Introducing 'Narratives' - Suggestion for future FM (Long post!)

[iolodavanki]

Warning: Long post!

Having thought about this for a while, I wish to suggest the introduction of what I call "narratives" into FM.

In real life, NARRATIVES are now a part of the modern game. The media and us as consumers of the beautiful game are constantly in search for narratives. This is what changes the concept of 22 grown-up men kicking a ball around into a passion that is more important than life and death. This is why we love and hate players and managers.

The idea of introducing narratives into FM is to make the game more fun to play, more personal and immerse the player more into the game.

What I mean by narratives is that stories will evolve in the game and have a buffing or de-buffing effect on players, staff, teams and fans. The narrative lasts for a longer period of time until it runs it course or is resolved. The narrative will tie media and fans closer to the proceedings of a club. For me, the narratives should be a constant presence over a certain situation and create more unique and diverse experiences when playing the game and starting different saves. Narratives can be both positive or negative and sometimes they can be both at the same time or a gray zone, meaning it will come down to personal taste or even situation-based. Before a narrative becomes active it will be 'brewing' meaning that the player will be able to see what narratives are gaining momentum in media and among fans. Whether the player wants to change course in order to avoid a narrative is up to the him/her.

Examples of narratives that could give the game more flavor (Disclaimer: I have tried to include examples from world football but there is an emphasis on Liverpool and England here - sorry!):

- 'Departure of a world class player'. Example, Suarez leaving Liverpool would create the narrative at Liverpool of replacing a world class player. Media and fans will eagerly be following the search for a new 'messiah'. The narrative will place scrutiny on the Liverpool transfers and incoming players might be under increased pressure. Other examples: C Ronaldo leaving United, De Gea leaving United (potentially), Zidane leaving Juve for Real.

- 'Departure of an Icon'. Example, Gerrard finally leaving Liverpool. Speculation about his future and finally his decision followed by departure of the iconic leader would be a narrative that would lie like a heavy fog over Anfield in the 14/15 season. Other examples are Pirlo and Zidane leaving or retiring. The speculation and the eventual decision made by club and/or player will be part of a narrative spanning at least 12 months. After the icon leaves a new narrative will start where the uncertainty of life without the icon is at its peak.

- 'Searching for identity'. A club entering a new era after appointing a new manager, a new board or having had iconic players leave the club will enter a narrative of searching for the club's new identity. Will the team play attacking och defensive football? What new stars will be born at the club? This narrative can last for a short or a long term depending on how things play out. As an example, Liverpool are still 3 years after appointing Rodgers searching for its identity as the team have lost key players every summer (Suarez, Gerrard, Sterling) and played different football each season (#1 possession-based, #2 counter attack #3 low-tempo false 9). The 'searching for identity' narrative may effect both on the pitch and off the pitch matters.

- 'The return of a hero' Example, the return of Mourinho to England. Exectations and media coverage will increase. Chelsea will now be under the narrative of playing a certain football and that the manager is actually bigger than any player at Chelsea as long as the narrative lasts. This positive narrative can be a carrot to sign players dear to fans. If the returning star fails however, the narrative may add pressure to the club and manager.

- 'World cup year'. Players make slightly different choices in order to make sure they are in the starting 11 of their respective nations. The narrative will span over 12 months, starting one year before the finals. The footballing world will eat and breath international football and world cup fever is truly spreading. Young international stars become hot transfer targets (Sterling, Barkley, James Rodriguez).

- 'Monumental individual event'. Things happen on football pitches and they are not forgotten, especially when millions are watching. These events should cause huge narratives that will simply not go away! Some of the most famous events that will follow players careers are: Zidane red card in WC final (headbutt a bit hard to code into game), Gerrard slip (defensive mistake that cost title), Waddle, Southgate, Batty penalty misses for the national team in later stages of WC/Euro finals, Maradona wonder goal at WC against England, violent acts (Cantona kung-fu, Keane v Haaland), Emotional overload (Gazza's tears). I know this is hard to put in the game but due to its impact, I think it is worth a go.

- 'Monumental club events'. Powerful narratives that last for multiple seasons should be introduced for club events that changes the club's history. Examples are Liverpool winning the CL 2005 by coming back from 0-3, Wigan winning the FA cup an getting relegated, Atletico Madrid winning La Liga and almost winning the CL in the same season against all odds, Greece winning the Euro 2004, Ajax winning the CL 1995, Arsenal going unbeaten in the league in 03/04, Sweden and Croatia picking up bronze medals at WC finals. These events have a huge impact on the clubs/countries and will serve to help the player of FM to be more immersed into the game world rather than winning the CL with, say, Ajax and get a notification in the inbox that the board is ecstatic and then back to normal.

- 'Humiliations'. It happens now and then that clubs and countries lose in a way that is unacceptable. Examples are Barca v Real 5-0 in 2009, Stoke v Liverpool 6-1 in 2015, South Korea v Italy 2-1 2002, Man U v Man City 1-6 2011. These kind of results cause short-lived narratives that questions the skill and loyalty of manager and players.

- 'Team lacks X'. This negative narrative will come into play when the consensus among fans and media is that a team lacks something specific. Examples of X could be: goal-scoring threat, pace, leadership, defensive stability, spine (top class GK-DC-MC-SC), mental strength, motivation, physical presence, flair (i e entertainment value). This narrative will be brewing for sometime before blooming. The manager might be wise to avert this narrative as it will place a lot of emphasis on a particular issue and cause unrest and loss of confidence. For example, a few years ago there was a narrative that Arsenal lacked 'defensive stability' and 'mental strength'. Last season, the Man U narrative was that the team lacked 'pace', something LVG may have corrected by signing Depay. Other examples from the top of my head: Liverpool (goal scoring threat 14/15) and Chelsea (flair, a few seasons ago).

- 'Team has X'. This positive narrative will come into play when the consensus among fans and media is that a team is showing immense strength in a particular area. Examples of X could be: goal-scoring threat, pace, leadership, defensive stability, spine (top class GK-DC-MC-SC), mental strength, motivation, physical presence, flair (i e entertainment). Examples are Stoke under Pulis (physical presence), Chelsea currently under Mourinho (spine), Arsenal currently (flair), Barcelona currently (flair).

- 'Huge personalities'. Some players become more famous for who they are than what they actually have accomplished on the pitch. These narratives should be powerful and cause both joy and headache for fans and managers. Examples are Beckham and Balotelli and the narratives will stay with the players throughout their careers. Buying a player under such a narrative is always a risk but it can pay off big time too.

- 'Massive fees'. World football is full of huge transfers going either right or wrong. This would create a very powerful narrative where player and fans are really affected by the huge media coverage of the transfer. If the transfer goes right the player and the club will be empowered by the huge transfer and the deal will be seen as a beast flexing its muscles. If the transfer does not work out however, the narrative will quickly escalate into a whirlpool of speculation and pressure.

Examples of failed transfers where the narrative probably put so much pressure on the player that failure was on the cards: Torres 50M, Lentini (13M in 1992), Shevshenko (30M), Carroll (35M), Di Maria (59M), Veron (28M), Denilson (21M, 1998).

Examples of hugely successful transfers where the narrative turned into a marquee signing and icon of the new club: Nesta (21M 2002 Milan), C Ronaldo (80M Real), Ronaldo (fat) (30M 2002 Real), Zidane (46M 2001 Real), Crespo (35M 2000 Lazio), Rooney (27M, 2004 Man U), Hazard (32M Chelsea), Drogba (24M 2004 Chelsea) and Aguero (38M City). What about Suarez (65M) winning the CL in his first season? The narrative is there but is slowly turning into a positive narrative.

Jury's still out on some players (narrative ongoing), for example Sterling (49M City), Bale (78M Real), James Rodriguez (63M Real) and perhaps David Luiz (50M PSG).

- 'Transfer rumor'. This is a powerful narrative that has mostly a negative effect on players where "someone whispers in their ear", players have their heads turned and/or players not having the head in the right place to even play anymore for the current club. The narrative has a negative effect on the club as the rumors just won't go away. For example, knowing that De Gea at some point will go to Real (in 7 days, 12 months or 3 years - who knows?) may make Man U want to sell in order to get rid of the narrative. The Suarez situation before he moved to Barcelona was going on for at least 12 months. Sterling and Liverpool came under this narrative early in 2015 and to what extent it damaged the on-pitch performances, no one knows for sure, but what we know is that it dragged on for 6 months. Cabaye and Newcastle is another ugly example when Arsenal came sniffing. When Liverpool bought Benteke this summer, this narrative became obsolete by Liverpool paying the minimum fee release clause. Otherwise it too could have dragged on to deadline day with ugliness surely to be ensued.

- 'A hated chairman/an insanely rich oil sheik'. Ashley or Mubarak. The narrative will lie like a wet blanket over a club and media and fans will put immense pressure on a club under a controversial leadership. This will effect attendances, player pulling power, merchandise and of course manager appointments. This is already in the game, but if the narrative was made clearer, it would be more fun to play and the AI decisions would be more understandable.

- 'Giants not having won trophies'. Liverpool have never won the PL and Arsenal went a decade without a trophy. This pressure is almost non-existent in FM today whereas in real life, the media and the fans talk about this all the time. Now, Arsenal have won two straight FA cups and the narrative would be removed as "that monkey is now off their back".

- 'X have not won Y trophy'. Some players and managers will suffer from lack of silverware as this discredits their pedigree. One example is Rodgers starting his 4th year at Liverpool having never won a trophy either at LFC or elsewhere. The narrative will be brewing and in 12 months go into full bloom, surely. Gerrard never won the PL. Ibrahimovic has never won the CL which he is constantly reminded of in the media.

- 'X has won a plethora of trophies'. A positive narrative that a player can gain if he constantly seems to play for teams winning trophies. The best example of this is Ibrahimovic who has won 26 major trophies playing for Ajax, Juventus, Inter, Barcelona, Milan, PSG, of which 12 are league wins in 14 years. Having a player with this narrative will inspire confidence into any team.

-'Class of '92'. When a group of players come through the ranks at any club to become successful first team players they will create a positive narrative for themselves (a buff when playing together). This is rare in real life but it happens -- United (Scholes, Becks, Butt, Neville x2, Giggs) or the Ajax team of '95 (Kluivert, Overmars, De Boer x2, Davids, Seedorf) or Barcelona under Guardiola fielding La Masia players (Messi, Iniesta, Xavi). In FM, I am sure many player managers develop their young players into stars and then this kind of narrative would be immensely satisfying.

'Partnerships'. I cannot stress how cool I think this would be. This can be 2-4 players forming a unit that is far greater than its parts. The narrative will buff their perfomances through confidence and fans will love the duo, trio or quartet. Examples are:

- Back fours of Arsenal (Dixon, Bould, Adams, Winterburn) and Milan (Tassotti, Baresi, Costacurta, Maldini) in the 90s.

- Striker partnerships working best together like Vialli&Mancini, Toshack&Keegan, Shearer&Sutton, Henry&Bergkamp .

- Trios: Neymar-Messi-Suarez could with time form a narrative and probably have already after their 2015 CL win. The narrative could be brewing for a little bit longer before coming into play. I read an article the other day of Man U now wanting to find their trio in Rooney-Depay-X, where X is yet to be revealed. Find the golden triangle and make them gel and you will be rewarded by a powerful narrative.

- Central defense partnerships. A huge buff for them playing together after they have gelled over a longer period of time and been successful. Examples, Pallister&Bruce, Terry&Carvalho.

- Yin&Yang partnerships made in heaven like Gerrard&Torres.

- National bonds like the Dutchmen at AC Milan (Rijkaard, Gullit, Van Basten) or the French legion at Arsenal (Henry, Pires, Petit etc) will create a narrative that increases the bond between club and country for various buffs and debuffs.

- Player v Manager partnership. In some rare instances, players and managers develop bonds so strong that it becomes a narrative. This narrative will play more of a background role but might come into play when deciding how to treat the player or if to sell/release him. Having a captain in your team that is under this narrative can be extremely powerful as the trust and loyalty between the player and manager is very strong. Examples are Terry and Mourinho.

'Rivalries'. This can be expanded on as a narrative because when you are in charge of a club with intense rivals, then the rivalry will cause a narrative, and this is hugely affected by what the rival club does. For example, being in charge of Man U, the rivalry narrative will change depending on how Man City and Liverpool are doing. If they sign a world class player, pressure will be on you. If they win a trophy, the narrative will turn the cameras on you to respond (even if there is nothing you can do about it!). If Liverpool are struggling year after year, the narrative will work in your favour as the Man U manager as you are doing well in comparison. In real life, one can imagine that one of the factors that saved Rodgers' job at LFC this summer was indeed that Everton were doing terribly and that United did not win the league. On an international level, this could also play out so that for England if Germany win the WC, the FA will scrutiny what England is doing wrong on a broader level and might implement changes, like trying to copy their youth set-up (cue Scudamore and his dossier).

Other narratives that I will just throw out there for others to potentially expand upon are:

- 'Minnow promoted to higher/highest?) division'. Swansea, Bournemouth, Hoffenheim.

- 'Fallen giant' narrative. Deportivo, Leeds, Bradford (it is all relative!), Kaiserslautern, River Plate a few years ago, AEK Athens.

- 'Yo-yo club' narrative (promotion and relegation club, e g Watford and Bolton)

- 'Selling club' narrative (Arsenal 5 years ago, Liverpool today)

- 'Producer of talent' narrative (historic success in developing talent increases interest and sale values of talent produced, e g Udinese, Ajax, Auxerre, Nantes, Brommapojkarna, Barcelona)

- 'Stepping stone' narrative. Certain players will move on to bigger things when the time is right. If a player gains the stepping stone narrative it might hurt the current club in terms of club stature. Examples are Suarez, Fabregas and De Gea always being destined to return to one of two big clubs in Spain. Another way for this narrative to come into play is if a young highly promising player signs for a club that inevitably is too small for him but he signs knowing it is just a stepping stone, like Tevez and Mascherano to West Ham.

'Brewing narratives' are narratives that the game starts to build up but that are not yet in play. The player can find information on 'brewing narratives' and try to get them into play or try to hinder them (if it is a negative narrative). For example, the front three at Barcelona are starting to form a narrative and the manager may want to play them together more and more in order for them to score more and win more trophies together in order for the narrative to go into full bloom. Other brewing narratives could be if a defensive pairing is starting to rake in clean sheets or if a rival is starting to win league titles. Another brewing narrative could be if a set of youth players are starting to play together for the senior team (e g Kane, Bentaleb, Mason at Spurs). Being able to convert a brewing narrative into a full narrative can be very powerful and playing the media and commit to mind games can affect this. For the Spurs trio above for example, constantly bigging them up in the media may help the narrative to come into play.

A big club/country will likely have several narratives going on at the same time and it will be important for the manager to manage these as well as possible. For example, you have a player who has a monumental individual narrative hanging over him (say after missing the decisive penalty in a WC semi-final) but he is part of a narrative 'partnership'. At the same time he is under a 'huge personality' narrative due to being an iconic social media personality. How do you handle this?

Combinations of narratives will as a consequence play an important role; Another scenario that will regularly play out is that you are approaching the 'Departure of an Icon' narrative as your star player will is likely to leave for, say, the MLS in 12 months. The narrative is currently brewing and the media is starting to ask questions. Will you go out and spend 40M on a similar albeit 10 years younger star player with the 'massive fee' narrative surely to come into effect? Do you feel confident that the transfer will work out?

In order to keep the narratives from being just sentences stated after each other in a row, I suggest their interaction if possible to be represented in a graph. Perhaps similar to the displayable hexagon (?) in the player profile page where different attributes are showing strengths and weaknesses of a player. The collective attributes could be summarized as "controversy", "pressure", "fans happiness", "stability", "player power" and "world status". Details to be ironed out.

Finally, in line with board philosophies, I suggest that the player can choose with sliders what the current policies at the club should be and this will then directly affect how likely and how severely the narratives hit. In a huge club like Real Madrid narratives may be diminshed by the strong overall structure of the club whereas at a growing club like Man City status enhancing narratives will be welcomed and here narratives might have a much stronger influence (for better of worse) on the future of the club. Examples of these sliders can be policies on player use of social media where tough policies reduce chances of some narratives and lenient policies increase chances of narratives happening but also increase the clubs stature if all goes well. Another policy slider could be if transfer conducted by the club in general are done in a very proper way (higher fees but less drama) or in a dirty way (lower fees, more drama). One can also imagine a slider where the clubs promotes rivalries to increase exposure and rivalry narratives or if the slider is set more towards less rivalry where the club states that every game is worth 3 p and it is qualification for X that matters, not petty rivalry. The screen could then be concluded by the player being able to use master slider whether the club will be resisting narratives by being stoic and nipping them in the bud effectively weaken the narrative factors or more welcoming to the many flavors of football by letting narratives go quicker from brewing status to in bloom status.

[Lord Rowell]

Good post and I like the idea.

At start of game they could be a feature of the database, making them dynamic would be challenging though.

[dspeters]

I quite like the idea, but I fail to see how it could be put in place. This new feature alone would require a massive overhaul of everything linked to mentality, reputation, morale and more. Yes, it is a part of the football managing experience in real life, but I think it would be very hard to implement this in the game realisticly. Still, kudos for the idea...

[Welshace]

Genuinely like the idea.. would love to see something implemented into a future version

[deltablue]

Excellent idea. The problem is that a lot of those categories are at least partially subjective. For example with partnerships, what criteria would have to be programmed in for the game to recognize them and start referring to them as such? Same with 'failed' transfers in a lot of cases, fallen giants and things like that where the game would either recognize such things far too easily or too strictly depending on a lot of people's personal interpretation.

I myself am very much able to build up that sort of epic narrative (which is what I love about the game, each career is a long and eventful journey full of all sorts of twists and turns) without needing the game itself to do it, though it would be nice to a bit more of an 'in-game' story develop nonetheless. A few of them do look a little more straightforward and while it still sounds like a lot of effort to implement properly, it would be interesting to see SI explore what could be realistically done in this direction.

[dllu]

Yeah, I think it would be very difficult (although not impossible) to code into the game. Definitely something I would like to see the developers work on in the future, but for now, it's kind of what I use the Stories and Career forums for...

[YKW]

Fantastic post!

I love the concept and your specific ideas are brilliant too. I would 100% enjoy something like this. One of the real strengths of how you have put across the idea is that the narratives aren't unique to any particular level of football or footballing culture. "A Huge Fee" would have similar effects on a Premiership player, club, manager or fan as it would have on a Peruvian lower league equivalent. What constitutes a huge fee would be vastly different, as would the reach of the story, but I think you have a great bunch of examples that could easily translate between countries and leagues.

I made a similar (but much worse) thread on here a couple of years ago called I think the game needs storylines.

I would be interested in hearing a bit more about what the effects of the narratives might be in more detail. Obviously there would be effects on morale, motivation, pressure, and perhaps some effects on board/fan expectations. Something you hinted at was positive ME effects, such as in your "Partnerships" narrative. I would also like to see narratives affect transfer fees and contract demands.

To really be at its best, I think this idea would need to go hand in hand with updates to other areas of the game, to truly give it the depth that comes across in your post.

1. Improvements to social dynamics: Some way of representing cliques and the comparative "weight" of their opinions, perhaps through some kind of adaptation of Fifa Manager's Team hierarchy feature. In the context of your idea, this would allow narratives such as "Return of a Hero," "Monumental Individual Event," "Massive Fee," "Transfer Rumour," "Partnerships" and others to produce realistic and compelling divisions in the squad. For instance the "Return of a Hero" may not just upset his positional rivals as currently, but may also alienate any senior player who now feels less "important." A properly functioning club has a clear chain of command in theory and in practice. One of the major effects of "narratives" as they exist in real football is to upset this chain of command and undermine players, managers and chairman. A "Fans Favourite" narrative could be interesting if the player in question was a bad influence - the love of the fans would have him see himself as untouchable, therefore being a less controllable force than without the Fans favourite narrative.

2. More marketing/merchandising information: Although I like the addition of the top shirt sellers and brief mention of countries in which my team is popular, this needs to be more detailed. Firstly with ongoing merchandise stats from the club shops, but also with the addition of these stats for foreign markets as well as ongoing Supporter Group attendance for different countries and regions. The Scouting Knowledge graph and heat map could be easily adapted to show this. Narratives such as "Monumental individual/club event," "Humiliation," "Big Personality" and "Hated Chairman" would depend on this change. The "Big Personality" narrative for example may mean that the most well known aspect of your club overseas is a troublemaker, and as such it is harder to increase overseas following. A "Hated Chairman" may see club shop sales drastically drop through boycott. Another narrative that you only touched on could be "Cultural Icon," such as David Beckham. Signing such a player (and they would be rare) would massively benefit your merchandise and overseas efforts.

3. More realistic reputation system. For me reputation isn't just about being either well known or unknown, it's also about what you are known for. I think there needs to be something else that means players, managers and clubs can be well known but for negative things. Narratives such as "Monumental individual/club event," "Team lacks/has X," "X club not having won trophy Y" and "Selling Club" are examples that would need something like this to exist. For instance a "Dirty Player" narrative brewing under the surface before said player breaks another player's leg. This player may be known as a dirty player his whole career (he may not even have that high dirtiness.) In the case of the "Selling Club" the best players may not want to join because they don't think the club has ambition, but slightly lesser players may be eager to join knowing that the club will sell them to someone bigger later on.

I seriously love all your ideas, but especially the Rivalries and Partnerships narratives - the latter in particular has almost too much to it to be included just as a narrative. I would like to see the addition of "chemistry" that had a chance of existing between two people and that could, like you say, make them play as more than just the sum of their parts. This could be boosted once the media pick up on it through the partnerships narrative, but I think it should still be existing under the hood as a separate dynamic. "Your Assistant Manager would like to bring to your attention that Player X and Player Y have recently been showing a remarkable understanding in training and in matches," for example.

Great stuff all round. I do think a problem would be how the narratives were generated around a gameworld, and the extent to which they were simmed in the background. Even if it is hopeful, I think this would be a great direction for the game.

[iolodavanki]

post.

Thank you all so much for first of all taking the time to read my post. I have enjoyed your posts. Too often efforts like these are shot down by trolls or others on forums. I was afraid to reload the page because I feared seeing haters posting or, even worse, seeing zero replies.

I do see the point made that if you as a player of FM immerse yourself enough and have the imagination to do so, narratives or equivalent gameplay mechanics are not needed to make each save a unique experience. I am now 36 yrs old and I have played CM or FM since CM Italia in 1992 (I think) and loved every game. For me, though, an RPG element combined with stories is almost needed in order to avoid having saves become too samey. For example, this spring and summer I have had some long saves with Ajax, Lyon and Genoa and after a couple of seasons they feel very similar, partly due to me signing lots of regens and kids and becoming a dominant force in Europe. I win my domestic leagues and I try to stay true to signing players from historically accurate nations but in the end there is not a huge different really between my Ajax of 2019 and my Lyon of 2019. Zivkovic or Lacazette, Veldman or Umtiti. What I am trying to say is that perhaps I am the kind of gamer who would need something more to the game than lots of numbers on the screen to immerse myself into the game world.

I am a huge Liverpool fan but playing with Liverpool on FM just does not work for me. Perhaps it is too close to home. But I think that knowing LFC very well, the FM representation of Liverpool Football Club just doesn't ring true to me, sadly. Writing my post above I started salivating thinking about leading my beloved Liverpool in FM with narratives making the game world come alive for me.

Now, would it work? Does it need years to implement? And more importantly, if a feature like this were to be implemented, how many versions of FM and patches would be needed before the feature is correctly implemented? Remember when the 2D graphical match representation came about? It took ages before FM players were happy with it.

Perhaps if something like narratives were brought into the game, it could be a third playing mode next to FMC and FM just in order not to fix what aint broken. If SI Games wanted, they could let testers like us evaluate and give feedback.

Again, thanks for your replies and thoughtful comments! Cheers.

[Schotsmannetje]

I am a huge Liverpool fan but playing with Liverpool on FM just does not work for me. Perhaps it is too close to home. But I think that knowing LFC very well, the FM representation of Liverpool Football Club just doesn't ring true to me, sadly. Writing my post above I started salivating thinking about leading my beloved Liverpool in FM with narratives making the game world come alive for me.

I get this completely. I never play with my favourite teams (like Feyenoord), because the 'atmosphere' and the intensity of the club will just feel off somehow. I agree with you that FM needs more 'stories' to keep it interesting.

[cerud]

I never comment of these "concept idea" posts, but this one was very well thought out. This is something that would definitely add to the immersive nature of the game. Great post!

[OBONGO]

This sounds absolutely fantastic and would add some much needed flavor and life to FM games.

[LewisQ]

I'm liking this a lot, iolodavanki. One of the ways FM really falls down is in conveying a sense of occasion and the significance of in-game events (which is why people end up wearing suits for cup finals etc). This a top suggestion, would love to see it implemented.

[Rikulec]

I'll support any idea that improves the representation on the football world in FM, but this one is particularly brilliant. Great post.

[thomit]

Quick thought: Wouldn't a lot of these "narratives" be constrained by legal issues? I mean, they would need to portray real people as being mental, dishonest, greedy, stupid ...

We can all have an opinion on these things in the real world, like person x being a greedy ******* etc., but to actually portray real living people - chairmen, boards, players, managers - as that in a game would be problematic I think. There's a few things that you just can't do as long as you're using real people's names in a game.

Also, there is the fear I have that something like this would lead to even more Q&A with the media ... something I feel don't work as it is now, and that I don't think will ever work. There's nothing in this game that reminds me more that I'm only playing a game, as when these "talks" pops up. Instead of adding to the illusion, they take away from it. So I really wouldn't want any more of that sort of thing.

[Overmars]

Most of these ideas are generally provided by our own imaginations. They certainly help game immersion.

I think the real win would be if some off-pitch incidents occurred involving your players. If legal reasons prevent this type of coding, then limit those events to regens. I just think we could use a little more personality to the players, beyond whether or not they try hard in training.

[iolodavanki]

Good observations there - I agree that the media in FM is more of a nuisance than an immersive factor, unfortunately. A few steps towards these ideas have obviously been made over the years. For example PPMs, media and in FM15 the manager stats with sliders and badges were introduced when you start a new game.

I'd say the PPMs have worked very well but that is intimately related to the match engine. Anyway, for me it would interesting to see more "RPG elements" introduced into the game where you earn traits or perks much like in games like Fallout. In Football Manager Live there was an element of this as you had skills imporving as you played (scouting to see potential ability or training skillls to make you players develop faster or economy master in order to make your bank roll grow etc). It was fun, simple as.

I am sure SI Games have always been looking into these aspects of the game in order to make the game more fun to play and more varied each time you play. Who knows what rabbit they are gonna pull out of the hat when the new features of FM16 are released?

Anyway, again thanks for all your replies.

[Just-Wool]

I just caught this thread, was a saves thread on my tablet so sorry for commenting so late on it.

It is a terrific idea, one that is well thought and presented and I applaud you for it. Just to add a couple more ideas, such as journeyman footballers, underwhelming signings when you are close to a title and signing the same player every club you go to, or even "doing a redknapp" and speculation on just how many deadline day deals you will do this year.

Obviously this will be very difficult and a massive task for SI to implement, maybe necessitating a whole new game engine. If it can be done though, it would be fantastic. Stories are how 2k are moving their career modes on their sports games so there is hope.

[MBarbaric]

brilliant, i wish there was internall FM radio to report this stories. now that would be hard to implement:D

[iolodavanki]

I just caught this thread, was a saves thread on my tablet so sorry for commenting so late on it.

It is a terrific idea, one that is well thought and presented and I applaud you for it. Just to add a couple more ideas, such as journeyman footballers, underwhelming signings when you are close to a title and signing the same player every club you go to, or even "doing a redknapp" and speculation on just how many deadline day deals you will do this year.

Obviously this will be very difficult and a massive task for SI to implement, maybe necessitating a whole new game engine. If it can be done though, it would be fantastic. Stories are how 2k are moving their career modes on their sports games so there is hope.

Thanks for the kind words and also for some fresh ideas! Cheers

[samdiatmh]

Quick thought: Wouldn't a lot of these "narratives" be constrained by legal issues?

unfortunately yes

I do think it has a place in the game, but unfortunately will only be used on newgen staff (that have no legal representation irl)

[MBarbaric]

unfortunately yes

I do think it has a place in the game, but unfortunately will only be used on newgen staff (that have no legal representation irl)

i don't see it as a major problem. they should start evolving the game (beside improving it) in some direction nevertheless

[nickdc]

Narrative? My narrative for pre-season were fixtures against Paris FC, Kaiserslauten, FC Kopenhagen and Anderlect. I imagined them arriving by Eurostar and travelling by rail to each of the destinations before a flight into Glasgow to play Rangers.

Next preseason I will play a couple of fixtures in Slovenia and then take another rail journey into Italy, enjoying the delights of Florence and Naples.

Much of what the games delivers is in the head.

[grade]

I love the idea as it would bring another different and engaging layer to the game.

How it would be implemented? Well that is for SI to decide when to put this as a feature.

[Gregorio Thommassi]

Great post. I've always thought the immersion and 'world building' aspect of FM is one of the things that would only need to be improved a little in order to improve the game many fold. A lot of your ideas would go a way to doing that.

As for how these ideas could be coded - I'm no programmer, but in my ignorance I would assume that there could be a mechanism where the game registers when several players show a pattern of performing well together. For example, if several of the attacking players score often in the same game, or if they frequently set up goals for each other.

Also, in order to implement alot of the ideas suggested in the opening post, I think there has to be more extensive pieces of in-game journalism. For the player to truly grasp the depth and weight of some of these in-game experiences, we'd need to read it in a format similar to a broadsheet football article. Of course, you could still have the option of reading one of the red-tops, but I think some proper in-depth football articles would be an absolute god-send in terms of creating an immersive world.

It would require some proper work, I know. But the rewards would be similar to the immersive experience of a Bethesda type game.

[forameuss]

A lot of comments seem to mention about a lot of this being in your head or imagination. They're absolutely right, and a lot of my enjoyment in FM comes from "filling in the blanks" myself. Adding little bits of intrigue to it, all the bits that come from always having a fairly fertile imagination.

For those that can do that, would this feature ever really meet their expectations? Bear in mind that to do this, it would have to be coded in, and at present there is just no way of a coded solution being particularly "imaginative". All "narratives" would have to be coded in, and no matter how smartly it was done, it would still be following a script. Think of it like the media interaction - a great idea and one that was much needed when it was added, but it's a bit stale and repetitive. This is on another scale of difficulty to that, so personally I couldn't see myself being anything more than disappointed with it, compared to what I could come up with in my own head. That's in no way a slight on SI's abilities, more the fact that it'd be impossible to match up to what I've already done in my own head. If that makes sense.

Narrative? My narrative for pre-season were fixtures against Paris FC, Kaiserslauten, FC Kopenhagen and Anderlect. I imagined them arriving by Eurostar and travelling by rail to each of the destinations before a flight into Glasgow to play Rangers.

Next preseason I will play a couple of fixtures in Slovenia and then take another rail journey into Italy, enjoying the delights of Florence and Naples.

Much of what the games delivers is in the head.

Take what nickdc says above. How would they code something like that in? Would they want to? It's pretty minor after all, but to him, it's an extra layer of colour on the game. Think of all the thousands of little bits of colour that everyone has thought of, and it's quite a daunting task.

I guess my view on it is that if they could absolutely nail it (which to me is highly unlikely) it would improve things. But this seems like a huge sea change, and something that would either be massively superficial (if done wrong) or extremely pervasive (if done right) on the code base. Until then, I'll just stick to using my imagination.

Oh and I hate the term "narrative". Nothing against the idea really, but it brings on connotations of dreadful media types.

[YKW]

Great post. I've always thought the immersion and 'world building' aspect of FM is one of the things that would only need to be improved a little in order to improve the game many fold. A lot of your ideas would go a way to doing that.

As for how these ideas could be coded - I'm no programmer, but in my ignorance I would assume that there could be a mechanism where the game registers when several players show a pattern of performing well together. For example, if several of the attacking players score often in the same game, or if they frequently set up goals for each other.

I would avoid basing things on match stats as much as possible. What I think would work well with this idea would be the concept of 'Chemistry.' Think of a real life positive relationship between two players. What I would think it would be possible to do is reduce these and other RL relationships into sets of complementary attributes that would result in a greater chance of 'Chemistry' occurring.

For instance a slow winger with great crossing combined with a tireless, work-horse full back. Or a tall, lanky target man and a tiny, speedy scavenger. Attributes would come into play, as well as preferred moves, personalities, hidden attributes and relationships.

I think anything could be the basis of chemistry. If you imagine the dynamic between a shy and humble playmaker and an arrogant attention seeking striker, you could see how either positive or negative chemistry could occur. Perhaps the two players are friends and such work together well because they aren't fighting for the spotlight. Perhaps they dislike each other, and negative chemistry would then occur because the creator doesn't want to set up the arrogant striker.

If you could come up with enough stereotypical conditions and a large enough variety of triggers then it could be a cruicial aspect to team building. This would then tie in and be the cause of naratives along the lines of the SAS (either Sheringham and Shearer or Sturridge and Suarez,) or the constant discussion about Lampard and Gerrard not being able to play together.

[Gregorio Thommassi]

I would avoid basing things on match stats as much as possible. What I think would work well with this idea would be the concept of 'Chemistry.' Think of a real life positive relationship between two players. What I would think it would be possible to do is reduce these and other RL relationships into sets of complementary attributes that would result in a greater chance of 'Chemistry' occurring.

For instance a slow winger with great crossing combined with a tireless, work-horse full back. Or a tall, lanky target man and a tiny, speedy scavenger. Attributes would come into play, as well as preferred moves, personalities, hidden attributes and relationships.

I think anything could be the basis of chemistry. If you imagine the dynamic between a shy and humble playmaker and an arrogant attention seeking striker, you could see how either positive or negative chemistry could occur. Perhaps the two players are friends and such work together well because they aren't fighting for the spotlight. Perhaps they dislike each other, and negative chemistry would then occur because the creator doesn't want to set up the arrogant striker.

If you could come up with enough stereotypical conditions and a large enough variety of triggers then it could be a cruicial aspect to team building. This would then tie in and be the cause of naratives along the lines of the SAS (either Sheringham and Shearer or Sturridge and Suarez,) or the constant discussion about Lampard and Gerrard not being able to play together.

I agree that player attributes should play a role in such interactions, and to an extent, they already do, i.e players falling out, player friendships. So it would seem the groundwork is already there if they were to implement that idea. And yes, I can see how this method would add an extra layer of intrigue as it would affect your transfer policy.

However, I would say that the only difference between using player attributes and match stats is that one would be pre-determined and the other would arise dynamically during the game. Could there be room for both?

Using your stipulation of a wide enough pool of conditions and triggers, I think using match stats could work.

Example:

A striker, whose height falls into a pre-determined 'Tall' bracket, sets up X amount of goals in a period of time for his strike partner, whose height falls into the 'Short' bracket. Or vice versa. This would trigger the 'Little and Large 'narrative''.

Now that I think about it, wouldn't match stats need to be involved in some way, since without any match-day events you'd basically just be reading about pre-set 'narratives' in your inbox, which weren't triggered in any way by actual match play?

[nickdc]

A lot of comments seem to mention about a lot of this being in your head or imagination. They're absolutely right, and a lot of my enjoyment in FM comes from "filling in the blanks" myself. Adding little bits of intrigue to it, all the bits that come from always having a fairly fertile imagination.

For those that can do that, would this feature ever really meet their expectations? Bear in mind that to do this, it would have to be coded in, and at present there is just no way of a coded solution being particularly "imaginative". All "narratives" would have to be coded in, and no matter how smartly it was done, it would still be following a script. Think of it like the media interaction - a great idea and one that was much needed when it was added, but it's a bit stale and repetitive. This is on another scale of difficulty to that, so personally I couldn't see myself being anything more than disappointed with it, compared to what I could come up with in my own head. That's in no way a slight on SI's abilities, more the fact that it'd be impossible to match up to what I've already done in my own head. If that makes sense.

Take what nickdc says above. How would they code something like that in? Would they want to? It's pretty minor after all, but to him, it's an extra layer of colour on the game. Think of all the thousands of little bits of colour that everyone has thought of, and it's quite a daunting task.

I guess my view on it is that if they could absolutely nail it (which to me is highly unlikely) it would improve things. But this seems like a huge sea change, and something that would either be massively superficial (if done wrong) or extremely pervasive (if done right) on the code base. Until then, I'll just stick to using my imagination.

Oh and I hate the term "narrative". Nothing against the idea really, but it brings on connotations of dreadful media types.

For the above, I'm not asking for a rail europe travel itinerary, but what this game does not do is factor in travel time. If you're playing in Europe then you can be training on Friday and play in the most Eastern outreaches of Russia then next as if nothing untoward has happened.

My tour of central Europe above, I was playing games every two days, so traveling after the match in the evening or next day would help, otherwise playing abroad doesn't allow for a greater immersion in the imagination that couldn't be coded.

[forameuss]

For the above, I'm not asking for a rail europe travel itinerary, but what this game does not do is factor in travel time. If you're playing in Europe then you can be training on Friday and play in the most Eastern outreaches of Russia then next as if nothing untoward has happened.

My tour of central Europe above, I was playing games every two days, so traveling after the match in the evening or next day would help, otherwise playing abroad doesn't allow for a greater immersion in the imagination that couldn't be coded.

Yeah, I'm not saying they would do that, it was just a very good example of the sort of minutiae that they could never code in, like you say. It aids your enjoyment of the game, but it comes purely from your own head.

[YKW]

I agree that player attributes should play a role in such interactions, and to an extent, they already do, i.e players falling out, player friendships. So it would seem the groundwork is already there if they were to implement that idea. And yes, I can see how this method would add an extra layer of intrigue as it would affect your transfer policy.

However, I would say that the only difference between using player attributes and match stats is that one would be pre-determined and the other would arise dynamically during the game. Could there be room for both?

Using your stipulation of a wide enough pool of conditions and triggers, I think using match stats could work.

Example:

A striker, whose height falls into a pre-determined 'Tall' bracket, sets up X amount of goals in a period of time for his strike partner, whose height falls into the 'Short' bracket. Or vice versa. This would trigger the 'Little and Large 'narrative''.

Now that I think about it, wouldn't match stats need to be involved in some way, since without any match-day events you'd basically just be reading about pre-set 'narratives' in your inbox, which weren't triggered in any way by actual match play?

Yes! I would avoid using match stats as much as possible, but would certainly use them. The idea behind this was just the possibility that narratives could be occurring in leagues which weren't fully active. I would do it exactly as in your example.

[iolodavanki]

Love the discussions in the thread - please keep it up!

On a side note, I play a lot of Civ 5 and don't mind myself the occasional binge of Diablo 3, Path of Exile or Bethesda RPGs (Fallout, Skyrim etc). The hunt for loot, min/max and for stat increases (levelling up, perks, unique abilities and units etc) is rewarding and exciting. For example, in Civ 5 you have to take advantage of your civilization's unique traits and the map around you to combine them into a symbiotic strong strategic game. It is surely gamey and not per se 'simulation and immersive', but I still enjoy it. In Bethesda's games, the possibility to build your character in a way that makes every save unique is key. PPMs in FM is somewhat a step towards this and it was a big hit when introduced. Sure, it is crude but it adds something and makes players more unique.

I sometimes flirt with the idea that having more of these leveling up mechanics and loot would be good fun in FM. FM Live had the stadium to build and you leveled up your manager too with skills such as scouting, training and finances.

I know that this rapidly could break down realism and immersion of the game if you, for example, after winning the league get a bonus perk to your manager profile masked as a reputation or narrative. Or if two players forming a partnership would get a skill point to distribute that is only active once they play together.

The possibilities are endless, but of course the problems highlighted by bright posters here are in some cases glaring.

[YKW]

Bumped in the hope that a moderator could move this to the Feature requests forum as I think it has some great discussion that could be missed otherwise.

(1 of 4)

[Neil Brock]

The way in which we log features, each one of these would need to be logged individually - they would also need context, so would these be appearing as news items, social media posts, press conferences etc? What else would be in place for each narrative to be effective in-game in your opinion? 

[qwerty22]

Manager v Manager narratives need to be added first, The game treats a teams manager as just a member of the staff despte the fact that he is what the game is all about.

I would like to see manager v manager head to head stats, The commentary mentioning why the managers made changes based on their preferred style and tactical tendencies.

When looking at the pre match lineups you dont even see the managers name or record so far.

Then rivlaries between managers can be implemented in a proper way, Not randomly like it is now where you are a 3rd division  side hated by Mourinho and Conte for no reason.

 

This year the battle of Guardiola,Mourinho and Klopp was the highlight of the season in England. Or Zidane v Enrique.