it was a this point i knew i was finished with this save.

[Domathon]

1st season fresh and hungry to play - singed benassi willian jose and cutrone among what i believe some high profile signings for newcastle , lost 23 games in the 1st season had to reload a few games to not get sacked, came 17th, i knew at this point, 246 hours ago IN that first season i could never go far with this save because im very disciplined with this game and will not allow and cheating at all, but the game was in a laughable state when the save began. 

willian sose kieran tierney benassi and cutrone all only signed if we made europe in our 3rd season, realistic and i was happy to agree.

halfway through the first season i bought in Hakan Canaloghu, nasri and balotelli, on paper the squad pretty decent, i will say now fm got dubravka spot on he is solid keeper!

at 2nd season beginning i brought in Shaqueri from pool Bruno fernandes Julian draxler, djibril sidibe, rafinha from barce and michael keane from everton, couple with some youth signings i didn't mention and some top top regens

2nd season was 15 wins 15 losses and 8 draws, a season where lost nearly every away game certainly didn't get many points. going into away games was hard because there was little progression in any department of the team.

ok so remember for me any loads up or saving before signing players or looking at ca/pa is a massive no no for me and i wont accept that people who use fm scout and real fm players at all. i knew this save was to be deleted but i went for it, thinking i could steady the ship and build towards something, the last 100ish games (2 seasons) was not fun with random rng more than the squad getting familiar and building etc

 

so 3rd season, i must get europe to repay my top players for coming to the lowly toon, 1st game manu away Loss 2nd game liverpool at home, horrid to watch had all the stats in my favour but stats dont win games 1nil loss, 3rd game arsneal loss,4th game it was a big team i cant remember who but this was the point where i just couldn't be bothered anymore and that feels sad. dynamics were ***** team was beaten down, i feel about this thread now how i feel about that save there no drive to finish it

[Neil Brock]

I hate to be predictable, but given you finished 17th in the first season, 15 in the second and things haven't started well in the third, you may want to look at things from a tactical perspective. (Aka "it;s your tactics") You can't just sign better players and expect to win loads of games if your tactic is flawed or leaving huge gaps for the opposition to exploit. 

May be worth checking out the tactics forum for some advice. Good luck! 

[RBKalle]

I'm usually quite sympathetic towards people struggling due to FM's quirky behaviour, but here you just signed the Who's Who of inconsistent and unreliable pseudo-top-players...

Balotelli, Nasri, Draxler, the injury-prone Rafinha, Calhanoglu... Great players going by their visible attributes, too bad they likely play 2 or 3 matches per season at the top of their game, while the rest ranges from average to infuriatingly useless.

The key to improve a mid/low-table side is to sign CONSISTENT players, not top clubs' rejects or aging former wonderkids.

[johnsie]

Consistency is only hinted at in scout reports, and infrequently at that with even less frequent suggestion of a fundamental ever-present overriding role. I highly doubt what you describe is what is implemented in FM. What you describe are at best washed up players who have a few exceptional performances, which corresponds to mediocre attributes and luck. I highly doubt Balotelli and Nasri in FM19 are great players by their visible attributes. Rafinha being injury prone has nothing to do with being magically average or useless unless his match sharpness is chronically low. Things like squad cohesion, social groups, and tactics are at least plausible factors. I'm inclined to think the op is going by names rather than attributes.

[Jops14]

As a lifelong newcastle fan and someone who also started as Newcastle, they just suck. It sounds like you didnt improve massively on squad in first season, they need loads of work especially in defence, i've recently resorted to playing 3 at the back because they are so easy to carve open.

 

I also signed Balotelli, he has some great games and others where he doesnt run for the ball, to be expected. I signed Sandro Wagner and have tried to make use of set plays whilst I have a freak of nature in the box, it tough, I think i've experimented with 5 or 6 different tactics before I found the one I wanted

[Spurs08]

41 minutes ago, Domathon said:

 

willian sose kieran tierney benassi and cutrone all only signed if we made europe in our 3rd season, realistic and i was happy to agree.

 

That is a big part of your problem. There are six clubs in the Premier League with gigantic resources who should always be making Europe barring a major, major underachievement. And there's only seven European spots. So if a single smaller team wins either of the domestic clubs, that's it, you haven't qualified. And even if they don't, you have to be the best out of the fourteen other teams in the league - including the likes of Everton and Leicester who start with much better squads than you - just to get the right to try for the Europa. Then you have to win three qualifiers, including two during your pre-season and one where you'll be unseeded because you don't have any recent European history and this season could have drawn the likes of Zenit, Sevilla or Olympiakos.

You aren't actually doing that badly. Staying up with Newcastle first year is fine, they have one of the worst teams in the league, and then in the second year you got 53 points - you don't say where you finished but that's normally enough for top half and last season in real life would have only been a point away from that European spot, you just didn't have the luck with how other teams performed. The problem just seems to be expectations - it's affecting your enjoyment because you've set them so high, and it's also going to be contributing to your problems with dynamics, pressure and morale in the team.

Remember that the people posting on here tend to be the more dedicated fans of the game who are very good at it and tend to overachieve. If you compare your performances to what a team might expect or be happy with in real life, that's much more likely to be a good bar to set. And just like real life breaking into the European spaces, especially consistently, is extremely difficult in the Premier League because the top teams are financially dominant in ways it's impossible for you to replicate - rich owners and/or huge commercial and corporate revenues. If you're aiming to take a lower-table team from the top division and help them progress, you're better off in literally any of the other big European leagues.

[westy8chimp]

Losing 23 games and having to cheat to survive was OK... But losing to utd, pool and Arsenal was the straw that broke the camels back? Very odd.

Whats more... Taking over a team like Newc and coming 17->15->13 etc would be my dream kind of save. I always seem to overachieve or on the odd occasion completely balls up and get sacked in season 1.

[Tom8983]

2 hours ago, Domathon said:

had to reload a few games to not get sacked

 

2 hours ago, Domathon said:

im very disciplined with this game and will not allow and cheating at all

uh huh...

 

Aside from that laughable comment, it sounds like you're just signing as many players as possible and hoping that that'll fix things for you. Signing too many players in a short space of time has devastating effects on squad cohesion, which will destroy performances on the pitch.

I'd also like to know how playing at Newcastle, you had the budget to sign Benassi, Willian, jose, Cutrone, Tierney, Hakan Canaloghu, Nasri and Balotelli in your first season, followed by Shaqiri, Bruno Fernandes, Julian Draxler, Djibril Sidibe, Rafinha, and Michael Keane in your second season? That's not realistic at all, either financially or from a squad dynamics point of view. 

[themadsheep2001]

As others have alluded to, you have largely bought badly. You brought in big name, inconsistent players, who don't have the best personalities. Everyone does it differently, but if I'm trying to overachieve, first thing I do is reinforced the spine of the side with consistent, strong personality players. They might not be the best players in the team, but they form the consistent leadership and performances. Looking at your selection of signings, you actually made harder for yourself by signing players who are hard to man manage. It's no wonder your squad fell apart 

[Muerte706]

I feel you!

Started a save with Chelsea, and it's been one of the most frustrating saves i ever had. I wanted to play 442 and replicate Mourinho style of play at Man Utd. Direct fast football. But OMG, this turned into the biggest sht ever seen. I haven't seen in my life ratings so low and team being dominated by low teams. I restarted a lot, tried different setups, different roles. Nothing seems to work. I fined the players alot, sold almost entire team of chelsea. I sold sabitzer for 0 after i bought him for 26 mills. Sent cahill on loan, fabrgas at milan and morata to U23. 

 

I just  drew 2-2 at burnley with them scoring 2 wonder goals. Puh!!

[b101]

28 minutes ago, Muerte706 said:

#Started a save with Chelsea, and it's been one of the most frustrating saves i ever had. I wanted to play 442 and replicate Mourinho style of play at Man Utd. Direct fast football.

Made me chuckle  

[Muerte706]

42 minutes ago, b101 said:

Made me chuckle  

I mean Mourinho from the game. 

[BanOly]

3 hours ago, Muerte706 said:

I wanted to play 442 and replicate Mourinho style of play at Man Utd.

Uh huh.

 

3 hours ago, Muerte706 said:

This turned into the biggest sht ever seen. I haven't seen in my life ratings so low and team being dominated by low teams. I restarted a lot, tried different setups, different roles. Nothing seems to work. I fined the players alot, sold almost entire team of chelsea. I sold sabitzer for 0 after i bought him for 26 mills. Sent cahill on loan, fabrgas at milan and morata to U23.

So... a rousing success?

[RBKalle]

8 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

Consistency is only hinted at in scout reports, and infrequently at that with even less frequent suggestion of a fundamental ever-present overriding role. I highly doubt what you describe is what is implemented in FM. What you describe are at best washed up players who have a few exceptional performances, which corresponds to mediocre attributes and luck. I highly doubt Balotelli and Nasri in FM19 are great players by their visible attributes. Rafinha being injury prone has nothing to do with being magically average or useless unless his match sharpness is chronically low. Things like squad cohesion, social groups, and tactics are at least plausible factors. I'm inclined to think the op is going by names rather than attributes.

Balotelli and Nasri are probably good enough, at face value, for Newcastle though...

I agree that consistency is hard to gauge via scout reports, so unless you happen to know "for sure" a player is horribly inconsistent (by having peeked in the editor, one way or another or going by real-life knowledge, assuming the researchers have assessed it reasonably well) it's a bit of a shot in the dark.

Frankly none of the names listed are "bad" per se, not bad enough to warrant a disappointing lower-half finish, much closer to the dropzone than to the mid-table. But probably their lacking mental or physical attributes have a much bigger impact than on a visually "average", no-name player but with adequate mental strength.

[Spurs08]

6 hours ago, Muerte706 said:

I feel you!

Started a save with Chelsea, and it's been one of the most frustrating saves i ever had. I wanted to play 442 and replicate Mourinho style of play at Man Utd. Direct fast football. But OMG, this turned into the biggest sht ever seen. I haven't seen in my life ratings so low and team being dominated by low teams. I restarted a lot, tried different setups, different roles. Nothing seems to work. I fined the players alot, sold almost entire team of chelsea. I sold sabitzer for 0 after i bought him for 26 mills. Sent cahill on loan, fabrgas at milan and morata to U23. 

 

I just  drew 2-2 at burnley with them scoring 2 wonder goals. Puh!!

 

5 hours ago, Muerte706 said:

I mean Mourinho from the game. 

He has a point though. Mourinho hasn't struggled just because he's a poor man-manager (although that's a big part). Direct play is not the way to go for a top team in the modern Premier League where to do well you need to win at least 85% of the time against smaller teams, frankly you need to dominate them. Why model yourself on a manager who's been a huge failure the last two times he's managed a big PL club?!

[LukasZ_VCF]

Also you should wait until 1st of January and sign the best players who have 6 months of contract left even if you don't want them to stay long you can put money for signing and for agent to "not choosen" and lock it and for a little bit higher wage u will get player and you can after that sell him after half of the season or more (of course he will join in the next season)... but I got Origi for free for Valencia and Origi play with Rodrigo in the first team and score a lot...he was worth 30+mln PLN and now he is worth like 240mln+ , Meunier for free too as right defender because Wass is getting old, the best thing is to sell players at max of their value 31-32y.o since you are not playing with sugar daddy team so you can't keep them until they "expire"

 

You can loan good players for 2 years with like 30% wage to pay... and one last thing did u try to choose in extra slot that they are resting in training things like match prep. that include marking and pressing and passing ?

 

I really keep an eye on it in this season always trying to add this things on free slots with finishing or set pieces and with hard teams always putting marking and I lost in 22 games in the spanish league 5 goals...in last season I lost 29 in 38 matches so I think I am loosing less in this season for sure...

[Muerte706]

Maybe i should explain myself better. I am still playing fm18, and i had success with 4-2-3-1, 4-3-3 systems with teams like Lyon, Leipzig, Milan etc.. So i decided for the last save to try something different. 

- play 442

- play high tempo(had success already with it)

- try to replicate Mourinho from my previous saves when his team smashed mine

 

But it didn't work. So if my desire to start a new save comes back, i will start again with them(hate that it's a mess with those loans) play 4-3-3 and try transitioning in time to 4-4-2.

I hate that i have to endure the same pain at every club i go. They have players suited for a system, and if i want to play a new system nothing works or it works partially until i buy a couple of new players. 

 

[johnsie]

1 hour ago, RBKalle said:

Balotelli and Nasri are probably good enough, at face value, for Newcastle though...

I agree that consistency is hard to gauge via scout reports, so unless you happen to know "for sure" a player is horribly inconsistent (by having peeked in the editor, one way or another or going by real-life knowledge, assuming the researchers have assessed it reasonably well) it's a bit of a shot in the dark.

Frankly none of the names listed are "bad" per se, not bad enough to warrant a disappointing lower-half finish, much closer to the dropzone than to the mid-table. But probably their lacking mental or physical attributes have a much bigger impact than on a visually "average", no-name player but with adequate mental strength.

There's a mod in this thread who seems to believe consistency and personality is more important than attributes, despite the presentation in the game. Go figure (I haven't even encountered or don't know what a plain negative personality is in this game, let alone seen how it overrides a player's attributes). Certainly hard or annoying to do within the game. I'm inclined to agree with you about focusing on abysmal mental and physical attributes. Then again, Messi seems to be playing well with I think 6 in work rate. But depending on how many attributes are involved I'd be very wary of low ratings. If a player has abysmal determination, decision-making, concentration, etc. I'd be concerned about how they would perform. Having a number of these players on the pitch may leave you short on doers.

[themadsheep2001]

30 minutes ago, johnsie said:

There's a mod in this thread who seems to believe consistency and personality is more important than attributes, despite the presentation in the game. Go figure (I haven't even encountered or don't know what a plain negative personality is in this game, let alone seen how it overrides a player's attributes). Certainly hard or annoying to do within the game. I'm inclined to agree with you about focusing on abysmal mental and physical attributes. Then again, Messi seems to be playing well with I think 6 in work rate. But depending on how many attributes are involved I'd be very wary of low ratings. If a player has abysmal determination, decision-making, concentration, etc. I'd be concerned about how they would perform. Having a number of these players on the pitch may leave you short on doers.

 When I say I look at personality and consistency, I mean I'd rather have a slightly lower ability but we'll rounded player who can play well for 18/25 games, and deal with the pressure better rather than a player who looks really good on player, but gets stroppy, demotivated, disrupts my squad. It might not affect you in a game or two, but I find over 60 games, I'd rather have a Milner in midfield than a Nasri when punching above my weight. Over the course of season, personalities do matter, as well as attributes 

The very nature of midtable teams is a lack of consistency, so if I'm building a squad that's going to string 7/8 wins together at a time, I want players not just good enough but consistent enough to do that. 

[johnsie]

What consistency means is the key. It seems now we're getting into morale differences between players. Players disrupting the squad how?

[RBKalle]

4 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

There's a mod in this thread who seems to believe consistency and personality is more important than attributes, despite the presentation in the game. Go figure (I haven't even encountered or don't know what a plain negative personality is in this game, let alone seen how it overrides a player's attributes). Certainly hard or annoying to do within the game. I'm inclined to agree with you about focusing on abysmal mental and physical attributes. Then again, Messi seems to be playing well with I think 6 in work rate. But depending on how many attributes are involved I'd be very wary of low ratings. If a player has abysmal determination, decision-making, concentration, etc. I'd be concerned about how they would perform. Having a number of these players on the pitch may leave you short on doers.

Well, the mod isn't wrong TBF... And I've disagreed with him more often than not in GD threads, as he tends to be very lenient with FM's quirks.

The presentation doesn't say much, if anything at all, about consistency and personality, but trust me, they are indeed very important, especially the former.

By default NO player will play every game to his best ability. IIRC, a player with 20/20 Consistency will play at his best ability 20 times out of 25. You can easily see now how a player with Consistency 5 is bound to disappoint you because he will perform at the level you'd expect only ONCE every five games. Which is, roughly, 10 matches in a 50-games season.
And that doesn't even take into account other hidden stats like Important Matches (meaning he'll ALSO bottle when it matters the most, even if it's one of his "good" days), Professionalism/Temperament (meaning he'd also lose his cool and get a red card or be unhappy because of something that happened before or during the match).

Keep in mind real-life players in the db can't get a NEGATIVE PERSONALITY DESCRIPTION (SI covering their ass from lawsuits I guess), so while a newgen can be "Unambitious" or "Temperamental", actual players will get positive or neutral labels, considering the best attributes but not the negative ones. E.g. a Balotelli could be "Ambitious", while conveniently disregarding abysmal Professionalism/Loyalty and Pressure (I guess).

So visible mental attributes can be decent enough indicators, but a selfish and sloppy, but consistent, player is less of a liability than a hard-working and focused, but inconsistent one. The former can still put his technical/physical pros to good use (if you know how to minimize the impact of his weaknesses). The latter will be actually good only once per month and there's literally nothing you can do about it.

[johnsie]

And you know the nature and importance of consistency how?

[Spurs08]

8 hours ago, RBKalle said:

Well, the mod isn't wrong TBF... And I've disagreed with him more often than not in GD threads, as he tends to be very lenient with FM's quirks.

The presentation doesn't say much, if anything at all, about consistency and personality, but trust me, they are indeed very important, especially the former.

By default NO player will play every game to his best ability. IIRC, a player with 20/20 Consistency will play at his best ability 20 times out of 25. You can easily see now how a player with Consistency 5 is bound to disappoint you because he will perform at the level you'd expect only ONCE every five games. Which is, roughly, 10 matches in a 50-games season.
And that doesn't even take into account other hidden stats like Important Matches (meaning he'll ALSO bottle when it matters the most, even if it's one of his "good" days), Professionalism/Temperament (meaning he'd also lose his cool and get a red card or be unhappy because of something that happened before or during the match).

Keep in mind real-life players in the db can't get a NEGATIVE PERSONALITY DESCRIPTION (SI covering their ass from lawsuits I guess), so while a newgen can be "Unambitious" or "Temperamental", actual players will get positive or neutral labels, considering the best attributes but not the negative ones. E.g. a Balotelli could be "Ambitious", while conveniently disregarding abysmal Professionalism/Loyalty and Pressure (I guess).

So visible mental attributes can be decent enough indicators, but a selfish and sloppy, but consistent, player is less of a liability than a hard-working and focused, but inconsistent one. The former can still put his technical/physical pros to good use (if you know how to minimize the impact of his weaknesses). The latter will be actually good only once per month and there's literally nothing you can do about it.

Just to add to this, it does mean there's a couple of good rules of thumb when you're signing real-life players I try to stick to. Firstly, get to 100% scouting knowledge on the player before signing him, even if he looks clearly good enough - your scout is then much more likely to pick up on the fact he might be inconsistent, bad in big games, injury prone etc. Secondly, try to have a squad that's strong in ambition and professionalism (using players described as such) - that way when you're signing new players, those with low attributes here may be highlighted by the scout as unlikely to fit in with the squad, allowing you to avoid them. Thirdly, remember that "balanced" actually means "balanced OR really, really bad but we're not allowed to use a negative description". So be extremely cautious of anyone with that description.

[RBKalle]

6 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

And you know the nature and importance of consistency how?

It's been explained on this board several times and a quick google search will return plenty of results, all with the same analysis of that specific hidden attribute.

 

[johnsie]

Avoiding negative descriptions to not offend players has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've heard, not to mention unhelpful. What's the summary on the nature and role of consistency in this game? Not going to bother google searching and reading through forum posts for something that the developers didn't bother to convey in the game. If you have 100% knowledge of a player and there is no mention of lack of consistency can you conclude that isn't an issue? Does the OP see any such warnings on his players?

[sedge11]

I don't quite get the point of this thread. All I get from it is he brought in so called big players, but brought loads of them in the 1st season, obviously expected instant results and to be top6 for Europe, lost loads of games and is now throwing a paddy about it.

Obviously signed badly with players like Nasri,Balotelli and Draxler and too many players at once.

[johnsie]

The thing is in trying to understand why his squad is failing despite the additions. It's about much more than an individual case. What exactly is wrong with Nasri and Balotelli (I had no idea Draxler is already in this group of names), what effect does it have, and how do we tell? My initial assumption was that the story would be in their attributes. Some might be high but they might be mentally and/or physically crippled. You'd have some vestiges of their glory days but some of their attributes would explain where they find themselves today. Other interesting and potentially important things have been suggested instead.

[mack4ever]

1 hour ago, johnsie said:

The thing is in trying to understand why his squad is failing despite the additions. It's about much more than an individual case. What exactly is wrong with Nasri and Balotelli (I had no idea Draxler is already in this group of names), what effect does it have, and how do we tell? My initial assumption was that the story would be in their attributes. Some might be high but they might be mentally and/or physically crippled. You'd have some vestiges of their glory days but some of their attributes would explain where they find themselves today. Other interesting and potentially important things have been suggested instead.

Good players does not automatically mean good performances. Look at Man Utd in real life. Their squad might not be amazing but there's easily enough talent there to be in the top 4 but all season long they'd been underperforming because of the way in which the players were being expected to play.

The OP might have signed some decent players but if he's not getting things right tactically then he's always going to struggle.

[RBKalle]

6 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

Avoiding negative descriptions to not offend players has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've heard, not to mention unhelpful.

Same reason for players not getting sent off for violent conduct...

 

6 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

What's the summary on the nature and role of consistency in this game? Not going to bother google searching and reading through forum posts for something that the developers didn't bother to convey in the game. If you have 100% knowledge of a player and there is no mention of lack of consistency can you conclude that isn't an issue? Does the OP see any such warnings on his players?

The summary is: Consistency affects a player's technical and mental attributes on a match-by-match basis. The higher his Consistency rating is, the more games he'll play at his full ability (ie. no attributes reduction).
As it's not a 100% situation (NOBODY ever plays at the top of his game all the time), the highest possible ratio is 20/25 (80%), meaning even the most consistent player can get 1 bad game every 5. The lower the attribute gets, the higher the odds of a player underperforming. E.g. Consistency 10 is 10/25 (40%), Cons 4 is 4/25 (16%) and so on.

Scout reports will likely give you a hint only if the value is exceptionally high or low, as most players likely are average so it's not a noteworthy or "noticeable" (in-universe) trait. Kinda like it works for Dirtiness, Injury Proneness, Important Matches.

5 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

The thing is in trying to understand why his squad is failing despite the additions. It's about much more than an individual case. What exactly is wrong with Nasri and Balotelli (I had no idea Draxler is already in this group of names), what effect does it have, and how do we tell? My initial assumption was that the story would be in their attributes. Some might be high but they might be mentally and/or physically crippled. You'd have some vestiges of their glory days but some of their attributes would explain where they find themselves today. Other interesting and potentially important things have been suggested instead.

If Balotelli, Nasri, Draxler etc. still probably look good enough for Newcastle... at least going by technical attributes.

Some can hope their likely mental/physical flaws can still be overcome and earn a bottom-half club a more respectable finish. Unfortunately hidden mental traits do matter A LOT in FM anyway.

Not that it coldn't ALSO be a tactical issue with the OP failing to play to the players strengths and minimizing their flaws.

[Spurs08]

8 hours ago, johnsie said:

Avoiding negative descriptions to not offend players has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've heard, not to mention unhelpful.

It's not really about not offending them. It's about avoiding legal issues with libel and the like - remembering that SI likely have to comply with such laws in a three-figure number of countries all of whom have different technicalities. They're probably already is slightly murkey territory with some players being given low stats for professionalism - but if you start outright labelling them as unproffesional, unsportsmanlike etc you're going to very quickly find yourself with suits from some of the world's best lawyers.

[johnsie]

Lmao, legal issues with libel because in a game a player is described as unambitious? Are you out of your mind? What sort of things are written in newspapers and online about people in Europe?

Quote

 

The summary is: Consistency affects a player's technical and mental attributes on a match-by-match basis. The higher his Consistency rating is, the more games he'll play at his full ability (ie. no attributes reduction).
As it's not a 100% situation (NOBODY ever plays at the top of his game all the time), the highest possible ratio is 20/25 (80%), meaning even the most consistent player can get 1 bad game every 5. The lower the attribute gets, the higher the odds of a player underperforming. E.g. Consistency 10 is 10/25 (40%), Cons 4 is 4/25 (16%) and so on.

Scout reports will likely give you a hint only if the value is exceptionally high or low, as most players likely are average so it's not a noteworthy or "noticeable" (in-universe) trait. Kinda like it works for Dirtiness, Injury Proneness, Important Matches.

If Balotelli, Nasri, Draxler etc. still probably look good enough for Newcastle... at least going by technical attributes.

Some can hope their likely mental/physical flaws can still be overcome and earn a bottom-half club a more respectable finish. Unfortunately hidden mental traits do matter A LOT in FM anyway.

Not that it coldn't ALSO be a tactical issue with the OP failing to play to the players strengths and minimizing their flaws.

 

Ok, will take your word for it. Strange that SI does extremely little to convey this.

[forameuss]

22 hours ago, johnsie said:

Avoiding negative descriptions to not offend players has to be one of the most ridiculous things I've heard, not to mention unhelpful. 

 

No more ridiculous than the raft of licenses you have to satisfy to use things like real fixtures, and along the same lines too.  

And I should add that I'm not saying it isn't ridiculous - because it is - but it's understandable.  I'm sure Miles has talked in the past about real world players getting pissy about their representation in-game.  Given that clubs now use FM as a Scouting tool, I can imagine people getting REALLY pissy if there's something subjective in there that shows them in a bad light.  Given the database and their licenses are a massively big deal for SI, I can't imagine they want to **** off anyone that might jeopardise that.

 

21 hours ago, sedge11 said:

I don't quite get the point of this thread

Just post any gif of someone hopelessly wailing.  That's the point basically.

[RBKalle]

8 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

Lmao, legal issues with libel because in a game a player is described as unambitious? Are you out of your mind? What sort of things are written in newspapers and online about people in Europe?

I see your point, but football is a business where the general perception of a player can make a huge financial difference for clubs, players and agents... It's one thing to have a pundit say "X played poorly today, maybe he's not as good as we thought", but an officially licensed game (that indeed has become also a scouting tool) slapping the "Unprofessional" or "Slacker" label on player X is quite different.

Honestly, it's a lot less ridiculous than the forced absence of red cards for violent conduct... Again, I see it can be problematic to have real players sent off for elbowing/punching/kicking an opponent or for being involved in a good, old-fashioned brawl, but hell, it has happened in real life and it can happen. Not to everyone, but it's still part of football.
SI need to err on the side of caution? Fair enough, why not flagging the "vicious red card" event for newgens only? But that's another story for another day.

 

8 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

Ok, will take your word for it. Strange that SI does extremely little to convey this.

It's a hidden attribute

And honestly I feel we know too much already... After all, you can't really know how consistent a player is until you've seen him play long enough. Something scouts can't really do, so they go "by ear" and if Player X had one great game and two pathetic showings during the time the scout was there, he'll assume the player is fairly inconsistent. With more reliable players (ie. 3 ok games, 2 good and 1 average), most scouts will just assume there's nothing out of the ordinary to report.

[Just-Wool]

50 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

I see your point, but football is a business where the general perception of a player can make a huge financial difference for clubs, players and agents... It's one thing to have a pundit say "X played poorly today, maybe he's not as good as we thought", but an officially licensed game (that indeed has become also a scouting tool) slapping the "Unprofessional" or "Slacker" label on player X is quite different.

Honestly, it's a lot less ridiculous than the forced absence of red cards for violent conduct... Again, I see it can be problematic to have real players sent off for elbowing/punching/kicking an opponent or for being involved in a good, old-fashioned brawl, but hell, it has happened in real life and it can happen. Not to everyone, but it's still part of football.
SI need to err on the side of caution? Fair enough, why not flagging the "vicious red card" event for newgens only? But that's another story for another day.

 

It's a hidden attribute

And honestly I feel we know too much already... After all, you can't really know how consistent a player is until you've seen him play long enough. Something scouts can't really do, so they go "by ear" and if Player X had one great game and two pathetic showings during the time the scout was there, he'll assume the player is fairly inconsistent. With more reliable players (ie. 3 ok games, 2 good and 1 average), most scouts will just assume there's nothing out of the ordinary to report.

Strange. I had a real life player sent off for "violent conduct" while a ball was away in an off the ball tussle. Seems like he elbowed the dude in the face as they were just standing next to one another. The game didn't say why though. I was fuming because we were 3-0 up after 20 minutes and he got sent off after 25. This caused Leeds to come back into it.

In terms of cosistency, don't your scouts flag up if the player needs to work on their consistency? They do with me all the time.

[RBKalle]

7 ore fa, monkeywool ha scritto:

trange. I had a real life player sent off for "violent conduct" while a ball was away in an off the ball tussle. Seems like he elbowed the dude in the face as they were just standing next to one another. The game didn't say why though.

I've never noticed that...

So you say it IS possible for a player to do something stupid and get a red card, but the in-game commentary doesn't acknowledge that?

[johnsie]

This game is used only informally as a scouting tool, and people know better than to take it objectively if we're going to start making these arguments (not to mention it's probably used to a very limited extent, lol). People getting pissy or not it's ridiculous not to use negative traits and there is no legal problem. It's remarkable to hear something like this in the developed world, publicly at least. And who plays FM but doesn't read newspapers for worse stuff at length? Or is it an American thing for people to say what they think in public like is being done on sports talk radio and other publications? Pretty damn pathetic for you guys. What, your newspapers and sites limit themselves to saying such and such player had a bad performance today? It's a football manager, not an ego masseur. I'm starting to feel pretty glad I don't live across the pond. And my o my are some of you taking this game extremely seriously, which I bet is completely unrealistic. "An officially licensed game slapping the unprofessional label" would rock the "general perception" of a player, o my! What is this childish stuff, man? lol I can't believe what I'm reading. Whose "general perception" of a player is based on FM, and what does the perception of cord cutting cave dwellers matter?

8 hours ago, RBKalle said:

It's a hidden attribute

And honestly I feel we know too much already... After all, you can't really know how consistent a player is until you've seen him play long enough. Something scouts can't really do, so they go "by ear" and if Player X had one great game and two pathetic showings during the time the scout was there, he'll assume the player is fairly inconsistent. With more reliable players (ie. 3 ok games, 2 good and 1 average), most scouts will just assume there's nothing out of the ordinary to report.

I'll take being aware of such an attribute and its potential significance.

7 hours ago, monkeywool said:

In terms of cosistency, don't your scouts flag up if the player needs to work on their consistency? They do with me all the time.

I've seen it mentioned I think only on a youth player. Could surmise it being a thing of its own modifying play, but it was an isolated instance. Only saw it as a yellow icon too. If it's such a big deal I'd figured it would be presented more suggestively. I'd also argue these things need to be placed more centrally than on the pros and cons page human managers may not even visit.

[RBKalle]

16 minuti fa, johnsie ha scritto:

This game is used only informally as a scouting tool, and people know better than to take it objectively if we're going to start making these arguments (not to mention it's probably used to a very limited extent, lol). People getting pissy or not it's ridiculous not to use negative traits and there is no legal problem. It's remarkable to hear something like this in the developed world, publicly at least. And who plays FM but doesn't read newspapers for worse stuff at length? Or is it an American thing for people to say what they think in public like is being done on sports talk radio and other publications? Pretty damn pathetic for you guys. What, your newspapers and sites limit themselves to saying such and such player had a bad performance today? It's a football manager, not an ego masseur. I'm starting to feel pretty glad I don't live across the pond. And my o my are some of you taking this game extremely seriously, which I bet is completely unrealistic. "An officially licensed game slapping the unprofessional label" would rock the "general perception" of a player, o my! What is this childish stuff, man? lol I can't believe what I'm reading. Whose "general perception" of a player is based on FM, and what does the perception of cord cutting cave dwellers matter?

I'm not disagreeing with you... I just stated what I'm quite sure is the logic behind SI's choice not to include downright negative descriptions for actual players' personalities.

Do you think SI would be so wary, hadn't such "childish stuff" been source of some legal issue, maybe even just hinted informally?

Media say and write all sorts of crap about players, but you'd be surprised to find out how petty the football world is. Criticism is accepted, but it always come with a risk. You ask the wrong question to a manager/player, you'll get ignored or you'll even get a passive-aggressive rebuttal or an openly rude one. You keep on saying negative stuff about a club/manager/player, you can EASILY become persona non grata at their press conferences, training sessions etc. (this has been confirmed to me by a seasoned journalist during a class: "you may always want to be in the good graces of top managers, directors, players etc, or you'll be left out in the cold).

So I'm not one bit surprised SI may have gotten some calls in the past from "some people" about the wording of some descriptions.

P.S. Sorry, but I wouldn't really use America's approach to "free speech" as of a late as a positive one, considering even a single poorly worded tweet can basically destroy a career beyond repair... Just imagine labelling a minority player as "unprofessional"... I'm sure the likes of Buzzfeed etc would simply accept it as "sports talk"

[Just-Wool]

54 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

I've never noticed that...

So you say it IS possible for a player to do something stupid and get a red card, but the in-game commentary doesn't acknowledge that?

Yeah I'll double check when I log in as I know the exact game as it was last night, but IIRC the ball was in the air and the ref gave a pen because of a "coming together" then he was given a 3 match ban for violent conduct.

[Just-Wool]

54 minutes ago, monkeywool said:

Yeah I'll double check when I log in as I know the exact game as it was last night, but IIRC the ball was in the air and the ref gave a pen because of a "coming together" then he was given a 3 match ban for violent conduct.

I was slightly wrong. It was acknowledged in game. He hit the guy with an elbow and it was a "shocking display of violent conduct" I'd throw it up to youtube but can't seem to find the upload highlights button at the mo. 

 

Edit, here it is. Sorry about the 5 seconds on pause at the start

 

 

[johnsie]

10 hours ago, RBKalle said:

I'm not disagreeing with you... I just stated what I'm quite sure is the logic behind SI's choice not to include downright negative descriptions for actual players' personalities.

Do you think SI would be so wary, hadn't such "childish stuff" been source of some legal issue, maybe even just hinted informally?

Media say and write all sorts of crap about players, but you'd be surprised to find out how petty the football world is. Criticism is accepted, but it always come with a risk. You ask the wrong question to a manager/player, you'll get ignored or you'll even get a passive-aggressive rebuttal or an openly rude one. You keep on saying negative stuff about a club/manager/player, you can EASILY become persona non grata at their press conferences, training sessions etc. (this has been confirmed to me by a seasoned journalist during a class: "you may always want to be in the good graces of top managers, directors, players etc, or you'll be left out in the cold).

So I'm not one bit surprised SI may have gotten some calls in the past from "some people" about the wording of some descriptions.

P.S. Sorry, but I wouldn't really use America's approach to "free speech" as of a late as a positive one, considering even a single poorly worded tweet can basically destroy a career beyond repair... Just imagine labelling a minority player as "unprofessional"... I'm sure the likes of Buzzfeed etc would simply accept it as "sports talk"

My inept Washington Redskins American football team recently cut one of their best players due to his repeated criticisms of players and coaches, apparently without duly warning him. He refrained from using names and while it was stinging criticism it was hardly over the top. Who knows how much of this sort of thing goes on in reality away from public eyes. But the point is legally no one should be able to come within a mile of SI on account of character traits in the game. That's the ridiculousness of this. Even actual criticism is very much protected legally, well beyond what might be found acceptable by many/most. On this ground I strongly disagree with why negative traits aren't explicit. There is no other spin either.

[Just-Wool]

2 hours ago, johnsie said:

My inept Washington Redskins American football team recently cut one of their best players due to his repeated criticisms of players and coaches, apparently without duly warning him. He refrained from using names and while it was stinging criticism it was hardly over the top. Who knows how much of this sort of thing goes on in reality away from public eyes. But the point is legally no one should be able to come within a mile of SI on account of character traits in the game. That's the ridiculousness of this. Even actual criticism is very much protected legally, well beyond what might be found acceptable by many/most. On this ground I strongly disagree with why negative traits aren't explicit. There is no other spin either.

As the FM database is used by clubs to scout for real players at times, formally or informally it doesn't matter, I'd imagine the scenario they're trying to protect themselves from is costing a player a potential move or squad place by assigning them overtly negative traits and then being sued by said player. Let a club figure out that themselves by real scouting.

 

[johnsie]

And how is assigning low attributes to a player any different?

[MrPompey]

On 29/12/2018 at 11:00, johnsie said:

Consistency is only hinted at in scout reports, and infrequently at that with even less frequent suggestion of a fundamental ever-present overriding role. I highly doubt what you describe is what is implemented in FM. What you describe are at best washed up players who have a few exceptional performances, which corresponds to mediocre attributes and luck. I highly doubt Balotelli and Nasri in FM19 are great players by their visible attributes. Rafinha being injury prone has nothing to do with being magically average or useless unless his match sharpness is chronically low. Things like squad cohesion, social groups, and tactics are at least plausible factors. I'm inclined to think the op is going by names rather than attributes.

Consistency is a player attribute

[MrPompey]

15 hours ago, monkeywool said:

I was slightly wrong. It was acknowledged in game. He hit the guy with an elbow and it was a "shocking display of violent conduct" I'd throw it up to youtube but can't seem to find the upload highlights button at the mo. 

 

Edit, here it is. Sorry about the 5 seconds on pause at the start

 

 

For me if you actually look at the player he is goal side with his flailing arm on the right with the player you claim he hit on left so there is no connection possible

[RBKalle]

4 ore fa, johnsie ha scritto:

And how is assigning low attributes to a player any different?

Numerical attributes are a less controversial thing because as long as they're kept within a reasonable and realistic range (ie. you don't rate Messi's dribbling at 5/20), there isn't a legit ground to complain.

Overall and specific ratings have existed in football games for like 30 years and nobody, AFAIK, ever complained (except fans of specific teams/players who feel X or Y should be 86 instead of 84 etc). Even the potentially more controversial ones, like Workrate, Determination or Professionalism etc can be easily defended as the reflection of real-life performances/events.
Say, a player who has changed 10 clubs in 5 seasons can rightfully be assigned a low Loyalty. A guy with a story of controversies inside and outside the field can't really file a lawsuit if his Professionalism/Temperament attributes are low. Just like a striker who has scored an average of 5 goals per season can't get offended about a single-digits finishing attribute.

On the other hand, if the player description goes like: "John Doe, 25yo, English, Striker, Personality "Unprofessional"" you can definitely see why it COULD (not say it should) ruffle some feathers. And considering we're indeed dealing with peculiar characters, would it be so odd for one of those Unprofessional/Slackers/Temperamental guys suddenly decide SI need to give them some money for defamation of character?

[Just-Wool]

5 hours ago, MrPompey said:

For me if you actually look at the player he is goal side with his flailing arm on the right with the player you claim he hit on left so there is no connection possible

Yet he got a 3 match ban! Go figure. Silly FA don't know what they're doing. 

[johnsie]

Ruffling feathers is a completely different matter. Describing certain players as unprofessional, temperamental, or slackers might be more obvious than attributes. Stop with this legal tripe. No, a player cannot sue SI for defamation and win even if God Himself uses FM for preliminary scouting.