So i'm off work this week, having my first sick day in nearly 3 years! Noticed an email in my inbox about the beta containing the new FM11 ME stuff. I'm undecided if I am going to buy FM11 this year as i'm still quite enjoying FM10 and i'm involved in a nice network game at the moment. But I was intrigued to see what the new graphics, stadium stuff and animations looked like so I decided to give it a download.
Surprisingly I still have a team (barely) which had finished 2nd in the 3rd tier of the OFA. It's interesting to note that without any involvement from me for about 4 months and a stadium on 0% my team has continued just fine and amassed a £10.8m balance.
Anyhow seen as i'm getting bored of nothing to moan about I figured if I created a team I could get involved with stuff on the forums again. To avoid me inevitably becoming annoyed I decided to take a new route and sign an all Columbian team.
The team so far is bloody awful so I wont become annoyed as I will deserve to lose most games. I don't intend to play many live matches, so i'm going to play it a bit like traditional fantasy football.
To add to the crazy i'm going to play 4-4-2. I've created a pretty funky 4-4-2 on FM10 so i'm not sure how it will translate into the new ME but it's working pretty well on there.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Saturday 18 September 2010
Standing in the Way of Control
There's an interesting post on the forums at the moment here It links to Civilization creator Sid Meier speaking at a games development conference. He's a pretty clever chap responsible for many great games down the years and he makes some wonderful points which are ever so pertinent to FML.
Introduction to the game
He speaks about how important the first 15 minutes of a game are for the player stating they should be compelling and fun. It should make the player feel comfortable in the world and introduce them to loads of cool stuff and plant the seed that even cooler stuff is going to happen later on.
FML scores 0/10 on this front. It's a case of enter the Gameworld, read a few introductory text screens and pick some very poor players. Then you get taken to the match selector to play a CPU team. Once that is done then you might be waiting around for 15 days never mind 15 minutes for the season to kick off!
The player is not only left feeling slightly bewildered, but they have no good players, no specific short term goal or challenge and nothing else to do for a long period of time.
If FML had a proper PvE environment then this wouldn't be so much of an issue because a player could jump into that instead.
You see this 15 minute rule in so many games these days, how many racing games give you a super car fully kitted out with a big turbo and the best go faster stripes around at the start? You have a bit of a race before being dumped in a Fiat Punto but at least you know what you have to look forward to eh. You see it in other games too, the first example which comes to mind is a game I tried on the 360 last week which is Prototype. You start the game fully loaded with all your powers and abilities before regressing back to the start.
I suppose you could apply this to FML if you gave it some thought. Give a new manager Buckton Titans to manage for a day. Let them play in a proper PvE league and smash everyone in sight, hell let them play real players but not effect ranking points. Let them manage the England team for a week or so, whatever, think outside the box! Give them something fun and easy to do once they join up. Playing CPU challenges does not fall into the fun category ;)
Randomness
Sid Meier also speaks about how "acts of randomness need to be treated with a great deal of care" and that the player wants to be in control. If something is perceived to be random then paranoia strikes and the player looks for the worse possible explanation as to why something happened.
He goes on to speak about how a player is willing to accept something good happening against the odds as being completely normal. The psychology of the player is that they used a great strategy or they were cleverer. But conversely if something bad happens then the game is broken, something is wrong the game is cheating!
He says it is Important the player understands why something happens and how to prevent it from happening next time.
The above few paragraphs are some of the biggest problems you have with FML! The whole damn thing feels random and you have no bleeding clue what the hell is going on or why. Even after playing FML for so long I can give literally no explanation as to why I could have an appalling team smashing every team in sight only to sign a handful of better players and not be able to win a single game. I suppose I am guilty of accepting the good times as my own ability but blaming anything that goes wrong on the game being broken. But what else should I blame, I can see literally NO logical or rational explanation as to what is happening - therefore I blame the game.
I think first off to resolve this more transparency is needed about how certain aspects of the game work. It often seems that no one actually knows how certain FML specific things interact with the ME and I mean no one at SI !
Example, on my FM10 game my squad is very well blended together so much so "they are willing to die for each other" Now I read this and it's pretty clear what it means! So on FML, does this feature even EXIST ? Is there a hidden team blend rating like the FM series ? I've asked before, I don't know ?? Who does ? Does signing lots of players have a negative effect ??
Another example, players who can't speak the native language have communication problems on the pitch on FM. Surely this can't be in FML can it ? That would make no sense at all, but is it in ? We just don't know... The ME on FML has so much weird shit happening that it wouldn't surprise me if it still was.
Effect of changing tactics ? Time taken for squad to gel ?
I could reel of a couple of dozen similar questions to that which i've never found out the answer to on FML which is common knowledge and explained in game on FM. Sometimes some of these questions are put to Paul C and he doesn't seem to know either! I'd suggest a Q&A where some of these queries are answered.
I suppose they may as well add in the assistant feedback from FM10 too. It's not great, it's not THAT useful but it's something and some of the points can be of interest on occasion. But again, many of the points relate to how a player is used to playing and language issues and the like, the things we don't even know are in FML! But it does provide some useful information which you can adjust your tactics to, like explaining your long passes are not connecting or opposition instruction suggestions. It's useful if you are not very good at watching the game or just not watching it at all. I usually have a look over it when i'm in a bad patch in a game and all my players are performing well with no confidence issues. Sometimes I make a change based on the advise.
The odds
I've spoken about this a lot myself and in fact mentioned it in my last post. But players struggle to accept defeat against the odds, especially me. Sid talks about how when they displayed odds in game for example 3/1 players would just see the 3 and think that because they had the much bigger number they would always win. It's easy to forget that 1 time out of 4 the other team would win.
I think it would be beneficial to hide club reputation and the opposition average ability screen from anyone except the manager of that club. I've spoken about transparency earlier but I just don't think these are needed! You can easily look at opposition players and an opposition squad and get a feel about how good a team is. You don't need to be an experienced player to understand someone worth £5m is going to be better than someone worth £500k.
This would help alleviate some of the stress of when you are losing badly, you're looking for an explanation and you see the opposition club has an average ability of 12 while yours is 15. You see the bigger number and straight away move onto the game is broken theory. Reputation is probably less important but you could just change it to the ranking banding, so elite club, bronze club etc.
Anyhow, i'm probably the point where i've wrote so much no one is reading so i'll stop for now
Introduction to the game
He speaks about how important the first 15 minutes of a game are for the player stating they should be compelling and fun. It should make the player feel comfortable in the world and introduce them to loads of cool stuff and plant the seed that even cooler stuff is going to happen later on.
FML scores 0/10 on this front. It's a case of enter the Gameworld, read a few introductory text screens and pick some very poor players. Then you get taken to the match selector to play a CPU team. Once that is done then you might be waiting around for 15 days never mind 15 minutes for the season to kick off!
The player is not only left feeling slightly bewildered, but they have no good players, no specific short term goal or challenge and nothing else to do for a long period of time.
If FML had a proper PvE environment then this wouldn't be so much of an issue because a player could jump into that instead.
You see this 15 minute rule in so many games these days, how many racing games give you a super car fully kitted out with a big turbo and the best go faster stripes around at the start? You have a bit of a race before being dumped in a Fiat Punto but at least you know what you have to look forward to eh. You see it in other games too, the first example which comes to mind is a game I tried on the 360 last week which is Prototype. You start the game fully loaded with all your powers and abilities before regressing back to the start.
I suppose you could apply this to FML if you gave it some thought. Give a new manager Buckton Titans to manage for a day. Let them play in a proper PvE league and smash everyone in sight, hell let them play real players but not effect ranking points. Let them manage the England team for a week or so, whatever, think outside the box! Give them something fun and easy to do once they join up. Playing CPU challenges does not fall into the fun category ;)
Randomness
Sid Meier also speaks about how "acts of randomness need to be treated with a great deal of care" and that the player wants to be in control. If something is perceived to be random then paranoia strikes and the player looks for the worse possible explanation as to why something happened.
He goes on to speak about how a player is willing to accept something good happening against the odds as being completely normal. The psychology of the player is that they used a great strategy or they were cleverer. But conversely if something bad happens then the game is broken, something is wrong the game is cheating!
He says it is Important the player understands why something happens and how to prevent it from happening next time.
The above few paragraphs are some of the biggest problems you have with FML! The whole damn thing feels random and you have no bleeding clue what the hell is going on or why. Even after playing FML for so long I can give literally no explanation as to why I could have an appalling team smashing every team in sight only to sign a handful of better players and not be able to win a single game. I suppose I am guilty of accepting the good times as my own ability but blaming anything that goes wrong on the game being broken. But what else should I blame, I can see literally NO logical or rational explanation as to what is happening - therefore I blame the game.
I think first off to resolve this more transparency is needed about how certain aspects of the game work. It often seems that no one actually knows how certain FML specific things interact with the ME and I mean no one at SI !
Example, on my FM10 game my squad is very well blended together so much so "they are willing to die for each other" Now I read this and it's pretty clear what it means! So on FML, does this feature even EXIST ? Is there a hidden team blend rating like the FM series ? I've asked before, I don't know ?? Who does ? Does signing lots of players have a negative effect ??
Another example, players who can't speak the native language have communication problems on the pitch on FM. Surely this can't be in FML can it ? That would make no sense at all, but is it in ? We just don't know... The ME on FML has so much weird shit happening that it wouldn't surprise me if it still was.
Effect of changing tactics ? Time taken for squad to gel ?
I could reel of a couple of dozen similar questions to that which i've never found out the answer to on FML which is common knowledge and explained in game on FM. Sometimes some of these questions are put to Paul C and he doesn't seem to know either! I'd suggest a Q&A where some of these queries are answered.
I suppose they may as well add in the assistant feedback from FM10 too. It's not great, it's not THAT useful but it's something and some of the points can be of interest on occasion. But again, many of the points relate to how a player is used to playing and language issues and the like, the things we don't even know are in FML! But it does provide some useful information which you can adjust your tactics to, like explaining your long passes are not connecting or opposition instruction suggestions. It's useful if you are not very good at watching the game or just not watching it at all. I usually have a look over it when i'm in a bad patch in a game and all my players are performing well with no confidence issues. Sometimes I make a change based on the advise.
The odds
I've spoken about this a lot myself and in fact mentioned it in my last post. But players struggle to accept defeat against the odds, especially me. Sid talks about how when they displayed odds in game for example 3/1 players would just see the 3 and think that because they had the much bigger number they would always win. It's easy to forget that 1 time out of 4 the other team would win.
I think it would be beneficial to hide club reputation and the opposition average ability screen from anyone except the manager of that club. I've spoken about transparency earlier but I just don't think these are needed! You can easily look at opposition players and an opposition squad and get a feel about how good a team is. You don't need to be an experienced player to understand someone worth £5m is going to be better than someone worth £500k.
This would help alleviate some of the stress of when you are losing badly, you're looking for an explanation and you see the opposition club has an average ability of 12 while yours is 15. You see the bigger number and straight away move onto the game is broken theory. Reputation is probably less important but you could just change it to the ranking banding, so elite club, bronze club etc.
Anyhow, i'm probably the point where i've wrote so much no one is reading so i'll stop for now
Friday 17 September 2010
Otherside
Phone rings the other day....
"We have just had a baby on the Sims, what should we call it?"
"Franco" I suggest with enthusiasm
"Are you playing Football Manager??!"
Rumbled again.
Been playing some FM10 to pass the time these days. Although it's running an older version of the ME than FML it just seems to work so much better, presumably because the AI teams are fielding teams which represent a professional team rather than the weird stuff you get on FML.
Like, youth players are terrible, older players seem to play just fine and the 433 seems far less effective. My 35 wins in a row record was foiled by a 2 legged cup tie where I was 4-0 up, so a few things are the same ;) It's easy to see why SI might be scratching their heads sometimes when it all works so well on their flagship game.
The biggest difference is the effect or knocks, or rather the lack of an effect they have. If a player receives a knock you are often hard pushed to even work out which player it is because they lose so little condition. On FML a knock is usually the end of a game for a player but on FM10 they lose about 5-10% condition more often than not!
Secondly there's far far less injuries in matches. I get about 1 injury every 10 games that results in a player having to leave the field. It just feels more like what you would expect to see in a real football game rather than "ffs not again" as your 4th player goes off injured on FML.
Another thing came to mind too which is the perception of whether you should win a game or not. I was losing to Birmingham and I could feel myself becoming annoyed thinking "who the fuck are Birmingham and how dare they score against me!!" I found myself clicking on them trying to find out what their average squad ability was like you would find in FML. Except there is nowhere to see this, then I thought, well it is 2015, I actually have no idea how good they are other than their league position. Rage pacified because I was no longer sure if I should be expecting to win the game or not.
It does make me wonder if perhaps the ability of opposition teams should actually be hidden on FML so you can work it out for yourself by actually looking at the players. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
Oh and on FM10 you still get the "red arrows of doom" on young players just like you do on FML. It's not a problem on FM10 either, it's completely normal!
I see team talks are now coming to FML which I wouldn't really welcome. I remember when team talks were being discussed before they came into normal FM a few years back. My comment at the time was, unless there was literally hundreds of different things you could say, they would be pointless and annoying. Five years on there's still about 5 options and it is pointless and annoying. Fortunately on FM you can get your assistant to do the talk for you.
On FML you will have to do it because if your opposition is using them wisely then you are going to disadvantage yourself and potentially lose games because of it. The optimal talks don't even make sense half the time anyway so any experienced FM'ers are instantly going to have an advantage of knowing what to say and when.
I'm not really missing FML much at all and I think it would be difficult for me to return when i'm not available to play as much as I was a year ago. If they removed FAs completely and made everything ad hoc reputation based league structures then that would still appeal to me. So you could just join up to an official weekend league when you are around or a week long league then have a week off. That would be pretty cool and mean you'd have something to do when online and wouldn't miss stuff when you were offline. But that aint going to happen is it !
"We have just had a baby on the Sims, what should we call it?"
"Franco" I suggest with enthusiasm
"Are you playing Football Manager??!"
Rumbled again.
Been playing some FM10 to pass the time these days. Although it's running an older version of the ME than FML it just seems to work so much better, presumably because the AI teams are fielding teams which represent a professional team rather than the weird stuff you get on FML.
Like, youth players are terrible, older players seem to play just fine and the 433 seems far less effective. My 35 wins in a row record was foiled by a 2 legged cup tie where I was 4-0 up, so a few things are the same ;) It's easy to see why SI might be scratching their heads sometimes when it all works so well on their flagship game.
The biggest difference is the effect or knocks, or rather the lack of an effect they have. If a player receives a knock you are often hard pushed to even work out which player it is because they lose so little condition. On FML a knock is usually the end of a game for a player but on FM10 they lose about 5-10% condition more often than not!
Secondly there's far far less injuries in matches. I get about 1 injury every 10 games that results in a player having to leave the field. It just feels more like what you would expect to see in a real football game rather than "ffs not again" as your 4th player goes off injured on FML.
Another thing came to mind too which is the perception of whether you should win a game or not. I was losing to Birmingham and I could feel myself becoming annoyed thinking "who the fuck are Birmingham and how dare they score against me!!" I found myself clicking on them trying to find out what their average squad ability was like you would find in FML. Except there is nowhere to see this, then I thought, well it is 2015, I actually have no idea how good they are other than their league position. Rage pacified because I was no longer sure if I should be expecting to win the game or not.
It does make me wonder if perhaps the ability of opposition teams should actually be hidden on FML so you can work it out for yourself by actually looking at the players. Ignorance is bliss and all that.
Oh and on FM10 you still get the "red arrows of doom" on young players just like you do on FML. It's not a problem on FM10 either, it's completely normal!
I see team talks are now coming to FML which I wouldn't really welcome. I remember when team talks were being discussed before they came into normal FM a few years back. My comment at the time was, unless there was literally hundreds of different things you could say, they would be pointless and annoying. Five years on there's still about 5 options and it is pointless and annoying. Fortunately on FM you can get your assistant to do the talk for you.
On FML you will have to do it because if your opposition is using them wisely then you are going to disadvantage yourself and potentially lose games because of it. The optimal talks don't even make sense half the time anyway so any experienced FM'ers are instantly going to have an advantage of knowing what to say and when.
I'm not really missing FML much at all and I think it would be difficult for me to return when i'm not available to play as much as I was a year ago. If they removed FAs completely and made everything ad hoc reputation based league structures then that would still appeal to me. So you could just join up to an official weekend league when you are around or a week long league then have a week off. That would be pretty cool and mean you'd have something to do when online and wouldn't miss stuff when you were offline. But that aint going to happen is it !
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