Morale is just far too effective - in my opinion.

[Fabio MVP]

It may not be far out, I agree. But if there are examples of people going 20 games unbeaten in season 1 with non Big 3 teams ( Arsenal, Chelsea, Utd ) then I'd like to know if its morale based or otherwise :-)

haha loving the fact how you overlooked Liverpool.

[santy001]

I'll start up with some of this as well as adding screenshots of changes before and after matches. As I said, the model is excellent for some more temperamental players, your Drogba, your Ronaldo and less famous players like Kenwyne Jones - the kind of player who easily gets upset and needs an arm around to keep happy. But a lot of clubs have their 'Paul Scholes' type players, keep their heads down, don't complain, don't get upset just keep at it unless its really bad.

Anyway, its the build up to my game with Arsenal and heres my starting XI and their morale/condition

Asmir Begovic - Good/98%

Robert Huth - Good/100%

Ryan Shawcross - Okay/100%

Abdoulaye Faye - Very Good/98%

Marco Calderoni - Poor/99%

Radosav Petrovic - Good/100%

Salif Diao - Very Good/97%

Milan Badelj - Good/100% (Went to Very Good after press conference)

Jonathan Cristaldo - Good/100%

Simone Guerra - Good/96%

Tuncay Sanli - Okay/100%

So overall I'm going into the game against Arsenal who are 2nd with pretty decent team morale. Their morale is about the same. I'll just give a generic team talk as that is what I think most users would be likely to do, or to follow their assistant, not a more complex and thinking of how every player has been recently individual talk (went with 'For the fans')

Half time morale is the same as kick off, 0-0 at half time with Arsenal away from home in a close game, Arsenal had 7 shots, 2 on target, we had 6 shots 1 on target. However one slight noticable thing is Abdoulaye Faye on very good morale is flying in with diving headers all over our box and doing them pretty well. Could be coincidence but 1 tackle attempted, 1 tackle won, 4 headers attempted, 4 headers won, 18 passes attempted, 13 completed, he seems to be on Chamakh who's on poor morale, and he has absolutely dominated him, the only time Chamakh has won a header was when he wasn't competing against Faye from the looks of it.

Anyway, I've told my team I'm pleased, Guerra is letting the team down slightly as he's on a 6.2 but he's up against Gael Clichy and he's only 21 so I don't feel he is doing badly either so shouldn't really be singled out if I'm thinking without having to manage morale intently. In light of the half time team talk Salif Diao's morale went up to Superb.

In the 60th minute brought on Kenwyne Jones (good) for Guerra, Mark Wilson (good) for Diao and Juan Pablo Rodriguez (poor) for Milan Badelj due to their condition being around 70%. At the end of the game I tell my team it was a good effort, we had more shots and more on target than Arsenal. Players morale finished as it started the second half.

Press continue, and after a good spirited display against Arsenal morale went from:

Asmir Begovic - Good - Good

Robert Huth - Good - Okay

Ryan Shawcross - Okay - Okay

Abdoulaye Faye - Very Good - Good

Marco Calderoni - Poor - Poor

Radosav Petrovic - Good - Okay

Salif Diao - Very Good - Good

Milan Badelj - Very Good (end of match) - Good

Jonathan Cristaldo - Good - Okay

Simone Guerra - Good - Okay

Tuncay Sanli - Okay - Okay

We did lose to an own goal, but it was a remarkable display against a side far stronger than us. Abdoulaye Faye silenced Chamakh all game, he got a 7.6 and finished the game with 2 tackles attempted, 2 won, 1 key, 8 headers attempted, 7 won, 5 key and 5 interceptions. He should really have come off the pitch pleased with him self at how well he handled Arsenal's attackers in the form of Bendtner (introduced second half) and Chamakh through the game. This isn't really a game you'd expect to be anywhere near this close, Liverpool are about the same morale as Arsenal when we entered the game with them, and playing a similar 4-5-1 to start with. It will be interesting to see how it goes now my players morale has been brought down a bit and whether we can still compete at all.

Quick run down on morale before game:

Asmir Begovic - Okay/100%

Robert Huth - Good/97%

Ryan Shawcross - Superb/100% (wants to move to another club but has jumped from okay to superb?)

Abdoulaye Faye - Good/98%

Marco Calderoni - Poor/97%

Radosav Petrovic - Very Good/97% (scored an own goal a few days ago but is happy again now?)

Salif Diao - Good/95%

Milan Badelj - Okay/100%

Jonathan Cristaldo - Okay/100%

Simone Guerra - Good/96%

Tuncay Sanli - Okay/100%

Assistant recommended a 'for the fans' team talk with no pressure to Guerra and Calderoni. At half time its painfully obvious we can't compete with Liverpool even being at home, 40% possession, only 1 shot on target to their 4 and 6 altogether to their 10. Tuncay again in the box 1 on 1 with the keeper and he fails to hit the target, 3 times in 2 games so far with 'okay' morale. With 10 goals in 26 games he's hardly the most prolific, but he's got composure of 14, bravery of 17 and a finishing of 12 his off the ball and workrate are seeing him into these positions but he's just been faltering consistently so far with his okay morale. Half time team talk is 'I want to see more from you' as recommended by asst manager. Tuncay scores in an open net in the second half, we go on to lose 3-1 but the 2nd half performance is much better and after a 7.3 rating the asst manager puts his team talk as an individual one for Tuncay saying pleased.

Tuncays morale drops from okay to poor. He got his first goal in 2 months, he had a good game apart from an earlier miss, yet he's now suffering from poor morale. Marco Calderoni who made a mistake letting Liverpool score has dropped to very poor, its a bit extreme but at least somewhat understandable after his 5.3 performance. Liverpool are 5th in the league and we're 10th though, why has my team been so upset in 2 games which ultimately at the start of the season you look at and say "We'll be lucky to get anything from those" yet morale is now:

Begovic - Poor

Huth - Okay

Shawcross - Good

Faye - Okay

Calderoni - Very Poor

Radosav Petrovic - Good

Diao - Okay

Badelj - Okay

Cristaldo - Poor

Guerra - Okay

Tuncay - Poor

I'm going into a game which is very winnable against Villa who are one place above us (9th) in the table. Kenwyne Jones who has been used as a sub in the last 2 games and generally done alright has gone from good morale to very poor (yet hes enjoying playing for the club, has a good relationship with team mate Dentinho and thinks he will turn into a good player - meanwhilst, Ryan Shawcross wants to move on to another club but has good morale).

I think this does display to an extent that morale is possibly influenced more than it should be against teams you shouldn't stand a chance against. Would players really get disheartened enough to go from 'good' morale on the whole to now being okay and negative about it? Maybe this is as intended I don't know, but to me as a Stoke fan, knowing the team and the team talks I've tried and what the suggestion they mean - players shouldn't be this disheartened. The Kenwyne Jones example really stands out to me, he's happy, he's playing he has scored recently (in his last 5 games) he's not put in any poor performances - yet he's still unhappy, when we're winning and he's not been used at all despite his key player status he's still been happy.

I'm also no longer using games against the u18's to artificially inflate morale. Just to see how a team which has been able to match the best teams in the league, and not too long ago stuff the likes of West Brom 7-0 can deteriorate after a couple of unfortunate games against big teams.

Morale before playing Villa:

Begovic - Okay

Huth - Okay

Shawcross - Good

Faye - Okay

Calderoni - Very Poor

Petrovic - Good

Diao - Good

Badelj - Poor

Gudjohnsen - Okay (Cristaldo is injured, Jones is too suicidal to let near a blade of grass)

Dentinho - Very Good (back from injury)

Tuncay - Okay

Villa's morale is good/okay no one in the first team is above or below one of those two. 10 minutes in and Calderoni is all over the place, poor passing, poor positioning and in general looking very weak.

It's painfully obvious now that the same team which a few weeks ago are largely bereft of ideas, in the 60th minute I took off Calderoni for Higginbotham (good morale) and instantly Villa could no longer exploit that flank anywhere near as much. But we'd gone from matching Arsenal blow for blow to only managing a single shot on target. Marc Wilson (good morale) on for Badelj and Kenwnye Jones (probably bleeding out on the bench as I called for him) for Gudjohnsen. All 3 got 6.9's but the team was suddenly much stronger and much more resolute in defence. Villa didn't much more, whereas we created another 2 on target chances and scored one of them. In 25 minutes Higginbotham attempted and won 2 more tackles than Calderoni did in 65 minutes. The Villa and Arsenal games are saved if you would like them for comparison. It's hard to put your finger on just how much weighting its played, but the main question is, going into this game with the chance to overtake Villa in the table and make a final stab at a european place, should my team still be down about losing to the team who then went top Arsenal, and top 4 side Liverpool?

When putting the time and effort into micro managing player morale I've recorded victories like: 4-0 against Sunderland, 6-2 against Bolton, 4-0 against Fulham, 4-0 against Newcastle, 6-1 against Bristol Rovers (cup game), 3-0 over West Ham and 7-0 against West Brom. At the beginning of the season when I wasn't, theres results like 1-5 against Tottenham, 0-1 against West Brom, 0-1 against Bolton and 1-4 against Birmingham - games where my side just haven't turned up, much like in the last 2 games here with morale ebbing away.

[santy001]

Tomorrow I'll update some more from the next season with how it seems to play a decisive role at times. Obviously doing write ups as copious as that do take some time though lol.

[froog]

before the game all my players are green morale then after my 1st defeat of the season my full 1st team goes orange? how would it be such a dramatic drop in morale?

[PaulC]

before the game all my players are green morale then after my 1st defeat of the season my full 1st team goes orange? how would it be such a dramatic drop in morale?

Email me the match file and I'll try to shed some light on it :-)

[The_Gent]

I've had a problem with Torres' morale in my first season at Liverpool, but I don't see it as being a problem with the game. He has been singled out in the press week in week out by opposition managers, and I've enjoyed the challenge of having to take him to one side constantly and getting him in a consistent run of form. I have noticed that there are some big changes in morale when we lose one match, even if we were on a great run before that. But it's how you respond in press conferences and team talks that seem to make a difference. I understand if you're not too fond of either of those then it can be an annoying aspect of the game, but I find it has made the game much more challenging.

[santy001]

I'm really putting effort into micro-managing morale, as I felt its perhaps too difficult to quite illustrate the effects of poor morale to put forth my case (you could just as easily make players happy again by accident as you could make them unhappy - and this being my main save I don't really want to ravage it lol) and so far after 6 games my pretty average Stoke team are on 4 wins, 1 draw, 1 loss (against Villa and Arsenal respectively) the wins against Liverpool, West Ham, Fulham and Wigan all looked comfortable. This isn't with any superb tactics or with a superb team just morale being very good/superb by putting in so much effort into managing it. The team are always combative and competitive and only moments of brilliance (Arshavin with a 20 minute hat trick from long-range) are what can undo my side now.

[tak]

Unfortunately, and as I have analysed before, "morale" has not be implemented succesfully. The reason is of course that the sheer size of the match engine make other factors hard to work with. As a result we have a "feature" that lacks depth, feels gimmicky and is non intuitive.

We slowly need to move away from the enormous elephant that's called "match engine" and properly implement other, and more important, parts of football management.

Decrease the whole monstrosity of a dinosaur of "tactics" down by two thirds and leave room to develop morale, relationships, transfers, media, etc.

Change is never easy and sure wfan, who wrote a book on "tactics" will get upset, but it is necessary for evolution.

[Siven]

I do think the effect of morale has been given a jump in this version, and tbh its zapped a bit of fun from the game.

The increased need to keep talking to your players, getting the right answers in press conferences and team talks to get morale up or stop it from dipping is not fun. Some is yes, but the amount needed due to the seemingly big morale drops/jumps is not fun. At times i feel like i need a psychology degree.

[jamessmith]

I noticed this on my current save, when morale was high, I was beating good teams 3-0, 4-0 and then with low morale drawing at home to lesser teams.

[PoolFan]

The whole notion of morale/teamtalks are given far to much importance in the FM series imo. With each release of the game, it feels more and more as if what made CM/FM great (Squad building/Transfers) gets shoved aside in favor of some bizarre mystic meg system of trying to motivate your players. At present some aspects of the game are a complete chore to do, this is something that really needs to be looked into for future versions imo.

[philly_flyer10]

It may not be far out, I agree. But if there are examples of people going 20 games unbeaten in season 1 with non Big 3 teams ( Arsenal, Chelsea, Utd ) then I'd like to know if its morale based or otherwise :-)

I did it with QPR in the NPC, any criticism and the morale drops off a cliff, it should never happen for just one game. Maybe if you do it for 5 or 6 games on the trot but the morale and the constant player strops is killing the game. You have to treat them like 8 year olds and tell them the 0-5 loss was a good effort.

[PoolFan]

Here's a example that just happened to me, I am playing Cardiff and Chopra upfront is banging in the goals with a superb morale rating. We draw Man City away from home and get hammered 4-1. I pull of Chopra at half time to try and cushion him from such a morale sapping loss. Next game I check his morale and it's very poor!

I HATE this constant rubbish with FM, when did the game become more about trying to guess what response to click to make your players morale not drop like a rock than actually playing football. It's a poor poor system and SI needs to just bite the bullet and take responsibility for the mess it causes and do something about it.

[PaulC]

Here's a example that just happened to me, I am playing Cardiff and Chopra upfront is banging in the goals with a superb morale rating. We draw Man City away from home and get hammered 4-1. I pull of Chopra at half time to try and cushion him from such a morale sapping loss. Next game I check his morale and it's very poor!

I HATE this constant rubbish with FM, when did the game become more about trying to guess what response to click to make your players morale not drop like a rock than actually playing football. It's a poor poor system and SI needs to just bite the bullet and take responsibility for the mess it causes and do something about it.

Send me the match file ( .pkm ) for the 1-4 defeat and I'll look at what happened to Chopra's morale. I wouldnt expect him to go from superb to very low on the basis of such a defeat, but perhaps something else is at play? Happy to report back my findings in this thread

[nev147]

Theres so many issues that Ive given up on FM11. On the surface its the best ever. Under the hood its the worst ever. It just doesnt work as it should.

This. It has so much potential. But because of all the bugs - trying to play the game is just debilitating at times.

[Konen]

My main problem is the way that apparently losing a game means morale MUST CRASH TO THE FLOOR!!!!1 and then all your players no longer pass, they hoof the ball aimlessly downfield. Also in real life, trikers stop scoring goals, lose morale and continue to not score goals. Not: score a goal, have the team lose and suddenly miss every chance they get next for the next 4 games With a lower league swedish team i played the basemnt team before my first loss of the season:

3-0

Shots: 10 (6)

52% possesion

3 ccc

After a narrow loss, the next game is lost 3-0

42% possesion

Shots: 3(0)

0 CCC

Next game, a 2-0 loss

40% possesion

2(0) shots

0 CCC

A tweaked my tactics, and am playing at least 1/2 a game with the strikers that scored so freely. So what could be the cause of my inability to have ashot on goal???

[Novox]

Here's a example that just happened to me, I am playing Cardiff and Chopra upfront is banging in the goals with a superb morale rating. We draw Man City away from home and get hammered 4-1. I pull of Chopra at half time to try and cushion him from such a morale sapping loss. Next game I check his morale and it's very poor!

I HATE this constant rubbish with FM, when did the game become more about trying to guess what response to click to make your players morale not drop like a rock than actually playing football. It's a poor poor system and SI needs to just bite the bullet and take responsibility for the mess it causes and do something about it.

He might've been upset you substituted him. If he is ambitious and determined, he might've thought he couldve made an impact . This happened to me once where I substituted Drogba at 55 minutes despite im scoring 2 goals and I was winning 3-0. He was upset i didn't let him score a hat-trick. Another time, I didn't play him in the Carling Cup Final and he was upset I didn't let him play. Went from Superb to Okay.

[BossAsianMafia]

Sigh, we've resorted to guessing what a player in a computer game thinks/feels.

I just wish there is better feedback on these things.

This, IMO, is what is stopping FM to be a great rather than just a good game.

[Martyr1777]

He might've been upset you substituted him. If he is ambitious and determined, he might've thought he couldve made an impact . This happened to me once where I substituted Drogba at 55 minutes despite im scoring 2 goals and I was winning 3-0. He was upset i didn't let him score a hat-trick. Another time, I didn't play him in the Carling Cup Final and he was upset I didn't let him play. Went from Superb to Okay.

See AI coding like that I don't like.. it might add some realism sure. But I can promise you the AI isn't smart enough to take into account things like a congested schedule and wanting a key player more rested for that next match 1-2 days out.

[santy001]

As I said, I thought morale was too effective and I believe this will go some way to proving it. It is late december, top of the league with a game in hand. The only teams to inflict defeats on me were Arsenal and Man City. Meanwhilst Liverpool and most recently Chelsea succumb to defeats against my happy team. Some notable wins include: Stoke 5-0 Wolves, Stoke 6-1 Tottenham, Stoke 4-1 Blackburn, Stoke 4-0 Wigan (once league, once in the cup).

If needs be I can upload my save so someone can do some checking into the effects its having, my team whilst promising shouldn't be competing at this level. Chelsea were made to look like a play-thing in our match against them, Arsenal and Man City were reliant upon wonder performances from Arshavin and Tevez respectively to get their wins. Yes its only 17 games played, but we've already played some big sides, strong sides and not really been pushed. There has been injuries, one of my main players has only managed a handful of appearances due to a broken leg. Morale rarely if ever dips below good because it seems I've figured out the team talk and player interaction set-up entirely.

My side with just 1 effective first team addition (1 has been injured, 1 is a prospect not used yet the other is back up who has barely been used of the 4 purchased) my side has gone from being unpredictable and 11th to now topping the league. The tactics I used aren't perfect, the players aren't great, and I've played FM for a long time now - enough time to know basically I'm not this good. Wish I could put my hands up and say "Yea its all me" but all I've done is found a way that makes morale management easy (not one player has been upset, unsettled or anything so far this season - even players not being used and on the transfer list) and with such high morale you can quite literally put any team infront of my players and they'll compete to a high standard.

[PaulC]

If you could send me the Chelsea and Spurs pkm files ( save match button ) that would be a start :-)

[santy001]

They've been e-mailed, I'll continue ploughing on through the season, with Liverpool, Man Utd and Arsenal up in quick succession it could really exemplify it. Liverpool were just beaten 3-1, but they absolutely slaughtered me and then still were unable to capitalise and this was against numerous players of my second choice, so it certainly seems as though players being in a good mood brings out the Lionel Messi in them lol.

[santy001]

Just a little update on fixtures since then with the tough 3 coming up, Stoke 3-1 Liverpool, Stoke 2-1 Man Utd, Stoke 2-2 Arsenal. Still top with a game in hand and the only really 'tough' fixtures left are Chelsea, Man Utd and Tottenham.

[PaulC]

I think we might want to have a look at your save.

Can only imagine the wrath on here if we end up making the game harder but there you go

Of course you might just be a brilliant manager

[santy001]

As much as I wish that were the case, its quite a tried and tested method for me that it takes me 4 - 5 seasons to transform Stoke to the team I want and even get them close to this level of performance lol. It does sort of feel like I'm cheating at the moment though, its more effort and I can't just press the space bar whilst on CoD anymore with the 'You can win today' (ah the good old days of FM08 lol) but yea as I'm sure you've seen some of my players are really going a bit too far with how well they're performing in some situations - you don't necessarily have to make the game harder, just increase the lower threshold of poor performances the wrath would be replaced with universal praise lol.

[santy001]

Finished the season in 3rd place and runners up in the FA cup. Could have been champions if my players had remembered they were playing Hull in the 3rd to last game of the season and not the 1970's Brazil team lol, and we may have won the FA cup if Begovic knew where his goal line was in the first half. I think all in all though it does show how basically in the end 2 signings took a team from the lower half of the premiership to title contenders. Yet at the same time, once we suffered one bad result pretty much no matter who it was against the wheels really came off. It seems almost like poor morale performances are too bad, and good morale performances are too good. This is just my interpretation of it, no matter how depressed or upset players are they are still professionals who don't capitulate at the slightest of things bar the most extreme circumstances.

I coudl do with some light shedding on how a players morale can be superb when he is unhappy at a club though, surely thats a self-contradiction? And vice versa, very poor morale but a player is happy at the club, happy with the relationship he has with his manager and happy with team mate relationships. It does confuse me a bit when I see those kinda things.

[MRCHDG]

The game becomes more and more point and click, click for every year. I wish some things were optional like press conferences and the whole boast morale via P.C. and player chat. It may sound like it is more fun or more realistic but it's far to much click. I cannot/don't want to spend time like a real manager to get so involved and note how every player reacts.

[samdiatmh]

morale is an issue in real life as well

surely if i feel happy, then i;m going to play better than if i'm not feeling good

morale isn't that crucial... in my save, i've had blackpool win their first league game of the season (in february) against Man Utd at home... try telling me that that's high morale in action?

if you can't increase morale, then i blame YOU (the manager) for not boosting the team's morale during pre season and then not taking advantage of international breaks to boost it

in some respects, tis game is too easy rather than hard, becasue the AI doesn't take any steps to boost their morale during the season (either with friendlies against lower teams... or just shuuting up shop against a bigger team during the league season

edit:

I cannot/don't want to spend time like a real manager to get so involved and note how every player reacts.

if you don't like spending time as a manager does... then why are you even playing a MANAGER game?

[santy001]

Players can be extremely fickle with morale. I've seen draws with big teams have some inexplicably negative effects. Not as detrimental as they were before because I've adapted much better to managing player morale but it is so easy for it to spiral out of control. At the same time on the other hand, keep morale up and with a bit of good luck this ends up happening in your 2nd season:

[russ the womble]

Just realised how easy it is to turn morale around. My team was buggered, 7 game run of poor results. Went through the team and told them they need to try harder in training, most of them instantly went to good or better in morale and won the next two games so far! Morale now superb across the team as a result.

[Leeds_Leeds_Leeds!]

So the problem here is that we have some people saying it should be a big part, others saying its too big a part etc. Hard to please everyone.

What I'd ask for in order to be able to try to improve things further is:

- Examples of matches where morale dropped or rose unrealistically post match

- Examples of matches where extreme morale ( good or bad ) unrealistically affected the result

You can get these examples by saving the match as a .pkm file via the match screen and then email to me paulc@sigames.com with a brief and clear description of the issue you are concerned about. I'm as interested in examples of teams overperforming as underperforming btw.

Cheers,

Paul

You're missing the point Paul, you are looking at what people want rather than what is best for the game.

The game does need to have morale being a big influence - the trouble is, it is too erratic as it is. One bad game shouldn't destroy morale. Make it more consistent and then the effects of it would be consistent too. The players appear to be behaving like pregnant women morale wise at times.

The game needs to settle down and morale needs to pan out over longer periods rather than jumping about so quickly from superb to poor.

[philly_flyer10]

You're missing the point Paul, you are looking at what people want rather than what is best for the game.

The game does need to have morale being a big influence - the trouble is, it is too erratic as it is. One bad game shouldn't destroy morale. Make it more consistent and then the effects of it would be consistent too. The players appear to be behaving like pregnant women morale wise at times.

The game needs to settle down and morale needs to pan out over longer periods rather than jumping about so quickly from superb to poor.

Exactly, Say WBA were 4th, they have superb morale, if they lost 2 games theyd still have superb morale IRL but in FM it would drop to very poor which leads to a downward spiral. Morale jumps about way too much and it is too effective on match performance. You forget about everything when youre on the pitch.

[DLH]

Put me in the category of those that think mood swings are too erratic, no matter the reasoning behind the swings. I would like to see the swings toned down.

[milnerpoint]

Exactly, Say WBA were 4th, they have superb morale, if they lost 2 games theyd still have superb morale IRL but in FM it would drop to very poor which leads to a downward spiral. Morale jumps about way too much and it is too effective on match performance. You forget about everything when youre on the pitch.

nonsense, if you were WBA and you were doing well, only to suddenly lose two games in a row you could lose the confidence you have built and start doubting your own ability thus your moral would drop.

Players do not forget everything on the pitch, far from it players just like normal human beings are affected by everything in life, Rooney is a perfect example you cannot say for the past few months he has been forgetting about everything when he gets on the pitch, things have clearly affected him outwith football which has lead to his very very poor start to the season.

I think managing moral for a manager is half the battle these days, you can have the best tactics and players in the world but if the players do not believe in themselves then its all for nothing, simlarly you can have a poor team with fantastic moral punching well above their weight, look at Rangers over the past few seasons, by all measurements they are quite a poor team but they have a fantastic team spirit and moral which has given them an edge over teams. A good draw in old trafford, should have beaten Valencia at home, not something you expect from a Scottish team in Europe.

[PaulC]

nonsense, if you were WBA and you were doing well, only to suddenly lose two games in a row you could lose the confidence you have built and start doubting your own ability thus your moral would drop.

Players do not forget everything on the pitch, far from it players just like normal human beings are affected by everything in life, Rooney is a perfect example you cannot say for the past few months he has been forgetting about everything when he gets on the pitch, things have clearly affected him outwith football which has lead to his very very poor start to the season.

I think managing moral for a manager is half the battle these days, you can have the best tactics and players in the world but if the players do not believe in themselves then its all for nothing, simlarly you can have a poor team with fantastic moral punching well above their weight, look at Rangers over the past few seasons, by all measurements they are quite a poor team but they have a fantastic team spirit and moral which has given them an edge over teams. A good draw in old trafford, should have beaten Valencia at home, not something you expect from a Scottish team in Europe.

Good post that.

[Martyr1777]

Good post that.

Actually it's not a good post... both that post and the one he was replying to are both at either end of the spectrum.

The reality is if a team loses 2 games straight the morale would depend entirely on the manner of the losses. Meaning if they lost 2 due to terrible mistake ridden play against a team thought to be lower class, then yes morale would drop through the floor. However if you lose to teams that were clear favorites but still put up a damn good fight and made it a close match that might actually RAISE morale.

But it's also not just about winning and losing... player management by the staff could affect it for good or bad, as well as player personality. A determined or professional player will suffer far less from negative results then say an ambitious player who would take any loss harder because its a knock against his ambition.

Now I've lost games and not suffered massive hits to my morale, even if it was a match against far weaker teams. But if players do get low morale it can be a very bad thing. I'm not sure just how many aspect SI take into account, obviously the more the better. There are some things that should affect it less I think though, like playing friendlies... unless you tell your players to impress you, losing a friendly shouldn't have much, if any, impact. Or playing a Cup match with an L2 team and losing to an EPL team, unless they lost by some huge amount it should be 'you gave it a good run lads' and they walk away with their heads up.

The last half of that post is the only good part...

I think managing moral for a manager is half the battle these days, you can have the best tactics and players in the world but if the players do not believe in themselves then its all for nothing, simlarly you can have a poor team with fantastic moral punching well above their weight, look at Rangers over the past few seasons, by all measurements they are quite a poor team but they have a fantastic team spirit and moral which has given them an edge over teams. A good draw in old trafford, should have beaten Valencia at home, not something you expect from a Scottish team in Europe.

But we don't really have all the tools to do this imo. We can't encourage that never say die fighting spirit in the game, best we can do is give the proper team talk which often goes unheeded by half the squad or if you expect to lose or it's just a friendly you can say 'enjoy the run out' or 'relax and enjoy the match' and still take a big hit to morale.

There isn't a way to improve morale except from winning, or to mitigate the loss of morale effectively. This is where the system is failing.

[phnompenhandy]

Two best and most consistent morale-boosters, at least among professional players (I haven't done any LLM yet): 1) talk to them in private about their performances honestly and often, relative to what you think their expectations are, and 2) criticize their work in training if you notice if they're underperforming even a little bit. Get these right (you'll see the PR notice "feels he has a good relationship with you" appear for a few days) and you'll see players jump one or two morale 'ranks' at least most of the time. Get them right consistently and players will grow to like you. Once they like you, they'll listen to just about anything you have to say, and even when they object you'll be able to talk them around.

You should be talking to just about every member of your squad about something of note at least once a fortnight. If you don't, you're leaving a lot of potential morale-boosting on the table.

Also: handle your own press conferences and lower expectations for low-morale players. Do the same with team talks. Praise any smidgeon of effort or achievement on their part. Occasionally you'll also want to talk about opposing teams/managers/players in the press just to take the heat off, or to distract your players (or even provoke them into action).

I'm actually struggling at the moment because my young team is overperforming and reaching the heights for the first time, so they're nervous ahead of a lot of games where they're comfortable favourites. But bigging up depressed, underperforming teams is pretty simple.

I can confirm that at LLM level this is also completely the case - even more so since most of the players are very young and have fragile mentalities, so it is far too easy to raise their morale.

Conversely, my key striker is 29. he was banging them in all season, then suddenly for no apparent reason he sunk to very poor morale and cant score open goals now. For sure, this can happen to a player, but the personal screen should give some reason, such as 'personal problems' rather than insist he's very happy wen his morale is mysteriously shot to pieces.

[JimmyWangYang]

Another thing that needs to be changed about morale is the boost to ‘superb’ morale that you get every time you tell a player privately that he’s being rested for the next game, in order to save himself for more important fixtures. With Liverpool, I played only my reserves in the Europa League group stage games, and ahead of each game I told my regular first eleven they were being rested, and lo and behold all these players shot up to ‘superb’ morale which meant that I could “fix” morale whenever I wanted.

I would like to see this mechanism register that some players are ‘highly ambitious’ and will want to play ‘most of the games’. And also that when a player is far from being tired, he will not always respond with “thank you, I probably need it”.

[milnerpoint]

Actually it's not a good post... both that post and the one he was replying to are both at either end of the spectrum.

The reality is if a team loses 2 games straight the morale would depend entirely on the manner of the losses. Meaning if they lost 2 due to terrible mistake ridden play against a team thought to be lower class, then yes morale would drop through the floor. However if you lose to teams that were clear favorites but still put up a damn good fight and made it a close match that might actually RAISE morale.

But it's also not just about winning and losing... player management by the staff could affect it for good or bad, as well as player personality. A determined or professional player will suffer far less from negative results then say an ambitious player who would take any loss harder because its a knock against his ambition.

Now I've lost games and not suffered massive hits to my morale, even if it was a match against far weaker teams. But if players do get low morale it can be a very bad thing. I'm not sure just how many aspect SI take into account, obviously the more the better. There are some things that should affect it less I think though, like playing friendlies... unless you tell your players to impress you, losing a friendly shouldn't have much, if any, impact. Or playing a Cup match with an L2 team and losing to an EPL team, unless they lost by some huge amount it should be 'you gave it a good run lads' and they walk away with their heads up.

not always, look at hull a few seasons back, they were flying, looking like they would easily avoid any relegation battle, then they lost a few in a row and never recovered. Infact they barely managed a victory for the second half of the season.

Im not saying they have this perfect btw but i do think moral plays a massive part of modern football, players these days can go off the boil so quickly and heads can go down very quickly. Aberdeen are a good example of this as well, started the season very well, lost a couple of games and the heads went down again, now we are managerless, struggling at the foot of the table and everything looks lost, and all we need to turn it around are a couple of victories and players will start believing in themselves again.

[LincolnCanary]

I personally don't think morale is too effective; I just think that maybe it's benefits are not felt so strongly by the AI.

[totti_is_god]

morale is an issue in real life as well

surely if i feel happy, then i;m going to play better than if i'm not feeling good

morale isn't that crucial... in my save, i've had blackpool win their first league game of the season (in february) against Man Utd at home... try telling me that that's high morale in action?

if you can't increase morale, then i blame YOU (the manager) for not boosting the team's morale during pre season and then not taking advantage of international breaks to boost it

in some respects, tis game is too easy rather than hard, becasue the AI doesn't take any steps to boost their morale during the season (either with friendlies against lower teams... or just shuuting up shop against a bigger team during the league season

edit:

if you don't like spending time as a manager does... then why are you even playing a MANAGER game?

MRCHDG can answer for himself, but as I feel the same way I'll provide my own answer. In their present form, I find these morale-related features - press conferences, private chats, etc. - utterly banal. Not that I believe that morale should be irrelevant, nor even that I should not have to take steps to improve or maintain it in my players, but I find little enjoyment in the way this is implemented in FM. As a tactician on the game I have vast possibilities; in the transfer market I have vast possibilities. The limited and mundane options, with which I'm repeatedly faced in personal and media dealings, seem so at odds with the game's brilliance in these other departments. Undoubtedly these features have been improved in the past couple of years, but not, for me, to the point where they feel like anything more than a chore.

In my own experience, I further subscribe to the argument of this thread: that morale, as it is in FM11, is far too erratic.

[Snowflake82]

I can confirm that at LLM level this is also completely the case - even more so since most of the players are very young and have fragile mentalities, so it is far too easy to raise their morale.

Conversely, my key striker is 29. he was banging them in all season, then suddenly for no apparent reason he sunk to very poor morale and cant score open goals now. For sure, this can happen to a player, but the personal screen should give some reason, such as 'personal problems' rather than insist he's very happy wen his morale is mysteriously shot to pieces.

Sounds like your striker is being targeted in the media by the opposition managers. It's happened to me and I had to end up selling him even though he was fantastic with morale on superb. I think it was because of his low pressure attribute, as he didn't like big matches so there could be a correlation there.

[phnompenhandy]

Snowflake, I do indeed get that news item for him before every game. But in another thread a poster complained that he was experiencing exactly the same thing with Lionel Messi . I mean come on, I don't know what the guy's hidden attributes are, but whereas my ex-Nantwich journeyman might feel the weight of expectation due to a local hack, the best player in the world can surely cope with a little media attention!

[Snowflake82]

Haha that is true, I didn't think of it like that. I'm too used to playing in the Blue Square!

[Da_Funk]

I notice that (sometimes?) when a sign a new player (fundamental role etc...) and when he comes in my team it appears to have a very low morale.

I mean, he is free, he doesn't a wage, he is important in my team, I give him money so that he can pay the dinner to her girlfriend and he's sad?

[Scab]

I must admit that I don't quite understand the basis for the "morale is too effective" argument. Morale represents how motivated and mentally stable the player is to perform. As a football manager you're working with people -- player management is just as big a part of the job as tactics or training. Fair enough if it doesn't appeal as a feature in the game, but then there's the assistant to do most of it. No expert in any field will do a great job if he's uninterested, under excessive pressure, convinced he can't meet the required standards, etc. This is an area of the game where the players actually seem half human instead of (re)acting like complete robots, and that in my opinion is a good thing.

As for it being "erratic" I can certainly see the point, but... Is it really? Losing will nudge it down a notch in my games, depending on how bad we were, and winning will either maintain or increase, depending on expectation. A string of good/bad results will obviously have a compounding effect, but nothing unmanageable. This seems pretty appropriate? I've never seen one of these "goes through the floor" type of across-the-board reactions.

[Sheva Elite]

The only problem I find with Morale is that even with amazing Morale the players can play poorly. (Even when warning about complacenecy etc)

And when you have very poor morale, theres not really a way of motivating the boys other than to hope they get a win somewhere.

[Scab]

Well yeah, though I'd argue that letting it slip that far means it's been neglected for a while. Media and player interaction will still have an effect, so I'd definitely say there are things you can do, but there's obviously no quick-and-effective boost-everyone option. That would make poor morale pointless.

[milnerpoint]

i bet real managers would love a "fix moral" button in real life, truth is you have to work at these things, yes it may not be the most in depth part of the game, but the tools are there for you to improve moral, you just have to learn to use them in the right mannor.

[milnerpoint]

i dont think he likes posts that dont complain about the game.......