retired_Balanchinegal

:thup:

Realistic to one is Unrealistic to another = impossible to define clear boundaries.

retired_marcias

Total realism can be over-rated in a game anyway when it starts to be to the detriment of game play. The real world is not always enjoyable (in footballing terms, hoever much of a "challenge" you like)!

retired_sbromfield

I suppose that is one of the other things that has crept up on us over the years...some people want the game to be as realistic and challenging as possible...others want to retain a bigger fun element to it.

Although we've always stuck to the former as our approach, right from day one, perhaps, for some people, earlier versions of CM/FM were more enjoyable for them precisely because the realism was lower.

retired_mandystar

Well said.

Before I get annoyed with anything in the game I try to think of where this has happened in real life. And I usually think of plenty of examples where it has. The fact is, the bits that are annoying in FM games, ar the things that are aneurysm inducing to a real life manager.

Of course the game can always use tweaking to make it right, but I think that those who complain about certain aspects tend to be exaggerating, or just not using tactics properly.

retired_marcias

My main concern on the realism issue is that some real aspects are just too complex to adequately include in a game.

e.g. team talks are something I hate and they unfortunately aren't optional. Clearly the ability to give a team talk is realistic, but in real life I assume team talks are not just one line sound bites and then see what the effect was after the match. I assume a manager may well watch the effect his half time team talk is having on his players and if they seem to be taking it badly he may change tack or he may say that he is pleased with what he has seen so far, but make sure you keep it up, rather than just one or the other.

It's the realism (especially in terms of the research into club and player stats) that makes me play this game and not any other football management game, there's just something about some of those recent realism additions that makes them frustrating because you know however hard people at SI try to make them realistic there is just too much complexity to add into a game and a half-way house implementation is sometimes less acceptable than none at all.

Again though, I have heard lots of people say they love team talks. At least with media questions you can just ignore them if you want and seemingly get no detrimental effect, just no positive effect either.

retired_chinni2277

Some people want a ridiculous level of realism though, but dont take into account the biggest unrealistic part of the game... is selecting a job, one which few seem to comment on.

retired_ehoff15

I don't think the issue is too many shots (for and against). Personally i think the issue is that the game doesn't give enough clear feedback as to why the other team manage to create all those chances. Is it because my defenders are not good enough? or is the DL push too far up, or too deep? Maybe we should try man-marking instead of zonal?

What I would love is to be able to request a post match analysis by the coach or Assistant manager as to where the previous game has gone wrong. Most of the basic instruction are clear enough atm. For example, i know i should only ask my player to do "Run with Ball" often if they are good at dribbling and balance etc. But some of the defensive instructions are not as clear. Esecpailly if we don't recevied feedback, we wouldn't necessarily know where it went wrong. All we see is the result of it (i.e. lose the game, the other team created too many chances etc.)

I know a lot of people wouldn't like to be spoonfed all those information. But it will help a lot of user, certainly myself, to setup a tactics which will suit the team.

Cwcox01

The inclusion of ProZone would give you all that information and lots more. I really hope SI's thinking about purchasing a license to include it. CM has it, but doesn't need it as its tactics aren't deep enough. In FM, I feel it would be an invaluable tool.

retired_dego72

Its not really what suits us or you- its what looks and plays like a real game of football. Its not about opinions, its just about being objective and some of the things that have crept into FM08 (and back from FM07) make the match experience a pretty tedious experience.

The game isnt more fun because of a lack of realism- its less fun because of it.

Apart from the match engine- which apart from (and this is a pretty big apart from) the closing down and defensive issues pretty much had it nailed, and from a simplistic viewpoint this player felt that once these issues were fixed then we had the best yet.

Sadly 8.01 seems to have lost all the things that made 8.00 seem so promising, and so fun at times. The variety of finishing was superb, ball movement (especially as at last FM seemed to acknowledge the existence of modern light balls) and the game seemed to play a multi paced game where you could see changes in tempo.

I obviously have no idea of the intricacies of the match engine,but have been watching live (as in being at games) for over 20 years so I think I pretty much know what a real game looks, plays and feels like. For me 8.00 was pretty damn close, albeit for the obvious issues (as was 8.01 beta 1) but all that was swept away with 8.01 which seemed to return to the FM07 way of doing things with added issues like the one v one issue.

retired_dego72

Also (sorry!) the tactical options we have are just so poor.

They are nowhere near as powerful or intuitive as they could be, yet are implemented in such a convulted manner that setting up simple things like an overlap or just getting player positioning correct can be a nightmare.

For starters why 20 clicks on a slider (this is the complaint I see most frequently)? What real life manager gives instructions like that?

This entire area needs to be redesigned to be more intuitive- ideally by using the pitch and player graphic as a virtual whiteboard/magnetic board (which we all know real life managers use). Then we should also be able to give direct instructions- why use a combination of sliders and tick boxes to get a DR/DL to overlap when a simple button could do it (or even a single slider to tell him to overlap rarely, mixed or often)?

Its overcomplicated for no good reason, and the knockon from this is that is that its difficult (especially for the new user) to put across our tactical ideas.

Let us think about our tactics more, not have to spend time thinking about how to put our tactics across through the mud that is the tactical interface.

IMO this game suffers from SI knowing the mechanisms of FM inside/out- and therefore you just do not see the quite obvious flaws the game has suffered for many a release, as this is not a new thing- the game is becoming stale and is crying out for change.