playmaker

Nah, just clone Paul Collyer.

Seriously though, I'd rather make the suggestions than write it off. Let SI work out how to achieve it.

Ackter

Not really. The act of fixing one bug can easily create five more. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes but in theory fixing one bug would create fewer bugs than adding a whole new feature.

Whether or not it works in practice is no doubt determined by a number of variables beyond my (our?) comprehension. </BLOCKQUOTE>

It depends on the fix - for example to do what needs to be done to the financial, transfer and contract system would take as much work (if not more) as completely re-writing it.

Out of both of those I have a feeling that fixing the system would be more likely to create bugs than a rewrite would.

playmaker

Not really. The act of fixing one bug can easily create five more. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Or if you work with the development team I did a few years back, fixing one bug would create 20 more. Fixing one of those would create another 20, and so on. Pretty soon nothing worked at all!

And it was a fraction of the complexity of FM!

isuckatfm

I always assumed that the increase in sliders and options was partly driven by the desire to eliminate super tactics. The more permutations and combinations there are the less likely it is that someone can figure out a golden combination that exploits the match engine. At the end of the day it is a computer game and those little blobs need to have set instructions that help them to make their decisions.

Admittedly I'm not a big fan of the 20 settings for sliders and the system as a whole. But as it stands I can't think of a viable alternative. Within the current match engine this tactical system allows you to set up your players to do what you want them to do (whether or not they do it depends on the player's mental attributes and Creative Freedom).

Why there won't be a set piece designer anytime soon:-

From this thread
http://community.sigames.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9482076...522061463#4522061463

The perfect example of what I believe PaulC is referring to was that cheat on FM 06 (I think it was that version) on corners where if you set all of the attacking players to far/near post and assigned your best long shooter to lurk you could score a decent amount of goals.

The same could be said of the near post flick on in FM07 yet funnily enough because this element of 'unrealistic behaviour' worked in the gamer's favour there weren't too many people joining the forum just to complain about that.

Personally I think the idea of tuning the match engine based on AI stats is crucial to the realism of the FM world. For example just playing in the Premiership there are 19 AI controlled teams involved in 684 matches with no human manager. If the results in these matches deviated significantly from their attempt at simulation then the whole framework within which the gamer's experience exists would collapse.

What will be interesting to see is how the match engine evolves over the next 3 to 5 iterations with the addition of data from FML involving human controlled teams in larger numbers. It is probably the biggest challenge SI face as they will need to get the balance between the 'Human' manager's experience and the 'AI' manager's experience of the FM world just right.

playmaker

Hasn't the financial part already been rewritten? Or am I just being pedantic? Don;t answer that!

playmaker

Ah, well I guess that rains on my parade then!

Ackter

Hasn't the financial part already been rewritten? Or am I just being pedantic? Don;t answer that! </BLOCKQUOTE>

Yeah a hell of a lot of work was done on the financial side, I was more talking about the transfers and contracts side of things.

Amaroq

No.

Right, fair enough.

According to Joel on Software, whom I presume knows more about software development than the average forum poster , a rewrite is "The Single Worst Strategic Mistake that any software company can make."

Ackter

Ah, well I guess that rains on my parade then! </BLOCKQUOTE>

Personally I don't think we need one anyway- there are other ways to get the effect.

I think the less say we have on set pieces, then the more realistic they can become. Currently the set pieces are incredibly restricted and just aren't realistic. The options just don't make sense as they're not dynamic enough.

If we had a more simple interface, along the lines of:

Marking: Man / Zonal
Men on Post: None/Near/Far/Both
Directness: Direct/Mixed/Creative

Along with this you'd then get specific set piece instructions added to the oppositions instructions screen so that we can effectively mark danger men (which we can't do at the moment).

Linking it in with training would then be essential, as the amount of work done on it in training will have a direct effect on the outcome of the set pieces - at the moment all it does is effect a few attributes.

Makes more sense to me that way.

djht

Training is definitely an area that needs to be drastically improved considering how important it is in real life.

Ideally I'd like to see an activity based training system similar to the one in cm03/04 but with real effects on team performance on match day, not just with marginal effects on individual attributes. For example, there could be three different 'attacking overload' schedules - patient, normal, direct - and the choice could affect match day performance so that a team could specialise and develop their style of play.