IGN member speak the truth about Football manager

[Ackter]

The game can't be seen to be standing still, and no new features will make it seem to a lot of people that it is. It has to be a mixture between adding new features and refining old ones.

[milnerpoint]

They probably would, maybe you missed this bit ^

You highlighted this bit and gave a response based on that,

If you think "Wow, this has to be right or I'll get fired", you focus on not doing anything wrong, not on being innovative.

Yes possibly, but isn't this what some people are looking for from SI - forget about creating new bells & whistles and concentrate on improving the basics.

My point is, being innovative does not always lead to new features or as you say "bells and whistles", being innovative could be exactly what the AI needs to improve, putting someone under huge pressure to get something right may infact lead to the basics not improving, because improving said basics could mean taking a risk.

[Sikker]

Sorry guys, but isn't this forum about Football Manager not management theory?

And I must emphasis theory as I've read several of these posts. No doubt you've read a book or two on the subject, but I doubt you know the culture and structure of SI to actually use your theory on a viable analysis of SI.

Ooops, guess I fell in the theory discussion pot myself :o

[mrdorf]

SI have been running usability studies for years. With a game as complex as FM they'd be daft to not try and make it as easy for new customers to get into as possible. It all goes towards making the game as good as it can be, I don't get why this is used as an example of SI being forced to dumb-down the game. Especially as the game has got more complex each iteration.

I'd prefer the game not to be too complex and a bit more simple. If I wanted to become a real manager then I'd get some coaching badges and do so. I'm glad they introduced the TC as I hated dealing with sliders (I still don't quite understand them since they were introduced). My only problem is that the ME isn't quite up there and hasn't been for a while. I'm not sure, it could be that in order to get it exactly how they want, SI would need to not release the game for at least two years and concentrate solely on the ME. Maybe they're tweaking it and adding parts to it because they have to release it every year. Maybe in FM15 we get the ME we want and then they can just tweak and add minor things each year. I don't really have a prob with that.

I'm not sure about squad building as I rarely play for 10 years. My attention span is short. But if that is a major problem then, again over a period of time it'll get sorted.

I have a love hate relationship with the game but I do believe that SI are very passionate about their product, hence the split from Edios. I also think there is no competition because the programming is so difficult. Look at how Championship Manager failed. They could have ran with the ball or at least kept on a relatively even course with SI but they couldn't.

[Ackter]

Sorry guys, but isn't this forum about Football Manager not management theory?

And I must emphasis theory as I've read several of these posts. No doubt you've read a book or two on the subject, but I doubt you know the culture and structure of SI to actually use your theory on a viable analysis of SI.

Ooops, guess I fell in the theory discussion pot myself :o

Depends who you mean. wwfan in particular is perfectly placed to apply his vast theoretical knowledge to his vast experience of working with SI.

[TSH]

It will only take one game from the competition to show the flaws of the series.

When will that game come, I don't know. But it will most certainly come. Until then, unfortunatelly, we have to accept that FM is our only choice and that SI is a developer who has reached its limits, both design wise and money wise.

[ViG1980]

Harsh words TSH....but you might be right although I'd say the design aspect is due to yearly time-constraints. Otherwise, I'd have every confidence that they could get it [more] right.

[wally13]

It will only take one game from the competition to show the flaws of the series.

When will that game come, I don't know. But it will most certainly come. Until then, unfortunatelly, we have to accept that FM is our only choice and that SI is a developer who has reached its limits, both design wise and money wise.

What and another game by another company wont have any flaws wont it ?? hmm yeah right !!

[x42bn6]

FM is certainly modular.

Out of interest, have you had any practical experience in AI coding at any complex level or is all your knowledge theoretical?

Mostly theoretical but I've dabbled with Markov chains and AI a fair bit in general (mostly to learn about simulation and modelling for the former, and to learn Prolog in the latter). I'm primarily a Java programmer (with C#, PL/SQL and T-SQL mixed in). There's little scope for me to apply simulation, modelling and AI in my current work so I mostly do it in my free time.

I'm certainly interested in knowing quite how useful it would be to run an extensive soak of a 20 year simulation across 20 odd leagues. I can understand that this would pick up trends, but would it pick up the reasons for when the trend started to veer way from an acceptable parameter. Would it be possible to fine tune the testing around the soak, or would you still need individual testers casting individual eyes over specific transfers? Basically, will a soak/UAT be enough in itself?

Correlation does not imply causation. It can be difficult to prove why something deviates. It's definitely possible to pick up the fine details with a bit of effort - to describe why it happens, however, is a different kettle of fish.

If it's a parameter change that causes the deviation, then it's obvious. It's less obvious when it's a surgical change.

Methods such as Bayesian networks can be used to decompose a giant set of data and identify the strongest links between data (i.e. "it is raining" and "more people are seen with umbrellas" are tightly-linked in a positive correlation, so even if the overall distribution of rainy days and the overall distribution of people with umbrellas are equal for two simulations, this will decouple it further - a bad simulation might simply have assumed they are independent), which allows arguments to be made about its causality. But then again, it's not always possible. Some, like Hume, argue it's impossible: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hume#Causation

If a simulation has analytical results, these can be used to justify (or indeed, invalidate) a set of results. In some cases, it might not be necessary to perform strenuous testing if the analytical results are shown to tightly match the soaks (but of course, like all testing, it's a good idea to perform at least some soak testing).

Soak + UAT is never enough. You need QA as well (and the usual unit testing and integration testing). Soak testing could fall under QA but I tend to think of QA as being a user-driven process because the ultimate judges of quality are your end-users.

[Ackter]

User-driven processes are only a part of QA. We have far more to do than just that, of which Soak testing is a small part of it.

[CaptainPlanet]

I really hate how two footedness is dealt with. Almost as much as the press conference feature, but at least you can turn that off.

[BossAsianMafia]

As a player who likes to play long-term games, it is incredibly frustrating how easy the game gets in 5 to 6 years. Setting aside the question of whether competition will improve the product and the difficulty of programming AI, I've ran out of patience with the series and have voted with my wallet (not bought FM 12). Until some serious efforts are put in to polish the existing product I won't be buying another FM. This is not meant to be some form of ultimatum by the way, just my humble opinion on things.

PS: wwfan, chill, man. I don't see why you have to be so argumentative, especially since your area of expertise is not squad-building AI right?

[wwfan]

PS: wwfan, chill, man. I don't see why you have to be so argumentative, especially since your area of expertise is not squad-building AI right?

I'm only pointing out the flaws in the assumptions people are making. it is fine to have a discussion about the problems of squad building and transfer AI. it is idiotic to presume that it is easy to fix and that the only reason it hasn't been is that SI are lazy, complacent or incompetent. Despite it not being my area of expertise, I still know a lot more about it than the majority of people in this thread (in this thread, I'd only defer to SI employees, Ackter and Dave C, as they'd defer to me with regards to the tactical module and the ME).

It hasn't been fixed because it is very difficult to fix. However, if you load the top division of every traditional footballing powerhouse, you'll find the AI can at least keep things competitive. That's enough for me right now, although i'd like things to be better still.

[BossAsianMafia]

I'm only pointing out the flaws in the assumptions people are making. it is fine to have a discussion about the problems of squad building and transfer AI. it is idiotic to presume that it is easy to fix and that the only reason it hasn't been is that SI are lazy, complacent or incompetent. Despite it not being my area of expertise, I still know a lot more about it than the majority of people in this thread (in this thread, I'd only defer to SI employees, Ackter and Dave C, as they'd defer to me with regards to the tactical module and the ME).

It hasn't been fixed because it is very difficult to fix. However, if you load the top division of every traditional footballing powerhouse, you'll find the AI can at least keep things competitive. That's enough for me right now, although i'd like things to be better still.

Why do you think it's difficult to fix transfer AI? The impression that I've got is that the lack of progress on AI is more due to the the focus is on different things (adding new features).

[wwfan]

Mostly theoretical [...] ultimate judges of quality are your end-users.

Seems to me like it will be extremely difficult to pinpoint exact reasons for squad building deviations that, over time, destabilise the gameworld. As I said earlier, I believe it relates to AI managers badly handling the development and playing time of 20-24 year olds, and their reputation stopping them from going out on loan to get match time if they are unhappy. That results in too many high potential players at big clubs failing to reach potential, which knocks on to the AI spending lots of money on inferior players that, had they developed their talent, they wouldn't have needed. This is even worse for clubs with B teams, not reserve teams, as the interaction between squads is horrible.

In contrast to the AI, sophisticated users will play and loan young talent in a logical manner, resulting in the player becoming truly world class. They can also benefit from the AI teams upsetting and selling on great talent at cut price rates. Ultimately, the talent gets restricted and/or controlled by the user, and the AI suffers.

If the above is properly fixed, I'd hope that the integrity of long-term gaming improves. However, like many things in FM, very few people ever offer genuine reasons as to why things might be happening. Even though my interpretation might be wrong, I've at least tried to pinpoint a trend that seems to me to be a cause. I'm not merely damning coders and criticising practices. I'm offering a constructive stab at what might be wrong.

Obviously, it helps that I've actually played FM12

[wwfan]

Why do you think it's difficult to fix transfer AI? The impression that I've got is that the lack of progress on AI is more due to the the focus is on different things (adding new features).

That's a misconception. The battle with long-term AI balance is a continuous one. It is difficult to fix because you need 20 simulated years worth of data covering a large database, plus eyes on specific reasons for bad transfer decisions happening. This means alongside soak/UAT etc, you need some testers playing long-term games simply to find some core bad squad building decisions, which is going to be tedious, time consuming and costly. They'd have to play the game for real, then sift through every transfer decision the AI makes to find the problematic ones.

Even if they are successful, you then still have to factor in the decisions AI managers make when they are changing the squad's preferred tactical shape. The AI needs to have the intelligence to shift from a 5-3-2 to a 4-4-2 squad design without breaking its competitiveness during that shift. That's pretty complex in itself, but only gets picked up on in long-term games when it actually happens, which might be pretty rarely.

And you have to do this every time the code is changed.

[wwfan]

Obviously, the above doesn't happen, as it would result in 40 working days of testing between builds, at a bare minimum, which is a logistical nightmare and commercial suicide. Further, the long-term testers would be sick of the very sight of FM and go slightly mad.

In an ideal world, however...

[wwfan]

We can take my 20-24 year old theory as an example. Say I'm right and it is the core problem. However, it only relates to regens, not players in the original gameworld. To even approach finding the code that is causing the problem, you need to play 5 seasons. You then need to pay close attention to how AI managers are treating these players. You then need to work out what went wrong.

Did they get too good too quickly because of the training facilities, then stagnate because they wouldn't go on loan and didn't get first team football? Is the not going on loan related to their reputation? Would lowering the reputation parameter for loan clubs help, or would it result in a ridiculous number of good loanees playing for poor clubs, destabilising the integrity of lower divisions? Should the AI manager play them more? If so, is that going to compromise the club's league performance and his job, as they aren't really quite good enough for the first team, even though they think they are? Should they be more loyal and realise they won't get too many chances? If so, will this totally stagnate the market, with players at top clubs never wanting to leave?

This is a huge amount of work, and you need saves prior to every decision. Internal and beta testing can't begin to cover this amount of analysis. SI need the community to submit report after report throughout the life of the product to have any chance of solving this on a bug by bug basis. As Ackter will happily tell you, getting a complainer to submit evidence supporting his complaint is an exercise in futility. So, this is unlikely to ever happen.

Consequently, SI have to use theoretical models that predict long-term stability. They will slowly get better over the years, but will never progress at the rate some people expect.

[illzof40]

I think he is spot on with most the comments, AI is a joke the first few seasons are hard and then after like 5 seasons gets easier and easier.

The transfer market needs a whole revamp its just boring and flat needs to be more realistic.

[BiggusD]

We can take my 20-24 year old theory as an example. Say I'm right and it is the core problem. However, it only relates to regens, not players in the original gameworld. To even approach finding the code that is causing the problem, you need to play 5 seasons. You then need to pay close attention to how AI managers are treating these players. You then need to work out what went wrong.

Did they get too good too quickly because of the training facilities, then stagnate because they wouldn't go on loan and didn't get first team football? Is the not going on loan related to their reputation? Would lowering the reputation parameter for loan clubs help, or would it result in a ridiculous number of good loanees playing for poor clubs, destabilising the integrity of lower divisions? Should the AI manager play them more? If so, is that going to compromise the club's league performance and his job, as they aren't really quite good enough for the first team, even though they think they are? Should they be more loyal and realise they won't get too many chances? If so, will this totally stagnate the market, with players at top clubs never wanting to leave?

This is a huge amount of work, and you need saves prior to every decision. Internal and beta testing can't begin to cover this amount of analysis. SI need the community to submit report after report throughout the life of the product to have any chance of solving this on a bug by bug basis. As Ackter will happily tell you, getting a complainer to submit evidence supporting his complaint is an exercise in futility. So, this is unlikely to ever happen.

Consequently, SI have to use theoretical models that predict long-term stability. They will slowly get better over the years, but will never progress at the rate some people expect.

Do you think adding a few more hidden attributes related to AI behaviour could help out?

As it is now, the major factors for development internally for each player are Potential ability, Ambition, Professionality, Injury Proneness and Natural Fitness. There are of course many external factors as well, most significantly match experience, but what if there were more parameters?

Willingness to work on physique: 14

Willingness to work on technique: 6

Willingness to work on his psyche: 9

This way, Professionalism could be released of those duties and be about the devotedness to his trade instead. That is, a professional player won't lose focus on training and when there is "noise" surrounding the club, and he would make more informed career choices... for instance going on loan to a league or club where he would get match experience because he is currently good enough to play there. Those three hidden attributes would also help shaping players more individually without resorting to complete randomization of attributes at creation. In other words, two 16 years old defensive midfielders with similar attributes and potential would look very different at 24 because they would naturally focus on different things in training. I think that sounds realistic.

[wwfan]

The more conceptual data any model has to work with, the better the results can become. However, the greater the potential for bugs as well.

So, although long-term, you might be onto a winner, short-term you trade off a greater likelihood of a buggy release.

[TSH]

What the IGN poster says is right, there's no doubt about it.

The problem is not only about the long term AI but the short term AI too. The fact that I can take a mid table team and become a world football force in 3-4 years almost EVERY time doesn't say something about my ability but about the AI's inability.

There are many AI problems in the game that remain unfixed that have nothing to do with long term behaviour.

Also, people and SI that try to defend the stagnate AI must understand that consumers only see the end product and can't be expected to understand the difficulty to create a game such as this. It's good when they do, sure, but it's not a prerequisite when they buy the game. They are not bying to be testers but rather to have fun playing a realistic simulator.

[TeeWee]

The more conceptual data any model has to work with, the better the results can become. However, the greater the potential for bugs as well.

So, although long-term, you might be onto a winner, short-term you trade off a greater likelihood of a buggy release.

Hence, the call of some fans to "skip a year". Though I personally do believe FM may not be able to afford / does not make economic sense (take your pick) to skip a year.

[TeeWee]

What and another game by another company wont have any flaws wont it ?? hmm yeah right !!

That's not what he said. Another game may have a solution for a particular problem that SI hasn't thought of. The rest of the game might be crap, but it might inspire SI into a different path of thinking for that particular problem.

[wally13]

That's not what he said. Another game may have a solution for a particular problem that SI hasn't thought of. The rest of the game might be crap, but it might inspire SI into a different path of thinking for that particular problem.

Oh right so this new game might have 1-2 features that work better then they do in FM but rest of game is crap and FM is miles better ?? still would't have SI worrying too much would it and im sure we would all still buy FM no ??

[Superowl90]

just read the review, some good points, however it is still a great game and i love it, hopefully the next game will have much improved A.I

[thomit]

Good points? Well, that the AI squad management isn't good enough, that's hardly a revolutionary statement, now, is it. However, this member-of-something-or-other's statements about why it so, well, that's just his/hers speculation. Speculations are not thruths, and is what is being debated in much of the rest of the thread.

He/she makes other statements in that review that is so highly speculative, to a degree that one is inclined to dismiss the whole kebab. (AI cheating, for example ... haven't we all heard that one before?)

So - no. the review is not up to much, however the debate it has spawned is interresting and well worth a couple of minutes.

Btw - What is IGN anyway? ... something that would give this "member" a higher credibility on the matter, in any way?

[pigfacemonkeyman]

We can take my 20-24 year old theory as an example. Say I'm right and it is the core problem. However, it only relates to regens, not players in the original gameworld. To even approach finding the code that is causing the problem, you need to play 5 seasons. You then need to pay close attention to how AI managers are treating these players. You then need to work out what went wrong.

Did they get too good too quickly because of the training facilities, then stagnate because they wouldn't go on loan and didn't get first team football? Is the not going on loan related to their reputation? Would lowering the reputation parameter for loan clubs help, or would it result in a ridiculous number of good loanees playing for poor clubs, destabilising the integrity of lower divisions? Should the AI manager play them more? If so, is that going to compromise the club's league performance and his job, as they aren't really quite good enough for the first team, even though they think they are? Should they be more loyal and realise they won't get too many chances? If so, will this totally stagnate the market, with players at top clubs never wanting to leave?

This is a huge amount of work, and you need saves prior to every decision. Internal and beta testing can't begin to cover this amount of analysis. SI need the community to submit report after report throughout the life of the product to have any chance of solving this on a bug by bug basis. As Ackter will happily tell you, getting a complainer to submit evidence supporting his complaint is an exercise in futility. So, this is unlikely to ever happen.

Consequently, SI have to use theoretical models that predict long-term stability. They will slowly get better over the years, but will never progress at the rate some people expect.

Maybe SI could provide some guidence as to what to look out for. I know very little about computers/coding so it's not always obvious what constitutes a bug and I wouldn't know what I should save to aid SI if I think there is a bug. (screenshot, PKM, what?). Going by the rants, complaints and the "I don't have a save from when it happened"s posted in here it's clear I'm not alone!

A sticky maybe, written in a way that gives the gamer confidence to report something they suspect might be a bug without fear of ridicule from fellow posters. Provide clear instructions on where to report it, (to save flooding the bugs forums maybe a special "Suspected Bugs" thread could be set up) how to report it, what to include with the report (ie what to save when the suspected bug happens) and links direct to the info on how upload PKMs, screenshots etc.

SI could even be quite specific about what they are after at particular times eg. look out for odd transfer behaviour, strange reaction to chat, etc.

I would certainly make the effort if the process was laid out clear and simple, and I think one or two others might also.

Incidentally, even though your theory is 20 to 24 years old I agree that it must, at least, be part of the problem. I'm not sure though why you think it only relates to regens.

[Ackter]

For save games, the ideal time is one continue press before it happens, and that it has a good chance of happening again if you load the save and continue it.

Match engine bugs only need a PKM.

Screenshots are generally useful for text issues, spelling mistakes, code turning up in messages etc

[Neil Brock]

Maybe SI could provide some guidence as to what to look out for. I know very little about computers/coding so it's not always obvious what constitutes a bug and I wouldn't know what I should save to aid SI if I think there is a bug. (screenshot, PKM, what?). Going by the rants, complaints and the "I don't have a save from when it happened"s posted in here it's clear I'm not alone!

A sticky maybe, written in a way that gives the gamer confidence to report something they suspect might be a bug without fear of ridicule from fellow posters. Provide clear instructions on where to report it, (to save flooding the bugs forums maybe a special "Suspected Bugs" thread could be set up) how to report it, what to include with the report (ie what to save when the suspected bug happens) and links direct to the info on how upload PKMs, screenshots etc.

SI could even be quite specific about what they are after at particular times eg. look out for odd transfer behaviour, strange reaction to chat, etc.

I would certainly make the effort if the process was laid out clear and simple, and I think one or two others might also.

Incidentally, even though your theory is 20 to 24 years old I agree that it must, at least, be part of the problem. I'm not sure though why you think it only relates to regens.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/276529-Bug-Reporting-Guidelines-*PLEASE*-Read-Before-Posting

In terms of 'what is a bug' - if you think it is, simply post it and we'll take a look. We'd much rather have 10 issues posted whereby only one or two are actually bugs than none being posted at all. If you think it's a bug and it's affecting your gameplay, then in all honesty it's a bug. Obviously the more information you provide the better and easier it'll be for us to investigate the issue internally.

[VonBlade]

With regard to the young players stagnating problem and then going in an ever-decreasing circle, a large proportion of this can be attributed to two clear factors.

1) First team football plays a big role in how quickly a young player develops.

2) Players are far too willing to look at the reputation of the club they are at, and refuse a move down the leagues to get first team football.

Getting players out on loan to affiliate clubs, or even just clubs where they will get first team games, is extraordinarily hard. Players should use a mix of their own reputation and a base desire to play football to decide whether to accept a loan move. Then the first team games will improve them, and their own club might play them more or other clubs would become interested in them, and the whole "world full of Harry Redknapps who only play mid-30s guys" problem solves itself.

Although splitting physical attributes away from technical ones in CAPA terms would still be a boon. Too often players are weak and slow because their CA is low, whereas even in lower leagues you can have burly players, or speedsters, who lack more technical elements to their play. But that's another argument for another day.

[Ackter]

I don't believe CA should need to be separated like that, it's just that due to the match engine's development, the physical attributes have needed to take up more and more CA to stop them breaking it.

Ideally it's the mental and hidden attributes that should take up the most CA, and should be reflected in the match engine.

[mantralux]

For the record, I haven't once said SI are lazy or incompetent. On the contrary; I have asked why it's so hard getting long-term squad AI to function properly (still no answer), and in the spirit of constructive criticism I have suggested a couple of quick solutions. Whether those solutions are realistic or not is irrelevant - at least I'm trying to be constructive and not just rant like the review in the OP.

I also haven't said it would be easy to fix the squad AI, although I don't believe it is as hard as some moderators in this thread are trying to convince everyone it is. The problem for me is that resources are spent on completely pointless features that are only included in the game because of business and marketing decisions. And the argument that including these features didn't take away time from coding other parts is false at best, as the time and resources spent on Press Conferences (for example) could have been re-prioritised into other areas.

[Ackter]

That's because we're not deluded and actually have experience with this, rather than assumed experience based on limited involvement in FM related projects and a website.

[BossAsianMafia]

That's because we're not deluded and actually have experience with this, rather than assumed experience based on limited involvement in FM related projects and a website.

I think the point still stands though; that if the reason that the squad AI is not up to scratch is that people at SI are not smart enough to do it (and it sounds damn conceited to me if you say that nobody else can do it better)

then I don't see why I want to continue to spend my hard-earned money buying a game that I'm ultimately not satisfied with. wwfan's justification that we need to help the process along by reporting bugs doesn't fly for me.

[edgar555]

the time and resources spent on Press Conferences (for example) could have been re-prioritised into other areas.

Changing/fixing press conferences was one of the things most asked for on these forums (not that I believe they are in any way fixed, I still think that they need to start again with the whole media/interaction side of the game), so SI are damned if they do, damned if they don't really. They please x number of consumers by fixing that but leave y number still disappointed by another area. You really can't please all of the people, all of the time.

[Guest]

I think the point still stands though; that if the reason that the squad AI is not up to scratch is that people at SI are not smart enough to do it (and it sounds damn conceited to me if you say that nobody else can do it better)

then I don't see why I want to continue to spend my hard-earned money buying a game that I'm ultimately not satisfied with. wwfan's justification that we need to help the process along by reporting bugs doesn't fly for me.

Correct bug reporting is vital, as the end user we have access to a much greater level of data than SI (my 35 season all league save has a wealth of information in it), unfortunately it is rare to see the people who rant about the game in GQ posting in the bugs section.

[milnerpoint]

The ONLY way software really improves is because of public feedback, Windows has made bug reports for years that has given Microsoft an almost unlimited amount of data to help improve their product, almost every piece of software is the same. There is only so much you can learn from in house testing.

[Ackter]

I think the point still stands though; that if the reason that the squad AI is not up to scratch is that people at SI are not smart enough to do it (and it sounds damn conceited to me if you say that nobody else can do it better)

then I don't see why I want to continue to spend my hard-earned money buying a game that I'm ultimately not satisfied with. wwfan's justification that we need to help the process along by reporting bugs doesn't fly for me.

With that attitude I don't see why we should care, to be honest.

[whilewolf]

The Problem with trying to post bug reports about things like the transfer market, AI squad building or Newgen attribute distribution is that you notice a pattern emerging over hours of play its very hard to provide solid evidence to back it up.

[Ackter]

The Problem with trying to post bug reports about things like the transfer market, AI squad building or Newgen attribute distribution is that you notice a pattern emerging over hours of play its very hard to provide solid evidence to back it up.

What I used to do is keep one save at the start of each transfer window, meaning you could go back and check the general buying strategy etc, but it takes a lot of time and effort to do it.

[Sikker]

I also haven't said it would be easy to fix the squad AI, although I don't believe it is as hard as some moderators in this thread are trying to convince everyone it is. The problem for me is that resources are spent on completely pointless features that are only included in the game because of business and marketing decisions. And the argument that including these features didn't take away time from coding other parts is false at best, as the time and resources spent on Press Conferences (for example) could have been re-prioritised into other areas.

10 cooks can't cook the same fish. It wouldn't be optimal use of cooks, anyways... And most likely the fish will end up much worse than if only one cook had prepared it... Some analogy there, but hope it make sense

[Guest]

The Problem with trying to post bug reports about things like the transfer market, AI squad building or Newgen attribute distribution is that you notice a pattern emerging over hours of play its very hard to provide solid evidence to back it up.

I run a fortnightly 10 file rolling autosave, anything I notice in the game can be rolled back & checked before posting about.

As Ackter says it does take time & a little effort.

[CaptainPlanet]

I think the community could definitely be engaged more actively to get useful feedback.

[Guest]

I think the community could definitely engage more actively to give useful feedback.

That works better for me, SI have never hidden the fact that they look for community feedback & assistance in bug reporting.

[CaptainPlanet]

I don't think they actively advertise it at all.

[Ackter]

Closing this now.

If you'd like to discuss issues in a constructive manner, please start a new thread for each issue (for example, to discuss ways to encourage people more active with reporting bugs).