A little question about playing time

[realcaffrey_]

Sup guys, just a small issue to discuss here and take opinion and directions.

Regarding Agreed Playing Time, my question is simple. I know that, in Europe, greater importance is given to national championships, such as the Premier League (England) and La Liga (Spain). In South America, however, we value the continental competition much more - in our case, the Copa Libertadores de América, which represents the UEFA Champions League for South Americans (proportionally speaking).

Perhaps due to the European model, athletes only consider their playing time in national leagues (such as the Brazilian Championship) for satisfaction purposes. In other words, if I decide to prioritize the Copa Libertadores and always field the strongest team for this competition, I will inevitably have to rest the best players in the national league. This generates dissatisfaction in the squad because of playing time. In other words, even though, in real life, SA clubs prioritize the Copa Libertadores, in FM, players do not care about it, since their satisfaction with the playing time granted is exclusively related to the national league.

Is it possible, via the pre-game editor, to change these settings so that the players understand that the Copa Libertadores, for example, is more appropriate for defining their playing time than the national league? If the answer is yes, can someone give me directions?

Thanks!

[starbugg]

You can change the reputations of the competitions in question so that one, Copa Libertadores for example, is considered more important.

I'm not sure if you can do it with the in game editor, I will have a look later, but you certainly can with 3rd party editors I can't mention here.

[starbugg]

You can indeed change the reputations via the in game editor.

[NineCloudNine]

Is it the case that only league games count towards playing time satisfaction? That’s not been my experience, I think it is all first team games.

I don’t get why prioritising the Copa Libertadores would cause players to be rested for so many league games that playing time concerns become a problem. Resting/rotating players before big continental games is common in Europe too - I do it all the time.

I suspect you have too many players on Star and Important status, which makes them much more sensitive to not playing. Try to drop them down a tier over time, makes things much easier.

[scythian12]

It is well annyoing, but important / star players will expect to play 70-90 % of ALL games, irrespective of fixture congestion and fitness status. So if you have a calender full of weekday / weekend matches, you have the options: a) do not promise playing time above regular starter b) be prepared for unhappy first-team quality players c) be prepared for their fitness levels being the equivalent of having their knees bashed with baseball bats, even with heavy rotation. Altho having these players start and taking them off at half-time alleviates the issue somewhat.

Edited June 12 by scythian12

[realcaffrey_]

@starbugg, thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, changing the competition's reputation isn't enough. It's probably something concerning the national league. Taking Palmeiras and Abel Ferreira as an example in real life, the manager and his team won the Copa Libertadores twice consecutively. In his third year, people started to complain about how Palmeiras didn't perform well in the national league. Then he focused his attention on this competition as well and also won it twice consecutively. As a Palmeiras fan, I'm still looking for another Copa Libertadores, if you understand me.

@NineCloudNine and @scythian12, thank you for your comment. I can assure you that these problems are related to the national league matches. The Brazilian schedule is a mess, mostly because of those regional championships at the start of the season, such as those in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. It's common to play matches on Wednesday and Saturday or Thursday and Sunday in the same week. If you're alive, so to speak, in the Copa do Brasil, Campeonato Brasileiro, and Copa Libertadores simultaneously, you can be sure that you'll have a match to play every three days. Personally, I prefer to fight for the Copa Libertadores; however, my best players are supposed to play in the national league (Campeonato Brasileiro), and giving them playtime in the international competition doesn't seem to be enough.

As a matter of fact, this is something that Sports Interactive has to work on for FM 2025, since we can unfairly lose squad control because of this unreasonable playing time. We simply can't have a deeply strong team because of the players' complaints about how much they play and how much they don't.

[NineCloudNine]

53 minutes ago, realcaffrey_ said:

As a matter of fact, this is something that Sports Interactive has to work on for FM 2025, since we can unfairly lose squad control because of this unreasonable playing time. We simply can't have a deeply strong team because of the players' complaints about how much they play and how much they don't.

It's worth clarifying exactly what it is you think SI need to do here.

I'd suggest that you already have the tools to manage this - don't have anyone on Important or Star player. I don't and I have never had playing time complaints unless I really had dropped a player. in Brazil the regional competitions do compact the season somewhat, but in general terms the need to juggle the squad between league, continent and cup is the same everywhere for top teams (some countries also have a second cup, or a two-round supercup as well). Weds-Sat and Thu-Sun weeks are the norm for successful teams.

I do agree that it would be nice to have the option to explain upfront and in player discussions what your focus is and thus why a player might find themselves playing less in one competition and more in another. This could also come in the form of an edict from the Board, or a demand from fans.

I'm less convinced there is a need for a Brazil-specific tuning of the player time module. The different emphases you describe can be introduced in the form of expectations and additional player interaction options.

Edited June 13 by NineCloudNine

[realcaffrey_]

Em 13/06/2024 em 12:14, NineCloudNine disse:

It's worth clarifying exactly what it is you think SI need to do here.

I'd suggest that you already have the tools to manage this - don't have anyone on Important or Star player. I don't and I have never had playing time complaints unless I really had dropped a player. in Brazil the regional competitions do compact the season somewhat, but in general terms the need to juggle the squad between league, continent and cup is the same everywhere for top teams (some countries also have a second cup, or a two-round supercup as well). Weds-Sat and Thu-Sun weeks are the norm for successful teams.

I do agree that it would be nice to have the option to explain upfront and in player discussions what your focus is and thus why a player might find themselves playing less in one competition and more in another. This could also come in the form of an edict from the Board, or a demand from fans.

I'm less convinced there is a need for a Brazil-specific tuning of the player time module. The different emphases you describe can be introduced in the form of expectations and additional player interaction options.

You may have a point. It's clear to me what you said about the already available tools to manage this kind of trouble, since it may be a trouble that could be solved simply by dealing properly with player's contracts.

On the other hand, I think that you've already and kindly answered your own question. You asked me to clarify properly what I was exactly expecting from SI concerning this problems; you also said very precisely that there should be a way to speak more comprehensively with players about our focus and squad rotation in order to prevent playing time issues.

Despite of its evolutions over the years, I'm convinced that there's a lot of things that simply should be better and more realistc such as press conferences (maybe options to build an answer with 3 or 4 consecutive phrase choices, in order to make it more dynamic and to avoid those boring-always questions), interactions (players' playing time is one of my points), negotiations (mostly agents and contracts), different currencies by usage (i.e. BRL for wages and EUR for market transfers) and there it goes.

Please notice that my points are always related to realism in order to avoid nonsense situations such as that squad playing time issues.

Once again, thank you for your time. It's very important to discuss things like that.