How many people actually use attribute masking?

[Glen_Runciter]

On 12/10/2019 at 14:41, Mr U Rosler said:

This.

This is how the game should work by default, much more realistic than an absolute numerical value. 

The range of 5 points per colour looks spot on, just enough uncertainty to keep things interesting i.e. is Foden's passing 16 or 20?

Great work wkdsoul, SI please take note!

 

God, please no, don't encourage them.

It would be the same thing as when they removed the sliders, 'cause "it'S NoT reAliSTiC!!4"

[likesiamesefish]

I don't use it. I never search via attributes anyway so for me it would just obscure being able to have a peek at random players around the game. For me it only makes sense to turn it on if you actively search for players via their attributes.

[likesiamesefish]

On 09/10/2019 at 20:29, wkdsoul said:

Seem to be a popular tweak for FM at the min.  I've made a skin with no attribute numbers at all (scout reports only) and another with just the coloured box ranges (0-5 red, 6-10, 11-15, green, 16-20 blue etc) so you can only tell the range of an attribute. for players this year. (eg below)     

Very interesting idea. May give this a go!

[Svenc]

On 23/01/2020 at 19:21, Tetsuro P12 said:

What if that is the challenge instead of 'anything can happen on the field' 

Random events inside the ME unfortunately don't make the game more challenging, as AI Teams/Managers are affected all the same. The only thing that would really make the game more challenging  from the ground up would be improved AI managers. Artificially limiting the player so that he would have less accurate Attributes displayed than what the AI can assess would be like playing a Chess game blindfolded, rather than improving the chess AI. SI are crippling themselves here in parts by Catering to twenty years old Penium 4 CPUs still, so the processing workload and AI transfer complexity needs to be kept reasonably simple, or those machines would go down to their knees even with a small DB loaded and a single league active. 

Bit off-topic: As to randomness inside the ME, it makes the game a bit less predictable, in particular over the short to mid term of but a single match or a season, but that's a different thing. The game engine would have some randomness already if SI go by the findings of Football analytics, mostly used by Clubs, bookmakers and professional gamblers -- people who make a living out of judging performances. They are arguing this were a sports in which even the better chances in a match are mostly roughly the equivalent of a coin toss, a sports in which you should rarely bet on the forward beingn in the advantage to score (probably a ridiculously low scoring sports for a reason then). Finishing streaks caused by this researched findings are oft amongst the reasons why there's almost always a top side in a league point table underperforming (Napoli in Serie A currently, Man City in the Prem, to an extent United though they've stabilized after a shaky start). This would even out in the longer run -- indeed point tables accumulated over multiple seasons are pretty damn predictable. But a single season is anything but long.  

Edited January 26, 2020 by Svenc

[Tetsuro P12]

1 hour ago, Svenc said:

Random events inside the ME unfortunately don't make the game more challenging, as AI Teams/Managers are affected all the same. The only thing that would really make the game more challenging  from the ground up would be improved AI managers. Artificially limiting the player so that he would have less accurate Attributes displayed than what the AI can assess would be like playing a Chess game blindfolded, rather than improving the chess AI. SI are crippling themselves here in parts by Catering to twenty years old Penium 4 CPUs still, so the processing workload and AI transfer complexity needs to be kept reasonably simple, or those machines would go down to their knees even with a small DB loaded and a single league active. 

Bit off-topic: As to randomness inside the ME, it makes the game a bit less predictable, in particular over the short to mid term of but a single match or a season, but that's a different thing. The game engine would have some randomness already if SI go by the findings of Football analytics, mostly used by Clubs, bookmakers and professional gamblers -- people who make a living out of judging performances. They are arguing this were a sports in which even the better chances in a match are mostly roughly the equivalent of a coin toss, a sports in which you should rarely bet on the forward beingn in the advantage to score (probably a ridiculously low scoring sports for a reason then). Finishing streaks caused by this researched findings are oft amongst the reasons why there's almost always a top side in a league point table underperforming (Napoli in Serie A currently, Man City in the Prem, to an extent United though they've stabilized after a shaky start). This would even out in the longer run -- indeed point tables accumulated over multiple seasons are pretty damn predictable. But a single season is anything but long.  

I see that AI is always there (if they miss one match they strike the following), it's a rarity if big teams misses many matches, while if you get a bad streak because of randomness the morale plummet and the season gets compromised. The season should be compromised if the player act bad (like changing the whole team in a season, fight against members of the team, bad tactic decisions or bad tactic setup, injuries, mistakes on transfer market, bad staff hiring, etc.), not because of randomness.

To me that proposal is good, no one knows Messi has '20' dribbling, many would assess it as superb, but for its internal calculations only the engine should know if it is 20 or 18. That's something the player don't need to know, except to find the best advantage possibile over the AI (or excite itself), but since AI isn't flawless the player should not need it. They will definitely not implement that idea, since Sigames customers are moaners and do excite after numbers (we are all nerds, after all), but that would make the game better (if accompanied by fairer choices, like tuning down the artificial randomness) in my opinion. Unpredictability should be set by not knowing exact attributes and team cohesion instead of events/algorithms, etc.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Tetsuro P12

[kingjericho]

I've been using attribute masking for so long that it would feel like something is missing if I would instantly see all attributes. Eventually when you manage a top club if you set up a broad scouting pool you can have loads of players almost fully unmasked before you specifically ask for a report on them.

[Robioto]

Never, didn't like when it first came in in CM01/02 so never used, still think the same now. It's hard enough to work out if a player is good enough even with all the stats available. Plus adding what I personally consider a level of tedium to scouting, just does not appeal to me at all.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Robioto

[Tetsuro P12]

6 minutes ago, Robioto said:

Never, didn't like when it first came in in CM01/02 so never used, still think the same now. It's hard enough to work out if a player is good enough even with all the stats available. Plus adding what I personally consider a level of tedium to scouting, just does not appeal to me at all.

Edited January 26, 2020 by Tetsuro P12

[Robson 07]

 at all the attribute masking is realistic comments.

You could be the real life manager of any club.  And in real real life you could, er, buy FM if you so wanted and it would give you the attributes of every player in the FM database.  I would contend therefore that you only mask attributes to possibly make the game a bit harder or more vague for yourself cause  for vast majority of people (exception being network games) it's only you versus the AI.