A strange idea.

[TurboGav]

Reading an FM story a short while ago, I realised the writer often forgot to include screenshots of his players when naming his player of the month, new signing, next big thing.

This got me to thinking... What if we did away with stats on players? I understood quite well that his star player was indeed his deep lying playmaker without a look at his stats, through his writing I could easily grasp that he bossed most games from deep, Pirlo-esque. I didn't need to know his playmaker had 17 passing, 19 technique and a barrel load of creativity.

What if all we could use to get our heads around or next star signing was scout reports? But not the flawed, minimalist spreadsheet of information we have now, what if we had pages of information to trawl through, small snippets of video to watch and a full team of scouts to give their opinion on whether or not this 20 something winger is the man to replace our veteran captain?

I think people have really taken to the new tactic system this year using words and not sliders, so why not use words and not numbers and take Football Manager to a new level of realism?

 

[paetoja]

I disagree that the scouting reports are flawed.
a scout tells you all you need to see
current and potential ability , strengths and weaknesses , especially the important specific strengh and weakness that usually include player consistency (most important thing about a player imo), important matches and injury proneness (also super important).
And most causual players would probably find it too stressful and too time consuming if ''what if we had pages of information to trawl through, small snippets of video to watch and a full team of scouts to give their opinion on whether or not this 20 something winger is the man to replace our veteran captain''.
And check the preferences, you can ,if u want and like, hide and numbers and use bars.
Clubs in real life use numbers, like Ajax or Barcelona for example when selecting youth, have a number of tests that they grade 1-8 or 10.

 

[TurboGav]

And most causual players would probably find it too stressful and too time consuming if ''what if we had pages of information to trawl through, small snippets of video to watch and a full team of scouts to give their opinion on whether or not this 20 something winger is the man to replace our veteran captain''.
.

So we have FM Classic... Why can't we do away with that (People haven't taken to it) and trial a hard core FM version? I don't think it can hurt to try.
In a game that seeks to be as close to the real game as possible, there isn't currently anywhere near enough information for the manager to look through. And even if this was implemented into the full game I don't think casual players would mind the extra time it would take, as I can only see it adding an extra layer of immersion for the player.

 

[louiscfc]

I like the idea but I don't think they could ever do this. Firstly, as mentioned above, a lot of players don't want to do all of this reading (I would however) and secondly, how could SI do this for every single player. There are thousands of players in game not to mention all of the regens and the file size would be massive as well as repetitive. They're not going to sit there and write these scripts for every single player. Then there's the quality of the scouts. Will they differ? Will lots of other scripts have to be written depending on the quality each scout? The videos will also be worthless as the FM graphics and presentation of the games isn't authentic but simply translates what is going on in the Match Engine. This means that it will be hard to tell players apart and hard to see how good a player is through a video as it's too basic.
FM has a line where it has to be practical rather than realistic.

 

[TurboGav]

I like the idea but I don't think they could ever do this. Firstly, as mentioned above, a lot of players don't want to do all of this reading (I would however) and secondly, how could SI do this for every single player. There are thousands of players in game not to mention all of the regens and the file size would be massive as well as repetitive. They're not going to sit there and write these scripts for every single player. Then there's the quality of the scouts. Will they differ? Will lots of other scripts have to be written depending on the quality each scout? The videos will also be worthless as the FM graphics and presentation of the games isn't authentic but simply translates what is going on in the Match Engine. This means that it will be hard to tell players apart and hard to see how good a player is through a video as it's too basic.
FM has a line where it has to be practical rather than realistic.

I didn't want to come across as trying to force the idea on people here, and to be honest, I'm not entirely sure how it could be implemented. I do, however, believe that this is the future. Players want to feel more immersed and more in touch with their staff and players.

 

[paetoja]

So we have FM Classic... Why can't we do away with that (People haven't taken to it) and trial a hard core FM version? I don't think it can hurt to try.
In a game that seeks to be as close to the real game as possible, there isn't currently anywhere near enough information for the manager to look through. And even if this was implemented into the full game I don't think casual players would mind the extra time it would take, as I can only see it adding an extra layer of immersion for the player.

What information in your opinion is lacking ??

 

[alexdesouza]

I don't agree. I hope they don't do it. If they do I won't buy or play it. That means that SI have swallowed too much media c&$! much like EA Sports have done. Do NOT go there. Stick to attributes. Do not **** up a game I've been playing for 17 years for some little fad. It's bs.

How about contracts? No one has fixed contracts in 2014. Transfer fees are wrong too. Mostly done through sponsorship deals and done in the upper echelons of the business.

Sorry but if we're gonna start assuming it just opens up too much **** and if you don't do it you'll end up like FIFA 2014 manager where you have to scout players, the reports give minimum info, very slow, bla bla bla. I prefer the CURRENT system. People still believe that players "have" to have high work rate or all attributes above 17 so trust me when I say you do not need it.

 

[addug]

Unless I'm mistaken there seems to be confusion about the "flawed" reports. I think the point is that we get a full list of attributes and how they fair which makes it possible to rank and compare them with any other player, which clearly isn't a realistic situation to have. The reports as they are are good, but an extended version of this would be interesting, it'd certainly make transfers a lot more challenging and a hit rate more comparable to real life. It'd be more a case of getting rid of the attributes page and making it an invisible element the same way injury proneness, important matches and consistency are, obviously the game would process it still but we couldn't.

Can't see it ever happening though, it's that huge a change and clearly plenty of people are strongly opposed.

 

[sammyt]

Unless I'm mistaken there seems to be confusion about the "flawed" reports. I think the point is that we get a full list of attributes and how they fair which makes it possible to rank and compare them with any other player, which clearly isn't a realistic situation to have. The reports as they are are good, but an extended version of this would be interesting, it'd certainly make transfers a lot more challenging and a hit rate more comparable to real life. It'd be more a case of getting rid of the attributes page and making it an invisible element the same way injury proneness, important matches and consistency are, obviously the game would process it still but we couldn't.

Can't see it ever happening though, it's that huge a change and clearly plenty of people are strongly opposed.

Surely that's just taking the mask player attributes option to a new level though.

In theory you could have a check box when starting a new game that is set to hide the attributes page in a similar way to how the mask player attributes checkbox currently works. It would require getting scout reports up to a level where you can find out everything you need to know without necessarily being able to see the raw stats, which if done could be implemented in general so that it gives you a detailed report and the current scout report as an overview for those that don't want to use this feature, or the current report would still be good for finding out roughly how good the players are compared to you own.

That said I'm not sure how much demand there would be for this and whether it would be worthwhile in terms of how man people would use it.

 

[Sinnott99]

So we have FM Classic... Why can't we do away with that (People haven't taken to it) and trial a hard core FM version? I don't think it can hurt to try.
In a game that seeks to be as close to the real game as possible, there isn't currently anywhere near enough information for the manager to look through. And even if this was implemented into the full game I don't think casual players would mind the extra time it would take, as I can only see it adding an extra layer of immersion for the player.

It's a lot of SI's budget gone, if it doesn't succeed then it certainly will hurt. I'd rather they stick on making a better normal FM than come up with new fancy types. Your idea will never happen