An idea, albeit a drunken idea...

[krashd]

Why can I only be a manager?  Why can't I be a coach? Or a director? Or a physio?

FM has an incredible built in feature that lets you choose how realistic you want the game to be in that you can delegate almost everything to your staff, if you don't want to micromanage training you can set a coach or your assistant manager to handle training for you, if you don't want to deal with transfers or loans you can, again, leave them to another staff member.  But at the end of the day you are still the manager and you still have to sort the tactics and win the games.

But imagine if you were actually just a coach, instead of playing a human manager with AI coaches beneath you you could actually be the head coach with an AI manager above you, your job, and your only job, would be to sort out the training and get the best abilities out of the players so you could then leave them in the hands of the computer to make best use of them in matches.

This is just a rough, scribble-on-the-back-of-a-napkin, idea I had while drunkenly trying to get Arbroath into the SPL, and it most definitely requires a ****-ton of fleshing out and much more but I reckon it would open up the game to a lot of new players who might have no interest in being a manager, but who would love to try their hand at being one of the coaches, or the rich owner who signs the cheques, or the commercial agent whose job it is to land sponsorships and increase marketing. Or even a scout jetting to Belgium to watch Antwerp B play Club Brugge B because you heard that there's a youngster on Antwerp's reserve team that could be the next Messi.

If anything being able to enter the game as a coach or scout or physio would open up a lot of interesting new ways to play the game.  I've always liked the idea of playing as a scout, finding the best new kids around the world and presenting them to your manager for them to decide if your discovery is good enough to get a place on the team.

Now don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to admit that this might be something that requires a mountain of work only for it to be enjoyed by a small niche of players, and I know that with SI's tight deadlines to get a new game to market every 12 months they have to deal with this problem on a regular basis - is implementing X new feature worth it if the weeks or months implementing it don't bring in any new players. 

Like I said, it was just a drunken idea, but it's an idea I think worthy of investigating.  Humans love simulators, FM [i]is[/i] a simulator, but it's only a management simulator like any other, what if you could simulate being any one of the 10 to 30 staff members that work under the manager?  That would open up all kinds of new ****.

You might even have to rename the series to Football Universe...

 

So what are other folks thoughts on this?  Never wondered what it would be like to be the chairman/Ryan Reynolds or the Director of Football?  I really like the idea of being a scout and travelling around watching matches looking for the next big thing.

[Enzu225]

16 minutes ago, krashd said:

If anything being able to enter the game as a coach or scout or physio would open up a lot of interesting new ways to play the game.  I've always liked the idea of playing as a scout, finding the best new kids around the world and presenting them to your manager for them to decide if your discovery is good enough to get a place on the team.

Physio does not have to do anything at all. If you wish to play as a scout you should be required to watch every game the player plays in order to get full scouting knowledge about the player, if you are a regular scout and do not have the ability to assign tasks, you have to follow the head scout or managers orders which nations to scout. Also, if you as a scout are inactive, the manager should have the option to sack you whenever he wishes.

[RazorITA]

2 hours ago, krashd said:

Why can I only be a manager?  Why can't I be a coach? Or a director? Or a physio?

FM has an incredible built in feature that lets you choose how realistic you want the game to be in that you can delegate almost everything to your staff, if you don't want to micromanage training you can set a coach or your assistant manager to handle training for you, if you don't want to deal with transfers or loans you can, again, leave them to another staff member.  But at the end of the day you are still the manager and you still have to sort the tactics and win the games.

But imagine if you were actually just a coach, instead of playing a human manager with AI coaches beneath you you could actually be the head coach with an AI manager above you, your job, and your only job, would be to sort out the training and get the best abilities out of the players so you could then leave them in the hands of the computer to make best use of them in matches.

This is just a rough, scribble-on-the-back-of-a-napkin, idea I had while drunkenly trying to get Arbroath into the SPL, and it most definitely requires a ****-ton of fleshing out and much more but I reckon it would open up the game to a lot of new players who might have no interest in being a manager, but who would love to try their hand at being one of the coaches, or the rich owner who signs the cheques, or the commercial agent whose job it is to land sponsorships and increase marketing. Or even a scout jetting to Belgium to watch Antwerp B play Club Brugge B because you heard that there's a youngster on Antwerp's reserve team that could be the next Messi.

If anything being able to enter the game as a coach or scout or physio would open up a lot of interesting new ways to play the game.  I've always liked the idea of playing as a scout, finding the best new kids around the world and presenting them to your manager for them to decide if your discovery is good enough to get a place on the team.

Now don't get me wrong, I'll be the first to admit that this might be something that requires a mountain of work only for it to be enjoyed by a small niche of players, and I know that with SI's tight deadlines to get a new game to market every 12 months they have to deal with this problem on a regular basis - is implementing X new feature worth it if the weeks or months implementing it don't bring in any new players. 

Like I said, it was just a drunken idea, but it's an idea I think worthy of investigating.  Humans love simulators, FM [i]is[/i] a simulator, but it's only a management simulator like any other, what if you could simulate being any one of the 10 to 30 staff members that work under the manager?  That would open up all kinds of new ****.

You might even have to rename the series to Football Universe...

 

So what are other folks thoughts on this?  Never wondered what it would be like to be the chairman/Ryan Reynolds or the Director of Football?  I really like the idea of being a scout and travelling around watching matches looking for the next big thing.

YES! I love the idea! I want to play as Director of Football without caring about tactics and formations

[Zachary Whyte]

Thank you for the suggestion.