Really? [Morale problem]

[Ellisio]

I don't think that the morale system has been tweaked too far in general. Mostly, it functions just alright. But watch the date of that Juventus-Parma match; it's the 1st of April. He is likely to be in the last 10 league matches of the season, and when you go into that period things like this happens frequently.

Too frequently and too severly in my opinion.

There is no doubt in my mind that these incredible swings in morale and sudden loss of confidence, extreme nervousness and/or complacency, are hard-coded to begin in the 28th league match. 27th you're fine, 28th and all hell breaks loose.

The problem is though, I also have massive drops in morale in January for no reason also (I brought this up in another thread).

[achilles-the-victorious]

LOL "My AM didn't upset them" "I didn't do anything to cause this"

All I know is from my experience (of what, a mere 2500 games on FM11) morale is not an issue once you know your players, and how to get the best out of them. There are even times when you wouldn't want all your players to have superb morale! Not saying you want them pissed off or angry, but even when your best player plays a 6 there is still an upside. Even when a player gets sent off there is still an upside. If you are dealing with professionals you tell them what was expected, and you fine them!

[aderow]

I actually give up as far as morale goes. It's an absolute ****ing shambles.

Once again, for no reason at all, the entire squad's morale is on the floor from 1 defeat in 11 games (won the other 10).

I'm absolutely sick to death of seeing players with abysmal morale and "playing without confidence" HOW?! YOU ARE TOP OF LEAGUE AND IN AMAZING FORM!!!

Well thats unfortunate mate.

[Guest avine]

Quite mental to have so abysmal moraled players tbh

[AcidBurn]

I actually give up as far as morale goes. It's an absolute ****ing shambles.

Once again, for no reason at all, the entire squad's morale is on the floor from 1 defeat in 11 games (won the other 10).

I'm absolutely sick to death of seeing players with abysmal morale and "playing without confidence" HOW?! YOU ARE TOP OF LEAGUE AND IN AMAZING FORM!!!

Whenever I get that sort of morale after a loss it never ever stays that low and jumps up once I exit the match.

To the OP did you hold a team meeting after the draw, might have helped bump their morale up a bit. It does seem to be too much of a drop in my opinion.

[Guest]

A disappointing draw away in the Champions league & a shock defeat at home, when handled correctly & with the right group of players these little bumps in the round can be taken on the chin.

[x42bn6]

Nobody is denying it's possible to handle it better. It's the sheer magnitude of the OP's team's morale drop that is the issue.

[Cougar2010]

Nobody is denying it's possible to handle it better. It's the sheer magnitude of the OP's team's morale drop that is the issue.

So are you saying that the user shouldn't be punished for handling the situation badly?

[edgar555]

I don't think anybody is saying that at all. It's the magnitude of punishment that is being contested. Personally I feel morale was too easy to control before, unrealistically so. Now it's been tweaked and as with so many of SI's tweaks it's gone too far the other way. This presents a challenge for sure and one that a good manager can get their head around BUT just because it's manageable that doesn't mean SI have got it right.

[wwfan]

I don't think anybody is saying that at all. It's the magnitude of punishment that is being contested. Personally I feel morale was too easy to control before, unrealistically so. Now it's been tweaked and as with so many of SI's tweaks it's gone too far the other way. This presents a challenge for sure and one that a good manager can get their head around BUT just because it's manageable that doesn't mean SI have got it right.

I still think it is 100% user related. I have never, in 900+ 2012 matches, had any issue with morale and have never seen it drop to abysmal across the board, either in or between matches. I rarely have any players below OK (2-3 at most). The rest of the squad tends to be good to very good.

[Ellisio]

I still think it is 100% user related. I have never, in 900+ 2012 matches, had any issue with morale and have never seen it drop to abysmal across the board, either in or between matches. I rarely have any players below OK (2-3 at most). The rest of the squad tends to be good to very good.

Neither have I in any past Championship Manager/Football Manager series. Just FM2012.

[Ellisio]

Well thats unfortunate mate.

Unfortunate?

I felt like sacking them all and shooting myself in the mouth ha ha.

[BiggusD]

I still think it is 100% user related. I have never, in 900+ 2012 matches, had any issue with morale and have never seen it drop to abysmal across the board, either in or between matches. I rarely have any players below OK (2-3 at most). The rest of the squad tends to be good to very good.

Yeah, but you have seen AI clubs on an incredible winning streak with low morale and lots of yellow and red arrows yes? The OP said he left team talks to the AM, and the result was really clear. It is very rare for me to encounter AI teams with good morale. They are usually in the Abysmal to Fairly poor range. Since they play well anyway, I usually skip that screen very quickly...

So yes it is user related - we maintain a good morale, while the AI, including the assistant manager, fails to do so. I have this feeling that if SI could program good AI managers to maintain good morale, they wouldn't have to tune down the importance of good morale as much as they have done now. Before, when Superb morale and max confidence was the norm, I said that I wish that OK/Fairly Good morale should be the default. Now it is impossible to keep Suberb morale for more than a day or two, and players quickly rise from Abysmal morale. But it is still too fragile. Morale should fluctuate much more slowly than it is now - I'm speaking weeks or months to rise from Ok go Fairly good (and stay there).

[Ellisio]

Couldn't do anything but laugh...

[Guest]

Surely you'd be deflated after being eliminated from the cup? That said I do believe there is a problem with FM being unable to treat each leg of a two-legged tie in isolation, the questions in press conferences & the available team talk options are a dead give away of this, so a battering in the first leg leaves too much residual effect on your players for the second leg.

The key aspect is how they react once you leave the match & use the tools provided to try & pick their spirits up after the loss.

[Ellisio]

Surely you'd be deflated after being eliminated from the cup? That said I do believe there is a problem with FM being unable to treat each leg of a two-legged tie in isolation, the questions in press conferences & the available team talk options are a dead give away of this, so a battering in the first leg leaves too much residual effect on your players for the second leg.

The key aspect is how they react once you leave the match & use the tools provided to try & pick their spirits up after the loss.

Deflated yes, suicidal no. Don't get me wrong i'd expect low morale after a defeat like that but come on, for the entire team to have abysmal morale like that is crazy. Once again this happens after a run of games being unbeaten, I think it was 9 this time. Then we go on a run of 4 games without a win and the first game after this one we are drawing 1-1 away from home at Roma at half time, once again the team has no confidence?!

This happens every single season and is becoming tiresome. The morale system is far too tempremental.

[vlobben]

Nonsense. If I can stop it from dropping like that, then so can you. Stop blaming the game and learn how to play it.

I think it is a weakness of the game if this happens and people are unable to find out what caused it. I'm not saying it is impossible to find out the cause now, but it should be obvious from a quick glance at the player information. If squad morale drops like a rock in real life, everyone will know why, including the manager. Why not have the reason for recent morale change be listed under player happiness?

[Guest]

I think it is a weakness of the game if this happens and people are unable to find out what caused it. I'm not saying it is impossible to find out the cause now, but it should be obvious from a quick glance at the player information. If squad morale drops like a rock in real life, everyone will know why, including the manager. Why not have the reason for recent morale change be listed under player happiness?

I don't think that is true, of course there will be instances where the reason for a drop in morale is a fairly obvious single event but there are other times when it will not be easy to identify as the cause will be a number of small isolated incidents over a long period of time that has resulted in the manager beating down the teams confidence & even if the cause is known should there really be a magic button that puts everything right?

The is some merit to having additional options to find out why morale is low, possibly some interaction options with staff or club captain to ask for their opinion with a range of feedback including a simple; 'the players do not like you because you spend too much time ranting'.

[vlobben]

No magic button to put it right, but you shouldn't have to browse through press conferences and other logs to find out something you would probably get information about by simply asking a player.

I just had all my players except five or six drop to "poor" morale. The ones who wasn't affected kept their "superb" morale. I still haven't figured out what caused this sudden drop as i didn't lose a match and no other significant events occured (that i could tell). My squad morale looked really strange with the entire team on unhealthy orange morale with a few exceptions on healthy green . A few matches later (with supportive teamtalks, more so than i usually would have done) they are back to high morale, so my squad morale is under control. It still puzzles me though.

[Guest]

You've sort of answered your own question really, the information is to an extent already there & if it is not blindingly obvious what you've done to upset folk then you have to go back over what you have done in the past that could have caused the problem.

It's a bit like being in a relationship, never ask a women why she's upset.

Edit: I would highly recommend using the 'rest player' option in the player interaction section, if you have a lad who has played a large number of games simply offering him the chance of a break for a week or two can work wonders. I also keep an eye on players who have low value contracts, if they are an important player but are earning well below my squad average I offer improved terms as this is what I would expect to happen irl.

Unfortunately keeping morale in check is all about micro-management & trying to spot problems before they happen. I take my approach from real life experiences after more than 20 years of working & picking up lessons from the people I've worked or had working for me in that time.

[x42bn6]

I don't think that is true, of course there will be instances where the reason for a drop in morale is a fairly obvious single event but there are other times when it will not be easy to identify as the cause will be a number of small isolated incidents over a long period of time that has resulted in the manager beating down the teams confidence & even if the cause is known should there really be a magic button that puts everything right?

The is some merit to having additional options to find out why morale is low, possibly some interaction options with staff or club captain to ask for their opinion with a range of feedback including a simple; 'the players do not like you because you spend too much time ranting'.

Where did that come from? Nobody has suggested a magic button.

[BiggusD]

You've sort of answered your own question really, the information is to an extent already there & if it is not blindingly obvious what you've done to upset folk then you have to go back over what you have done in the past that could have caused the problem.

It's a bit like being in a relationship, never ask a women why she's upset.

You're supposed to know yes heheheh!

Girls are weird...

[Guest]

Where did that come from? Nobody has suggested a magic button.

It was a pre-emptive statement, imo having every single problem listed in a player profile is one step removed from a magic button as it takes away the need to learn what went wrong so that you can try to avoid the same mistake in the future & of course makes putting things right that much easier.

[x42bn6]

It was a pre-emptive statement, imo having every single problem listed in a player profile is one step removed from a magic button as it takes away the need to learn what went wrong so that you can try to avoid the same mistake in the future & of course makes putting things right that much easier.

Something should be listed if a real-life manager should know about it. A manager in-game should not need to blunder round trying to create a plausible explanation when a real-life manager would know fairly quickly.

To me, a manager should roughly know (or have an idea on) why the morale is so high or low, possibly "helped on" by a helpful assistant email ("I note that the players are fairly tense after your team-talks. While it's OK in the league because we smash fellow league teams 10-0 all the time, it might not be a good way of approaching the Europa League."). So some form of "morale explain" should exist in-game. Does it make the game easier? Not really - you just have more information to go on - and it makes the game deeper, since it is your actions to fix the morale issue that are important, and it matches reality better.

[edgar555]

It was a pre-emptive statement, imo having every single problem listed in a player profile is one step removed from a magic button as it takes away the need to learn what went wrong so that you can try to avoid the same mistake in the future & of course makes putting things right that much easier.

No one is asking for everything to be listed, just some logical way of figuring out what went wrong and where. At the moment, it's a case of trawling through loads of press/team talks/player interaction and thats BS as far as I'm concerned. As suggested earlier we should have the option to have a conversation with the captain/coach/assman/etc and ask them 'so whats up with x/y/z? why are they sulking?' And that gives the manager a chance to put things right.

Player interaction is so obviously mashed up, I really don't see why you see the need to defend it. It needs fixing, has done for years.

An example, recently I was asked in a press conference 'xxxx has again said that he's unhappy with the way you handle team talks, what are you going to do about it?' In fact xxxx hadn't complained about my team talks for 6 months, but lo and behold I look at his profile and it says he's unhappy and had talked to the press. But he hadn't had any bad team talks or had any adverse reaction to a team talk for a looooooooooong time. Basically, the game decided it wanted to spice things up and did so. I'm happy to deal with managing squad morale, but shouldn't have to deal with the complete randomness/brokenness of it.

[Guest]

Something should be listed if a real-life manager should know about it. A manager in-game should not need to blunder round trying to create a plausible explanation when a real-life manager would know fairly quickly.

To me, a manager should roughly know (or have an idea on) why the morale is so high or low, possibly "helped on" by a helpful assistant email ("I note that the players are fairly tense after your team-talks. While it's OK in the league because we smash fellow league teams 10-0 all the time, it might not be a good way of approaching the Europa League."). So some form of "morale explain" should exist in-game. Does it make the game easier? Not really - you just have more information to go on - and it makes the game deeper, since it is your actions to fix the morale issue that are important, and it matches reality better.

The game already has a feature where you get feedback from your assistant on player match performance & this will include potential morale issues, it's not perfect but it is helpful. As I said earlier there is certainly scope for more interaction with key personnel at your club to help identify any issues & this is something that I hope is worked on for future releases.

Where discussions on morale get side tracked is that people focus on what they perceive to be an irrational, unexplained & immediate drop in morale which from my experience playing FM12 is about as rare as it is in real life, there is without question room for improvement in how performances & personal interactions dictate morale & vice-versa but any potential for discussion on how this can be done is drowned out by folk ranting that morale is broken or that it's illogical or that the game is hard-coded to drop your morale just for kicks.

If you have a look at the bugs section the manager/player interaction & tones is the least active sub-fora & there are very few threads about odd morale behaviour, now SI have said a number of times that if people see odd morale events in the game they should post in the bugs section & upload save files with details on what they did yet what we see over in that section is that this is the least reported event in FM.

People are all too happy to rant & rave in GQ but it appears they are less willing to help with any sort of solution or long term development, this game above many others is heavily reliant on community involvement & is usually all the better for it.

[bonna112]

I agree the swing for morale is a bit weird....... i've had similar thing adn the slightest thing you say or do wrong as a manager and thats it... poor morale despite winning the league and cup and givign them a new better contract.. its daft...

[Guest]

I agree the swing for morale is a bit weird....... i've had similar thing adn the slightest thing you say or do wrong as a manager and thats it... poor morale despite winning the league and cup and givign them a new better contract.. its daft...

I really hope that this post was intentionally packed with irony.

[x42bn6]

The game already has a feature where you get feedback from your assistant on player match performance & this will include potential morale issues, it's not perfect but it is helpful. As I said earlier there is certainly scope for more interaction with key personnel at your club to help identify any issues & this is something that I hope is worked on for future releases.

The question would be whether a manager innately knows, or relies on their assistant. I think the greatest managers are those who are excellent man-managers and cannot do this without being able to read their players.

Or put more frankly, if you had no backroom staff, including no assistant, a manager should be able to (somewhat?) read a player's morale drops and the reasoning behind them.

Therefore there is an argument that the morale explanations should not be delivered through assistant advice, but placed on, say, the player's profile.

Where discussions on morale get side tracked is that people focus on what they perceive to be an irrational, unexplained & immediate drop in morale which from my experience playing FM12 is about as rare as it is in real life, there is without question room for improvement in how performances & personal interactions dictate morale & vice-versa but any potential for discussion on how this can be done is drowned out by folk ranting that morale is broken or that it's illogical or that the game is hard-coded to drop your morale just for kicks.

It's not always ranting and people calling the game illogical are not necessarily wrong.

If something is perceived to be wrong, then there is a misunderstanding and that could easily be the fault of the game.

After all, if wwfan (an expert) needs to come into a thread to explain, then it's a sign that there is something wrong with the way the game is displaying information (or not displaying adequate information). The best games are self-documenting.

If you have a look at the bugs section the manager/player interaction & tones is the least active sub-fora & there are very few threads about odd morale behaviour, now SI have said a number of times that if people see odd morale events in the game they should post in the bugs section & upload save files with details on what they did yet what we see over in that section is that this is the least reported event in FM.

Not really relevant though, right? Maybe there are just one or two things wrong with interaction and tones. Maybe there are too many bugs that nobody is bothered to post them. There's plenty of reasons why two different forums have different numbers of threads.

People are all too happy to rant & rave in GQ but it appears they are less willing to help with any sort of solution or long term development, this game above many others is heavily reliant on community involvement & is usually all the better for it.

Anyone who raises what they perceive to be an issue is helping to improve the game.

Anyone who claims something is illogical isn't necessarily wrong.

If the game is hard to understand or seems illogical, there's an argument for improving the level of detail around the feature to promote understanding. It all depends on the level of information that is realistically available to a real-life manager, of course.

[edgar555]

It should also be pointed out that anyone who says player interaction (including morale) isn't broken and in need of an overhaul is deluding themselves. SI don't need me to fill up a bug forum. They need to go back to square one with player/press interaction and start over.

[Guest]

It should also be pointed out that anyone who says player interaction (including morale) isn't broken and in need of an overhaul is deluding themselves. SI don't need me to fill up a bug forum. They need to go back to square one with player/press interaction and start over.

The reason why posting in the bugs forum & uploading is important is that SI cannot hope to reproduce every possible scenario related to morale, they just don't have the resources to simulate the number of active games required to cover so many eventualities, this is why providing saves is so useful & will only serve to help speed up any tweaks & adjustments to improve the feature.

The question would be whether a manager innately knows, or relies on their assistant. I think the greatest managers are those who are excellent man-managers and cannot do this without being able to read their players.

Or put more frankly, if you had no backroom staff, including no assistant, a manager should be able to (somewhat?) read a player's morale drops and the reasoning behind them.

Therefore there is an argument that the morale explanations should not be delivered through assistant advice, but placed on, say, the player's profile.

Just going to pick up on this point as everything else is tit for tat stuff.

You mention that the very best managers tend to be very good man-managers & on that we are in agreement, the difficulty is having this represented in the game as surely you cannot just give the user an ability to read a player instantly.

In the interest of separating the wheat from the chaff player interaction/morale will have to be somewhat cryptic & maybe even a little confusing at first but once the black arts of player psychology are mastered by being able to pick up where the information is spread in the game & how it is delivered on screen you then have a better chance of keeping morale on an even keel.

[wwfan]

After all, if wwfan (an expert) needs to come into a thread to explain, then it's a sign that there is something wrong with the way the game is displaying information (or not displaying adequate information). The best games are self-documenting.

This takes us into very tricky territory. In FM12, I have never had an issue keeping squad morale high, generally across the board, but certainly for the majority of the players. One element of this is winning matches, but another element is man and media management. However, many others have illustrated their total failure in keeping morale high.

Based on my experiences, it is possible to maintain morale at a good average across the squad. Based on others' experienes it is hard to do. However, as it is possible, we have to reject the hypothesis that the morale system is fundamentally broken. The questions are 'is it too hard to keep morale high' and 'if so, what should be done about it?'

x42bn6 suggests more in-game documentation to help users work out why morale suddenly falls, arguing that 'a manager in-game should not need to blunder round trying to create a plausible explanation when a real-life manager would know fairly quickly.' I don't agree with that. In my experience as a management researcher, I would argue that examples of a manager recognising exactly what the problems with staff morale are and being able to quickly fix them are somewhere between rare and non-existent. I'd argue that FM has got this pretty much spot on from a real world perspective.

However, we then more into a different conceptual argument. Is the way morale is modeled in FM good game design? Further, is FM a game or a simulation? If it is conceptually a management simulation, I'd be prepared to argue that it is still too easy to keep morale high. In real life, morale can drop like a stone and can be very difficult to rebuild. If conceptually a game, then perhaps a different approach is needed, a step-by-step method of generating good squad morale.

I know which way I'd lean, but I'm not arrogant enough to claim it is the best way or that another model wouldn't be better. However, I don't think bleating about specific examples is helpful.

[mlequi]

Want to share some experiences about morale here.

*** Story begins ***

First of all, I don't play cleanly and ALWAYS create a superplayer Messi-like player to my team. This is how I would like to play because of my obsession in a perfect player.

I hope this does not undermine my experience.

Of course I have played cleanly, but really become bored whether I lose or win, since my obsession in perfection.

Recently I managed an expected midtable team, Lazio, having won 8 out of 9 games and draw 1 against Inter. The next game was against H.Tel Aviv. There was no press conferences.

I thought having won recently will continue and made me not prepare for the match.

My style is to have two squads of 11 players so I sent my second squad of 'weaker' players.

It's just press continue

What happened was within 10 minutes my team lose 0-2 due to fluke goals.

Therefore I went attacking mentality and direct passing since about 40-50 minutes and changes 3 players (including one superhuman player). Starting from 60-min mark, overload mentality.

Well, the result is 0-3, at away. Morale drops from superb to okay/fairly poor level.

Team talk is (roughly) :

I expect to win

I expect better second half

(Aggresively) losing those matches are unacceptable.

The next game, I put more pressure to the team, it's away against Chievo. I put my strongest team expect the team to win and losing 1-2... I forgot the details about the match, but what I remember is I put some even more pressure, blaming Klose in the public in press conferences.

Morale was at poor/very poor level.

Then I won against Cagliari 2-1 starting to learn my mistake. In that game I went quite cautious since I know that putting the team into pressure by giving attacking mentality would make my team slump even more. I told the team I still having faith with them and praised them at the end of the game.

Morale recovered one step up until I beat Roma 4-0 the next game, telling the team to relax, I don't care what your result is. Go and play what you are capable of (your natural game).

It's not even superb anymore even after 4-0 win, but I get a decent run afterwards and everyone's morale recover one by one

*** Story ends ***

Lesson learnt (about morale, there are others I learnt) :

1. Putting too much pressure in the team is the slippery slope when defeat comes.

2. When the defeat comes, it is likely to cause multiple defeats if the first one is not handled correctly. (I was lucky to have the 2-1 win)

3. The way to recover from that is not expecting the win but to trust them. (Imagine as a player)

4. A win does not recover the morale instantly, it takes 4 to 5 wins.

All of those makes sense in real life, isn't it?

[x42bn6]

This takes us into very tricky territory. In FM12, I have never had an issue keeping squad morale high, generally across the board, but certainly for the majority of the players. One element of this is winning matches, but another element is man and media management. However, many others have illustrated their total failure in keeping morale high.

Based on my experiences, it is possible to maintain morale at a good average across the squad. Based on others' experienes it is hard to do. However, as it is possible, we have to reject the hypothesis that the morale system is fundamentally broken. The questions are 'is it too hard to keep morale high' and 'if so, what should be done about it?'

x42bn6 suggests more in-game documentation to help users work out why morale suddenly falls, arguing that 'a manager in-game should not need to blunder round trying to create a plausible explanation when a real-life manager would know fairly quickly.' I don't agree with that. In my experience as a management researcher, I would argue that examples of a manager recognising exactly what the problems with staff morale are and being able to quickly fix them are somewhere between rare and non-existent. I'd argue that FM has got this pretty much spot on from a real world perspective.

In the corporate world, I think it's something like 60-70% of employees who are unhappy with the level of recognition of their achievements (can't remember which study I read though). However, you have to remember that football managers at the top level have a whole team of staff, including psychologists, to help them. In addition, they may well get dialogue with the players themselves, possibly via the team's captain or representative.

Nor does it necessarily imply a manager needs to know immediately, nor does it suggest a manager needs to quickly fix them. In practice, it could be a slight annoyance that eventually builds up to annoying levels. In practice, it might only show up when the manager does a monthly talk of sorts with the team captain. In practice, the manager might only be able to read this over time.

However, with the OP, the implication has been that the OP has given wrong team-talks ("too demanding") for a while, so when morale finally slips, it slips a lot. If team-talks were too demanding, why would the players have Superb morale beforehand? The euphoria of winning would quickly wear off as the OP looks like he could easily go an entire league season unbeaten with a goal difference in the +150 to +200 region.

[x42bn6]

There's precedent, anyway. If you do a particularly-bad team-talk, then you can get Slt icons along the lines of "Unhappy with recent team-talks given by the manager" or something to that effect. Which suggests that it is possible for a manager or the combined management team to gauge a player's overall happiness in some detail.

[Suzie MUFC]

This is EXACTLY the issue I was talking about after 12.2.2 came out. Top of the league and unbeaten with Liverpool in the first season and suddenly everyone became depressed because of one defeat, and it was impossible to make them happy again.

[Svenc]

This looks more like a genuine bug to me rather than an inherent "feature" of the morale system. Playing Munich, I've had my fair share of unbeaten runs, though not quite as excessive as the ones in the opening post. One being abruptly ended by going down 1-4 in Piräus in the CL. But I have yet to see anything like this on FM 2012 myself. Not that I wanted to, heh.

I also have a hard time imagining any assistant manager screwing up your squad this badly. AI managers on all levels of success screw up themselves accordingly to their personal traits, it's part of the game's set-up, which has it that in-game data tries to roughly emulate human behavior. But you can hand over talks and press conferences to your ass man for a reason - and unless he's a complete monkey, I cannot see anything like this happening. I often let the press conferences handle my assistant myself, in particular during bog standard Bundesliga match days.

[Siven]

I've always thought that the loss and gain of morale was too severe, both ways, and that morale should be gained and lost at a more steady pace.

And yes, there is a lack of ingame info on how a player lost morale.

I always use team meetings when i can, i always do press conferences and am ccareful with teamtalks because thy all affect morale in a big way......the thing is this isn't fun for me and i expect isnt fun for a lot of people........and we all play games for fun...right?

Remember the majority of FM customers will be casual gamers who, no doubt, would like more info on why morale just dropped massively in wierd situations, and if morale massively affects the game experience, then the game loses some of its fun (imo). Not everyone is a FM expert and understands every aspect of the game, especially the non and poorly explained parts of the game.

[edgar555]

I was working as a journalist and was following top tier in my country and from that experience id say game got it really well there If it happened in press conference. it is quite common that journalists bring things up from past, specially if it is some controversy, and especially when there are no other topics to talk about. it could be completely miss timed question that creates WTF moment (at this times managers usually decline to comment which you should do in game as well), but there are those managers who get upset fairly easy and react wrong getting into the argument possibly lowering morale of player(s).

I get that, I just don't think it's applicable in this case. When my players did have a problem with my team talks it was dealt with. 6 months later they ask 'xxxxx has again said he's unhappy.........'

[bonna112]

The morale is an issue...... as other have now said and many of them at that I experienced similar thigns as suzy said a few replies earlier..

into season 8 pr 9 after a couple of seasons winning everything with Newcastle and having team morale pretty much as high as you can get .. losing 1 game or the terrible replies offered to press confrences can seriously break morale..

I wouldnt mind and yes if you lose a game morale should be affected slightly but be able to regain it after some more wins but thats not the case...

It seems far easier to lose morale than it is to gain it..

There is also the suggestions above which are very good to include more interaction with captains or actual players where you can address issues far better....... I've had players who have been uphappy due to lack of gameplay etc but you then play them in 10 games in a row and they are still unhappy.. its stupid..

There should be more options to chastise / praise players and there should be more interaction with your assistant who can advise on whether or not to say certain things.. EG your assistant thinks you should have a 1-to-1 with playr X and playr X responds well to stern authoritative talks.. or responds to calm assurances...

stuff like that....

There is so much you can do with this area but it looks like it's just thrown together at the last minute just so they can say its included in the game.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

I don't think that the morale system has been tweaked too far in general. Mostly, it functions just alright. But watch the date of that Juventus-Parma match; it's the 1st of April. He is likely to be in the last 10 league matches of the season, and when you go into that period things like this happens frequently.

Too frequently and too severly in my opinion.

There is no doubt in my mind that these incredible swings in morale and sudden loss of confidence, extreme nervousness and/or complacency, are hard-coded to begin in the 28th league match. 27th you're fine, 28th and all hell breaks loose.

Noticed that myself. 10-15 points on top, in amazing form beating teams 6-0 all around for fun. Epic season obviously, then as the 'final run in' comes along, despite the massive massive points lead, everyone seems to crack under pressure (playing nervously) and every game is labelled as the 'biggest game of the season'. Seriously? Get out of it -_-

[Seule]

Meh, just do what i did, have a team meeting and wind up with the captain going at it with one of the squad players yelling "If you've got a problem with me why don't you just say it to my face?" Everyone else on the team thought it was fantastic, bought morale right back up... ....

[Ellisio]

Well if you take into account the teams playing and the result, id say the drop in morale is just about right! now lets put this into context.

I mean, juventus is always going to be favorite to win against Galatasaray and specially on their own turf. They were pressured to win at home after 4:1 away leg disaster, and they didn't manage to get a goal, let alone get through the next round.

Don't know what was the initial team talk but if it wasn't "no pressure just play your own game" i bet players got afraid to touch the ball not to make a mistake and after they didn't meet the expectations - they simply fell apart by the end of the match.

That's just sounds like one big contradiction. You are saying to tell the players "no pressure" when clearly there is a huge amount of pressure. Juventus at home to Galatasaray the fans will be expecting victory as you have said. This is another flaw about the game, any Juventus players would be under huge pressure every single game to win, it's the nature and stature of the club, yet the option is there to tell the players no pressure when we have just been knocked out of the Champions League and got battered in the first leg. Baffles me.

My problem isn't with morale alone, it's the fact that a similar series of events happens EVERY SINGLE SEASON. I go on a mega run of wins, top of the league, morale sky high, then suddenly I start hitting the woodwork arond 3/4 times a game, morale suffers a MASSIVE hit and we go on a losing streak and all players are "playing without confidence" from the first defeat? Absolute madness.

[BiggusD]

That's just sounds like one big contradiction. You are saying to tell the players "no pressure" when clearly there is a huge amount of pressure. Juventus at home to Galatasaray the fans will be expecting victory as you have said. This is another flaw about the game, any Juventus players would be under huge pressure every single game to win, it's the nature and stature of the club, yet the option is there to tell the players no pressure when we have just been knocked out of the Champions League and got battered in the first leg. Baffles me.

My problem isn't with morale alone, it's the fact that a similar series of events happens EVERY SINGLE SEASON. I go on a mega run of wins, top of the league, morale sky high, then suddenly I start hitting the woodwork arond 3/4 times a game, morale suffers a MASSIVE hit and we go on a losing streak and all players are "playing without confidence" from the first defeat? Absolute madness.

I would be interested in knowing how you deal with this pressure in your team talks.

You must be aware that if you tell your players that you expect them to win/perform, it WILL result in a massive loss of morale and confidence if they do not. That's how the game works. That's how psychology works. Your job as a manager is -not- to praise wins and criticise defeats, it is to maintain high confidence and focus.

In other words, the morale of a team will be influenced by two extremes; nervousness and complacency. When you push them, you reduce complacency but increase nervousness. When you pull them (up), you reduce nervousness and increase complacency. In the middle of those two is the zone of focused confidence, where you want to be. That is all the team talks do, just forget about the green arrows and the "looking motivated" or "fired up" nonsense - that's just a smoke-screen. Your players can be both nervous and complacent even though the motivation gadget tells you they are fired up.

Once your players are shooting too early, regularly hits the woodwork or an opponent, when they back off a challenge or just stand around doing nothing... then you know that you have either put too much pressure on them or too little. In the former case, given that you are drawing or behind and that morale is still good, comfort/encourage them in the break. If you are in the lead, tell them you are displeased (but not necessarily aggressively). In the latter case, the hairdryer treatment may be the only way to fix things.

Based on your description in the quote above, I'd say you fail to notice the signs of the team losing it under the pressure in the first half, then tell them to sort it out at half-time. You then have a 10-minute window after the break to score, and if you do not the whole team shatters. You then rage at them after the match, and before the next match you tell them to go ahead and win this for the fans or expect a win as usual. The result of that, of course, is a disaster. If my assumptions here are wrong, please tell me.

[Ellisio]

I would be interested in knowing how you deal with this pressure in your team talks.

You must be aware that if you tell your players that you expect them to win/perform, it WILL result in a massive loss of morale and confidence if they do not. That's how the game works. That's how psychology works. Your job as a manager is -not- to praise wins and criticise defeats, it is to maintain high confidence and focus.

In other words, the morale of a team will be influenced by two extremes; nervousness and complacency. When you push them, you reduce complacency but increase nervousness. When you pull them (up), you reduce nervousness and increase complacency. In the middle of those two is the zone of focused confidence, where you want to be. That is all the team talks do, just forget about the green arrows and the "looking motivated" or "fired up" nonsense - that's just a smoke-screen. Your players can be both nervous and complacent even though the motivation gadget tells you they are fired up.

Once your players are shooting too early, regularly hits the woodwork or an opponent, when they back off a challenge or just stand around doing nothing... then you know that you have either put too much pressure on them or too little. In the former case, given that you are drawing or behind and that morale is still good, comfort/encourage them in the break. If you are in the lead, tell them you are displeased (but not necessarily aggressively). In the latter case, the hairdryer treatment may be the only way to fix things.

Based on your description in the quote above, I'd say you fail to notice the signs of the team losing it under the pressure in the first half, then tell them to sort it out at half-time. You then have a 10-minute window after the break to score, and if you do not the whole team shatters. You then rage at them after the match, and before the next match you tell them to go ahead and win this for the fans or expect a win as usual. The result of that, of course, is a disaster. If my assumptions here are wrong, please tell me.

I know how the game works and I know how team talks work. I've played the game every year since CM 97/98.

My issue is that morale is far far too sensitive. Every single season we go on a mega run of games unbeaten, usually all wins, morale is through the roof. We then either lose a game or draw a game and suddenly morale is lowest of the low. I do NOT give the hairdryer treatment and basically never tell the team I expect them to win unless we are evens favourites and even then I say it calmy. What's wrong with that? It's perfectly understandable.

A modern say example is Sir Alex at United. Everyone knows his management style yet when have we seen United in the past 10-15 years ever have a shocking set of results over a prolongued period? When have we ever seen United's players playing without any form of confidence and swagger?

Sorry, it just doesn't add up to me.

[Ellisio]

Oh, and as far as hitting the woodwork goes I do this most games reglardless of what is said. This has been raised by a fair few people. Hitting the woodwork 3/4/5 times per game is far from normal and again this is linked to morale form what I can tell.

[wwfan]

I know how the game works and I know how team talks work. I've played the game every year since CM 97/98.

My issue is that morale is far far too sensitive. Every single season we go on a mega run of games unbeaten, usually all wins, morale is through the roof. We then either lose a game or draw a game and suddenly morale is lowest of the low. I do NOT give the hairdryer treatment and basically never tell the team I expect them to win unless we are evens favourites and even then I say it calmy. What's wrong with that? It's perfectly understandable.

A modern say example is Sir Alex at United. Everyone knows his management style yet when have we seen United in the past 10-15 years ever have a shocking set of results over a prolongued period? When have we ever seen United's players playing without any form of confidence and swagger?

Sorry, it just doesn't add up to me.

Might Sir Alex just be a better manager than you?

I never have prolonged periods of bad form and I never struggle to keep morale reasonably high across the board. So, it must be something you are doing.

[Guest]

Oh, and as far as hitting the woodwork goes I do this most games reglardless of what is said. This has been raised by a fair few people. Hitting the woodwork 3/4/5 times per game is far from normal and again this is linked to morale form what I can tell.

Chances are that's more of a tactical issue than anything to do with team morale.

I know how the game works and I know how team talks work. I've played the game every year since CM 97/98.

My issue is that morale is far far too sensitive. Every single season we go on a mega run of games unbeaten, usually all wins, morale is through the roof. We then either lose a game or draw a game and suddenly morale is lowest of the low. I do NOT give the hairdryer treatment and basically never tell the team I expect them to win unless we are evens favourites and even then I say it calmy. What's wrong with that? It's perfectly understandable.

A modern say example is Sir Alex at United. Everyone knows his management style yet when have we seen United in the past 10-15 years ever have a shocking set of results over a prolongued period? When have we ever seen United's players playing without any form of confidence and swagger?

Sorry, it just doesn't add up to me.

After Man City lost to Arsenal United were comfortably clear & had what appeared to be a fairly easy run to the title yet they still managed to miss out thanks to some lacklustre performances or poor decision making, their performance in the Derby certainly lacked confidence & swagger.

Had either Manchester clubs drop in form happened in FM there would have been cries of morale bug & I suppose the same could be said of what happened to Spurs' results after January.

[edgar555]

Chances are that's more of a tactical issue than anything to do with team morale.

How is hitting the woodwork 'tactical'? What tactical instruction could I possibly give that means they'd aim for the woodwork.

[Guest]

Hard to say without knowing your tactical approach which is why I said, chances are......

If you want a little more insight this thread might prove useful, although the initial subject matter focuses on scoring at the other end it does develop into a very good discussion on the pitfalls of overly attacking styles & related profligacy in front of goal.