[Suggestion]
SI Games Designer and Developers,
This is my first foray into the SI Forum and also my first official Suggestion, Long May It Last (my background and work with other Game Companies as an Advisor is available upon request).
Let's talk Character Development, which I should discuss in more detail in a Discussion topic separately, but I will summarize as an intro to this Suggestion, first with a summary Suggestion line:
- Suggestion: Enable Skills improvement over time, depending on their rate and quality of usage of the underlying skill(s), for all the Club Staff. Focus this improvement upon Club Staff who do not get Certification Training improvements (General Manager, Head Scout, Scout, Medical, etc.). These Club Staffers don't get to take a course on the side that provides a bonus to skills upon completion, but they have skills that could and should improve over time through use, and their rate of use should show a meaningful progression that also provides the Club more value and performance by built up Loyalty along the way (where that could apply, as a Tertiary concept to this core Suggestion).
- Discussion on Immersion: Immersion is more fulfilling when the Gamer as Manager has the perception that they're helping to improve everyone around them, to include the Club's Staff as well as the Players. It becomes a "Whole of Club Approach" to concern one's gameplay with viewing the Character Sheets of all staff also during the Club's run, and whether the Staff themselves are showing improvement in their skills. You have added a way to view stats progression with arrows and highlights to the Character Sheets for FM24, but let's take it a level deeper in this Suggestion.
- Discussion on Gamers who Delegate: Some gamers don't want to play the General Manager (GM) tasks and may delegate that. The same can be true of many Scouting responsibilities for the Head Scout. However, these staff members have perceivably no progression on a regular basis, their stats don't ever seem to move along the way, no matter how much "work" you virtually put on their shoulders. Consider, if I'm delegating GM duties, and it's early in club lifecycle (first 2 seasons in playing the game), my GM is going to be VERY busy, right? Lots of Negotiations, so why isn't my GM's Negotiation skill improving in any noticeable way, for all the virtual work being accomplished? Same with the Head Scout, let's say I've shifted lots of funding into a Scouting budget to really get out there, even to international club matches. Are my Scouts getting stat improvements that are noticeable on their Character Sheets simply from being "worked" virtually more-or-less along the way? My Head Scout is virtually managing them also, does the staff managerial skills improve in any noticeable way, plus in a scaling fashion for more-or-less virtual work? I don't think these improve in any noticeable way along the course of a season nor career (please let me know if I'm wrong on any specific criticism here). For Gamers who Delegate, I think there's a need to improve the way these delegated tasks start to "virtually improve" (or possibly worsen??) the staff member to whom those tasks have been assigned.
- Discussion on Staff Character sheets: To go a step further than your current FM24 changes to reflect skills improvements of Staff members (the green up-arrows to show where a skill improved), there could be value in having color-coded stats (or color-coded lines the stats appear on) where the player is shown "permanently fixed values" for their skills. Regardless your opinion overall of this entire Suggestion, I think a gamer needs to know if particular Skills on a Staff member's Character Sheet - can improve, or never improve over time, whether through usage or certification training. Currently in the FM Series (all versions), we gamers have never really been able to see what can/cannot improve for our Staff, in a meaningful way. Let's make it more meaningful - show us what we the Manager can help them improve over time, vs what is a fixed skill number and we cannot even bother to change. An example would be the Medical staff. If my Physio is at 5 but will never change through usage or even if I virtually paid for them to attend advanced medical school (which is itself an interesting tertiary idea here) - if no matter what I do, or the Club does, or even if we have an Injury prone season and the Physio is trying to patch up players like a Medic on a battlefield -- no matter, if my Physio cannot improve their stats, the gamer should know that plain as day. Let's highlight the skill number in a way or highlight the lines for "locked skills" (and another way could be hover-over with mouse cursor to view pop-up information also). I would like to argue that - any/all Staff skills should be capable of improving, even if it's the tiniest skill improvement over time (even if my Physio can possibly go from skill of 5 to 6 in 20 seasons of patching up players, I'd like to know - that is in the realm of the possible, or know ahead of time that my Physio cannot ever improve, no matter how much virtual work I throw at them).
- Discussion on General Managers: Just a deep-dive on GMs as its own discussion point, as there is a clear dichotomy of a game being played out where the gamer either chooses to simultaneously be the GM also, or sets in motion an NPC GM to take over those duties. It's a separate discussion and/or Suggestion for another thread, but consider how much more "control" one could give to a virtual GM, more feedback that virtual GM could provide (much like a "living document" Tutorial helper AI tool). I think you are underwhelming the potential of where you could take the virtual NPC GM that is the "assistant" to the gamer, holding their hand if needed, like training wheels on a bike, or even to the "adult conversation" level of "Kid, here's what I would say to them" type of advice. I think there's a lot there, there, for improving the "tool" of a virtual GM entity that could be akin to what Sid Meiers has done in some of the Civilization series where you have an option for the empire's tasks to be run by a virtual assistant that can offer more/less advice along the way. Again, this is just entry level. The GM's Negotiation skill could be broken out, all Negotiation skills could for all staff but this is where some details could be rendered a bit more. Player Loan Negotiations vs Player Contract Negotiations vs Staff Salary Negotiations -- all of these virtual tasks could come with more-or-less "improvement" metrics to advance the skill further. Maybe I start a game with a GM that has Negotiation at skill level 2. By the time my first season is done, and I've cut 10+ players and signed 10+ players, and signed/cut at least 5 or more staff, you'd think my over-worked virtual GM would improve a bit in Negotiations, right? And Negotiation skill could have a bit more impact that is noticeable. If I start as a low-stats manager, but delegate to a high-stats GM, I should see and experience a greater level of negotiation skill performance on the part of my GM. In the current game, I just don't see it come off that way. Perhaps even some dialogue that says "I know you tried to sign that kid for X but I was able to make the deal for Y cost and Z years like you wanted me to" -- the GM's parameters could also be tailored, to input the "what we want as a club" for the GM to take on. Maybe you want the GM to press for a 2-3 year deal instead of a 1-year deal. There's a lot of data input and feedback back and forth that could occur with the NPC GM, almost think of it like a "Game Within the Game" that could be developed (and this single portion of my Recommendation may be better served for the upcoming and overhauled FM25). All the other managerial skills should show improvement as well, if one uses the "deputy" perspective of the GM who would be helping to manage the club.
- Small change recommendation for GMs (both on-screen but also philosophically): I don't think the GM placed in the same Staff area as Head Scout and Scouts is fair. The GM should be "above it all" as a separate entity in the Staff breakout at top of screen when viewing Staff. The GM isn't a coach, but isn't a scout, nor medical. If the GM is delegated to be the next level down in terms of management, yet could help sign/release any/all of those virtual staffers, that GM needs to be placed on screen at the correct level they serve at. The GM isn't just another member of the recruiting team, they're a deputy.
- Potential change estimates for Coaching Certifications: Since we are talking immersion in improving our staff, let's see a better projection of the "range" of skill improvement that our coaches could receive from taking a Certification Course. Let's put some numbers against the Cost, for one thing. The current decision to put a staff member on a course really amounts to - "do I the gamer think my virtual Club Board is going to approve this action?" but we don't actually think about whether or not it's really worth the effort, and what the Club gets out of it. When a Staff member is being recommended to go on a course (if GM has that delegated task), or if the gamer controls courses, either way - there could be a pop-up or separate screen that makes this an "informed decision" with a projected Skill Improvement estimate for what they could get out of the course. If you implemented this, you could have players opt on/off for this level of detail in the game, perhaps (it could come off as "easy mode" level of information, but some gamers may appreciate this). This same estimated view could be presented for the Gamer's own "Main Character" manager who doesn't have all certification courses yet, but is looking at taking the next step up certification course in the future.
- Scouting for Staff Implications: Take many of my prior mentioned ideas, especially the "fixed" Skills vs skills that could improve over time, and you could then see in more detail when you Scout for Staff, whether that virtual staff candidate has what you want to bring into the club. An "Easy Mode" could reveal truly "maxed out" or fixed stats, that are capped and will never improve, is another option. The entire screening and scouting process for Staff starts to totally open up in a new way if most of these recommendations are carried out. You really start to see more immersion in finding the best staff, developing their skills, and developing Loyalty (segway to that now).
- Loyalty: My last subtopic, but it takes a bit of Loyalty just to read all my text here! (thanks if you did) So how do we factor out "virtual loyalty" in the FM Series? It's a macro rhetorical question, you may have that algorithm brewing in the background, but if we are developing good staff members, we want to try to keep them as long as we can. A Loyalty metric, and perhaps it always starts at Zero, with a range up to maximum of 20 like all other Skills, but this could be like a "meter" stat much like you have the familiarity stat for how much a Scout knows about certain nations' talent, from prior experience, but even if a Scout has Zero knowledge, if they have to scout in that nation, their familiarity improves over some usage. Loyalty could be similar, perhaps tied to how much the gamer is also keeping the collective Staff together (vs firing off all staff at end of each season). There could be multiple algorithms that work in the background to help inform this new Loyalty metric. Think of this like classic RPG games' "Luck" stat, where "Luck helps everything else in a small way" as a perspective. In real life, or this "virtual game life" mimic'ing real life, virtual Loyalty is perhaps the best way to build this up for the FM Series. If you try to keep a virtual GM for as many years/seasons as possible, that should add up to something on the Loyalty meter. Does this also improve how hard they virtually work when Negotiating? Does it affect whether a staffer does/does not sign a new contract (and this could be Loyalty between NPCs also, between your virtual GM and the staffer the GM is trying to sign again). There's a lot that could be built in here, for Main Character-to-all-NPCs Loyalty, vs NPC-to-NPC Loyalty also.
There's probably an SI Developer that hopes you don't put them on the task of experimenting with any of this (I realize it could be a lot of coding and algorithm work). I just hope even a subset of this leads to some meaningful change in the FM Series, but I'm laying out all these details because I think it's time we "Up Our Game" in terms of the way we view and manage the virtual Club Staff in FM, to include their Character Development.
[Suggestion] SI Games Designer and Developers, This is my first foray into the SI Forum and also my first official Suggestion, Long May It Last (my background and work with other Game Companies as an Advisor is available upon request). Let's talk Character Development, which I should discuss in more detail in a Discussion topic separately, but I will summarize as an intro to this Suggestion, first with a summary Suggestion line: - Suggestion: Enable Skills improvement over time, depending on their rate and quality of usage of the underlying skill(s), for all the Club Staff. Focus this improvement upon Club Staff who do not get Certification Training improvements (General Manager, Head Scout, Scout, Medical, etc.). These Club Staffers don't get to take a course on the side that provides a bonus to skills upon completion, but they have skills that could and should improve over time through use, and their rate of use should show a meaningful progression that also provides the Club more value and performance by built up Loyalty along the way (where that could apply, as a Tertiary concept to this core Suggestion). - Discussion on Immersion: Immersion is more fulfilling when the Gamer as Manager has the perception that they're helping to improve everyone around them, to include the Club's Staff as well as the Players. It becomes a "Whole of Club Approach" to concern one's gameplay with viewing the Character Sheets of all staff also during the Club's run, and whether the Staff themselves are showing improvement in their skills. You have added a way to view stats progression with arrows and highlights to the Character Sheets for FM24, but let's take it a level deeper in this Suggestion. - Discussion on Gamers who Delegate: Some gamers don't want to play the General Manager (GM) tasks and may delegate that. The same can be true of many Scouting responsibilities for the Head Scout. However, these staff members have perceivably no progression on a regular basis, their stats don't ever seem to move along the way, no matter how much "work" you virtually put on their shoulders. Consider, if I'm delegating GM duties, and it's early in club lifecycle (first 2 seasons in playing the game), my GM is going to be VERY busy, right? Lots of Negotiations, so why isn't my GM's Negotiation skill improving in any noticeable way, for all the virtual work being accomplished? Same with the Head Scout, let's say I've shifted lots of funding into a Scouting budget to really get out there, even to international club matches. Are my Scouts getting stat improvements that are noticeable on their Character Sheets simply from being "worked" virtually more-or-less along the way? My Head Scout is virtually managing them also, does the staff managerial skills improve in any noticeable way, plus in a scaling fashion for more-or-less virtual work? I don't think these improve in any noticeable way along the course of a season nor career (please let me know if I'm wrong on any specific criticism here). For Gamers who Delegate, I think there's a need to improve the way these delegated tasks start to "virtually improve" (or possibly worsen??) the staff member to whom those tasks have been assigned. - Discussion on Staff Character sheets: To go a step further than your current FM24 changes to reflect skills improvements of Staff members (the green up-arrows to show where a skill improved), there could be value in having color-coded stats (or color-coded lines the stats appear on) where the player is shown "permanently fixed values" for their skills. Regardless your opinion overall of this entire Suggestion, I think a gamer needs to know if particular Skills on a Staff member's Character Sheet - can improve, or never improve over time, whether through usage or certification training. Currently in the FM Series (all versions), we gamers have never really been able to see what can/cannot improve for our Staff, in a meaningful way. Let's make it more meaningful - show us what we the Manager can help them improve over time, vs what is a fixed skill number and we cannot even bother to change. An example would be the Medical staff. If my Physio is at 5 but will never change through usage or even if I virtually paid for them to attend advanced medical school (which is itself an interesting tertiary idea here) - if no matter what I do, or the Club does, or even if we have an Injury prone season and the Physio is trying to patch up players like a Medic on a battlefield -- no matter, if my Physio cannot improve their stats, the gamer should know that plain as day. Let's highlight the skill number in a way or highlight the lines for "locked skills" (and another way could be hover-over with mouse cursor to view pop-up information also). I would like to argue that - any/all Staff skills should be capable of improving, even if it's the tiniest skill improvement over time (even if my Physio can possibly go from skill of 5 to 6 in 20 seasons of patching up players, I'd like to know - that is in the realm of the possible, or know ahead of time that my Physio cannot ever improve, no matter how much virtual work I throw at them). - Discussion on General Managers: Just a deep-dive on GMs as its own discussion point, as there is a clear dichotomy of a game being played out where the gamer either chooses to simultaneously be the GM also, or sets in motion an NPC GM to take over those duties. It's a separate discussion and/or Suggestion for another thread, but consider how much more "control" one could give to a virtual GM, more feedback that virtual GM could provide (much like a "living document" Tutorial helper AI tool). I think you are underwhelming the potential of where you could take the virtual NPC GM that is the "assistant" to the gamer, holding their hand if needed, like training wheels on a bike, or even to the "adult conversation" level of "Kid, here's what I would say to them" type of advice. I think there's a lot there, there, for improving the "tool" of a virtual GM entity that could be akin to what Sid Meiers has done in some of the Civilization series where you have an option for the empire's tasks to be run by a virtual assistant that can offer more/less advice along the way. Again, this is just entry level. The GM's Negotiation skill could be broken out, all Negotiation skills could for all staff but this is where some details could be rendered a bit more. Player Loan Negotiations vs Player Contract Negotiations vs Staff Salary Negotiations -- all of these virtual tasks could come with more-or-less "improvement" metrics to advance the skill further. Maybe I start a game with a GM that has Negotiation at skill level 2. By the time my first season is done, and I've cut 10+ players and signed 10+ players, and signed/cut at least 5 or more staff, you'd think my over-worked virtual GM would improve a bit in Negotiations, right? And Negotiation skill could have a bit more impact that is noticeable. If I start as a low-stats manager, but delegate to a high-stats GM, I should see and experience a greater level of negotiation skill performance on the part of my GM. In the current game, I just don't see it come off that way. Perhaps even some dialogue that says "I know you tried to sign that kid for X but I was able to make the deal for Y cost and Z years like you wanted me to" -- the GM's parameters could also be tailored, to input the "what we want as a club" for the GM to take on. Maybe you want the GM to press for a 2-3 year deal instead of a 1-year deal. There's a lot of data input and feedback back and forth that could occur with the NPC GM, almost think of it like a "Game Within the Game" that could be developed (and this single portion of my Recommendation may be better served for the upcoming and overhauled FM25). All the other managerial skills should show improvement as well, if one uses the "deputy" perspective of the GM who would be helping to manage the club. - Small change recommendation for GMs (both on-screen but also philosophically): I don't think the GM placed in the same Staff area as Head Scout and Scouts is fair. The GM should be "above it all" as a separate entity in the Staff breakout at top of screen when viewing Staff. The GM isn't a coach, but isn't a scout, nor medical. If the GM is delegated to be the next level down in terms of management, yet could help sign/release any/all of those virtual staffers, that GM needs to be placed on screen at the correct level they serve at. The GM isn't just another member of the recruiting team, they're a deputy. - Potential change estimates for Coaching Certifications: Since we are talking immersion in improving our staff, let's see a better projection of the "range" of skill improvement that our coaches could receive from taking a Certification Course. Let's put some numbers against the Cost, for one thing. The current decision to put a staff member on a course really amounts to - "do I the gamer think my virtual Club Board is going to approve this action?" but we don't actually think about whether or not it's really worth the effort, and what the Club gets out of it. When a Staff member is being recommended to go on a course (if GM has that delegated task), or if the gamer controls courses, either way - there could be a pop-up or separate screen that makes this an "informed decision" with a projected Skill Improvement estimate for what they could get out of the course. If you implemented this, you could have players opt on/off for this level of detail in the game, perhaps (it could come off as "easy mode" level of information, but some gamers may appreciate this). This same estimated view could be presented for the Gamer's own "Main Character" manager who doesn't have all certification courses yet, but is looking at taking the next step up certification course in the future. - Scouting for Staff Implications: Take many of my prior mentioned ideas, especially the "fixed" Skills vs skills that could improve over time, and you could then see in more detail when you Scout for Staff, whether that virtual staff candidate has what you want to bring into the club. An "Easy Mode" could reveal truly "maxed out" or fixed stats, that are capped and will never improve, is another option. The entire screening and scouting process for Staff starts to totally open up in a new way if most of these recommendations are carried out. You really start to see more immersion in finding the best staff, developing their skills, and developing Loyalty (segway to that now). - Loyalty: My last subtopic, but it takes a bit of Loyalty just to read all my text here! (thanks if you did) So how do we factor out "virtual loyalty" in the FM Series? It's a macro rhetorical question, you may have that algorithm brewing in the background, but if we are developing good staff members, we want to try to keep them as long as we can. A Loyalty metric, and perhaps it always starts at Zero, with a range up to maximum of 20 like all other Skills, but this could be like a "meter" stat much like you have the familiarity stat for how much a Scout knows about certain nations' talent, from prior experience, but even if a Scout has Zero knowledge, if they have to scout in that nation, their familiarity improves over some usage. Loyalty could be similar, perhaps tied to how much the gamer is also keeping the collective Staff together (vs firing off all staff at end of each season). There could be multiple algorithms that work in the background to help inform this new Loyalty metric. Think of this like classic RPG games' "Luck" stat, where "Luck helps everything else in a small way" as a perspective. In real life, or this "virtual game life" mimic'ing real life, virtual Loyalty is perhaps the best way to build this up for the FM Series. If you try to keep a virtual GM for as many years/seasons as possible, that should add up to something on the Loyalty meter. Does this also improve how hard they virtually work when Negotiating? Does it affect whether a staffer does/does not sign a new contract (and this could be Loyalty between NPCs also, between your virtual GM and the staffer the GM is trying to sign again). There's a lot that could be built in here, for Main Character-to-all-NPCs Loyalty, vs NPC-to-NPC Loyalty also. There's probably an SI Developer that hopes you don't put them on the task of experimenting with any of this (I realize it could be a lot of coding and algorithm work). I just hope even a subset of this leads to some meaningful change in the FM Series, but I'm laying out all these details because I think it's time we "Up Our Game" in terms of the way we view and manage the virtual Club Staff in FM, to include their Character Development.