Out of interest, Does anybody enjoy Press Conferences?

[CraigFairlie]

I find them fun after i've won a big game/cup final/won promotion.

[jordas]

1. Do players and managers even keep themselves informed of press conferences, as the game assumes? I believe their impact on players and managers is exaggerated in the game. It seems to me that press conferences are implemented in the game as (somewhat sensitive) outsiders believe they work, while they have forgotten to ask to what extent players and managers in fact do respond.

2. The option to leave the responsibility to the assistant manager is hazardous. There should be an option to instruct the assistant manager how to answer (general rhetorical strategies) or one could maybe have the option to spend money from the budget so that he could follow courses in media management or even hire a media consultant to take care of them.

[Qwqwqw]

It's still a silly argument. The whiners don't want assistant managers answering questions, because they're so scared the AM will say something that angers the squad.

If you say your team is a little horse, your team will be angered. You go on a FACT! rant, they might not be happy. Adding more things to anger the squad is a strange view. If you want to do something entertaining, choose Storm Out.

Who's going to go on a FACT! rant more than once? Or call their team a little horse more than once? The novelty will wear off and as Kriss says, you'd need 100s of these to keep in "entertaining". Even then, I wonder how many would really use it.

Uh, no, I don't want the assistant to answer because then I get in trouble if he messes up (and he does). If I get into trouble for something I said, I'm perfectly fine with that. And yes, who would like to go on a FACT rant more than once? But then again, who would like say that "Manchester City are a good team and they expect them to do good against Watford" A MILLION TIMES?

[Lawlore]

"Manchester City are a good team and they expect them to do good against Watford" A MILLION TIMES?

Man, sucks to be Watford in that season.

[Qwqwqw]

Man, sucks to be Watford in that season.

Can't you replace "Watford" with any other team in your imagination? Don't take things so literally.

[HUNT3R]

I like Watford.

[Qwqwqw]

Good for you.

[HUNT3R]

You must be a joy at press conferences.

[Qwqwqw]

Everywhere I go, there is a party.

[HUNT3R]

Uh, no, I don't want the assistant to answer because then I get in trouble if he messes up (and he does). If I get into trouble for something I said, I'm perfectly fine with that. And yes, who would like to go on a FACT rant more than once? But then again, who would like say that "Manchester City are a good team and they expect them to do good against Watford" A MILLION TIMES?

FWIW, I wouldn't be against having something improved so that it is more engaging, but still realistic. So in that sense, I agree with you. I just have no ideas on how it could be done though!

[Qwqwqw]

Ok so putting the ball firmly into your court, how would you accomplish this given that it is not practicle in anyway to create the number of questions/responses that this would require. The players in this thread throwing words like tedious and the like around are probably the same ones that never read quest texts or listen to the story scenes in mmo's and rpg's. All they want is A-B in as fast a way as they can get it in a way that is entertaining only for them and sod the rest of us.

Edit: I missed where you said you wanted to be able to do a Rafa fact rant, all well and good but how long before you find that tedious aswell, where does it stop?

FWIW, I wouldn't be against having something improved so that it is more engaging, but still realistic. So in that sense, I agree with you. I just have no ideas on how it could be done though!

More variety! More questions, (much) more answers to the questions (not same five every time) and sort of "unique" situations, where you get to say one-off things, e.g. that a player is a cheat, that your team is a little horse, that there is a conspiracy against your team... All realistic, cause it all actually happened, and all FUN

Cause we all do it for fun in the end... Right?

[Qwqwqw]

I don't know, I guess it is hard. Still doesn't mean that the press conferences should remain the way they are now. We'll get there, eventually, I hope

[El Presidente]

Dull, boring and repetitive. Just like me.

[Federico]

Just make an option to turn'em off, so everybody is happy. And I would greatly.

[Mars_Blackmon]

There is alot of hyperbole in this thread.

Also I hope people realize that there are different tones to the same answers.

How far do you go with dialog? Should there be over hundreds of thousands of unique responses?

I personally think a "other" option may do the trick where the user could write whatever he/she wants and pick a tone and a basic subject (...or maybe that's too tedius?)

...Maybe even add more tones.

[diggler75]

Hate them. Worst feature ever. First thing I do is get my assistant to handle them.

[ch]

They're boring and repetitive, wish there was an option to turn them off. I usually let my assistant handle it and hope he doesn't mess up.

[Shakes]

That option is there, use your assistant and you will never see them again. Honestly it boggles the minds how people can just dismiss a fundamental part of the footballing world, Imagine if i started a thread on removing training or injuries because frankly they annoy me as much as some of you claim press conferences annoy you.

Well lets imagine a game where the training worked like the press conferences. To train a player's shooting you have to - each and every week - answer the question from the players "What should I do to improve my shooting?" and click on the "swing leg backward and forward propelling ball towards goal" button. If the game was like that then yeah, I think people would want training removed from the game.

But perhaps that does hold the answer - make the press conferences more like training. You choose the area you want to focus on from a list of choices: building squad morale, pressuring opposition, taking pressure off your job, etc. Then the game just presents you with summaries of how the press conferences went. You don't have to answer the individual questions yourself, just like you don't have to tell your striker how to kick the ball towards goal in the training part of the game.

[Mars_Blackmon]

Lol Im sure a professional footballer getting paid millions already know how to strike a ball. But using your example, the game did add touchline shouts that you can select during the game. I mean why the need for that when we already have tactics set.

Immersion and control thats why.

Oh and not to forget about the new in game team talks.

[Matt_no_7]

To be honest i did for all of 5 minutes but seeing as this is my first game back on FM since FM 2012 i'm hugely diappointed that it's pretty much the exact same set of questions.... Three years and near enough the exact same questions strikes me as hugely lazy when it comes to that side of the game along with team talks being identical choices again just about.

[Auqakuh]

Every now and then, I add "AND I LIKE BOOBIES!" into the text field. It adds flavour and kills the monotony by creating new monotony.

That and my manager character is really into ornithology.

[Auqakuh]

Well lets imagine a game where the training worked like the press conferences. To train a player's shooting you have to - each and every week - answer the question from the players "What should I do to improve my shooting?" and click on the "swing leg backward and forward propelling ball towards goal" button. If the game was like that then yeah, I think people would want training removed from the game.

But perhaps that does hold the answer - make the press conferences more like training. You choose the area you want to focus on from a list of choices: building squad morale, pressuring opposition, taking pressure off your job, etc. Then the game just presents you with summaries of how the press conferences went. You don't have to answer the individual questions yourself, just like you don't have to tell your striker how to kick the ball towards goal in the training part of the game.

Except I wish training was more like the conferences. Obviously not in the sense you put it - but I wish we had to pick out specific drills and such to improve attributes instead of a generalised approach. Perhaps different drills with different advantages and disadvantages, not just in development, but also in how suited the players are to a specific tactical approach.

[Shakes]

Except I wish training was more like the conferences. Obviously not in the sense you put it - but I wish we had to pick out specific drills and such to improve attributes instead of a generalised approach. Perhaps different drills with different advantages and disadvantages, not just in development, but also in how suited the players are to a specific tactical approach.

Picking out what specifically to focus on rather than being nagged each week with the same questions is actually what I suggested for press conferences though. I have no problem with the idea of giving lots of detail, it's just that you should be able to make the choices once and then set and forget until you feel the need to change those settings if you want to.

[Richey2008]

In a way you are right.

For the purposes of a game many people would however prefer leaving the annoying bits of the job out. Realism doesn't do any good if it spoils the fun. While lots of the fun in playing FM is due to its realism, people play it for the fun, not for the realism.

I suppose it's different for all of us. I play for the realism, not necessarily the fun primarily. I guess that's why it works nicely for my own personal FM bubble!!

[Auqakuh]

Picking out what specifically to focus on rather than being nagged each week with the same questions is actually what I suggested for press conferences though. I have no problem with the idea of giving lots of detail, it's just that you should be able to make the choices once and then set and forget until you feel the need to change those settings if you want to.

I really don't feel that makes sense, though. Player reactions differ somewhat based on the exact situation, so if you want to get all the possible advantages in an upcoming match, you can't just have a "fire and forget" system... although that might be more suited to FMC. It's sort of like team talks in that sense; you can't just give the same one week in, week out, and get the same reactions. They vary depending on the opponent's strength, whether you're at home or away, whether you're on a winning streak or a losing streak, etc.

One way to reduce the boredom though? Make the press conferences moddable... in a way. Allow the community to create a bigger pool of questions and answers. One way to do that might be to have a submission system, whereby players can submit questions and answers and then the good ones get added in, with SI determining how those new questions/answers fit into the current system.

That might be a good thing for the media module in general, actually. The news stories get a bit repetitive. Adding more writers - essentially crowdsourcing it - might enhance things considerably, because there'd be more voices.

[Shakes]

That's really a circular argument though, you're saying it can't be fire and forget because the current system isn't fire and forget. I don't really see that as a problem, I want to burn the current system down and build it back up again, not tinker at the edges.

The game could certainly stand to be open to mods though - if it was people could experiment with replacing the current press conference system, and if someone's changes to it got popular SI could look to borrow from that idea in the core game.

[Lawlore]

One way to reduce the boredom though? Make the press conferences moddable... in a way. Allow the community to create a bigger pool of questions and answers. One way to do that might be to have a submission system, whereby players can submit questions and answers and then the good ones get added in, with SI determining how those new questions/answers fit into the current system.

That might be a good thing for the media module in general, actually. The news stories get a bit repetitive. Adding more writers - essentially crowdsourcing it - might enhance things considerably, because there'd be more voices.

Letting modders run loose on them is an interesting proposition, which ties in a bit with the lack of personality in the media I cited earlier. I recall the days long ago when we could add our own lines of commentary, which made the matches feel that much more like real matches- I was sad when it stopped, actually.

The stumbling block would be how each choice ties into the rest of the game (morale, relationships etc)- I'm not sure how keen SI would be to leave that in the hands of modders. The problem with your own proposal is that if it comes from SI as an official thing, albeit a crowdsourced one, they'd also be subject to the same legal restrictions that are preventing them from including more scandalous things in the game (on-pitch fighting etc), as well as having to provide translated versions for all the other languages in the game, which I'd wager is no small task.

[Preveza]

Not one bit but im sure they will get better over time. IRL, im sure managers dont really love them. Once more questions are implemented etc it will help a ton

[Nick Habershon]

Interesting thread and it confirms what the stats tell us; that it's a marmite feature. Some people love it, some people don't want to go near it. Which is fine. The nature of an open game means that we need to cater for scenarios that you may never experience in your game. But someone somewhere will do and it's important to us in the way we make our games that we have that covered.

In terms of modding, some of you may remember we experimented several years back by releasing an editor which allowed people to edit and add in-game media comments such as manager mind-games. It was a different system to the current conference module but similar in the sense that each new comment needed logic rules applying so that it would appear in exactly the right scenario. This naturally and understandably put a lot of people off I think. Take up was not high as a result.

For those interested, there are between 1500 and 2000 individual questions in the game. As many have pointed out, variation is key and we're always looking to increase the variation so that amplifies this number even more. Moreover, and Miles may have hinted at this in the FM15 features video, there is scope to more closely define when and how often press conferences appear in FM15 and I'll be happy to elaborate further on this after release.

[Lawlore]

Thanks for the reply, Nick.

Would you mind me asking how current new questions are added into particular situations- do you have a particular standalone tool which lets you plug in the questions and designate potential outcomes of each question/response/tone selection, or is it a bit trickier than that? I appreciate what you're saying about specific scenarios that have questions but many may never encounter (I know there are questions specifically relating to being a female manager, for example), the issue seems to be that those most frequently occurring are from a comparatively small, generic pool.

[Kriss]

Thanks for the reply, Nick.

Would you mind me asking how current new questions are added into particular situations- do you have a particular standalone tool which lets you plug in the questions and designate potential outcomes of each question/response/tone selection, or is it a bit trickier than that? I appreciate what you're saying about specific scenarios that have questions but many may never encounter (I know there are questions specifically relating to being a female manager, for example), the issue seems to be that those most frequently occurring are from a comparatively small, generic pool.

I'm looking forward to the day when Redknapp replies in cockney and Jose in pidgin English

[upthetoon]

It's boring and repetitive because the amount of press conference regardless of the level of clubs you coach is constant.

some players play in LLM. these clubs will naturally have very little to no press conference at all. this must be corrected in the game.

as you go higher up the tier it increases.

the more higher profile your club are (eg. Man u, Chelsea, Madrid, PSG etc ) you have journalist scrutinizing every inch of the club and there must be plenty of press conference and interviews randomly.

if this is corrected in the game, press conference (they are very repetitive in real life too!) will atleast start to make more sense.

right now it makes no sense in having a dozen press conference for a low club on the poor form of a part-time player.

[kitcub]

They should make at least 500 more questions and answers for them to become enjoyable. This is just same 20 questions being recycled over and over again. Not to mention some completely illogical rifts with managers, when you say something and the other guy completely misses the point with his answer.

THIS.

One of the most disappointing aspects of 15 (and 14) for me is the stagnation of interactive conversations. Whilst I appreciate it's not high on the list of features that are necessary or in demand, it's nice to have, but the conversations have been word-for-word exactly the same pretty much since they were first introduced. It wouldn't hurt to have mixed things up a bit - hell, they don't even have to be that different, they could say the same things but just have 4 or 5 ways of wording it. Would be nice to see some time put into these smaller things to make the experience a little less stale.

[kitcub]

I'm looking forward to the day when Redknapp replies in cockney and Jose in pidgin English

Redknapp's default responses need to have "triffick" in there at least once per question answered

[jayahr]

I have been playing sine the 90's and everyone i have met that plays and indeed some people here on the forums, play becasue to the realism, a chance to manage your club in the most realisitc virtual environment currently available. The media interaction has to be part of this. Perhaps it could be altered indeed some of the wording could be a lot better. But the clamour to remove something that takes a few seconds just boggles my mind.

I too agree that the realism is very important and FM was always better than other games because it was more realistic. That's true in my view as well.

However, I believe that one should be wary to confuse realism and fun. They are not necessarily the same thing. And the bottom line about gaming is that peope usually (IMVVVHO, Kriss ) do it for fun, not for the educational effect of a simulation. While the realism may add to the fun for the most part, it may from a certain threshold on be counter-productive. I would expect most people to agree with this, but of course you may want a game which is as close to real life as possible, because that's the most fun for you. And that 's fair enough if that is so.

[forameuss]

Redknapp's default responses need to have "triffick" in there at least once per question answered

Ooooooooh he's a lovely old player. 'triffic, my Sandra, just 'triffic.

[thomit]

My view is that if a feature can't be done so that it feels sufficiently "real" ... drop it. And press conferences (and team talks) definitely does not feel real, in my opinion. It feels phoney. Bring it back if and when the day solutions have been found to make it work for realism, and not against it. Or - give those of us that feels that it's not adding anything to the game (quite the contrary) - an opt-out possibility. Why not? And no, that does not mean playing FMC or sending the ass.man.

[Nonlondoner]

Ask any Football Manager whether they enjoy press conferences and I suspect the answer will be no. I think it's a stroke of genius that there's a feature realistic enough in FM that it makes gamers feel equally negative towards facing the press. Simulation at its best.

Personally, on balance, I like them. Yes, they are a distraction, yes they get repetative but where else do you get a chance to wind-up Mark Hughes?

[thomit]

Press conferences being boring is fine, because they mostly are in rl. But the thing is; they don't feel realistic. That's the problem. And if they don't feel realistic, and neither do they add "fun" ... ?

By the way; I don't think that adding more questions and answers will help a lot. By it's mechanical nature, they will always feel phoney, I'm afraid. I don't see a way that they could be made to feel more real. Unless we have a AI clever enough to react to answers that we formulate ourselves, freely. I don't see that happening in this century. The initial questions asked by the journalists are not so bad; in rl they tend to be repetitive anyway. Football journalists are rarely clever. But if we can't answer those questions as we feel like, in our own words, and then have the journalists react to that and make proper follow-up questions, these press conferences will always feel "wrong" and phoney. And as I said earlier; if a feature can't be done close to right; don't do them. Or at least give us a choice to leave them out.

[jumbohotdog]

How would you make press conferences realistic then?

[wetfred]

I like them but they are annoying at times. I try to answer the questions how I would as a manager and not what I'm supposed to say just to keep up morale in some cookie cutter sort of way. I have stormed out a few times and refused to answer questions more than a few times. That what makes the game fun!

[Sky]

Moreover, and Miles may have hinted at this in the FM15 features video, there is scope to more closely define when and how often press conferences appear in FM15 and I'll be happy to elaborate further on this after release.

I did notice this. Traditional pre match press conferences are sometimes shorter than they used to be last year, same with post match, and sometimes certain questions are now being asked in the tunnel, which is nice. It is good to see this aspect of the game being given attention by the devs and I just think that the concept is great, and if the execution can be further refined or even revamped, this could turn out to be an amazing and staple feature for the series.

[thomit]

How would you make press conferences realistic then?

I don't think they can be. And that's why I want a proper choice to play without them. That choice not being sending the ass.man or playing FMC.

[Mattyboy89]

I don't really enjoy them.

It got to the point where I didn't even need to read the questions. I just read the answers and replied. For the majority, every answer for each question was the same.

I let me assistant manager deal with them now. I feel it doesn't really affect my game, regardless of whether I attend or not.

[dsouthy]

They are good at first but especially in FM14 you seem to repeat everything every game.

[Auqakuh]

In terms of modding, some of you may remember we experimented several years back by releasing an editor which allowed people to edit and add in-game media comments such as manager mind-games. It was a different system to the current conference module but similar in the sense that each new comment needed logic rules applying so that it would appear in exactly the right scenario. This naturally and understandably put a lot of people off I think. Take up was not high as a result.

I indeed remember this, although it disappeared so quickly (from the next game) that I occasionally thought it was all a dream. But yes, this is why I was suggesting something that wasn't "direct" modding by the community.

[MRCHDG]

Why not a choice: Include/Don't include press conference?

[Smurf]

Why not a choice: Include/Don't include press conference?

There already is - assign your assistant.

Anyway - I don't care for them, I ignore them the most part. Maybe if I sign a marque player I'll hold a press conference. But I try to avoid them.

[sevestra]

Never missed a press conference since FM2012. I really like them, although they lack variety, it's still a decent feature. Plus, I don't trust my assistant.

[PenS66]

Yes, having press conferences in the game makes it feel more realistic.

However, I have a major problem that my answers (or those of my assistant) somehow have an influence on the morale of my players. If you truly believe answering the same questions every week to the same media guys is of the slightest interest to professional football players, you need a reality check.

Press conferences are in existence for one reason: That journalists have something to write before and after games. I am one of them, trust me...