Social Media - Do it properly or not at all

[marcMCFC1986]

I'm sure this has been mentioned before - but as with most things, there are so many threads that there simply aren't enough hours in the day to scroll through them all to find it...so I'm just starting a new one!

The Social Media feature is one that I liked the idea of when it first was announced, and when I started my first save I enjoyed reading through it...

However, It is ridiculous really. Some things that are on there just don't make sense. Now, I know that football is a game full of opinions and everybody has one - but some things are just ridiculous that come up on there. A few examples below:

Example 1:

My first save was with Man City - and I signed Dybala at the end of season one for around £70m. Since then he has scored around 50 goals per season, become City's all time leading goalscorer, and is currently 31 and still bagging 30+ Premier League Goals per season. He's just a beast - and a club legend. However, in one game (I can't remember who against) he scored 7 goals! 7! SEVEN! In one game! For any Premier League team to score 7 in one game is a crazy...but for one player to score 7 is just insane. So, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the Social Media page pop up after the game and one 'Tweet' said:

"Dybala was good? Can't see it myself!"

COME ON! Nobody on this planet would have criticised a performance in which one player scored 7 goals in one match!

Example 2:

I am currently playing a save with Southampton. In the second season a regen has appeared in my Youth Squad called Mark Maloney, who is 16 years old and worth £550k. His stats are decent, so decided to stick him on the bench against Bournemouth in the local derby. In the 74th minute I subbed off Balotelli (Yep!) and put Maloney on with the scores at 1-1. In the 82nd minute Tadic fed a through ball to him, and he dinked it past the keeper to score the winning goal, on his debut, in a derby, as a sub, and became the youngest Premier League goalscorer ever! Went to read the Social Media feed afterwards:

"I'm sure Maloney deserves his debut but he was clearly way off the pace out there!"

WHAT? For a start, his match stats for that 15 minute cameo were and overall 7.3, 1 shot on target, 1 goal, 2 passes, 2 passes completed, 1 Key pass, and 1 dribble made - so how he was 'clearly off the pace' is beyond me. But, also, if you've just won your local derby and a 16 year-old bagged the winner, you'd be buzzing - not moaning that he was off the pace!

Example 3:

I am in my second season as Southampton manager - in my first season I finished 7th (but only 4 points from 4th), and won the Europa League, beating Man United 2-1 in the final, and securing Champions League football.

I am 11 games into the second season, currently unbeaten in the league, and after beating Newcastle 3-0 in the League Cup 4th Round one of the 'Tweets' said:

"The gaffer is still clueless!"

SAY THAT TO MY FACE! How on earth am I clueless? The only game I've lost all season was the European Super Cup (against Juventus, so fair enough)!

In short, I think there are some situations where fans would be split on opinion - no better example than the current Wenger In/Out campaign currently going on IRL. Or, when Edin Dzeko was at City, you could have split the fans 50/50 those who love him and those who hate him.

But, if a player scores 7 goals in one game, or a 16 year-old debutant  scored a late winner in the local derby, or an average club were in the Champions League (I'm looking at you, Leicester City) and smashing the Premier League - every single person would be on the same side and be buzzing about it!

So, if SI are going to put it in the game, it needs to be done properly. As, at the moment, it seems like after each game or transfer rumour it just randomly generates 3 tweets, always one positive, one negative, and one neutral - which gets very boring, very quickly. 

[lemeuresnew]

4 minutes ago, marcMCFC1986 said:

So, if SI are going to put it in the game, it needs to be done properly. As, at the moment, it seems like after each game or transfer rumour it just randomly generates 3 tweets, always one positive, one negative, and one neutral - which gets very boring, very quickly. 

yeah, i think for clear cut things like 7 goals in a game it should be all positive, or if you want a negative or neutral make it from an opposing fan

it isnt inportant to me, i dont even read them anymore. but if they were done properly i wouldnt skip over it so much

[Preveza]

This thread could probably have been more effective in the suggestions  to make the game better thread. But I do agree with the OP. Social feed is a great idea, but it clearly wasn't done properly. Let's hope SI overhaul this feature and improve it tremendously come FM18

[santy001]

The criticisms have validity to them, but its an iterative system. On FM18 it would, you'd expect be better than FM17, and on FM19 it will be better than 18. 

There are some clear limitations on it at the moment, which is probably why it doesn't have anything noteworthy attached to it besides any non-descript fluff. In the future it could form a part of the player interaction and discipline elements of the game, transfers, and other elements. 

It takes time though, and the "all or nothing" approach doesn't really work, because every aspect of the game gets refinement, iterated upon and improved as time passes. 

[mark1985]

I think the only thing wrong here is referring to Southampton v Bournemouth as a derby...

[marcMCFC1986]

7 minutes ago, mark1985 said:

I think the only thing wrong here is referring to Southampton v Bournemouth as a derby...

Is it not a derby?

a sports match between two rival teams from the same area.

noun: local derby; plural noun: local derbies

[mack4ever]

2 minutes ago, marcMCFC1986 said:

Is it not a derby?

a sports match between two rival teams from the same area.

noun: local derby; plural noun: local derbies

They are 40 miles apart, so not particularly close.

They are also from different counties, so not even from the same region.

Therefore, not a derby.

[marcMCFC1986]

4 minutes ago, mack4ever said:

They are 40 miles apart, so not particularly close.

They are also from different counties, so not even from the same region.

Therefore, not a derby.

1) Does it really matter - the goal was scored against their rivals.

2) You try telling a Man United fan that Liverpool v United isn't a derby - their head will explode whilst telling you that it's the biggest derby in world football! Idiots! 

[Felix Wilkie]

Man Utd v Liverpool is a good example about rivalries not having to be local. Ipswich v Norwich is another example as there is 40 miles between them.

Enough about rivalries though, let's try and get back to the original topic at hand here. I understand your frustration at times with the social media and I personally agree that improvements can be made. However, this process won't just happen overnight. On the other hand, you could always argue that people will disagree on who has had a good game and not. Yes, Dybala scoring 7 goals in a game is outrageous and nobody should say "Dybala was good? Can't see it myself!" but the fact of the matter is, there will always be one that does. Albeit a bit crazy for someone to say 7 goals isn't good enough, not your average fan there.

@lemeuresnew and @santy001 you both also make some great points and we appreciate your feedback.

Cheers,

Felix

[HemHat]

50 minutes ago, marcMCFC1986 said:

1) Does it really matter - the goal was scored against their rivals.

2) You try telling a Man United fan that Liverpool v United isn't a derby - their head will explode whilst telling you that it's the biggest derby in world football! Idiots! 

biggest in world football 

[mark1985]

1 hour ago, marcMCFC1986 said:

Is it not a derby?

a sports match between two rival teams from the same area.

noun: local derby; plural noun: local derbies

As a Southampton fan, I can confirm 99% of us do not consider it a derby. The other 1% are liars...

[Guest]

1 hour ago, santy001 said:

The criticisms have validity to them, but its an iterative system. On FM18 it would, you'd expect be better than FM17, and on FM19 it will be better than 18. 

There are some clear limitations on it at the moment, which is probably why it doesn't have anything noteworthy attached to it besides any non-descript fluff. In the future it could form a part of the player interaction and discipline elements of the game, transfers, and other elements. 

It takes time though, and the "all or nothing" approach doesn't really work, because every aspect of the game gets refinement, iterated upon and improved as time passes. 

I have to disagree to a point, personally I'd have preferred SI to have continued developing the feature internally & release it when there is more depth to it.

[marcMCFC1986]

9 minutes ago, Barside said:

I have to disagree to a point, personally I'd have preferred SI to have continued developing the feature internally & release it when there is more depth to it.

Exactly. They've released something ****, so next season they can go "Look at us, we've made vast improvements on this area of the game!" 

Whereas, really, they should have just brought it out when it was actually good! Some people fall for it though, I guess!

[Guest]

26 minutes ago, Felix Wilkie said:

Man Utd v Liverpool is a good example about rivalries not having to be local. Ipswich v Norwich is another example as there is 40 miles between them.

Enough about rivalries though, let's try and get back to the original topic at hand here. I understand your frustration at times with the social media and I personally agree that improvements can be made. However, this process won't just happen overnight. On the other hand, you could always argue that people will disagree on who has had a good game and not. Yes, Dybala scoring 7 goals in a game is outrageous and nobody should say "Dybala was good? Can't see it myself!" but the fact of the matter is, there will always be one that does. Albeit a bit crazy for someone to say 7 goals isn't good enough, not your average fan there.

@lemeuresnew and @santy001 you both also make some great points and we appreciate your feedback.

Cheers,

Felix

The internet is full of idiots but that doesn't mean it will be fun or wise to have that in FM, worse when that level of context is not portrayed by having something like a thread develop off that post where everyone else calls out the person making the clearly baffling comment as an idiot.

There's also the question of whether a real life manager would even pay attention to fan comments on social media & if the mechanic deserves its place out front or if it's more of background function that factors into NPC personalities, behaviours & decisions.

[Guest]

Just now, marcMCFC1986 said:

Exactly. They've released something ****, so next season they can go "Look at us, we've made vast improvements on this area of the game!" 

Whereas, really, they should have just brought it out when it was actually good! Some people fall for it though, I guess!

That's harsh, it's not a deliberate attempt in the way you seem to be portraying it.

 

 

[marcMCFC1986]

4 minutes ago, Barside said:

The internet is full of idiots but that doesn't mean it will be fun or wise to have that in FM, worse when that level of context is not portrayed by having something like a thread develop off that post where everyone else calls out the person making the clearly baffling comment as an idiot.

There's also the question of whether a real life manager would even pay attention to fan comments on social media & if the mechanic deserves its place out front or if it's more of background function that factors into NPC personalities, behaviours & decisions.

You've lost me with that first paragraph...

[santy001]

24 minutes ago, Barside said:

I have to disagree to a point, personally I'd have preferred SI to have continued developing the feature internally & release it when there is more depth to it.

I can definitely see the point, but on the flip side, when you look at any feature or aspect of the game you can always say "well if we delay it until the next edition we can add a bit more" and it can get stuck in a loop. If its out there in the wild, getting feedback from players, getting interaction the impetus grows to improve and refine. 

Your other points about how much attention a manager pays to it is quite valid though, I completely ignore it as is anyway. It's impact does probably lie elsewhere, it hasn't happened yet, but perhaps a Donald Trumpesc style football manager may bring social media to life in the world of management.

[westy8chimp]

I hate the social feed. Thought the concept was poor, the implementation was diabolical.

However, I did a poll and seems a not-too-irrelevant number of users actually like it ... and a substantial figure like the concept.

So I guess it's got it's place... just something I will have to ignore for this FM and most likely many future editions.

 

[sirgiorgio]

18 minutes ago, santy001 said:

Your other points about how much attention a manager pays to it is quite valid though, I completely ignore it as is anyway. It's impact does probably lie elsewhere, it hasn't happened yet, but perhaps a Donald Trumpesc style football manager may bring social media to life in the world of management.

I don't use twitter, facebook, instagram (yes, I'm quite the hermit) but I would see myself (the manager) as an active part of the social network instead of a lurker... If I can't answer to those fanboys/haters/wiseasses/VIP/Not-so-VIP, if I can't congratulate/be congratulated by fellow managers, be thanked/criticized by players... then it'll be just me looking at the peephole.

[lemeuresnew]

3 hours ago, mack4ever said:

They are also from different counties, so not even from the same region.

they used to be in the same county, depends how far you want to go back. a lot of people still going to games will remember that

you could say the same for portsmouth being 20 miles away, not really 'local' is it. but they are traditionally the nearest clubs and as i said, all historically hampshire

[lemeuresnew]

2 hours ago, mark1985 said:

As a Southampton fan, I can confirm 99% of us do not consider it a derby. The other 1% are liars...

i can assure you bournmouth fans consider it a derby still lol. i think with them playing in different leagues so long, and with bournmouth usually the lower team in that, its only natural for it to mean more to them to of caught up than it does to soton

but then soton isnt really a football city is it, at least compared to the passion of other cities. a lot of the time you dont even realise they have played if you miss that 20 minutes of extra traffic

[mark1985]

23 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

i can assure you bournmouth fans consider it a derby still lol. i think with them playing in different leagues so long, and with bournmouth usually the lower team in that, its only natural for it to mean more to them to of caught up than it does to soton

but then soton isnt really a football city is it, at least compared to the passion of other cities. a lot of the time you dont even realise they have played if you miss that 20 minutes of extra traffic

As a local, it very much is a football city. Ok, we don't have the passion of a Liverpool or a Newcastle, but it's there! It's strange as I heard nothing about a rivalry until we played each other a few years back in League 1/Championship. It's a very 1 sided rivalry. I have nothing against them. They've achieved a lot under Eddie Howe so fair play to them

[lemeuresnew]

i lived across the road of stadium for about 5 years.  if i was working nights on a home day, i could sleep through and not even notice they were there lol. i think it is different from most clubs because of the type of supporter. far more family orientated maybe, not necessarily a bad thing of course

hopefully in a few years eastleigh will improve and there can be a real local rivalry

[Wavelberry]

It's okay... Extremely formulaic in its current iteration but I'm hoping it's something that will develop a little more as the game develops. 

Not sure they need to talk about every possible loan transfer as well as they seem to do at the moment (and it's always one who is like 'yeah, good move' and another who is 'nah, bad move')

[mark1985]

17 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

i lived across the road of stadium for about 5 years.  if i was working nights on a home day, i could sleep through and not even notice they were there lol. i think it is different from most clubs because of the type of supporter. far more family orientated maybe, not necessarily a bad thing of course

hopefully in a few years eastleigh will improve and there can be a real local rivalry

Whilst I agree we're not always the loudest at home (apart from big games, derbies etc), we do have passion. We can make a racket at away games as well. It could be to do with the set up of the ground, as the more vocal section of the home support is either side of the away fans, so that doesn't help matters...

 

There is only 1 local rivalry, and that's with the tinpot club 17 miles east of here!

[Felix Wilkie]

If everyone wants to continue talking about football rivalries and what distance measures it being a real thing, I suggest you take this up in the football forum linked below.

https://community.sigames.com/forum/16-football-forum/

This thread is for discussing the Social Media feature on FM17.

Thanks,

Felix

[lemeuresnew]

1 minute ago, mark1985 said:

Whilst I agree we're not always the loudest at home (apart from big games, derbies etc), we do have passion. We can make a racket at away games as well. It could be to do with the set up of the ground, as the more vocal section of the home support is either side of the away fans, so that doesn't help matters...

 

There is only 1 local rivalry, and that's with the tinpot club 17 miles east of here!

i think the ground is louder further away too. it seems to be designed that the noise carries away from where you are

bournemouth really arent that much further, other side of new forest. give it a few years if you both stay up and it will naturally grow. this year was only goal difference, but a couple of places up and a euro spot could add some real fire to it...

[lemeuresnew]

Just now, Felix Wilkie said:

If everyone wants to continue talking about football rivalries and what distance measures it being a real thing, I suggest you take this up in the football forum linked below.

https://community.sigames.com/forum/16-football-forum/

This thread is for discussing the Social Media feature on FM17.

Thanks,

Felix

ok, sorry. never really think about that sort of thing, different forums for threads n all that

[Felix Wilkie]

Hi @lemeuresnew that's not a problem.

I appreciate the feedback.

Felix

[Guest]

5 hours ago, marcMCFC1986 said:

You've lost me with that first paragraph...

If irl someone went on twitter to be critical of a player who just scored 7 in a single game I'd expect them to get all kinds of stick, in an ironic twist that would probably mean the idiot tweet gets more coverage which is counter-intuitive to the complaints this feature tends to produce however in the context of a feature simulating supporter interaction that are part of football but exist outside of the football environment it would imho be much more believable & less immersion breaking than the current approach of positive, neutral & negative comments existing in a state of absolute balance.

I did not buy into the feature because there is limited story development, in its current stage of development it's just another news headline feature, there is little to no substance to it which is probably an accurate at face value assessment of most social media but irl there's so much more going on & unless the feature can replicate the influence social media has beyond the 140 characters, meme's or quips it offers nothing more than the traditional media that exists in FM & for me that makes it a poor use of resources. 

My concern is that it ends up like press conferences & player interactions where each year more text elements are added to the same thinly layered system that remains largely unchanged so we end up with more variety in the responses but no real development of the feature.

[Preveza]

8 hours ago, Barside said:

 

My concern is that it ends up like press conferences & player interactions where each year more text elements are added to the same thinly layered system that remains largely unchanged so we end up with more variety in the responses but no real development of the feature.

This and this. This sums up the development cycle on most features. Sad really. SI need to get more in depth, instead of putting lipstick on a pig.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Preveza said:

This and this. This sums up the development cycle on most features. Sad really. SI need to get more in depth, instead of putting lipstick on a pig.

How is this helpful? Does it encourage SI to engage & discuss or disregard?

[Preveza]

Well what I meant is that more text is added and more detail, however the actual feature(s) aren't improved from the ground up. It feels like the same feature but with different wording to make it seem 'prettier'. (Press conferences, interactions). There are so many interactions that have the exact same outcome each and every time. 

[Guest]

While my post was constructive in nature yours was insulting.

[WarroOxford]

The only thing I'm not a fan of is that in previous versions I used to make sure news of sackings and job openings in certain leagues would appear in my inbox and they'd be very easy to find. This was especially useful for me considering 99% of my saves are realistic journeyman saves. It's a little bit irritating to have to keep checking the social media feed instead but I guess I'm used to it now.

The actual "twitter" aspect of it I pay little to no attention to.

[Preveza]

1 hour ago, Barside said:

While my post was constructive in nature yours was insulting.

The last comment was unnecessary, I take it back. 

[FrazT]

This thread has gone well off course, so by all means discuss the OP's original point about the in-game social media, but stick to that please.

[lemeuresnew]

6 hours ago, WarroOxford said:

The only thing I'm not a fan of is that in previous versions I used to make sure news of sackings and job openings in certain leagues would appear in my inbox and they'd be very easy to find. This was especially useful for me considering 99% of my saves are realistic journeyman saves. It's a little bit irritating to have to keep checking the social media feed instead but I guess I'm used to it now.

The actual "twitter" aspect of it I pay little to no attention to.

completely agree with this. i spent hours looking for this option when the game came out, convinced i was being a complete idiot for not being able to see what i had to do! 

now i dont even bother looking through the media stuff for this. there is so much nonsense i dont care about that anything interesting AND important is rarely seeable straight away. if i get asked about a manager sacking, which is normal if they are in my league thats great. if i dont then its better than looking through all of that stuff just in case

maybe they could do some thing to flag certain articles for you seperately, like a managers page, different cups pages etc. would that improve it enough to use?

[Spurs08]

In all truth there were a couple of people on a Spurs forum commenting after Kane scored 4 against Leicester that he was too greedy, shooting when he should have passed and putting the Golden Boot ahead of the team's success. You are always going to have a couple of morons! What's needed with this feature is more variety so that you're less likely to see such comments after a top performance, but it shouldn't be impossible either.

[marcMCFC1986]

18 hours ago, Spurs08 said:

In all truth there were a couple of people on a Spurs forum commenting after Kane scored 4 against Leicester that he was too greedy, shooting when he should have passed and putting the Golden Boot ahead of the team's success. You are always going to have a couple of morons! What's needed with this feature is more variety so that you're less likely to see such comments after a top performance, but it shouldn't be impossible either.

You lot don't deserve him... 

Anyway, in addition to my original post, another two examples have just cropped up back-to-back on my save:

1) Alfie Jones, my backup centre-back has just picked up an injury which will keep him out of action for 7-8 weeks. The Social Media light up with fans disappointed that he's injured, saying we're going to have to adapt our tactics due to this injury, questioning who is going to step up to replace him.

Alfie has played two games this season - both in the league cup, against Charlton and Newcastle. There are 3 or 4 other defenders ahead of him in the pecking order! This is not an issue, and again, wouldn't even be worthy of a mention on Social Media.

2) As I said, I'm in the Champions League in my second season with Southampton after winning the Europa League in Season One. I qualified from my group, and have just been drawn against Real Madrid in the First Knockout Round. Social media post said:

"Doesn't really have the Champions Cup magic about it!"

REALLY? What better team could we have drawn? Literally, no other club would have created more 'Champions Cup magic'!

[Neil Brock]

24 minutes ago, marcMCFC1986 said:

You lot don't deserve him... 

Anyway, in addition to my original post, another two examples have just cropped up back-to-back on my save:

1) Alfie Jones, my backup centre-back has just picked up an injury which will keep him out of action for 7-8 weeks. The Social Media light up with fans disappointed that he's injured, saying we're going to have to adapt our tactics due to this injury, questioning who is going to step up to replace him.

Alfie has played two games this season - both in the league cup, against Charlton and Newcastle. There are 3 or 4 other defenders ahead of him in the pecking order! This is not an issue, and again, wouldn't even be worthy of a mention on Social Media.

2) As I said, I'm in the Champions League in my second season with Southampton after winning the Europa League in Season One. I qualified from my group, and have just been drawn against Real Madrid in the First Knockout Round. Social media post said:

"Doesn't really have the Champions Cup magic about it!"

REALLY? What better team could we have drawn? Literally, no other club would have created more 'Champions Cup magic'!

Both your examples are bugs caused by the restrictions of the social media system and should be raised in the bugs forum accordingly. Thanks.