[Discussion] More realistic responses from low reputation young players - Make age play a role in interactions

[CosmicCreepers]

Hello again,

I have a tendency to drag players out of my youth teams to train with my senior squads when they have decent potential but a personality that needs mentoring...However I find sometimes this leads to some strange reactions like the ones below.

- 16 year old who has an unambitious personality has been moved into my senior squad for the pre-season. He came into the club in the last youth intake. In my pre-season team meeting i set competition expectations and he is the one that speaks out and acts offended about my expectations. In reality, he has only just joined my squad, has little chance of actually playing for me that season and unambitious would indicate to me that he has very little ambition to try and get into the team this season. For me a young player with that personality and in that situation would just let it all go over their head as it's not important to them. Equally, as most of the squad was in agreement with my ambitions, I feel like speaking up at that moment would build negative opinions of them within my squad (doesn't happen in the game)

- 15 year old with casual personality is brought into my first team squad to train shortly after the youth intake, they have some poor training performances so i tell them they need to improve. They argue this with me and say they don't believe i'd sell them for not training well. The player has a much lower reputation than me, a low current ability and no connection to any international youth teams to give the impression that they'd be particularly cocky about this.

From my understanding of young players in these situations, they'd be unwilling to have an argument with a high reputation first team manager, and more interested in either focusing on their development or trying to get in the team. I feel like players (and people in general) only take these stronger stances when they know that they have some power in the interaction such as a number of other similar/higher rep clubs that would want them, or a strong place in the first team squad where they know that you wouldn't be able to replace them with someone else. It's not something I would expect players to react very strongly to in this dynamic unless they were looking for an out, and/or incredibly low temperament and incredibly high levels of outspokenness.

For 15 and 16 year olds who don't appear to have those stats to randomly have the guts to confront a manager in this way seems a little unlikely when they haven't secured themself a professional career yet (beyoond their current small contracts) and have not been picked up for any national team or on the radar of any clubs anywhere near my clubs reputation. In reality i feel like even a controversial, outspoken, temperamental 15 or 16 year old would be a little more cautious in speaking out against a high reputation manager at that age and newness to the squad,

I feel like some addition related to age would make this a little more nuanced for younger players. (it could probably also be more nuanced for older players, but young players is where i feel the most disconnect is right now...)

 

[CosmicCreepers]

Literally just after i posted this it has happened again in a FM21 save. (i don't know if this is improved in FM22 yet i havent had a chance for similar scenarios in my save)

I have said "We haven't been doing so well and i don't want our heads to drop" in a patch of poor form, that is highlighted in my club atmosphere as being a negative. This player has played in none of those games and is only training with the squad for mentoring purposes as a 15 year old.

Equally isn't there a mechanic where if someone disagrees in team meetings it has an influence on the reaction of the rest of them in that meeting? Why should a 15 year old training with my first team squad be able to have that much influence,?!?

[Abdullah Patel]

Would be interested to know if this reproduces in FM22, if it does it may be worth flagging in our bug tracker rather than here as this is more of a bug than a feature request. Football Manager 2022 Bugs Tracker - Bug Tracker - Sports Interactive Community (sigames.com)