Hiring Staff Too Easy?

[psucolonel]

Within weeks of beginning my MLS save (game time) I seem to have assembled the best coaching staff in the league?  Is this normal?  It seems far too easy (at least to me) to put an excellent coaching team together with relatively no challenge from the AI.  Most of my hirings came as recommended from other staff members, and it just appears I will not have to work very hard to recruit or maintain good coaches for my relative league level.  

[du Garbandier]

Yes well... I arrived at my current club in March with two to three months of the season remaining. Club was struggling, hence the predecessor's sacking, and they had one goalie coach, three fitness coaches, and that was it (oh, apart from the AM, who I let go at the end of the season). Small wonder they were struggling.

The three coaches I was able to recruit were all four stars or better in their best roles, and my average shot up to near top of the league. Mind you, about a year on, one of those coaches has been poached.

[Mitza]

It's not that the hiring of the staff is too easy, it's that the AI teams are terrible at assembling staff. If you sim in the future, most teams will have like 1 first team coach and will never consider replacing bad coaches with better coaches.

[Dotsworthy]

13 minutes ago, Mitza said:

It's not that the hiring of the staff is too easy, it's that the AI teams are terrible at assembling staff. If you sim in the future, most teams will have like 1 first team coach and will never consider replacing bad coaches with better coaches.

This. A lot of staff in the game at the start are missing a lot of db entries also so sometimes they will generate awful stats for the role they work.

[wetfred]

If you hire a Technical Director to do your staff hiring for you then you should be equal to the AI in terms of quality of staff.

[psucolonel]

Yea it funny, because while I hired what I would consider reasonably decent coaches for my league level, I don’t feel I got some ch great ones that I should be considered the best in the league.  In fact I lost some of the better coaches I tried to hire from higher reputation teams.

I believe you are correct…it’s not what I am doing in terms of hiring…it’s what the AI is NOT doing.  I’ll have to look around the league and see if other teams are at least staffed to capacity.

Edited March 4, 2023 by psucolonel

[gunner86]

The best in league only looks at cumulative totals of each attribute. So having more average coaches will rank higher than having less good coaches.

I’ve not managed in the MLS in a while, but 16 coaching staff feels like a lot, I’ve had EPL teams with a smaller staff.

[phd_angel]

Yes, it is easy, particularly if you are playing at the top league.

However, if you are playing a smaller clubs at a lower division, then you'll have payroll caps and less of top talent willing to join.

But I agree, this is an area of the game that should be more challenging.

[psucolonel]

I'd like to see it becoming more challenging, but not just for the sake of making it "tougher". What I mean for example is...say you want to hire coach X who is probably a decent coach...competition Neds to make it tougher.  SO maybe other teams' want to hire him as a coach, but also maybe a lot of other teams with lower reps want him as a manager/head coach.   

So the challenge should come organically from competition, and not just making it tougher for the sake of making it tougher.  

[silentwars]

On 04/03/2023 at 20:57, psucolonel said:

I'd like to see it becoming more challenging, but not just for the sake of making it "tougher". What I mean for example is...say you want to hire coach X who is probably a decent coach...competition Neds to make it tougher.  SO maybe other teams' want to hire him as a coach, but also maybe a lot of other teams with lower reps want him as a manager/head coach.   

So the challenge should come organically from competition, and not just making it tougher for the sake of making it tougher.  

You have the option to make it harder by either allowing your director to recruit new staff or (if you still want to do it yourself), using the job centre and only hiring somebody who applies (which is what I do) which leaves you with fewer options. I also only let staff go once there contracts expire, unless it's an assistant as I feel it would be unrealistic to go into a club and just sack all the staff if you were a first time coach. 

[Cobblers]

3 hours ago, silentwars said:

You have the option to make it harder by either allowing your director to recruit new staff or (if you still want to do it yourself), using the job centre and only hiring somebody who applies (which is what I do) which leaves you with fewer options. I also only let staff go once there contracts expire, unless it's an assistant as I feel it would be unrealistic to go into a club and just sack all the staff if you were a first time coach. 

It does happen though, at least major changes can take place when a new manager joins - especially at big clubs.

@ OP, Though I agree that signing staff is simple, do we really want to be taking lots of time out dedicated to signing staff? It already takes long enough as it is.

If SI do decide to make it more complex, fine, but the whole staff side of things needs an update. The process is not simple enough and needs rectifying.

For example, and when at a big club, I will remove any staff member that doesn't match my expectations - this can mean 20-40+ staff members are reviewed, sacked and need replacing.

The process to replace that many staff can be bewildering and require multiple clicks back and forth from one screen to another in order to ensure you are signing the right players, in the right position.

So, the whole thing requires a change if "complexity of signing staff" is what you want.   

[psucolonel]

1 hour ago, Cobblers said:

It does happen though, at least major changes can take place when a new manager joins - especially at big clubs.

@ OP, Though I agree that signing staff is simple, do we really want to be taking lots of time out dedicated to signing staff? It already takes long enough as it is.

If SI do decide to make it more complex, fine, but the whole staff side of things needs an update. The process is not simple enough and needs rectifying.

For example, and when at a big club, I will remove any staff member that doesn't match my expectations - this can mean 20-40+ staff members are reviewed, sacked and need replacing.

The process to replace that many staff can be bewildering and require multiple clicks back and forth from one screen to another in order to ensure you are signing the right players, in the right position.

So, the whole thing requires a change if "complexity of signing staff" is what you want.   

Yes, I suppose they would have to look at how to best streamline the system. They have done so (pretty well too IMHO) in so many other areas of FM, that I am confident they would come up with something that works very well, addressing both challenge and complexity.  Like so many other areas of FM, you can usually makes things as fine tuned (granular) or macro as you like.  

[Cobblers]

35 minutes ago, psucolonel said:

Yes, I suppose they would have to look at how to best streamline the system. They have done so (pretty well too IMHO) in so many other areas of FM, that I am confident they would come up with something that works very well, addressing both challenge and complexity.  Like so many other areas of FM, you can usually makes things as fine tuned (granular) or macro as you like.  

I'd agree with that.

With staff, I take on all responsibilities, hiring, firing and contracts for all of the teams. It can take me a number of hours just to get the staffing correct - and this is on day one of a new save.

If this was updated I would be more inclined to start multiple saves, but sometimes the thought of it just puts me off.

[silentwars]

6 hours ago, Cobblers said:

It does happen though, at least major changes can take place when a new manager joins - especially at big clubs.

@ OP, Though I agree that signing staff is simple, do we really want to be taking lots of time out dedicated to signing staff? It already takes long enough as it is.

If SI do decide to make it more complex, fine, but the whole staff side of things needs an update. The process is not simple enough and needs rectifying.

For example, and when at a big club, I will remove any staff member that doesn't match my expectations - this can mean 20-40+ staff members are reviewed, sacked and need replacing.

The process to replace that many staff can be bewildering and require multiple clicks back and forth from one screen to another in order to ensure you are signing the right players, in the right position.

So, the whole thing requires a change if "complexity of signing staff" is what you want.   

I know, I just like to do that to make it a little harder however I've found even with average coaches you can still get a good degree of development from younger players. Another thing I like to do is only appoint staff who speak the language of the country I'm working in and look for ex players of the club. It's really upto you how difficult you make it. 

[Cobblers]

28 minutes ago, silentwars said:

I know, I just like to do that to make it a little harder however I've found even with average coaches you can still get a good degree of development from younger players. Another thing I like to do is only appoint staff who speak the language of the country I'm working in and look for ex players of the club. It's really upto you how difficult you make it. 

I've tried letting my heads of staff pick the coaches etc, but jeez, the quality of their choices isn't good.

Good idea about the language suggestion.

[silentwars]

1 hour ago, Cobblers said:

I've tried letting my heads of staff pick the coaches etc, but jeez, the quality of their choices isn't good.

Good idea about the language suggestion.

I agree I usually just place an ad using the job centre and then choice the best candidate from the applicants. You only have a short pool to work from but it's better than leaving it to the AI to decide. But it really depends on what you want - if you want to play realistic you have to impose restrictions on yourself as the game won't do it for you.