A realistic approach to difficulty levels

[fmsteve]

Trial and error, when I started playing the game in 97 I didn't have the internet and I was able to just muck about with the editor, and I was only 15. There's nothing technical about it, and the hardest thing to work out is if 20 for injury proneness is good or bad

exactly. everyone on here has learnt to play the game somehow and in most cases the editor too. i remember mucking about on the cm97/98 one to create my own team with me and my friends on - i had to go back and forth correcting mistakes but you eventually learn. the same with the game - im not afraid to say i cheated at the tender ages of 7 or 8 but i eventually learnt bit by bit that i didnt have to do it

just as a sort of question: i assume no-one wants the game made harder?? (i wouldnt)so the difficulty levels would be aimed primarily at making it easier for new users?? - ive got enough confidence in SI that if masses of new users found the game too hard they'd have rectified it by now? it's their custom they'd be losing anyway? thoughts?

[Daley]

Trial and error, when I started playing the game in 97 I didn't have the internet and I was able to just muck about with the editor, and I was only 15. There's nothing technical about it, and the hardest thing to work out is if 20 for injury proneness is good or bad

Whilst I totally agree with that, there will be people that aren't quite up to doing that or maybe they are only 8 or 10 years old or don't use computers and never have. I am just trying to imagine it from their perspective!

[Nomis07]

Whilst I totally agree with that, there will be people that aren't quite up to doing that or maybe they are only 8 or 10 years old or don't use computers and never have. I am just trying to imagine it from their perspective!

That's true, but problems with editing would be the last thing i'd be worried about for 8-10 yr olds playing a game as in depth as FM. I don't know any children that age, but when I was 8 there's no way I could have been successful with FM, even if I had set the difficulty to Incredibly Easy.

[glamdring]

Sure there are complex aspects to the editor, but editing an existing club to boost reputation and finances and even player abilities is not one of them. People who struggle with that will struggle with even the most basic aspects of navigating around FM and understanding the screens, nevermind things like tactics and player management.

[Daley]

That's true, but problems with editing would be the last thing i'd be worried about for 8-10 yr olds playing a game as in depth as FM. I don't know any children that age, but when I was 8 there's no way I could have been successful with FM, even if I had set the difficulty to Incredibly Easy.

Yeah true, but even 12 0r 13 year olds probably wouldn't want to start looking into that (unless they are really into PC's and Gaming) for fear of mucking up the game their parents have just paid upto £30 for. For me the best way to get better and understand the game is to come here and read/interact with those that are playing and experiencing the same game as you.

[woody2goody]

The problem with difficulty levels is, as stated above, that changing one thing can have far reaching effects on something else. For example on CM 00/01 I created my own team with great players and a lot of money. The only problem was, because I was about 11, I didn't take everything into account, and ended up with a small stadium. So, even though initially I got a couple or three promotions, it became apparent that the club wasn't bringing in any money because of the small stadium.

This is a similar effect to what could happen when changing reputations and finances. The clubs' infrastructures are supposed to build up at the same rate as their squad (i.e. slowly), so a big sudden change in anything will unbalance another aspect and could potentially make the game unplayable with the club in question.

Even Man City's aquisition by the Abu Dhabi group would probably have only increased their reputation by a very small amount. IRL what will probably happen is that better players will join, and the club's rep will rise slowly as a result.

[Nomis07]

Yeah true, but even 12 0r 13 year olds probably wouldn't want to start looking into that (unless they are really into PC's and Gaming) for fear of mucking up the game their parents have just paid upto £30 for. For me the best way to get better and understand the game is to come here and read/interact with those that are playing and experiencing the same game as you.

But they wouldn't be ruining the game, even if it went wrong they could just reinstall it. I see where you're coming from, but most 12-13 yr olds would have the wit to muck about with the editor and if something went wrong hopefully common sense would prevail.

[LeoVieira]

I don't want any difficulty level, i want realism.

And that means a better AI, less advantage we have over the AI on tactics, and more board interference on how you spend your budget.

But that would **** about 99,999999999% of all the "tactical genius" that play FM. So i'm all for a difficulty level. An easy one, that would be how the game is right now. And a realistic one, for those who wants to play w/e they team they want to and still have challenge.

No more of that same old excuse that FM fans insist at: "ohh if you want a hard challenge play a lower league team, if you want an easy one just play Man Utd or set yourself rules.". That's pathetic. And doesn't work neither, anyone can grab a lower league team and win back to back promotions and in 10 years you're winning UCL.

The "set yourself rules" is stupid too cause' it's like telling someone to be ******** on purpose. Your team is losing but you won't do anything about it, because if you give your best you win everything easily, and the game gets boring again.

[Nomis07]

I don't want any difficulty level, i want realism.

Sorry, but realism has nothing to do with this debate at all. If we take realism to the extreme, it's probably more realistic that a manager has dificulty levels in the fact he gets to choose what club he applies for, whereas you being a manager is entirely unrealistic. Realism means nothing in the context of difficulty levels and has no palce in this discussion.

[Tricky Dicky]

What about instead of difficulty levels you used scenarios.

e.g. As a scenario, you take control of a club which is up for sale, the players have low morale, the reputation of the club is low, players want to leave....

You take control of a club which has just been taken over with a huge transfer budget.

You take control of a club with massive injury problems.

I'm sure there are other realistic scenarios. So you keep the realism, but change the difficulty of the game, and the type of challenge you face.

[Nomis07]

I like the idea of scenarios, but only as a downloadable extra and as long as it took about 2 days to create/didn't interefere with the time it takes to make FM.

[Daley]

Sorry, but realism has nothing to do with this debate at all. If we take realism to the extreme, it's probably more realistic that a manager has dificulty levels in the fact he gets to choose what club he applies for, whereas you being a manager is entirely unrealistic. Realism means nothing in the context of difficulty levels and has no palce in this discussion.

Completely correct, how realistic is it that a totally new manager would take over from Fergie or Wenger and have the total support and backing of the players and the fans? The debate is what is the best way to help the less experienced or more casual player enjoy the game!

[glamdring]

I don't want any difficulty level, i want realism.

And that means a better AI, less advantage we have over the AI on tactics, and more board interference on how you spend your budget.

But that would **** about 99,999999999% of all the "tactical genius" that play FM. So i'm all for a difficulty level. An easy one, that would be how the game is right now. And a realistic one, for those who wants to play w/e they team they want to and still have challenge.

No more of that same old excuse that FM fans insist at: "ohh if you want a hard challenge play a lower league team, if you want an easy one just play Man Utd or set yourself rules.". That's pathetic. And doesn't work neither, anyone can grab a lower league team and win back to back promotions and in 10 years you're winning UCL.

The "set yourself rules" is stupid too cause' it's like telling someone to be ******** on purpose. Your team is losing but you won't do anything about it, because if you give your best you win everything easily, and the game gets boring again.

The game is plenty difficult enough at the moment for a "normal" level. Human managers have some tactical advantages over AI managers, AI managers have some tactical advantages over human managers. There are also plenty of ways to "cheat", use super-tactics that weren't discovered "realistically" etc - they'll always be there to make it easy for some people to take a lower league team up the leagues.

If you want realism to make it harder then that's were "setting your own rules" comes in and if you can't be bothered or don't want to do that then you have to make do with whatever the game gives you as rules. The LLM forum has plenty of rules aimed at improving realism - they don't have to be programmed into the game because all it takes is for the player to apply them themselves.

[Amaroq]

I'm not so sure there.

Staying within the Nottingham example:

Without any difficulty level Nottingham would after 3 consecutive CL quailifications probably be No. 5 in the EPL in terms of reputation. With a higher setting they might just be No. 7 to 9. Accordingly, players from clubs like Valencia, Roma, Bremen would be less likely to join. Once you leave Forest, they would be interested again.

Turnaround: Let's say while you are there they have a turnaround of x million. After you leave it will be higher by an appropriate percentage because the income per season ticket or per merchandising item increases. At the same time wage demands go down, thus being an effective change of, just for instance, a high one-figure million amount.

So no sudden cash injections or deductions, just slight alterations to the running algorythms.

And that's exactly where you get the "many code paths to test" problem.

I don't think its too difficult to write - you're simply adding a couple of "constants", something like:

if (easy)

. if (reputation increases)

. . . reputationIncrease *= 1.05

. if (reptuation decreases)

. . . reputationDecrease *= 0.95

else if (hard)

. if (reputation increases)

. . . reputationIncrease *= 0.95

. if (reptuation decreases)

. . . reputationDecrease *= 1.05

But there you are now, with nine different code paths (essentially) - hard, normal, easy; reputation increases, reputation stays constant, reputation decreases. 3x3=9.

That's almost exactly the way difficulty levels work in other games; for example, in Civilization, one easy impact to see of "difficulty level" is how many shields an AI nation receives per 1 shield "mined" from a given city. It ranges, if I recall correctly, from 0.5 to 2.0.

[Amaroq]

I suspect that the biggest impact "difficulty level" adjustments we could make are to the board:

1. Board patience (either an unsackable option, or merely making the board a lot more patient with firing the human manager for "easy", and a lot less patient on "hard").

2. Resources allowed (transfer budget and wage budget allowed are increased on "easy" and reduced on "hard")

3. Board interference (reduced on "easy"; increased on "hard")

4. Board willingness to grant a request from the manager, or to acquiesce to an ultimatum (increased on "easy"; reduced on "hard").

[Ackter]

I'm massively against any form of unrealistic difficulty levels such as those seen in Civilization.

Difficulty in FM should be portrayed through the amount of help you can get from your back room staff and no more. That's the only realistic way in which I can see difficulty levels introduced.

[Amaroq]

I'd like to see that introduced, full stop, regardless of any "difficulty" controls for it. I'm very excited about the A.M. improvement for '09.

[MiCkEyMcMuLLaN]

I think having difficulty levels for the game would be a great idea

[MiCkEyMcMuLLaN]

thumbs up from me for 2010

[rekluse]

I don't see the point of a difficulty setting, FM is as hard or as easy as you make it. What teams you use, what transfers you make, what player knowledge you come into each game with, all of this makes for an easier or harder game. If my current squad are world beaters and I'm losing interest I apply for a new job or start a new game.

I do understand that many players are fans of the larger clubs and in being so they enjoy managing these clubs but are unable to do so after it becomes too easy but look at what your doing to make the game easier. Most are signing a team of wonderkids, if your truly wanting a more challenging game with a big club set yourself some realistic limits.

Would Ferguson put a side out for a season consisting of all under 25's? Would Wenger bring in an entire new squad every season?

I know many are not guilty of this at all but reading the forums for years about people claiming the game is too easy then seeing their team that cost 320m with 4 under 20 wonderkids on the bench doesn't exactly inspire a need for a difficulty slider for myself.

[jayahr]

And that's exactly where you get the "many code paths to test" problem.

I don't think its too difficult to write - you're simply adding a couple of "constants", something like:

if (easy)

. if (reputation increases)

. . . reputationIncrease *= 1.05

. if (reptuation decreases)

. . . reputationDecrease *= 0.95

else if (hard)

. if (reputation increases)

. . . reputationIncrease *= 0.95

. if (reptuation decreases)

. . . reputationDecrease *= 1.05

But there you are now, with nine different code paths (essentially) - hard, normal, easy; reputation increases, reputation stays constant, reputation decreases. 3x3=9.

That's almost exactly the way difficulty levels work in other games; for example, in Civilization, one easy impact to see of "difficulty level" is how many shields an AI nation receives per 1 shield "mined" from a given city. It ranges, if I recall correctly, from 0.5 to 2.0.

Alright, I really know less about programming than you do obviously. So far I just thought, as long as we look at reputation only that the value is calculated by the game depending on the progress of the club and on the setting in the db. Then this value would in my imagination just be multiplied accordingly and the final value is then used. I still don't understand why this would make for 9 different coding paths (does this in your opinion imply coding 9 versions of the game or does that refer to testing only?) if you can just have this one value altered in a simple way.

Anyway, as far as I'm concerned you don't have to label it difficulty level anyway. If you just add a few móre options for customization to the existing ones in the game (and be it just some from the editor made more easliy accessible) it would probably do the job pretty well.

I just guess that many customers of SI would think it's a good thing.

[jayahr]

That's true, but problems with editing would be the last thing i'd be worried about for 8-10 yr olds playing a game as in depth as FM. I don't know any children that age, but when I was 8 there's no way I could have been successful with FM, even if I had set the difficulty to Incredibly Easy.

Interesting thought. When I was 8 I already played football manager, though Kevin Tom's game For some reason it even worked although I didn't speak English... (and I always wondered and still wonder who my all-time fave striker Allen on skill level 9 from FM2 actually was as there were so many Allens and so few news about English football that until today I don't know which one was in that game).

Soon after I started coding some pieces in Basic (utter nonsense of course but at least back then I found it amusing and funny what I created).

Now indeed FM is so complex that any 8 year old should indeed struggle to comprehend everything. So what do kids do now? Not play FM? Play but do crap? Or play lesser football management sims until they are mature enough for the real thing? Never thought about this...

Sorry for the off topic stuff

[lhinchliffe]

The option to not allow transfers in the first window doesn't increase realism currently - since we get a database thrust upon us that is correct for September even though we start the game in June when most of those transfers hadn't really taken place. The idea of not being able to make any transfers when you join a club in June is right up there with being able to spend all your wages by selflessly pumping them back into the club and living like a beggar on the streets for realism!

To add to this point, for the new 09 game, lets say I play Utd, I would love the option of not paying £32m for berbatov I would much prefer the money for other signings but its put upon me that I have to have him

[Majkee]

I suspect that the biggest impact "difficulty level" adjustments we could make are to the board:

1. Board patience (either an unsackable option, or merely making the board a lot more patient with firing the human manager for "easy", and a lot less patient on "hard").

2. Resources allowed (transfer budget and wage budget allowed are increased on "easy" and reduced on "hard")

3. Board interference (reduced on "easy"; increased on "hard")

4. Board willingness to grant a request from the manager, or to acquiesce to an ultimatum (increased on "easy"; reduced on "hard").

I do not agree with you now

For me, the difficulty grows with more leagues enabled on full details. There is more depth in FM with those leagues fully simulated, as there will be tough competition for good players, tougher transfer market, opponents will have more money, no gray players in big teams, better AI managers etc. Also the difficulty grows with detail of world games simulation...

If you want simple and easy game, just enable only your league as fully playable, all others will be grayed and game difficulty will be easier. On the other hand, enable full details in all major leagues up to second or third league, simulate world results on full details and the game wil be tougher...

[Majkee]

Interesting thought. When I was 8 I already played football manager, though Kevin Tom's game For some reason it even worked although I didn't speak English... (and I always wondered and still wonder who my all-time fave striker Allen on skill level 9 from FM2 actually was as there were so many Allens and so few news about English football that until today I don't know which one was in that game).

Soon after I started coding some pieces in Basic (utter nonsense of course but at least back then I found it amusing and funny what I created).

Now indeed FM is so complex that any 8 year old should indeed struggle to comprehend everything. So what do kids do now? Not play FM? Play but do crap? Or play lesser football management sims until they are mature enough for the real thing? Never thought about this...

Sorry for the off topic stuff

I think that this should help you

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=51191

It is obvious that this game (is it still game?) is so complex and complicated in both language and functionality therefore it is really hard to play it if you are under 15.

[glamdring]

I do not agree with you now

For me, the difficulty grows with more leagues enabled on full details. There is more depth in FM with those leagues fully simulated, as there will be tough competition for good players, tougher transfer market, opponents will have more money, no gray players in big teams, better AI managers etc. Also the difficulty grows with detail of world games simulation...

If you want simple and easy game, just enable only your league as fully playable, all others will be grayed and game difficulty will be easier. On the other hand, enable full details in all major leagues up to second or third league, simulate world results on full details and the game wil be tougher...

Or because your league is the only one active all the best players end up playing in your league so your opponents are much stronger as oppose to when loads of leagues are active and the best players in the world are spread around far more.

[Amaroq]

Alright, I really know less about programming than you do obviously. So far I just thought, as long as we look at reputation only that the value is calculated by the game depending on the progress of the club and on the setting in the db. Then this value would in my imagination just be multiplied accordingly and the final value is then used. I still don't understand why this would make for 9 different coding paths (does this in your opinion imply coding 9 versions of the game or does that refer to testing only?) if you can just have this one value altered in a simple way.

Its just nine paths through that little "nested if" clause, not 9 versions of the game. And yes, five of them do the same thing (the implied "else", which is, "just leave them as it is") .. but from a tester's perspective, they have to come through there in all nine ways, because they don't see the code.

Now indeed FM is so complex that any 8 year old should indeed struggle to comprehend everything. So what do kids do now? Not play FM? Play but do crap? Or play lesser football management sims until they are mature enough for the real thing? Never thought about this...

When I first picked FM up (CM2?), as an American who was new to "soccer", I found it too complex. I couldn't tell what was happening from the text commentary, and really needed a visual representation. I had to go play a remedial game - Premier Manager '98 - until I was "up to speed". Once I'd mastered that and it was too easy, I came back to CM01/02 and fell in love with the series.

I do not agree with you now

For me, the difficulty grows with more leagues enabled on full details. There is more depth in FM with those leagues fully simulated, as there will be tough competition for good players, tougher transfer market, opponents will have more money, no gray players in big teams, better AI managers etc. Also the difficulty grows with detail of world games simulation...

If you want simple and easy game, just enable only your league as fully playable, all others will be grayed and game difficulty will be easier. On the other hand, enable full details in all major leagues up to second or third league, simulate world results on full details and the game wil be tougher...

Absolutely agree; I figured that was a given. (since it is functionality already in the game).

I thought we were talking about things we could add to the game in the "difficulty level" genre.

[KingKenny]

I think the part of the game that most people struggle with is the tactical side.

I suggested a while ago that there should be a choice of two ways to set up tactics. Simple and advanced.

To summarise the idea:

Within the Preferences (or possibly as a dropdown choice) their would be the option for simple tactics or advanced.

Advanced tactics would be the current way of doing things ith lots of sliders and plenty of choice.

For those less inclined or knowledgeable about such things, the simple option would give them some basic setups, such as:

Defensive, long ball.

Defensive, quick counter attack.

Cautious

Attacking from wide

Attacking - Narrow

All-out war

This basic choice would set the sliders to a sensible setup for that particular choice.

These settings could then be viewed by the player when they switch to advanced mode to get a good idea of how the advanced tactics need to be set up for a particular style of play and give them a better understanding in order for them to start tinkering themselves.

I think that this would lead to a lot less frustration for the casual user and those who don't really understand the tactics.

I haven't really gone into the depth of the idea but hope you understand what I mean.

I agree with this completely. At the moment you can select from pre-defined tactics but these tactics are for the most part described by their formations.

I'd love it if formations and tactics were separated out so that you could select a formation (this would change the formation screen) and then select a tactic you like (which changes the team and player instructions). The tactics could have descriptions such as:

"A quick passing style that keeps the ball on the floor and encourages players to express themselves in the opposition half"

"A style that spreads the play out and encourages full backs to bomb up field and forwards to interchange"

"Holding onto a lead by defending deep, closing down and tackling hard"

"Stay compact, hold your position but break forward quickly if the counter attack is on"

[Majkee]

Or because your league is the only one active all the best players end up playing in your league so your opponents are much stronger as oppose to when loads of leagues are active and the best players in the world are spread around far more.

I do not agree with you. Transfer market is very easy and a lot of easy games in club competitions like UEFA Cup or CL, that means a lot of money for cupped teams etc. You have right, that oppositions are stronger, but you can get stronger as they are very quickly. On the other hand, they are strong also in full detailed world, but you will get stronger only slowly.

One example for all cases: more detailed world creates more "good added value for less money" players, who are spreading around the world (yes, you are right) but for clubs which are hardly competing for them. In full detailed world it is very often possible to see 20 clubs competing with you for one player with great added value and relatively cheap money. But you can get him only rarely. And your direct competitors or rivals get them and that means weaker clubs in your league are stronger in full detailed world as they are in "only one full detail" league, because you can get stronger only slowly. Finally, if they can not get one, they move for another one = that means STRONG competition.

[bRAzIL]

Jayahr, I work in game devlopment for a living, and we have this debate all the time at our company, too.

The argument "does not harm the game in the slightest" and "takes 10 seconds to implement" are both highly fallacious. They ignore testing time.

If you set up a game without options, you basically test one "code path" through each feature.

If you set up a game with two binary (on/off) options, you now have to test four code paths through each feature.

As you add both options and features, you quickly reach a point where your demands on your testing team are unreasonable, or the size of your testing team are unreasonable.

Additionally, you're more likely to see developers make errors, e.g., putting their fix into three of the four code paths, but missing the fourth code path.

That's one heavy argument against options.

The other is user complexity.

Basically, look at the Tactics screen.

We have how many options there? Like 20-something inputs, half with 20 degrees of freedom, and half with three .. which we can apply to the team and to each of 11 players.

The "power user" - me, wwfan, and others - love having that much freedom with which to fine-tune our tactics.

The casual user, however, feels overwhelmed, and doesn't really understand what each of the inputs do, exactly. His problems compound when he gets something fixed in his head incorrectly, misunderstanding what his input is intended to do. He immediately feels like its a bug when it his players don't do what he thought he was telling them to do.

So, for all options, the designer has to balance complexity versus control.

Think of the comparison between the all-powerful UNIX command line and the ease-of-use of the Mac GUI. The true UNIX power user hates the limiting nature of the GUI .. but the vast majority of users don't miss the missing features.

. . .

Personally, I'm a power user, and I come down firmly on the side of "more options are a good thing!" ...

... but at my company, especially, I have to acknowledge that I am not my target audience.

Power user - my arse!

The shear arrogance assuming us mere mortals do not understand the game.

[jayahr]

Thanks guys for all the feedback. Now I'll lean back for a year and wait whether SI found anything of this worth implementing

[jayahr]

Jayahr, I work in game devlopment for a living, and we have this debate all the time at our company, too.

The argument "does not harm the game in the slightest" and "takes 10 seconds to implement" are both highly fallacious. They ignore testing time.

If you set up a game without options, you basically test one "code path" through each feature.

If you set up a game with two binary (on/off) options, you now have to test four code paths through each feature.

As you add both options and features, you quickly reach a point where your demands on your testing team are unreasonable, or the size of your testing team are unreasonable.

Additionally, you're more likely to see developers make errors, e.g., putting their fix into three of the four code paths, but missing the fourth code path.

That's one heavy argument against options.

The other is user complexity.

Basically, look at the Tactics screen.

We have how many options there? Like 20-something inputs, half with 20 degrees of freedom, and half with three .. which we can apply to the team and to each of 11 players.

The "power user" - me, wwfan, and others - love having that much freedom with which to fine-tune our tactics.

The casual user, however, feels overwhelmed, and doesn't really understand what each of the inputs do, exactly. His problems compound when he gets something fixed in his head incorrectly, misunderstanding what his input is intended to do. He immediately feels like its a bug when it his players don't do what he thought he was telling them to do.

So, for all options, the designer has to balance complexity versus control.

Think of the comparison between the all-powerful UNIX command line and the ease-of-use of the Mac GUI. The true UNIX power user hates the limiting nature of the GUI .. but the vast majority of users don't miss the missing features.

. . .

Personally, I'm a power user, and I come down firmly on the side of "more options are a good thing!" ...

... but at my company, especially, I have to acknowledge that I am not my target audience.

Sorry for upping, but just reading through this after being reminded in another thread I noticed that I have never replied to you, though I feel I should have (with just a tad of delay now ).

Obviously you know more about creating a software than I do. Still, I doubt you would need multiple coding paths (assuming that means you'd have to code many things separately for each difficulty setting). Correct me if I'm wrong.

I would expect that every calculation in the game should, would and could stay the same. The difficulty settings I proposed just affect a few settings which are used in these calculations.

What I mean is this: Constantly for instance the club reputation is calculated according to a certain scheme. At the end of that calculation another factor would have to be included which depends on the difficulty setting, i.e. plus or minus a certain percentage. That's it. That club reputation value would then be used in any case where this value is used in the code. But the code which uses this value itself doesn't need to be amended at all. Just the data which are entered into the code is different and might thus trigger a different result (for instance Vukcevic not interested in moving to Wolves instead of being interested, or him demanding 300k more a year).

Of course, it would need testing to see if the figures chosen lead to a good game experience. Yet, that's the case with every new feature.

edit: Humm, I just noticed that in fact I already HAVE replied to you and said something similar.

Yet I also said I would lean back a year and see. So I'm just leaning forward again now as I still think it's a good option.

[bigdunk]

The problem is that Club Reputation is such a fundamental value in almost every area of the game, from the AI match strategy to transfers to contract negotiations and so on. It's okay saying that all this code already exists, but this code, as it is currently designed, operates on the proviso that a clubs reputation basically directly ties into every other element of that club (in the same way a players CA ties into his attributes) - so a high rep club will almost always have good facilities, good players, good coaches etc. If you start changing this, so a higher rep club has worse players, there's no guarantee that the code will behave the way it was intended. It will need complete retesting.

The other issue is that the scheme to boost rep is not going to be a straightforward one. Compare something like the prem, which has a large spread of club reps to something like leage 2 which has a much narrower spread of reps. A straight percentage boost won't work, you'd either end up dominating in a league with a narrow spread, or it would make no difference in a league with a large spread as the boost would be insignificant. So it needs to boost relative to the league you are in and your current position within that league. It also needs to adaptively change the amount of boost as you move up the leagues. Again this is not easy to test as you have multiple factors influencing something that is developing over time - basically a testers (and programmers) nightmare.

[jayahr]

The problem is that Club Reputation is such a fundamental value in almost every area of the game, from the AI match strategy to transfers to contract negotiations and so on. It's okay saying that all this code already exists, but this code, as it is currently designed, operates on the proviso that a clubs reputation basically directly ties into every other element of that club (in the same way a players CA ties into his attributes) - so a high rep club will almost always have good facilities, good players, good coaches etc. If you start changing this, so a higher rep club has worse players, there's no guarantee that the code will behave the way it was intended. It will need complete retesting.

The other issue is that the scheme to boost rep is not going to be a straightforward one. Compare something like the prem, which has a large spread of club reps to something like leage 2 which has a much narrower spread of reps. A straight percentage boost won't work, you'd either end up dominating in a league with a narrow spread, or it would make no difference in a league with a large spread as the boost would be insignificant. So it needs to boost relative to the league you are in and your current position within that league. It also needs to adaptively change the amount of boost as you move up the leagues. Again this is not easy to test as you have multiple factors influencing something that is developing over time - basically a testers (and programmers) nightmare.

But you too agree that the issue would not in any way lead to the game being articially dumbed down or smartened which I think so far has been one of the main reasons to reject any such thing? And you too agree that testing might be the most severe issue here?

Of course it would need extensive testing, but as I said, so do many things. Newgens for instance need a constant amount of thorough testing. That's why I hope this alone cannot be decisive as a con as it's true for any introduced or suggested feature.

[FrazT]

Completely off topic but it was a pleasure to read this thread and see a reasonable debate without the need for personal abuse which frequents other threads:thup:

[bigdunk]

But you too agree that the issue would not in any way lead to the game being articially dumbed down or smartened which I think so far has been one of the main reasons to reject any such thing? And you too agree that testing might be the most severe issue here?

Of course it would need extensive testing, but as I said, so do many things. Newgens for instance need a constant amount of thorough testing. That's why I hope this alone cannot be decisive as a con as it's true for any introduced or suggested feature.

I'm not sure I do agree. I personally don't like the game being 'faked' like this (or any other similar scheme) to introduce difficulty levels. If Vukcevic isn't interested in going to Wolves, he shouldn't suddenly be interested because of the difficulty level. I'm always going to be in favour of something that preserves the realism but gives weaker users extra tools to help them overcome their difficulties - e.g. the tactics creator, backroom advice, assistant handling team talks etc. The more of these options and the more flexible they are the better.

They also have the added benefit of allowing the user to select where he receives help, rather than a generic difficulty level which changes the game across the board, e.g. you may want easier tactics, but a harder transfer market - with difficulty levels you cannot do that, but with the tactics creator and some assistant manager transfer suggestions/contract negotiating, you can select where and when you receive help. This also makes them more likely to be used by experienced users, so there is less 'wasted' effort on something that on beginners would use.

[jayahr]

Well, let me firstly state again that I wouldn't even use what I'm suggesting here myself.

I just see a demand by those who find the game too easy or too hard and think that this might be a way of introducing sensible challenges or eases to the game without having to touch its core, which also in my opinion must not touched at all by any such thing, at all.

If you keep introducing features who make the game easier because you are given valuable advice on anything, that may be a replacement for those who want the game easier, but at the same time it might even increase the demand of people who'd like a harder game.

Of course, people could use RTEs to edit some of what I am suggesting, but having to do that is an undesirable thing imho.

[bigdunk]

There's always ways to make the game harder if you want a harder game - from selecting weaker clubs, tweaking the database, playing by your own rules (LLM or whatever). I wouldn't be against features that made the game harder as long as they were realistic - I remember someone basically suggesting a LLM mode that turns off various features like the player search screen, that's one example.

[blueowl]

Some very good ideas there Jayahr, I for one wouldn't say no to being being a little tougher, Especially when it comes to making money at a premiership club. I think a simple way to fix that would be to have the shareholders take a bigger cut from the Club bank on the annual "Popa needs a new boat" meetings tho.

[paulowen]

This thread is a classic example of people with far too much time on their hands.

Just enjoy the fcking game as it is, if not don't play it. SIMPLE AS

[Richardav]

Just enjoy the fcking game as it is, if not don't play it. SIMPLE AS

people could use a editor to make it more easy or harder if they want.

[blueowl]

This thread is a classic example of people with far too much time on their hands.

Just enjoy the fcking game as it is, if not don't play it. SIMPLE AS

And this post is a classic example of people who don't know what one of the reasons this forum is for.

[bigdunk]

Completely off topic but it was a pleasure to read this thread and see a reasonable debate without the need for personal abuse which frequents other threads:thup:

This thread is a classic example of people with far too much time on their hands.

Just enjoy the fcking game as it is, if not don't play it. SIMPLE AS

There's nothing wrong with people having intelligent debate about ways to improve the game.

[Delvey]

My Two Pence Worth:

Any alterations to variables in the game engine will inbalance the game, and wreck the realism that SI strive for. They set reps/ incomes/ abiities etc so that they game plays out as realistically as possible, and to change this is like giving the player a flying car in Forza.

If manager/ club rep is upped via this difficulty level scheme, the board expectations will go up and therefore negate any benefits.

I agree with the people that said testing time will go through the roof. The game will have to be fully tested on all difficulty level to see how imbalanced the game has become and to see if it has the desired effect 20 seasons into the game, let alone whether it works.

Lastly, what wrong with having a difficult game. I feel that SI are going the right way about it by keeping the 'difficulty' realistic, and making the game more accessible to newcomer with wizards and staff help.

[KingKenny]

Jayahr, I work in game devlopment for a living, and we have this debate all the time at our company, too.

The argument "does not harm the game in the slightest" and "takes 10 seconds to implement" are both highly fallacious. They ignore testing time.

If you set up a game without options, you basically test one "code path" through each feature.

If you set up a game with two binary (on/off) options, you now have to test four code paths through each feature.

As you add both options and features, you quickly reach a point where your demands on your testing team are unreasonable, or the size of your testing team are unreasonable.

Additionally, you're more likely to see developers make errors, e.g., putting their fix into three of the four code paths, but missing the fourth code path.

That's one heavy argument against options.

The other is user complexity.

Basically, look at the Tactics screen.

We have how many options there? Like 20-something inputs, half with 20 degrees of freedom, and half with three .. which we can apply to the team and to each of 11 players.

The "power user" - me, wwfan, and others - love having that much freedom with which to fine-tune our tactics.

The casual user, however, feels overwhelmed, and doesn't really understand what each of the inputs do, exactly. His problems compound when he gets something fixed in his head incorrectly, misunderstanding what his input is intended to do. He immediately feels like its a bug when it his players don't do what he thought he was telling them to do.

So, for all options, the designer has to balance complexity versus control.

Think of the comparison between the all-powerful UNIX command line and the ease-of-use of the Mac GUI. The true UNIX power user hates the limiting nature of the GUI .. but the vast majority of users don't miss the missing features.

. . .

Personally, I'm a power user, and I come down firmly on the side of "more options are a good thing!" ...

... but at my company, especially, I have to acknowledge that I am not my target audience.

This is quite possibly the single best post I have ever read on this forum. Good work that man!

[backpackant]

I think Amaroq's post says it all best. I've always viewed it in the most simplistic of terms - think about the knock-on effects.

Take an example of FM09's so-called "corner bug". IMO it wasn't a bug because to implement it the user had to utilise a particular tactic. The AI could not use this exploit, so it was low priority for SI. However, I did see a couple of posts by SI, explaining that to correct this and prevent weak-willed human managers from using the exploit too it had so many knock-on problems that it wasn't worth fixing ahead of many other bugs. They have since addressed it in FM10, I believe, so clearly it took time, but it WAS eventually fixed.

That's a minor issue. Imagine how much work it would require to have the human user's team play a little bit better than they would on the default level. How on earth would it work? The ME is incapable of distinguishing whether they human user or the AI manager is the one issuing instructions, so that would have to be stripped out for a start. Then how does it calculate the improvement?

"If Human_user = easy level + [winger = crossing 10], then goto Human_user = [winger = crossing 17]"

Or vice versa for the "hard" level.

I'm not arguing against the principle of different levels, just that it isn't quite like a racing game where you can increase or decrease your opponants' ability to pass you or the speed of your car.

SI now provide a much more in-depth editor, so you can make things easier by increasing budgets/bank balances/CA for staff and players/dropping player reps and increasing loyalty and making your club their favourite too, all so they don't want to leave/maybe increase your whole youth team to 195 PA. To make things harder, if Man City fans are sick of big budgets, start off by bankrupting Man City, take away the sugar daddy and be forced to sell your players. Half an hour with the editor and you have your different levels.

[Amaroq]

High praise, KingKenny - thank you!

[jayahr]

"If Human_user = easy level + [winger = crossing 10], then goto Human_user = [winger = crossing 17]"

Or vice versa for the "hard" level.

That's an example of exactly what I'm NOT talking about.

I do suggest addressing finances, chairman attributes and reputation and at the same time restricting anything to that (though you actually gave me the idea that the average newgen PA in your club might also be an option to look at:)).

- Make the user have a bit less and need a bit more money and he'll have a tougher time building and keeping a world-class squad.

- Address reputation and it will be harder to keep star players wanting to stay and harder to sign big players.

- Adjust a few chairman attributes which will lead to more pressure and maybe more interference.

Then you have a tougher game with a need to make code changes only in very restricted areas.

On top of that each of those 3 components can be assessed separately in testing and let's be honest, if it's still flawed after release day patch it can still be tweaked in patch 2 easily as many other new features before (while in the meantime it cannot break the game while playing on normal difficulty).

The game itself remains untouched and while you have better or worse preconditions, you still need to work well in other areas, mainly tactics to excel.

[Wonky]

Do you not decide the difficulty level by who you choose who to manage? As in, managing Man Utd is going to be a lot easier than managing Hull.

[jayahr]

Do you not decide the difficulty level by who you choose who to manage? As in, managing Man Utd is going to be a lot easier than managing Hull.

In parts you do, of course. But many people would like to be at a specific club and still have the choice of having a bigger or smaller challenge at their helm.