retired_richcoble

If you're learning from Amaroq, you're in good hands. For an American, he ain't bad.

It's funny that I learnt all my initial knowledge of the NFL from Madden 2004 and got into American Football that way, learning the rules. I used to enjoy Madden 95, (top down on the Gameboy) but never understood the rules and got immensely frustrated when I could only run one play or so and got turnover on downs so often when the opposition never seemed to.

Now that I understand the rules I revisited Madden 95 a while back and found I could pass, run and do all kinds of crazy sh**


A good way of understanding football would be to actually just watch a game on FM in full, no highlights, just the match engine in full. You'll learn how certain positions will move in given and different situations and what happens at certain "set-pieces".

retired_mugdozer

Wegason, that's exactly what I'm doing! I've also found, that since only the the ball carrier and the most recent/next player's name are shown on the pitch, that if you click another player, it will show his name as well, no matter where he is and I can watch a specific player/position much easier that way.

retired_mugdozer

Thanks for the help, but follow up question if I may. Would 2 physios be more beneficial than just one? Would it be better to have one better physio than two average ones? If I have one physio better than the other, would the weaker physio drag down the good one, making him a major detriment to my team?

Thanks for the scouting hints, you guys are invaluable and much more helpful than any written guide.

Oh, and I simply love your screen name, although based on your knowledge, you might want to pass that mantle on to me!

leftfoot

I haven't got 08 so I don't know if any changes have been made but on 07 persionally I found it difficult to tell if there was any improvement from going from 1 physio to 4 physios. I even checked over player injury histories to see if any noticeable reductions happened in the number of injuries and recovery times. The only one I noticed was that with certain types of injuries (fractured ribs IIRC) the recovery time was a couple of weeks quicker with the 'world class' physio. I would emphasise that reputation rather than attributes seemed to govern their effectiveness.

I think the best approach is to assume the game behaves like real life and that the more physios you have the better you can deal with injury crises. I don't think anyone from SI has ever cleared this issue up but maybe the new manual has something in it.

The one bad physio dragging down another I really don't know. I honestly think that the game just has a database of injuries/recovery ranges which are then matched to your best physio to determine the length of injury. If you have more than one physio in 07 the reports were generated automatically by the best physio which might be an indication of how the game code itself treats injuries.

retired_w0lfpack1

That's an excellent idea; it wouldn't have worked so well four or five versions ago but the match engine with FM'08 is very very good.

In particular, I'd recommend watching away from the ball, for example, for one match watch only your strikers; on another watch your back four. Even if the ball is way down in your end.

This is one question that I don't think anyone knows a definitive answer to. One thing about physios on 07 was that their reputation rather than their physiotherapy attribute had more impact on how accurately they could predict how long a player would be out with an injury. </BLOCKQUOTE>
At one point in Blade, I went through a significant injury crisis, which I think was related to not having enough physios *for the size of my squad*. I'd been adding players, adding players, adding players, without adding physios, and wham, all of a sudden everybody, from my superstars to my sixteen years olds, seemed to get hurt. When I added a physio, the problem went away.

I don't think anybody knows what the ratio is, but there is one.

True for me, too. Remember that it depends on database size and active leagues, too; scouting Sweden may not do you much good if you're in a small DB with only English leagues active.. but if you've got the Swedish leagues active and/or are on a large DB, it can be a veritable goldmine.

Starting at Hartlepool, your board is going to seriously limit your scouts' travels, so stick to the Home Nations for a time.

The one thing "Judging Current Ability" is good for is identifying "hidden attributes". Two players who might appear identical based on the visible attributes might have very different hidden attributes which impact their ability: consistency, big matches, professionalism, etc. So don't ignore it entirely.. use it as a red flag (or green flag) if their opinion doesn't match your own.

retired_mugdozer

Amaroq,

Thanks for the additional hints, I'm going to be keeping you busy! As for the watching away from the ball, you've just confirmed you don't read MY posts! &lt;VBG&gt;

I already do that! I find it helps to pick a player, click him on the pitch so his name shows, which makes him easier to follow and track. See, I'm not TOTALLY hopeless!

retired_mugdozer

My current setup is England only, small DB, so I'll be concentrating on the Home Islands for now. I figure that a smaller world, with a smaller DB will make it easier to run a first career.

retired_w0lfpack1

That or I started my response at 9:33, before you posted that bit...

leftfoot

So they actually incorporate hidden attributes into this? Thanks for the tip :thup:

I always thought that if they were at a relevant level and the scout was good enough they got included in the report e.g. "Scout A feels Player B to be a fairly consistent performer" or "Scout A feels Player B may have trouble living in a new country".

Now that I write that, another key thing in buying young foreign players is if the scout indicates thay might have problems settling in a foreign country then avoid them if:-

1. you don't have players of the same nationality at the club.
2. you don't intend giving them too much first team football.

I first noticed this when I bought a young Italian guy. I generally paid little attention to training prior to this happening, but I noticed his attributes hadn't been changing whatsoever. I checked his trining screen and his training history had all of the bars at very low levels for every month since he had joined. Then two weeks or so after I noticed this I got a media message about his difficulty settling, and this was followed by a transfer request.

The cliff notes to that little story would be that players lack of adaptability can severely hamper their development. Also their training levels can give a good indication of their happiness in conjunction with their profile.

retired_mugdozer

Thanks for the foreign player tip! You guys are really a big help! I really appreciate all the time and thought you put into my questions!