Coaches, youth players and mentoring

[Neb]

Hi,

Loving this year's game, much more involving (it feels more difficult in the lower leagues) which is great!

I've a few questions... 

What does the coaches star rating mean? Is it ability? Is it potential (as in likely ability to pass the exams)? Is it reputation? Could do with a bit of explanation. 

The youth team development is awesome, think it's a great touch. I'm curious to know how it works... What are the benefits for leaving youth players in the youth teams vs promoting? Do they develop faster in or out of the youth team? Any pitfalls? 

Please can we have a warning note about loaning a player who is currently being mentored, as this is really annoying when you loan out a player to find that the mentoring has been cancelled and you've missed an opportunity with a young prospect. 

Cheers! 

[Neb]

Any feedback for my questions above? 

Cheers

[Marc Vaughan]

On 11/11/2022 at 12:57, Neb said:

What does the coaches star rating mean? Is it ability? Is it potential (as in likely ability to pass the exams)? Is it reputation? Could do with a bit of explanation. 

In all honesty it was a bug that was displayed (and has no effect).

On 11/11/2022 at 12:57, Neb said:

The youth team development is awesome, think it's a great touch. I'm curious to know how it works... What are the benefits for leaving youth players in the youth teams vs promoting? Do they develop faster in or out of the youth team? Any pitfalls? 

Youth teams are optimal for youth players who haven't matured enough to handle the pressure of senior team football, however if they can then playing with the senior teams will allow them to develop faster.

(so if you promote them early then its a bit of a gamble - although your coaches might advise you and offer some help)

On 11/11/2022 at 12:57, Neb said:

Please can we have a warning note about loaning a player who is currently being mentored, as this is really annoying when you loan out a player to find that the mentoring has been cancelled and you've missed an opportunity with a young prospect. 

Not a bad idea - added to my on-going notes.

[passenger58]

3 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

In all honesty it was a bug that was displayed (and has no effect).

So the star ratings for coaches are purely cosmetic? 

[Marc Vaughan]

7 hours ago, passenger58 said:

So the star ratings for coaches are purely cosmetic? 

No they're a bug - they do have an underlying basis (if I remember right its reputation), but its only used for AI decision making regarding who to hire rather than anything which affects their functionality.

If that still displaying in the latest version of the game incidentally?

[StephenCronin]

45 minutes ago, Marc Vaughan said:

No they're a bug - they do have an underlying basis (if I remember right its reputation), but its only used for AI decision making regarding who to hire rather than anything which affects their functionality.

If that still displaying in the latest version of the game incidentally?

Ah, what a shame, I think that would add a whole other dimension to hiring staff and make it fun and challenging. It's a little bit brainless now - "pick a gold badge, any gold badge" - really just a chore you get done as quickly as possible with not much joy in it... 

I know a few years back someone found that there were CA and PA values for staff in the save file. I know they aren't used (based on what you've said in the past about the badge being the thing), but I was really hoping that system had been implemented at last. I'll keep hoping you'll do it one day! 🙂 

Anyway, looks like the stars are still there in the latest version on Android. I almost don't want them to disappear, even if they are just a red herring that will confuse people. What if you rename it from Ability to Reputation and leave it in? 

[Marc Vaughan]

38 minutes ago, StephenCronin said:

Ah, what a shame, I think that would add a whole other dimension to hiring staff and make it fun and challenging. It's a little bit brainless now - "pick a gold badge, any gold badge" - really just a chore you get done as quickly as possible with not much joy in it...  

To be honest the 'staff' side of things is kept somewhat intentionally simple as I don't want people to be confused by having dozens of potential inputs to things.

(leaving it saying 'rep' ... hmm ...)

[jamie_B_105]

53 minutes ago, StephenCronin said:

Ah, what a shame, I think that would add a whole other dimension to hiring staff and make it fun and challenging. It's a little bit brainless now - "pick a gold badge, any gold badge" - really just a chore you get done as quickly as possible with not much joy in it... 

I know a few years back someone found that there were CA and PA values for staff in the save file. I know they aren't used (based on what you've said in the past about the badge being the thing), but I was really hoping that system had been implemented at last. I'll keep hoping you'll do it one day! 🙂 

Anyway, looks like the stars are still there in the latest version on Android. I almost don't want them to disappear, even if they are just a red herring that will confuse people. What if you rename it from Ability to Reputation and leave it in? 

Agreed - I thought / presumed it was a new update for FM23. Be good to have this in place one day

[StephenCronin]

7 hours ago, Marc Vaughan said:

To be honest the 'staff' side of things is kept somewhat intentionally simple as I don't want people to be confused by having dozens of potential inputs to things.

(leaving it saying 'rep' ... hmm ...)

I understand you want to keep it simple, but to me it's one of the fundamental things of a football management game. I can't remember how staff worked in the early versions of CM, but before I played CM, I played Wizard Games of Scotland's One-nil and getting staff with a good rating was important:

So, I'm shaped by that! 😀

To be honest, it doesn't have to be any more complicated than it is now, just replace badges with a 0-5 star ability rating. It doesn't even have to change if that's too complex (just have A instead of CA/PA). 

It's the badge system I don't like - well not the idea of badges per se, but the idea that is how you tell a good coach from an average one. Saying "one coach with a gold badge is the equal of another coach with a gold badge" is sort of like saying "I can get a work permit for Haaland, and I can get a work permit for San Marino's Nicola Nanni, so they must be equal". 

A simplified system is fine, but I don't think it should be based around badges, it should be based around ability. And should have more steps (ie 10 steps in a 0-5 star system rather than just 3 steps with the badges).

Anyway, I will continue to hope that one day this will be overhauled! But don't worry, there's no danger I will go back to One-Nil instead of FMM!  🤣

[Marc Vaughan]

3 minutes ago, StephenCronin said:

Anyway, I will continue to hope that one day this will be overhauled! But don't worry, there's no danger I will go back to One-Nil instead of FMM!  🤣

If it makes you feel better I played One-Nil (and various others) back in the day myself

PS - How about we display it as 'reputation' and have it affect how players react to being coached, ie. a coach with low reputation isn't listened to by some players?

[StephenCronin]

54 minutes ago, Marc Vaughan said:

If it makes you feel better I played One-Nil (and various others) back in the day myself

Not too surprised as I think we're about the same age (let's just say the default age in FMM suits me just fine!). Great days with some of those early games, still play them sometime as many are available to play online for free (which is how I got the screenshot). But as much as I love them for the occasional dose of nostalgia, they pale in comparison to FMM, truly amazing where you've taken the genre. 

1 hour ago, Marc Vaughan said:

PS - How about we display it as 'reputation' and have it affect how players react to being coached, ie. a coach with low reputation isn't listened to by some players?

That sounds like an amazing idea! I'd still prefer a simple ability rating over the badge system, but after I posted the last message I realised that would affect the business model (ie the training add-on purchase), so would not be something that could just be changed easily without a thousand meetings. But having reputation mean something does shake it up, make it a bit more realistic and would make this one user happier - so if it's something you can do, then yes please!!! 

[Neb]

Ha! I played one-nil, goal, goal94 before I got hooked on CM2 with CM97/98 getting me through uni. I've tried loads of others, but keep coming back to FM and now FMM as I'm old and have less time

I'd love an extra bit of interest in building a good backroom team. I'd love a little extra coaching bonus back to coaches favourite teams / managers, so as a manager there are reasons to pick one coach over another. I'd especially like some depth around offering an ageing player a coaching role and getting a training bonus if you were his favourite player, the club his favourite, or he was a club legend (in terms of appearances, goals, etc) or a generation of youth having that coach as a favourite player. 

I also think the recent enhancements to player personality is fantastic and it would be awesome to extend this into the backroom staff.

You might find the purchase of the training add on might be increased if your backroom team was a really good fit in other ways (Personality, club links, player links, etc) , but the coaches were poor and unlikely to achieve silver/gold badges... 

Edited December 2, 2022 by Neb