retired_mlindquist

aston_martin

I am sorry, I wasn't referring to you. Had I not been interupted by my daughter, my post would have beaten yours to the board.

Your thoughts on the ass. mgr. improvements are well thought out and right on target. :thup:

retired_BrownVanilla

oh OK, sorry

and thanks for your kind words about my suugested Ass. man improvents

retired_janellewood86

If I didn't have a girlfriend, I'd find out where you lived and marry you. My God, you're so awesome.

I agree, this is where the game can be made "easier", or at least more accessable, and still keep the hardcore on board.

All the Ass. Man. has to do is help in the same way people on this forum do. At the base level, point out who or what lost you the last game.

Assistant Manager Report

Liverpool 4-2 Wigan Athletic
<UL TYPE=SQUARE>
<LI>We played well today, but our pass completion could have been better.
<LI>Wigan scored from a poor clearance from Jamie Carragher, and he was lucky not to give away a second goal.
<LI>Wigan scored from a deep cross which should have been closed down
<LI>Our possession percentage was good and we got a good number of shots on target.
</UL>

What does this tell me? Well, either I need to drop Carragher, or I need to look at his settings. Two blatant mistakes? Perhaps something needs to change. Perhaps my passing, since I'm not completing enough passes. Was this the conditions, or a basic flaw? I'll check my passing stats and see who was missing most passes. Also, was the cross defendable, or was it one of those things? If I get this message two or three times in a row, it's something I need to look at. And finally, I know some things are going well because I'm getting good shots and good possession. Just need to keep an eye on it.

The ass man doesn't need to, in most cases, offer solutions. He just might be able to point out things that weren't obvious, or at least might be missed. Certainly, he can analyse a game simply by being a parser to the stats. Better the ass man, the more detailed the report. This makes Arsenal and Pat Rice easier to play with, some random Turkish LLM club a lot harder.

Hopefully this will at least arrive by '09 if not '08.

retired_nabrooks

I understand where you're coming from, but don't agree that skill levels are the way forward. If anything a match engine rewrite is in order as this current one has been around for some 6 years or so now and with each release shows no signs of even resembling the beautiful game.

Teams DON'T change formation some 10+ times a match if things aren't going their way, they DON'T dramatically have to change their style of play to suit the way the opposition play. The fact SI have had to create a tactic (the 33211) that I can honestly say I've never seen any real life team use yet every FM team switches to once you've gotten even slightly successful, stinks of trying to paper over the cracks of a sub-standard engine.

Now I understand they wanted to to eliminate the super-tactic, and I agree that winning every match with just the one tactic regardless of player quality DID need to be fixed, but they've gone from one extreme to the other. The fact that people are creating 14 tactics with incremental steps of 1 mentality to get anything like a decent level of consistency shows just how anal the game has become.

The likes of Man Utd, Chelsea etc play pretty much the same way week in week out regardless of who they're playing, yet it hasn't hampered their success. Lesser teams who go to Old Trafford/Stamford Bridge and try to defend for 90 minutes still get hammered, they DON'T hold off wave after wave of attacks then throw an extra couple of men forward in the last 20 minutes and nick a result. Teams who try that in real-life are usually more prone to leaking another goal NOT equalise/grab a winner without the opposition having to accomodate the change, as is the case with FM. Sure, it may happen on the odd occassion, but they're called freak results for a reason.

Ideally a home and away tactic with maybe a couple extra (shut up/grab goal) should be all that is needed if they're nice and balanced, but it's just not working like that atm. Sure, if the opposition have a danger-man I may have to single him out which is where the opposition instructions were a nice addition, but all the ****ing about req'd now makes them pointless. I don't expect a tactic that hammers a top team in my division to fail miserably against a relegation candidate because my mentality/tempo/width/whatever was slightly off, especially when my players are of a much higher standard. I should just be able to throw them out on the field, and as long as I don't go overly silly with the tactic, expect a result.

FM06 wasn't so bad in that you could just use a home and away tactic, and with everyone on team mentality adjust it to suit, but even that appears screwed in this version. It may still work to an extent, but if you get something like your defensive line slightly off, you get punished. It's becoming less about football and more about number-crunching. When a player backs away from a free-ball a couple of yards away because his closing down isn't quite high enough and allows an oppo player to run 30 yards to pick it up you just know something is seriously wrong.

retired_nikerock

Dame you have hit the nail right on the head mate. That is a fantastic interpretation of just how FM 2007 runs.

The game has become impossible. Its just not fun anymore, its annoying. SI need to go back to the drawing board and re-think the strategy.

retired_nikerock

Boyleyboro, your one of the people that i,m talking about mate. Fair play to you, you obviously have plenty on your hands. This is probably cos your ugly and you have got no chance of meeting a bird or having a social life but cut some slack for those that are more fortunate than yourself

retired_nikerock

This theory has the same flaws aston, because teams with crap ass managers would get crap advice. Its the same with scouts in FM 2007, good ones spot good players, crap ones don't.

Personally i don't believe that implementing skill levels should be that difficult. I mean i'm not an expert or anything but every game i have ever played has skill levels so why not FM. I know the game is usually bug ridden but SI should be doing more to make sure this doesn't happen. After all people are paying their hard earned cash for this stuff.

retired_pennyyoung

i completely agree with SI for not supporting this, or i hope they aren't being swayed by the apparent masses who call for this.

at the moment, if anyone wants to "dilute" the tactical aspect of the game, and just want to balance the books etc, then the holiday mode is there for use. go on holiday on match day, let your assistant handle the tactics.

if you want to win every game, then i suggest you take a page out of alex ferguson's book and get cracking on getting the best out of your squad (instead of moaning).

retired_kfollman

Suralex? The best out of his squad?

What like, Rooney £30M, Ferdinand £30, Saha £12+M, Carrick £18M, Ronaldo £12+M etc you mean?

Just buy the best players that are around (at inflated prices)

The best out of the squad? Look at Sam Alladyce or Harry Redknapp if you want that.

(mind you I notice that none of those three talk to the BBC and all have alleagations of illegal payments in their families....)

C'mon SI, sort it out. The best managers take bungs! (allegedly)

retired_nikerock

ha ha ha, your another one that obviously likes to waste your life figuring stuff out. you would still be kept happy though because you could just choose the difficult option. There you go problem solved!!!