A collection of ideas for future FM editions

[Hazza22299]

The Future of FM​

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The Ideas Pot


There are four sections for improvement - Scouting, Training, Tactics and Press/Team-talk.




Scouting


The first idea is an issue many agree on. The idea was found here: Scouting: Your Opinion and Suggestions


The problem: Many people believe that scouting in FM13 is not at all intuitive, quite laborious and, more importantly, scouting does not feel realistic.


The solution: To improve intuitive-ness, the suggestion is that the game provides a 2D map. On this map you have three or four views such as global, continental and regional and national. So global shows you the whole world and continents which are red have scouts assigned and areas left grey have no one assigned.
On each continent could also be a bar to show your knowledge of the area and maybe the top three countries you have the highest knowledge of in this continent. You click on a continent and it brings up a scouting screen showing which scouts are there and what they're doing and it also gives you the option to send scouts there. - Sheriff Skacel

Not interactive enough for the Sheriff.


I think when you have zoomed in on just one nation you should find all the players that have been scouted and all the players that are currently being scouted or planned on being scouted from that nation. In three separate lists. If you are not zoomed in on one nation you should see those three lists for a whole region and so on.


Players should not go automatically in to one unorganised default shortlist. You should be provided with the option to put them into one of three defaults. Youth prospect, First team, and High priority. Or something similar, with option to add custom shortlist underneath.


Scout reports could become more detailed/accurate as more time has been spent viewing the player. More detailed analysis on how the player would fit in to the squad; Basically don't just give a personality type, give a more personal opinion on the players behaviour — talk about his effort and friendliness. They currently are not interesting to read. Most people skim over them looking at key features only. An opinion from the scout on the players recent form and the abilities they've shown in matches would help this improve.


I also think that there should be more 1-to-1 communication with scouts and especially chief scouts. You can discuss which types of players you want scouted with them and they can bring their own ideas forwards; Not similar to the team meeting currently.




Training


This is an idea I saw on the 'FM Nutters' Facebook group. Jack Richards to be precise.


The problem: The problem is that general team training is lacking. Individual training works very well, but choosing a focus for the week doesn't really satisfy because I fear moving off general, tactics or defending will damage the effectiveness of some players.
Before FM13, training was even less realistic. Sliders didn't really emulate a managers job very well.

This feels a bit basic when you're telling your whole team (Inc. defenders) to focus on attacking.


The solution: This seems like something that could be implemented in a future version but probably not FM14, or even FM15.


The idea is that the manager can become more of hands on coach-style manager should he wish to. He can create his own drills and training sessions. Not just choosing from a bunch of drop down options on a strict timetable.


For example, I could create a few drills like here: Ajax Youth Development - When Real Life Meets FM @Cleon81 has found out how Ajax conduct training. Managers of future instalments could learn drills like this and create them using an in game drill creator system. As detailed or more than the tactics creator. I wouldn't necessarily have to be a hands on manager and I wouldn't have to create drills for each part of the team. I could teach drills that improve fitness and I could hire technical, defending/attacking and goalkeeping coaches.


This would create more realism and more variety in management approaches to the game. People could become specialised coaches as well as managers. Chairmen would consider this a factor when choosing to hire you or not.


Training for more hands on coaches could involve letting your aerobic coach take the warm up for half an hour. Forcing unfit players to go for a full hour. Then letting players split into their respective areas. With defenders coming to you to learn from you because you've learnt your trade from someone on FM-Base or SI Games. A regrouping after two hours for strength work with your strength coach and back to you and your assistant for tight pitch nine-a-side game at the end of the day.




Tactics


This is an idea I found on a similar forum to this, here: Based on FM13 so far how do you improve the game?


The problem: Some players feel that the current Tactic Creator doesn't provide as much control as real managers get. Specifically involving the players positioning/runs when on and off the ball. This has been omitted for several years.


The solution: The Tactic Creator should have a defensive phase (team/positioning/roles/runs) screen and an attack phase (team/positioning/roles/runs) screen like they have defending and attacking set piece screens. Not a great comparison since one is a necessity and the other is not, but the idea is clear. - Tactikzz @TacticNewspaper


It should be obvious that players are not always told to act out the same function in defence and attack. I've always wanted to see my Central midfielders (in a 4-1-2-1-2) play wider when defending to close down opposing wing backs and the AMC drops deep but I can't without this feature.

My 4-1-2-1-2. It already works like the one on the left when in attack, but in defence I'd like it to transition to the one on the right for wide security. At the moment they occasionally close down the fullback but quickly retreat because I haven't (because I can't yet) instructed my CAM to drop deep and they are scared that the centre is exposed.


Also, we should have the ability to make 3 or 4 players switch positions. For example, in a 4-1-2-2-1 style, the wingers and striker all swap throughout the 90 minutes with each other — or a temporary shout to tell them when to swap.




Press/Team-talks


The problem: The press conferences and team talks are repetitive. Even the 1-to-1 talks and team meetings are boring.


The solution: Not an easy or (I imagine) cost effective solution but if SI could import AI into these areas then I think the game would improve massively. I think the journalists should be able to learn about your reactions to questions. And they should be able to ask from a database of more varied questions so that a press conference flows. With five times as many responses you can choose from. The responses shouldn't be ordered so obviously as well.


This is all pointless though if the articles published aren't worth reading. There should be more variety here most certainly. Shady journalists like The Sun should try to provoke a reaction from you to get a cheap story. Whereas respectable journalists should be writing about your recent form and asking you about your tactical manoeuvres and selection choices whilst remaining aware that big stories are often the basics - Diving crisis, Underdog stories , etc.


For team talks, the players should learn your style. For example, a player gets motivated by your confidence in the short term but in the long term, they think you take too much of the limelight in press conferences and begin to think twice about you. Whereas a player with a different personality enjoys your laid back style to team talks and he's always happy when he talks to you.


This AI stuff works better in 1-to-1 situations and team meetings. I think because in press conferences and team talks it seems like a lot of effort for a small change. This would make meetings flow and mean each one is different because it is based on what you talked about last time plus the new issue.

An improvement on this would be maybe him going and chatting with me and the scout about a guy he thought of after he left the room.




Conclusion


I think some of these ideas are difficult to implement by FM14. But I shouldn't be the one to evaluate — you should be.


I'd love to hear feedback on these ideas; Hopefully positive. I'm also keen on hearing any more ideas you have to revolutionise (...or just improve [...or just refine]) the series.

 

[Hazza22299]

Other commonplace suggestions I've seen:

- U18's and Reserves jobs
- The opportunity to use your wages for either qualifications in coaching or, once you retire, use the wages to buy a club and become a chairman (I am not a fan of this suggestion really)
- Interviews for a job after you apply; Boosting your chances if it goes well
- Testimonial matches
- Automatically offer a contract extension to any member of your back room team is approached by another club
- A page that shows you out of all your new signings/whole squad who had the highest shirt sales that season/all time

I like this one:

- Shouts to individual players (especially useful when making a sub and the new player has different strengths within same role)​

 

[KaiRooney]

A very nice detailed Write up. Agree on the Press Conferences and Scouting Part while for the Training Part,actually last year FM 12 was something what u suggest about creating individual drills which soon became downloadable for People who dont want to actually enjoy a Game...So no point in going back to that one....
Very Nice Article though Hazza.....

 

[Hazza22299]

A very nice detailed Write up. Agree on the Press Conferences and Scouting Part while for the Training Part,actually last year FM 12 was something what u suggest about creating individual drills which soon became downloadable for People who dont want to actually enjoy a Game...So no point in going back to that one....
Very Nice Article though Hazza.....

In regard to what you've written about my training idea. I agree — the FM12 training was a lot worse than FM13 in my opinion. However I didn't mean it to come across like that at all.

I mean't that you actually do create your own drills. Not click sliders left and right. You instruct players on when and where they should move and dribble. Put cones around and tell them to hit targets.

Like this (in a drill creator):

View attachment 318243

 

[KaiRooney]

Didnt understood u in the First Place there....
Thats really a Great one mate the Drills u were mentioning...

 

[tigertailz001]

Other commonplace suggestions I've seen:

- U18's and Reserves jobs
- The opportunity to use your wages for either qualifications in coaching or, once you retire, use the wages to buy a club and become a chairman (I am not a fan of this suggestion really)
- Interviews for a job after you apply; Boosting your chances if it goes well
- Better work permits
- Improved match engine
- Testimonial matches
- Automatically offer a contract extension to any member of your back room team is approached by another club
- A page that shows you out of all your new signings/whole squad who had the highest shirt sales that season/all time
- Put 'Offer Contract' beside each person/player that is running out of contract

I like this one:

- Shouts to individual players (especially useful when making a sub and the new player has different strengths within same role)​

Yes I agree with you on, I would like to see human manager jobs for Youth teams & Reserves and Individual player shouts during the match on next game FM14.

 

[Fanty111]

the thing im finding hard is there a need for more man management on fm13 but nopt many different options like for example is Karim benzema scored 1 goal and i then tried praising him for it he would say he wasnt happy with my comments etc

 

[esanahka]

About the scouting idea, love it, love it. As long as it'd be somewhat automated, exactly like "find me this and find me this" and then he goes scouting for a year or so and doesn't pester you but his with reports of quality finds. Although I think the unearth new talent option they made is an improvement, sometimes they can actually find some good, cheap talent.

One thing is I would still like them to be able to differentiate from the level of my current club and world-class. I mean, if I'm managing some low to middle level european team (such as CFR Cluj atm), what is four star recommendation in potential for me is clearly not for Barça or Bayern or such. I would like the scouts, who are not total idiots but have good attributes in scouting, be able to tell when someone's really going to be a world beater and not. Now I usually estimate by the asking price they report.

Regards to training, I've wondered for several years why you can't practice set piece choreography in advance. I mean in a way that the player would actually see what the choices made actually translate to on the pitch. Are SI afraid that if given the chance to bombard in corner after corner, the players would break down the AI and unearth some kind of corner glitch. As it stands, it remains pretty stupid to place your players in the same places time and time again (although you can vary where the ball is aimed). No team does that.

By the way, I kind of like the fact that press conferences are so dull and meaningless, because that's what they are in real life. Very repetitive, and very seldom you see anyone saying anything that actually means something, or isn't completely predictable.

One more. The ball. It has to improve. Its physics model is terrible, honestly. It seems to behave more like a hockey puck on ice with no rolling resistance at all, and after the bounce it rarely slows down, as if it had some crazy topspin on all the time, making it very difficult to play longer (=more than 20m) passes into space, and it is normal to see headers from the center of the park go to corner or goal-kick, without the keeper having any chance to make it to the ball. Still often when players head a cross in the five yard box, the ball's momentum is slowed down considerably and it flies in the air for like 2 meters. It's really abysmal from physics point of view imo.

 

[KevArker]

I love the ideas you have put up along with ideas by others. They would be great for future addition in the FM series and would seriously improve the gameplay experience. But we should strictly stick to it being a football "Manager" game, as a lot of people come up with "good" ideas, but clearly has no relevance to a football manager.
It be great if SI could maybe tie up an interview with an actual decent manager, with whatever they discuss within the interview could be implemented into the game to make that "manager" feel even more realistic.

 

[Hazza22299]

Regards to training, I've wondered for several years why you can't practice set piece choreography in advance. I mean in a way that the player would actually see what the choices made actually translate to on the pitch. Are SI afraid that if given the chance to bombard in corner after corner, the players would break down the AI and unearth some kind of corner glitch. As it stands, it remains pretty stupid to place your players in the same places time and time again (although you can vary where the ball is aimed). No team does that.

I think it would be nice to see this by FM14; it would be great to see drills in action as well, sometime in the future — if they ever do this. Something they should have had by now is multiple set piece instructions so that your team isn't limited to the same repetitive thing.

 

[D93J]

different levels of youth teams with intakes at each level, except the first team manager only selects intakes to the highest level team, and you rely on the head of youth development and coaches to decide on the lower levels, making it realistic. Also, the better these staff are, the better standard of players may come through.

This would mean you could have players that have been at the club since they were 13, creating long spanning careers. Also, allowing you to develop a larger amount of players with a greater chance of a successful youth academy you can rely on, as youth intakes in FM2013 can be very random and you have to rely on scouting sometimes. You can develop a player from a very early age to prepare them for your tactics and set up in the first team.

Another feature I would love to see is being able to speak to the fans as a manager. You could have yearly meetings with the assosciations and your board, where the fans can voice concerns, ideas, opinions and praise you for your work.

 

[JP Woody]

Id like to see a few changes to the tactics wizard, passing for instance should have have a very short and very long choice. There should also be an option to choose the width of the team rather than manually change the slider, narrow, default and wide for example. Also i remember LMA manager from years ago had a nice idea of pre loaded tactics from history available to use like Liverpool 70s, England 96, Ireland 90, Brazil 70 etc etc. Something like that would be a great idea and really help people who don't like creating their own tactics.

 

[Raikan007]

Another feature I would love to see is being able to speak to the fans as a manager. You could have yearly meetings with the assosciations and your board, where the fans can voice concerns, ideas, opinions and praise you for your work.

or throw tomatoes at you and cause a riot if you are doing badly..

pre loaded tactics from history available to use like Liverpool 70s, England 96, Ireland 90, Brazil 70 etc etc. Something like that would be a great idea and really help people who don't like creating their own tactics.

that would be really cool to see, would like to see what the guys at SI can come up with.

some nice idea's there mate in the OP as well!

 

[D93J]

or throw tomatoes at you and cause a riot if you are doing badly..

I left that out because in certain cities it may be knives, and not tomatoes

 

[Hazza22299]

What do people think of the 'Individual Shouts' idea? I think this could work well because they could be given on the pitch as well as during the team talks. Also individual instructions should be part of the team talk really. This would make it seem as if you're actually briefing the players on the opposition, so that they know the weaknesses and strengths inside out and feel more confident about winning the match.

 

[Hazza22299]

different levels of youth teams with intakes at each level, except the first team manager only selects intakes to the highest level team, and you rely on the head of youth development and coaches to decide on the lower levels, making it realistic. Also, the better these staff are, the better standard of players may come through.

I've seen this mentioned a few times and I feel like it is possible to do. I think it would add to the experience. You should have very vague control over the signing of U16s down; Like telling the Head of youth development to sign players who he thinks will have physical potential. However you cannot sign them yourself, or control the teams at all. The players in U16s downwards should be the opposite of those greyed out players. You should be able to tell the youth team managers to train the squads similarly and release players at will. You can view the player's names and profiles but you cannot play them first team until the HOYD or U16s coach decides to promote them. You could try to persuade them early if he's a real gem.

However, this idea would add a lot to the database. Perhaps too much. I heard rumours FIFA manager had U16 squads, so it may be possible.

 

[KevArker]

I've seen this mentioned a few times and I feel like it is possible to do. I think it would add to the experience. You should have very vague control over the signing of U16s down; Like telling the Head of youth development to sign players who he thinks will have physical potential. However you cannot sign them yourself, or control the teams at all. The players in U16s downwards should be the opposite of those greyed out players. You should be able to tell the youth team managers to train the squads similarly and release players at will. You can view the player's names and profiles but you cannot play them first team until the HOYD or U16s coach decides to promote them. You could try to persuade them early if he's a real gem.

However, this idea would add a lot to the database. Perhaps too much. I heard rumours FIFA manager had U16 squads, so it may be possible.

I love this idea too... It would improve as you would have youth players coming in from your club's academy... Well if your club could afford it... That's another idea! Local academy and overseas academy depending on your club's reputation or $$$.
But like you said it would add loads more people into the database and may slowdown.
And yeah FIFA Manager has this feature If i remember correctly... Played FIFA Manager 10 for a while back and they had Youth squads, U18, U16 and U14.

 

[Raikan007]

What do people think of the 'Individual Shouts' idea? I think this could work well because they could be given on the pitch as well as during the team talks. Also individual instructions should be part of the team talk really. This would make it seem as if you're actually briefing the players on the opposition, so that they know the weaknesses and strengths inside out and feel more confident about winning the match.

you mean PPM's?

setting your player to man mark opposition player? show to weaker foot? cut inside, run at defence? all there already..

 

[D93J]

I've seen this mentioned a few times and I feel like it is possible to do. I think it would add to the experience. You should have very vague control over the signing of U16s down; Like telling the Head of youth development to sign players who he thinks will have physical potential. However you cannot sign them yourself, or control the teams at all. The players in U16s downwards should be the opposite of those greyed out players. You should be able to tell the youth team managers to train the squads similarly and release players at will. You can view the player's names and profiles but you cannot play them first team until the HOYD or U16s coach decides to promote them. You could try to persuade them early if he's a real gem.

However, this idea would add a lot to the database. Perhaps too much. I heard rumours FIFA manager had U16 squads, so it may be possible.

I love this idea too... It would improve as you would have youth players coming in from your club's academy... Well if your club could afford it... That's another idea! Local academy and overseas academy depending on your club's reputation or $$$.
But like you said it would add loads more people into the database and may slowdown.
And yeah FIFA Manager has this feature If i remember correctly... Played FIFA Manager 10 for a while back and they had Youth squads, U18, U16 and U14.

At the moment it's just unrealistic that you get youth intakes when players are 15/16. Most of the players in an intake are just there to make up the numbers, i.e you might get 5 useful players in an intake at best. I'm not saying you should get a full team of wonderkids but this means you have to rely on scouting and buying players instead of being able to rely on your youth academy even if your facilities, coaching and recruitment are excellent.

If your coaching, facilities and recruitment are all superb then you should get good players at each age group. the oldest age group should be down to your picking and your judgement and you have power over their contracts and future, while the younger age groups can only be recruited and coached by your coaches and HOYD. These players would be vulnerable to bigger clubs poaching them too though, and it would be down to the player to decide his career path if under 15/16, not you or anybody else at your club.

The oldest age group would be with an intake as it is now - different levels of players at the same age, some good, some bad. However, the lower age groups could be varying. You could have different generations of players, i.e some years you could get a whole team of fruitful intake for that age, and depending on their mental attributes they might make it in the game as the next big thing, or the next great generation of players (like Barcelona have now), or not. The frequency of a great generation of players coming through could differ depending again on your coaching, facilities and recruitment.

This would be far more realistic and at the same time, would ensure you don't get a team full of talent every season just by scouting out every player in the world. It is more rewarding working your way up from the bottom tier of a country, developing a youth academy and creating your own team while not spending a penny.

It may be an issue database wise, but it could be optional at the start of the game. For those of us with a good laptop it would be no issue

 

[Calz88]

Something with the stadiums. For example being able to adjust ticket prices, ground Improvements because the finances don't really show a true reflection on what you would pull in on a match day ( food sales, shirt and merchandise sales)