What's are the opinions on the removal of the match timeline ?

[Nonlondoner]

On 28/11/2020 at 20:26, SebastianRO said:

This is a video game. Don't bring the extremes of realism in here because most certainly you will lose this argument. The decision to remove it was stupid and there is no defence for it. Throw your mouse out the window because the manager doesn't use a mouse on the touchline, as he uses his hands. I really struggle to understand how some of you people think. The timeline was a feature that existed for more than a decade and nobody asked for it to be removed and there was no reason to get rid of it. If you want to bring this poor argument of realism in this, fine: give us the option to keep the timeline here (surely it can't be that hard from a coding perspective). And for people like you, who would strip this game naked of features because of "realism" have the option to hide it. It's that simple. At a second thought, why are we even discussing the timeline ?! Why don't we just remove the attributes, remove the training system alltogether and have a hologram train players ... heck let's remove the people from the stands because it's coronavirus. Srsly man, i rarely get annoyed, but when I see such shortsided comments it's infuriating.

Besides, touchline staff usually have tablets (as mentioned in game) and the can therefore review events in real time. The timeline removal has not help players in the  slightest, nor has the ability to find what your assistant just told unless you can catch it for the 2 seconds it's up. I've usually moved on but the lack of easily available advise resulted in goals concede. 

[SebastianRO]

49 minutes ago, Nonlondoner said:

Besides, touchline staff usually have tablets (as mentioned in game) and the can therefore review events in real time. The timeline removal has not help players in the  slightest, nor has the ability to find what your assistant just told unless you can catch it for the 2 seconds it's up. I've usually moved on but the lack of easily available advise resulted in goals concede. 

Exactly. I don't know how someone can use a sound logic making the point that removing a feature without giving you the option to keep it (especially since that feature is there for more than 10 years) is improving the game. Removing established features without people asking for it is never going to improve the experience. And let's not forget, this game is about  You, The Manager. So, removing tools that make your life easier, it's wrong. Changing the UI for the sake of some misguided and twisted idea of "realism" while making stuff harder for you to observe, interact with it's just wrong. Does this version, FM21 bring more realism than before ? Arguably. Maybe. Who knows ?  But the general consensous, based on the feedback so far is that people don't like it ( the UI I mean). The best case scenario that has been achieved by SI is they have managed to make the interface more realistic (which I personally don't agree) all the while creating a discounect between you and the game. The overall experience suffers and it should not be the case. I'm all for realism, but when I have to sacrifice the experience for realism that's when I draw the line. If the realism is more important than the experience of playing a simulator, then I would just stop playing this alltogether and invest these hours in learning how to be a real manager. So many companies have failed because they lost sight of what is important for their player-base and that is the experience.

I'm gonna go even further and ask a rethoric question: How are you going to achieve realism in a team-talk on a 2D screen ? You can't is the answer. SI thought they can, so they change the whole layout of that screen so now we have to look left, right and up in order to see player's reaction. You know what ? NO. As I noticed that, I immediately delegated the team-talks to the Ass Man. Is that the optimal thing to do ? NO. But it's better for me than having to look in circles pre-match, half time and full time. Bad bad bad decisions. Sometimes, you have to accept that in some games you cannot achieve realism (whatever that may look like) because in the end we are playing through a screen. Pursuing realism to the end of the world will kill all the aspects that make this or any game great. The right decision is to accept it and improve, fine tune the existing features while adding new ones only after the existing feature base is the best you can do as a developer. I sell stuff for a living so I know how bussiness and marketing works, I understand the need for new players and I am all for it. What I want is this game to stay true to it's core values. I don't want half baked new features that don't get fined tuned, only to see new half baked features on top of the previous ones next edition. This creates a big disconect between the player and the game. I kinda got carried away, but I stand by what I said and I tried to make the comment as constructive as possible.

Edited November 30, 2020 by SebastianRO

[Goldenhand]

Bring it back and also we need Full Team Names on the match screen!

Don't take things out of the game! Give us the choice of hiding it or customizing.

[RioImmagina]

People are talking about realism when all the game is summarized by a useless value, the xg. 

We don't need to check if our players pass the ball as we want, our cyborg assistant manager can summarize passes, shot, saves, movements, ecc in only one number! 

Xg adding and timeline removing are  another orribile ideas created only for casual gamers who think "hey, do i have to analize numbers? Nono fm is too hard!!" 

 

[Ellis_D]

On 28/11/2020 at 19:04, anagain said:

 

FM needed to move more inline with how real football is. If they just get rid of player search and have people rely on scouting I'll be chuffed. 

You can already do that yourself. Why set those boundaries for other people who don't want to play like that? Getting rid of the Player Search facility would seriously pee off a large section of FM customers.

[Ellis_D]

On 28/11/2020 at 20:13, anagain said:

I just gave you a reason. A manager on the touchline doesn't have a magic time line that they can go back and forth on to look at a yellow card or a shot whenever they like.

They watch the game as it happens.

You say this, and someone (maybe you) mentioned Klopp not having one, yet a week or two ago in the Premier League a manager (I even think it WAS Jurgen Klopp!) was using a tablet to review an incident they weren't happy with. I watched the match, so I saw it with my own eyes!

[Ellis_D]

On 28/11/2020 at 22:02, Things Could Get Messi said:

I won't accept realism as a reason. If it comes to that then it is also unrealistic for managers to judge each player's attributes out of 20 so they should be moved for realism. 

 

The timeline was a helpful tool which did nothing to harm the game. I didn't really use it but I totally understand why people want it back. 

It's also pretty unrealistic that I can just decide to manage ANY of the teams in the game tomorrow, not just the top ones, but ANY of them. It's unrealistic that I can make my eyes brown if I want to, make myself 5 foot 3 or 6 foot 8, 8 stone or 25 stone.... Yet all these things are randomly possible on FM.

So, yes, using the "it's more realistic" argument doesn't hold much water when we are playing a computer game where our reality is based on a whole load of non-realities and impossibilities. 

[anagain]

10 hours ago, Ellis_D said:

You say this, and someone (maybe you) mentioned Klopp not having one, yet a week or two ago in the Premier League a manager (I even think it WAS Jurgen Klopp!) was using a tablet to review an incident they weren't happy with. I watched the match, so I saw it with my own eyes!

Watching the TV feed, which is probably what he did, is a whole lot different to having a magic timeline that takes you instantly to any moment in the game.

If you read everything you'd have noticed I said that later. 

[anagain]

11 hours ago, Ellis_D said:

You can already do that yourself. Why set those boundaries for other people who don't want to play like that? Getting rid of the Player Search facility would seriously pee off a large section of FM customers.

I agree, which is why I haven't demanded they get rid of it. I've just said I would like it.

However, I would love to have a tag on posts that says the player who boasted of winning the PL with Rochdale in straight promotions used "cheat" tools. Or, for the people who might say the game is too easy but use tools, like player search, that real life managers don't really have. 

Edited December 2, 2020 by anagain

[anagain]

11 hours ago, Ellis_D said:

It's also pretty unrealistic that I can just decide to manage ANY of the teams in the game tomorrow, not just the top ones, but ANY of them. It's unrealistic that I can make my eyes brown if I want to, make myself 5 foot 3 or 6 foot 8, 8 stone or 25 stone.... Yet all these things are randomly possible on FM.

So, yes, using the "it's more realistic" argument doesn't hold much water when we are playing a computer game where our reality is based on a whole load of non-realities and impossibilities. 

Well in that reality, then, you'll probably be wanting the option to never lose when your tactic is poor, to never have your players get injured when you play them unfit, or to never have your best players not want to leave.

Its just a game, after all. What is the point in being bound by 'things' you don't want to happen having the possibility of happening? 

The argument that it 'is just a game' has always seemed unconvincing to me. 

[Hzano123]

13 hours ago, anagain said:

Well in that reality, then, you'll probably be wanting the option to never lose when your tactic is poor, to never have your players get injured when you play them unfit, or to never have your best players not want to leave.

Its just a game, after all. What is the point in being bound by 'things' you don't want to happen having the possibility of happening? 

The argument that it 'is just a game' has always seemed unconvincing to me. 

It actually not that unconvincing thou. A game need to be fun but with boundary and it also need to be intuitive or at least make the player feel easy to do what they want to do. Take the UI as example. Instead of having list of player from up to down like before in the changing room, now we have people spread across the corner of your screen. This make identify player harder and toreture your eyes because now it have to move across the corners to see which is which ( this doesn't feel easy for my eyes lol). In this case, i just want to review chances that my team or other team made throughout the game, instead of make it convenient for the reviewer, now i have to skip to next hightlight when reviewing and pray that i remember the events correctly ( this make review play extremely clunky). If they some how put those in the "notable events" panel, I would be glad as of now i have to go to analysis and check box that fit criteria and i have to remember which passes that create that chance ( sometime key passes just not enough for some reason). 

[Federico]

Realism apart, someone might want it back, someone else doesn't, I think the timebar was, and still is, useful for testing/raising issues&bugs purposes, especially when we're all asked to provide pkms of incidents occurred while playing.

[Hzano123]

15 minutes ago, Federico said:

Realism apart, someone might want it back, someone else doesn't, I think the timebar was, and still is, useful for testing/raising issues&bugs purposes, especially when we're all asked to provide pkms of incidents occurred while playing.

I completely agree with you. Have it removed will just make the reviewing more daunting. Last year, one dude who gather tons of pkm for the "central play problem" of the game. It help the match engine now way better. I just think the removing of the time bar gonna make him stop doing it or other people from doing it again so that we can get better version of the game each years

[LolloViola]

As I wrote in the feedback thread, I honestly find it unintelligible that you cannot distract from the match without pausing it, as you don't have immediately the chance to go back a bit if you miss a play. I don't remember such an amount of complains against FM20 or older UIs that justifies all the changes we've experienced this year: feels like changing things for its own sake.

[lucasnake]

Honestly, this would've been simply solved by having an option, want more realism? Disable the timeline, don't want? Keep it enabled. There is no way a developer as big as SI couldn't do something like this.

[anagain]

4 hours ago, Hzano123 said:

It actually not that unconvincing thou. A game need to be fun but with boundary and it also need to be intuitive or at least make the player feel easy to do what they want to do. Take the UI as example. Instead of having list of player from up to down like before in the changing room, now we have people spread across the corner of your screen. This make identify player harder and toreture your eyes because now it have to move across the corners to see which is which ( this doesn't feel easy for my eyes lol). In this case, i just want to review chances that my team or other team made throughout the game, instead of make it convenient for the reviewer, now i have to skip to next hightlight when reviewing and pray that i remember the events correctly ( this make review play extremely clunky). If they some how put those in the "notable events" panel, I would be glad as of now i have to go to analysis and check box that fit criteria and i have to remember which passes that create that chance ( sometime key passes just not enough for some reason). 

Well, to be quite honest, my post was an exaggeration on what people were saying. Many go so crazy with how they see differences with the game this year. The layout of the team talks 'tortures your eyes' or 'now i have to skip to next hightlight when reviewing and pray that i remember the events correctly'. That's just the latest. I'm not trying to single you out, because it's not just you.

If the timeline was to go back in then, to be quite honest, it wouldn't annoy me. I also don't really care that it's not in. I don't like some of the ingame changes, and I have said as much on these forums. I just hope I wasn't as exaggerative about it as many of the people in this thread.

Games change and people do get used to changes. I've mentioned the sliders. 

[Freakiie]

The realism angle to this makes no sense though, the majority of people watch the matches in highlights, which is completely unrealistic to begin with. So what's next, full detail only for FM22 for realism' sake? In the end this is a game and certain aspects are gamified so we actually enjoy them, especially the way we view the match. Realistically you'd be watching it first person view from the sideline, with every match in full detail. However, for the sake of our enjoyment we have options to circumvent this (and to actually get anywhere, full detail matches take years as you'd expect).

And since generally most people don't watch the full match, on the spot analysis and stuff like the timeline are necessary evils if we actually want to effectively make changes during the match as we get close to zero info now. Perhaps if the assistant wasn't completely pointless we could get away with the FM21 match experience, but the assistant is useless, so we can't. As amazing as the FM21 ME is, I really do not like the new match experience in the slightest and feel that it massively detracts from FM21. It is astonishing how SI have made a giant leap forward in the ME, the area that seen massive complaints in past versions, but then decided that the match experience itself needs a massive leap backwards to balance the whole thing...

[Hzano123]

10 hours ago, anagain said:

Well, to be quite honest, my post was an exaggeration on what people were saying. Many go so crazy with how they see differences with the game this year. The layout of the team talks 'tortures your eyes' or 'now i have to skip to next hightlight when reviewing and pray that i remember the events correctly'. That's just the latest. I'm not trying to single you out, because it's not just you.

If the timeline was to go back in then, to be quite honest, it wouldn't annoy me. I also don't really care that it's not in. I don't like some of the ingame changes, and I have said as much on these forums. I just hope I wasn't as exaggerative about it as many of the people in this thread.

Games change and people do get used to changes. I've mentioned the sliders. 

I agree that when game changed, player should adapt to it and i agree that i and some people exaggerate about this because people who do exaggerate love the feature and felt disappointed when they remove it. The thing is i don't  know if it is just only me who make the big deal of these little things so i make this post to check if people like the change or not. Some like you doesn't care, some like me who really want it back and some just get used to it over time. As far as i see, over 100 people want it back so some people do care about it. I just want SI to take the feedback and improve their game on certain aspect. If they decide to remove it, i hope they state their reasoning well (ex: remove it help the game processing faster). So far their only reason to remove it for "realism" is just very weird to me as there are multiple unrealistic things still in the game.

Edited December 3, 2020 by Hzano123

[latrell]

i wish they would stop taking things out the game i want the time bar back, every year for me now the game is getting harder to get everything the way i like it, i finally had everything i wanted with fm20 as in skins custom leagues panels by about April 2020, now i have this naked game with a ton of work to do i can hardly play the game right now just so much to be done, and to tip it off this year we have a lot of licence issues it just never ends ill get Fm 21 they way i like it by October 21 i reckon 

[upthetoon]

Removing the timebar is illogical. this entire game is just filled with mindless clicking. timebar made it easier for us to go back to stuffs, but now we are forced to click and click and click for almost everything and anything.

utterly frustrating.

[orlyzao]

They'll add it back in a couple of years and call it a new feature.

[Hzano123]

8 hours ago, orlyzao said:

They'll add it back in a couple of years and call it a new feature.

I hope not lol at least not a couple of years

[Dagenham_Dave]

On 02/12/2020 at 17:10, LolloViola said:

 you don't have immediately the chance to go back a bit if you miss a play. 

Not true, you do, it's just not quite as intuitive as before. 

[jeff.fit82]

Hey guys, nice to meet you, and see that im not alone with this question...

This has been one of the biggest mistakes in this season's game...
take off something good or useful is not acceptable!!!

The interface of a game like FM, a manager game...is a KEY part
the gameplay was drastically affected with this changes to the core of the game.

[Hzano123]

14 hours ago, jeff.fit82 said:

Hey guys, nice to meet you, and see that im not alone with this question...

This has been one of the biggest mistakes in this season's game...
take off something good or useful is not acceptable!!!

The interface of a game like FM, a manager game...is a KEY part
the gameplay was drastically affected with this changes to the core of the game.

Haha yeah i feel you , i wish someone from the dev come to this thread and discuss why they remove it lol. Like many people said the best option is to have fm 21 match engine with fm 20 UI 

[Atomichazza]

The match UI from last years game was perfect. Nothing about it should have been changed.

[Guest]

I miss this along with the ability to see at a glance from the formation screen how many players are out of their ideal position/roles - the old green circles next to each player.  Really useful rather than having to click on each player and trying to remember.  Match UI is degraded for me and I am not sure it is just lack of familiarity.

(I am still trying to find-out now to get the assistant's advice screen, when his advice is removed too quickly for me to see because of a highlight and the dugout screen is just empty.  Anyone?).

 

[Hzano123]

44 minutes ago, bringbacklilnux said:

I miss this along with the ability to see at a glance from the formation screen how many players are out of their ideal position/roles - the old green circles next to each player.  Really useful rather than having to click on each player and trying to remember.  Match UI is degraded for me and I am not sure it is just lack of familiarity.

(I am still trying to find-out now to get the assistant's advice screen, when his advice is removed too quickly for me to see because of a highlight and the dugout screen is just empty.  Anyone?).

 

Yeah alot of people have the same problem as you too. I think they are working to fix it

3 hours ago, Atomichazza said:

The match UI from last years game was perfect. Nothing about it should have been changed.

I fully agree, especially the widget to customize the panel was great

[acarloscc]

still struggling with the lack of the match timeline...

[Kuchiki]

This UI is just awful, I can't even choose to watch a previous match in full. I have to save the match and quit to the start menu to be able to view in full and then I lose all access to player profiles...Awful.

[Platinum]

On 12/05/2021 at 20:52, Kuchiki said:

This UI is just awful, I can't even choose to watch a previous match in full. I have to save the match and quit to the start menu to be able to view in full and then I lose all access to player profiles...Awful.

No idea why they took this functionality out. I honestly think it was an oversight.

[WizbaII]

People say the timebar is unrealistic because that's not how managers IRL experience a match. However, these people need to realize two things:

(1) In real life, teams have a bunch of coaches sitting on the bench and watching the pitch to catch all the little details. Being able to rewind on the timebar is how we get that same ability from the game.

(2) Unlike real-life coaches, we don't get to watch training and work on our formations and tactics in training. So we need to be able to rewind during the game to see the things that normally, you would already know from being in training. 

[Platinum]

6 hours ago, WizbaII said:

People say the timebar is unrealistic because that's not how managers IRL experience a match. However, these people need to realize two things:

(1) In real life, teams have a bunch of coaches sitting on the bench and watching the pitch to catch all the little details. Being able to rewind on the timebar is how we get that same ability from the game.

(2) Unlike real-life coaches, we don't get to watch training and work on our formations and tactics in training. So we need to be able to rewind during the game to see the things that normally, you would already know from being in training. 

This is why there really should be some type of visual or more in depth aspect to training. Its the biggest part of a managers job as it directly affects the match. In the game we have no idea how a player will perform in a certain role and how the team will look like when using a new formation until we actually play a match.