settings for training? A manager IRL spends most (or at least a large amount of time) of his working life on the training pitch, whereas in FM we set up a few schedules, assign them to various players (usually according to position) and then leave it at that. Training should be a massive part of FM but it's not; it's rubbish.

[HarryMills]

I would love to see the uniqueness of each club start to be reflected much more, so that different clubs bring very different challenges and demands which would force you and the board to consider if they/you are a suitable match e.g: the historically expected style of play of a club (how does your style match up?), the expected standard of behaviour (are you too outspoken for example?), big transfers vs youth policy (e.g Madrid way or Arsenal way) , have you demonstrated success in the competition that that club places emphasis on (league vs europe) etc etc

I'd also love the game to reflect the huge influence chairmen at big european clubs wield and how elections (at spanish clubs at least) can change everything with chairmen making good on their pre-election boasts bringing in big name players (or a big name manager) that they expect you to play, so, as in real life, you would have to judge whether you could really handle the inevitable instability and job risk big clubs with big personality chairmen bring or would you prefer to reject their advances to stay at a club where you have total control, maybe you could also negotiate the amount of control you have over transfers etc when you sign, depending on your reputation and how much they want you?

Maybe some of this is too far but I think the basic idea of the game reflecting more the huge differences between clubs would be great.

[Sleepydude]

With regards to newgens, what do you want to see? Better distribution of stats? More world class young players?

Better distribution of stats mainly. Logical hidden attributes (not a player with 5 pressure and 19 important matches for example).

As for the match engine, I would like to see less weird moments that break the illusion of watching a real football match.

[Loversleaper]

Too bad you can only make one choice...

Media interaction definatly needs some attention, it seems to make too big an impact overall. You get bored of it and then resort to having your Assistant make a total circus act on the mc... How about a "no comment" option on the Press Conferences? Maybe keep only for the really big matches on TV... How many teams/individuals throughout time haven't boycotted them? Another thing, am I the only one who thinks it is strange that we get a whole bunch of new features (most unecessary) and then we get a kind of spoon feeding option ploy? A tad trivial, perhaps?...

ME/3d can always be better, especially the current one...

Training should/could also work more like in real life where you could train them in the styles/types of football play/tactical game plan (strategies) which is played out in/during matches, parallel to the raising of the attributes...

[Standard liege!]

Newgens .

[charlo116]

Assistant reports/feedback, to me it doesn't seem like a top ass man makes much of a difference as he will still give you some really dud advice.

[Jamie543]

if my opinion the press conferences should be optional so you can turn them on off from the preferences menu

[Loversleaper]

if my opinion the press conferences should be optional so you can turn them on off from the preferences menu

Since there has been so many 'tick box' suggestions how about a Yes/No 'tick box' on anybody attending it. Or maybe have an option to 'call' a press conference if you feel you absolutly have to or feel pressured to do so and you think you could make a difference/change due to certain circumstances, like a motivation ploy or whatever...

[Themistofelis]

Not crashing

Ability to totally turn off teamtalks & media

Reduce the randomness of matches

Redo transfer market so it makes a sense .

[Rynny]

Some nice replies in here, thank you.

Seems like Newgens and the Match Engine are the big bugbears for people, now.

Have to agree that spending time on these areas would improve the game for me as well, managing LLM. We rely a lot on newgen players, yet every one generated by an LLM club is not good enough to play at that level.