An Idea to Increase the Clarity of the 3D ME

[ggwood]

I really like this idea. If people don't want it on the field, and instead in the match commentary, that should be an option. Already, the match commentary reflects some things like this.

Or, if this is considered too much of a simplifying factor, maybe only in classic mode. That way, people can start in classic mode, see what the attributes are doing, then move to the full game mode, if they like.

And it could be an option in classic, so want to play without this extra help? Sure. Be my guest.

[ggwood]

The whole point is that you should only find out by experience, that is far more realistic.

I don't know what leadership does. But as an example, let us say my defender would have gotten a red card, but for the leadership of my captain.

The number of matches, red cards, I would have to see with captains with various leadership attributes is infinite.

I will never figure this out. I will guess. I will read the forums, maybe others have some better insights.'

Worse still, the code is fantastically complex. It is entirely possible that the intent was exactly what the manual says, and let us say this may be interpreted as my defender would have gotten a red card, but for my captain, but the code has a bug, let us say a minus sign, so that high leadership captains cause more red cards. There are so many other factors, we would never see the difference.

[Fond Foat]

We would be asking too much of the game to show exactly why something happens every second on the pitch. I can imagine how open the ME would be to criticism if it tried to justify absolutely everything. The forums would be full of "how could the engine say that when it is obvious that was not the case." As RTH alluded to earlier, a bit of fuzziness is needed because footbal itself has a lot of fuzziness. The only thing that needs to be refined is the match commentary to try to make things clearer as to what just happened.

[OBONGO]

I love the idea of more clarity - even though I rather dislike the 'gamey' or 'arcadey' presentation suggested originally - but as years and years of FM titles have shown us, giving the players actual understanding how the game and its mechanics work is not a direction SI want to take.

Which I think is a shame because ultimately you cannot employ the same real world 'football common sense' to what is a piece of software with a particular set of limits and a particular interpretation of that 'common sense'. Well to be fair you definitely can in many things, but not entirely.

You just have to hope that stat X does what you think it does, because there is no official confirmation, you don't know if it does anything, or if it does, how much. And you have no way of figuring it out because like someone in this thread said, you would have to run thousands and thousands of tests to find out whether having X, Y and Z a point or two higher is worth it, if there's a difference.

I understand the developers wanting to take the game in a more 'generic', 'conceptual' direction, but it is just so infuriating and annoying when the game is clearly aimed towards that end, but at the same time firmly rooted in a very 'calculated', 'non-generic' core.

Incidentally this is rather prominent in the tactical side of the game, where a lot of options basically have you asking the players to play a certain way - without a priori knowing what it is you are actually asking them to do! Do X more. How much more. More than what? What is baseline X? I am kind of hoping the new 'visualized' tactical screen will help in this regard but I am also pretty sure those hopes are in vain, as the visualization will just be another label for 'slightly more' and not 'start pressing from halfway in the opposition half' or something like that...

[ItsJordannn]

One thing I think should be improved is more discussion with players at half/full time. For example, if a keeper lets a shot in where it looks to the user that it should've been an easy save, perhaps he could say to you at half time, "Sorry about the goal, player X was in the way and I didn't see it until late".

Maybe you're asking your CAM to dribble past players and pass the ball longer but the ground just does not allow for it, why can't he say to you at half time "I'm trying to beat players but the ground is really making it hard, can I try going more direct to 'the striker'."

Maybe your captain could say to you "Player X is having real problems playing upfront with Player Y due to a personality clash/lack of professionalism/etc"

The defender lets the ball go straight over his head, it stops short of the keeper and their striker taps it in. The majority of users would assume the player simply missed the header and blame him, what if it turned out the keeper called for the defender to leave it as he thought it was going to run through to him. With this idea it would take the blame off the defender and on to the goalkeeper, which is more akin to real life imo.

Something like this would add more clarity in my opinion whilst also not making the game 'arcadey'. I also think it would make the game slightly more realistic as you're going to get some sort of discussion in dressing rooms at half time/full time.

On a little side note, maybe half time team talks could be revamped into a similar format to team meetings, for example you say something, your players respond, someone else can say something, you can respond, your assistant manager says something, your captain says something etc etc but this is for another thread.

[WizbaII]

Good point. Of course these conversations happen IRL but at half time, not in the middle of the match, which is a good compromise between what OP wants and those who think a second-by-second analysis would be too arcadey.

[samdiatmh]

would they?

a 15 minute half time team talk is spent with me trying to get my message across (and maybe some personal things to work on for some players) as well as some form of replenishment for the 2nd half

at no point would I want an indepth discussion with a player about 'mistake X' especially if he's blaming other players (well no wonder you're feeling isolated, you fail to take responsibility for your own actions)

I don't have a problem with the 'over his head through ball' that works for the opposition, because it can be a tactic that the opposition try (particularly with a pacy striker, it would be my main tactic - especially at amateur level)

of course, most users miss this because of only watching key highlights (the ME won't show every time it happens, because most of the time the passer will get it wrong and it'll be an easy mop up for the defender/keeper)

and then it'll work that one time and result in a goal (because you're watching key highlights, that's an important end result)

I take it from a match I watched, where one team played with a high line (and was repeatedly catching the opposition striker offside) - wouldn't be shown to the 'key highlight' user

It failed once, and they had a break on and scored (failed the offside trap, ball over the top for the onrushing striker) - would be shown to the 'key highlight' user

The FM user would post on here 'defenders are derps - long balls create chaos for them' because they only see the one time where your system fails, rather than the countless times where it actually worked