Suggestion: Official Guide

[BiggusD]

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I am still not sure what that progression bar is supposed to show.

As for the need for an official guide, it is there but what exactly it must explain is more uncertain. It cannot tell us what works and what doesn't - that would be terrible, but then how can it explain how to use certain features?

Tactically, what SI must explain is that counter-attack, as used in this game, is a Brazil/early 90's Romania style of play and not Scandinavian direct football. Similarly, Attacking as a strategy is a direct, classical British style not an attempt at dominating the gameplay. For many people, these labels mean the exact opposite of what they think it does. To me, when I want attacking football this means passing the ball calmly around their box waiting for an opportunity, pressing high and pushing many people forward. Counter-attack means sitting deep keeping things tight, then, whenever possession is won back attack as quickly as possible with no regard of keeping possession whatsoever. Hence, my defensive tactics should have a low defensive line and be relatively narrow, but with direct passing, quick tempo and attacking mentalities. My attacking tactics should be high defensive line, relatively wide, relatively short passing, slow tempo and relatively defensive mentalities. Neither works well simply because the game does not consider these viable strategies...

[Govnar1]

It seems that "Progression bar" will remain mystery.

[Herbert Fandel]

pics

I am still not sure what that progression bar is supposed to show

It seems that "Progression bar" will remain mystery.

Based on your screenshots, I would expect is shows that a 16 year old getting better at football is doing exactly what is expected of him, and therefore scored 50% in progression.

A 16 year old getting rapidly increasing in footballing ability beyond that expected of him or of a general player his age would score up to green for progression, a player stagnating would show low progression.

It is titled 'progression' rather than something akin to the profile 'attribute change', and therefore it inherently assumes some progression in its judgment, rather than simply commenting if they have got better or not.

This is just my conjecture, based on your screenshots and my own experience

[liamgriffiths85]

I wouldn't mind an actual book/guide you could buy, Sometimes easier than trawling through the internet!

[!.m.!]

I think much more likely, the progression bar is just a feature that doesn't really work. Like the screen that shows you a favoured formation you've never used.

[Govnar1]

Maybe its juts like final theory, beyond capabilities of human comprehension.

[lam]

OR..... spend some time in the tactics forum................

[lam]

It's a great idea.

It's 'cruel' of SI to watch us debating without giving a clue as to some of the debates here....what attributes does make a good DoF or Head of Yth Development?? Or would that make it too easy??

If you were managing a club in real life and someone said "I'm looking for someone to head up and promote my Youth development", how would you answer..........

[!.m.!]

OR..... spend some time in the tactics forum................

But the ongoing point made here is that people want things confirmed by SI not speculation.

[MakaveliPT]

As far as i reckon this is how fast a player Will develop, this is determined by determination and professionalism for sure, some other hidden attributes might affect it as well. By development speed i mean if you are dealing with a player that will reach his pa at a younger age or he will be a late bloomer. On The screenshot shown that player should reach his pa at An average age, id guess 25

Fmscout tool could calculate this in fm11 not sure about 12,13 as i no longer use it

Hope it helps.

Sorry for quoting myself but THIS ^

[Äktsjon Männ]

Sorry for quoting myself but THIS ^

Whatever it's meant to be it obviously doesn't work. Otherwise it wouldn't be smack down the middle for every single player.

[!.m.!]

Whatever it's meant to be it obviously doesn't work. Otherwise it wouldn't be smack down the middle for every single player.

Sorry for quoting Aktsjon but THAT ^

[lonestar190]

The information that comes with this game is, quite honestly, embarrassing at best. SI's failure to explain many of the mechanics of the game in any reasonable fashion is very poor for a game of this complexity. I remember the Civilization 3 manual from many years ago, on a game that was developed long before the current iteration of FM, but was still a solid piece of reading (well over 100 pages iirc).

A few issues that a first time player is either unaware of or unable to determine:

1. There are hidden attributes

2. If a player has an individual instruction that conflicts with an opposition instruction, which one controls? (If I set my DL to hard tackling but set the OI of the opposition MR to easy tackling, what does he do?)

3. Which training regimes control which attributes?

4. What do the shouts do? (Some are rather ambiguous). Do they conflict with individual or team tactical instructions and if so, which ones control?

5. What coaching attributes are important?

6. What does technique do? - this has been debated a few times

7. Why is the German team grayed out?

8. What is automatic reputation?

These are just a few of the multitude of questions. As someone living in the U.S. I have had a few friends try the game, and each has quit based on frustration and lack of understanding. Its great that the game is mostly understandable to the established crowd, but it has an unreasonably high entry curve. This clearly needs to be addressed if SI has any interest in expanding its market.

[Cleon]

The information that comes with this game is, quite honestly, embarrassing at best. SI's failure to explain many of the mechanics of the game in any reasonable fashion is very poor for a game of this complexity. I remember the Civilization 3 manual from many years ago, on a game that was developed long before the current iteration of FM, but was still a solid piece of reading (well over 100 pages iirc).

A few issues that a first time player is either unaware of or unable to determine:

1. There are hidden attributes

2. If a player has an individual instruction that conflicts with an opposition instruction, which one controls? (If I set my DL to hard tackling but set the OI of the opposition MR to easy tackling, what does he do?)

3. Which training regimes control which attributes?

4. What do the shouts do? (Some are rather ambiguous). Do they conflict with individual or team tactical instructions and if so, which ones control?

5. What coaching attributes are important?

6. What does technique do? - this has been debated a few times

7. Why is the German team grayed out?

8. What is automatic reputation?

These are just a few of the multitude of questions. As someone living in the U.S. I have had a few friends try the game, and each has quit based on frustration and lack of understanding. Its great that the game is mostly understandable to the established crowd, but it has an unreasonably high entry curve. This clearly needs to be addressed if SI has any interest in expanding its market.

1 - Already in the online manual

3 - Is already available inside the game...... Player profile > Training tab > Area tab

6 - Online manual yet again

[Herbert Fandel]

1 - Already in the online manual

3 - Is already available inside the game...... Player profile > Training tab > Area tab

6 - Online manual yet again

8 is also mentioned in the online manual, not very well though!

[lonestar190]

1 - Already in the online manual

3 - Is already available inside the game...... Player profile > Training tab > Area tab

6 - Online manual yet again

Fair enough, I was wrong on a few. That being said, the explanation for technique raises more questions than it answers:

"Technique is the aesthetic quality of a player's technical game; how refined they appear to be with the ball. A player with high technique will be more likely to pull off a tricky pass or a cross-field ball with greater ease than someone less technically able. This in turn affects a number of technical attributes; poorer technique will let a player down."

So you need high technique to make tricky passes? What is the passing stat? Like I said, the involvement of technique has been discussed on these forums on numerous occasions and is far from clear.

[Cleon]

Fair enough, I was wrong on a few. That being said, the explanation for technique raises more questions than it answers:

"Technique is the aesthetic quality of a player's technical game; how refined they appear to be with the ball. A player with high technique will be more likely to pull off a tricky pass or a cross-field ball with greater ease than someone less technically able. This in turn affects a number of technical attributes; poorer technique will let a player down."

So you need high technique to make tricky passes? What is the passing stat? Like I said, the involvement of technique has been discussed on these forums on numerous occasions and is far from clear.

Every single stat is explained in detail in the tactics section of the forum and it's very clear what they do. You should maybe check out threads in there.

The same goes for the shouts.

[!.m.!]

Every single stat is explained in detail in the tactics section of the forum and it's very clear what they do. You should maybe check out threads in there.

The same goes for the shouts.

Regardless not everybody knows about these forums, for a game that sells as well as FM SI should really release an official version, even if it is only what is in the tactics forum.

[Cleon]

Regardless not everybody knows about these forums, for a game that sells as well as FM SI should really release an official version, even if it is only what is in the tactics forum.

They did an online manual which includes them all. If people want to delve further into them and really want an indepth description (which is what I was replying to above) and see how they work in a game enviroment then that's the whole point of the forums no?

I agree the manual needs more added to it though.

[lonestar190]

Every single stat is explained in detail in the tactics section of the forum and it's very clear what they do. You should maybe check out threads in there.

The same goes for the shouts.

I assume you mean your thread. I have read it, and it is quite impressive. That being said, there are many parts of it which I disagree with, and, moreover, it is far from being confirmed as correct by any official source. This is exactly the issue. The very basic building blocks of the game are still being debated and thus far from being "very clear." I don't want to get into a debate regarding your thread, but only point out that it is not an official and 100% accurate source.

[Cleon]

I assume you mean your thread. I have read it, and it is quite impressive. That being said, there are many parts of it which I disagree with, and, moreover, it is far from being confirmed as correct by any official source. This is exactly the issue. The very basic building blocks of the game are still being debated and thus far from being "very clear." I don't want to get into a debate regarding your thread, but only point out that it is not an official and 100% accurate source.

It's all accurate so not sure what you disagree with. PaulC checked over it before it was posted too.

[Jibby123]

They did an online manual which includes them all. If people want to delve further into them and really want an indepth description (which is what I was replying to above) and see how they work in a game enviroment then that's the whole point of the forums no?

I agree the manual needs more added to it though.

To be fair, to take children for example, I'm not sure these forums are the most welcoming, forgiving place for child-like questions for starters. The good members (mods as well??) can be quite cutting, sarcastic and without obvious age's visible of users bang out of order sometimes. I can hardly claim to be innocent on that so not pointing fingers. That's not to mention that it's quite overwhelming to wade through the forums to find an answer to questions that are a collection of supposition and opinion.

[StormenDK]

Would personally love to do a massive FM wiki, although obviously would be a rather huge undertaking. Something we are thinking about certainly, but as said would be a rather massive task - watch this space I think

What I have learned from my own work place (Telecom software development and testing) is that you can't just do a wiki with everything. Then it never gets done because you never have time to do all the stuff you need. So just start. At first it will be a bit empty, but then make a rule internally that whenever someone adds or removes a feature, make sure the wiki is updated. Don't have intentions to do it later as that will never happen.

We just started small, made a few specific pages that no near covered everything. But every time we would work on a specific area and feel that we needed some information for that, we did make a wiki page right away. The page might still not contain everything, but it was a start and then you could add more later.

Having to wait for the "ultimate wiki page with everything" would be like waiting for the end of the world .. it probably won't happen in our lifetime

Maybe just go through the forums and select 10 areas that are frequently asked about and then do those. People would appreciate it, and then later on you can add more and more stuff to it.

It would be awesome if SI employees would add tidbits there, that are often posted in some marathon thread that many people will never see. That way you could always find it as a casual forum user. The same goes for things you might blog about or tweet about. I certainly don't follow tweets or read blogs to hopefully get a few "official" quotes on specific functions.

You could even make a page on your wiki called "SI quotes", where you post these (often) one-liners about what a specific function does. These could always later evolve into full pages explaining certain things in details.

So my suggestion would be ... do it, and do it now ... small steps will get you to the end zone much faster than one huge leap.

[filmriss]

So my suggestion would be ... do it, and do it now ... small steps will get you to the end zone much faster than one huge leap.

There is nothing else to add...!

[StormenDK]

OR..... spend some time in the tactics forum................

Thing is, many (myself included) do not want it to be a requirement to go there and read countless and very large threads to understand what 'Show on weaker foot' means, or what the requirements are for pairing a tutor to a youngster, or why I can't change the 'Scheduling' slider on the Training screen. All this should be readily available in some official format. Not what you, I, Cleon or countless others have spent hours and hours analyzing, testing and/or reverse engineering to figure out (or think we have figured out).

I sometimes feel like I have to spend as much time on these forums as I actually play the game. Just to understand what I am doing.

I love the forums, and find them a great source of information and inspiration for doing things differently or trying new things or get more in depth with tactics or training or scouting or whatever. But I don't feel like it should be a requirement. Which of course it isn't, but it sometimes feels like it.

[lonestar190]

It's all accurate so not sure what you disagree with. PaulC checked over it before it was posted too.

If this is true and SI have confirmed that everything in your thread is correct, then it seems the start of the wiki is already made.

Really removes any excuse to not get one going if all they have to do is review things (which they clearly have time for) and the community will draft and edit the actual material.

[Riz Remes]

It seems that "Progression bar" will remain mystery.

The "Progression" bar shown in the report screen shows you how the player has developed in recent months ability wise according to your coaches. So it technically recaps the total progress that occasionally prompts specific news items where your coaches tell you if they have been impressed by a players progress in training in recent months etc. We've done some finetuning for this in the future updates so it will show changes a bit better.

[Äktsjon Männ]

The "Progression" bar shown in the report screen shows you how the player has developed in recent months ability wise according to your coaches. So it technically recaps the total progress that occasionally prompts specific news items where your coaches tell you if they have been impressed by a players progress in training in recent months etc. We've done some finetuning for this in the future updates so it will show changes a bit better.

So this not working at all at the moment is a graphical glitch then? As I still get the coach updates but the progression bar has never been anything other than 50% for any player ever.

[Govnar1]

The "Progression" bar shown in the report screen shows you how the player has developed in recent months ability wise according to your coaches. So it technically recaps the total progress that occasionally prompts specific news items where your coaches tell you if they have been impressed by a players progress in training in recent months etc. We've done some finetuning for this in the future updates so it will show changes a bit better.

Thank you!