Tonton_Zola

Surely we need a reassuring response from SI on this “attributes don’t matter” hypothesis? The tests around a sub goalkeeper outperforming a regular striker up front, for example, are potentially deal breaking for many, surely?

Very interesting indeed

Or… removing them.

Yeah the example is poorly thought through, but just wanted to share the concept. The balancing wound need to be done carefully…

Sorry how is this materially different? a big difference would be to have only a handful of meaningful interactions in a year (let’s say between 6 and 10)… These happen as spot moments emerging from media events, press conferences, club live streams, interviews, off the record phone conversations whatever… each interaction spawns four or five possible responses, each with transparent logic and outcome probability. e.g A journalist grabs you for an off the record conversation after a media event… ”Haaland isn’t as prolific as last year, is it true you are alarmed by his form?” 1. “Look I am not being drawn on this. My loyalty to players is supreme” 80% chance newspaper runs piece on tightness of your group. Morale and manager closeness up 10% 2. “Haaland needs to improve. He can be monstrous, but he isn’t working hard enough” (based on Haaland personality - driven) 60% chance blog post published on private account, Haaland responds “I am determined to prove the boss wrong” 30% chance blog post published, Haaland responds, “that’s it for me and the boss. Hands on transfer request” too busy to write out examples, but you borrow logic flow from games like CIV / paradox interactive etc, and bake in personalities into the outcome probabilities. Outcomes are material and clearly communicated, making these interactions feel meaningful and less chore-like! you would look forward to these moments during a calendar year…

Feels like interaction logic might benefit from being made “transparent” in the vein of - say - a Civ game or a D&D world. I.e Chances of outcomes could be made explicit to you / as well as knock on effects resulting from that outcome. These %s would vary depending by on your manager style and the personality of the person you’re interacting with etc. e.g if I have gone for “man manager” style it would be close to 100% that if I tell Erling Haaland he’s had a great game after a hat trick he will respond positively. introducing this machinery would do so much for all interactions or “spot events” within the game. It delivers both logic, as well as a clear connection to the wider game world. because - for me - there are three issues with the interaction elements: 1. there’s too many of them 2. they follow little discernible logic 3. they often seem arbitrary, disconnected from the wider game experience so make fewer. give them explicit logic give them clearer, more interesting implications

But Neil - context is important here. if you’ve got a middling regular starter who’s new to the club and he’s playing DL (but WB not FB, which is fairly marginal), you can’t tell me it’s realistic for him to threaten to leave, have his morale destroyed etc. it just breaks any suspension of disbelief. i appreciate that it’s perhaps different if it’s James Maddison signing for newcastle and he’s playing box to box midfielder rather than advanced playmaker or whatever… In sum, this is about the game taking into consideration context (in this case a marginal difference of role for a low level operator within an squad) and due proportion (perhaps a marginal loss of morale rather than a club career-ender).

So a newly signed player now wants to leave because he has been selected at left back in the default WB role rather than his preferred FB role… Given the fine margins here, this stretches the boundaries of credulity doesn’t it? Can you imagine a first teamer outside of a handful of global divas (Ronaldo, Mbappe etc) genuinely threatening to leave because of a minor tactical quirk. I would consider this a bug that needs fixing or rebalancing frankly.

Hope we can get this simple accessibility fix done! Just a colour refit for those of us with bad eyes!

https://jessicaotis.com/academia/never-use-white-text-on-a-black-background-astygmatism-and-conference-slides/

To be clear on the above, to solve this issue around “halation”, the fix would be as simple as a colour role reversal for text and background. The issue I am describing is not so much about font size (like many other people w this sensitivity, I actually have optically 20 20 vision), it’s purely about colour vs background.

Hi there thank you for this. So mine is a general complaint about not having a skin variant where you can have dark text on light background. it’s fairly well known that, for a whole range of eye conditions (astigmatism, post laser eye surgery, even just plain old senility), white text on dark background can cause blurring, fuzzing/‘contrast bleeding’ and high eye fatigue. This is a phenomenon known as “halation” I believe. since I had eye surgery 6 months ago things I like this have really become noticeable to me, to the extent where I can’t play the game now in low light conditions. i would say it might be responsible/good practice for SI to offer an inverted colour skin, with lower contrast levels and dark text on paler backgrounds. thanks

Very straightforward and trivial request from me. white text on dark background is notoriously fatiguing and bad for those with imperfect vision. This is beginning to cause me real difficulties in playing the game, particularly at night. Can SI not produce a simple colour swap skin, with black text on pale backgrounds? Would be a comparatively easy fix?

My overall perception is that the game has become a swollen, Frankenstein monster of an experience. Its gut is bloated, its skincare regime has been neglected and there are several half-forgotten limbs that have just been left to rot or wither. There is just SO much here, in SO many places, with SO much redundancy. What is the true focus of the game? What is the engine for enjoyment? if I were the boss I would want a total strategic reset of the whole bloody thing - working back from an assumption that c.25% of the edifice actually needs to be trimmed away. Then go back to basics with making the core mechanics utterly brilliant - transfers, tactics, youth development, dynasty etc I am so so passionate about this game, but something now needs to give. Depth does not need to mean endlessly multiplying complexity! Those 25 questions in a press conference with ambiguous, haphazard or non-existent outcome? They become one question that REALLY matters. Etc etc

Would love to second this. The dark skin really not working for my eyes!

“Best” answer really depends on context + your philosophy + and appetite for risk. Each would entail its own trade-offs, as well as its own probabilities/dice rolls. this is how it works in Paradox Games, for example. In terms of AI, a simple solution would be to simulate them vs manager personalities (and chance).

If I could give one piece of advice to SI it would be “less is sometimes more”. the game is overstuffed, carrying so much padding/deadweight/entire limbs that have long since lost function. it’s a mess!

But it’s haphazard to the point of randomness. and there’s SO MUCH clicking / so many questions that anybody sane loses the will after a while. and you lack that sense of purpose/intention, which I think the modifier would bring.

As an extension of this, as your communication stats improve as manager, the dice roll element falls more and more in your favour. I.e if you are “silver-tongued” a la mourinho, you are more likely to get positive outcomes

Game needs a totally fresh idea for media or player interactions. Currently no jeopardy or obvious implication to your action. I would borrow from grand strategy games and create clear, transparently communicated modifiers connected to your response to a question. So, before games you get max one or two media interactions (quite why you need more I don’t know) so, build up to cup final. Haaland’s out of form. ”boss, would you agree that your star striker is out of form?” “yes, he’s out of touch and I have told him so. He needs to buck his ideas up” (50% chance you get “Haaland fired up”, all attacking attributes +0.5 for one game, 50% chance you get “head dropped”, all attacking attributes -0.5 for one game) ”nah, the lad’s okay, he’s getting in the right areas” (50% chance you get “arm around the shoulder” morale improves +1, 50% chance you get “don’t patronise me”, morale declines -1) All of these modifier chances would vary depending on player personality etc. also, always option just to “spout cliche/no comment” and get no modifier) This would be so much better!

Breaks my heart that money that could have been spent on a graphics person specialising in lighting effects (or even non/floating scarves) was instead spent on a UEFA champions league licence. Why introduce a totally unnecessary licensing dependency? Why deploy your resources in that way? …let me also say this about the UCL license. It is a lot harder to take things like that away than it is to introduce them…

This has to be an inflection point now, surely. Something clearly isn’t right/functioning/effective in the onward development of this game… The disappointing mess that is Squad Planner - an inferior, unnecessary reheat of Squad Depth - is just another canary in the mine. The UI now resembles a Frankenstein monster of poorly stitched together parts, barely-functioning limbs (set pieces?) and half-forgotten threads (data science?) Meanwhile the bloat is in all the wrong areas - an inbox from a middle manager’s anxiety dream, enough clicks to fell a marathon runner, and a media mini-game that manages to be both sadistic and utterly redundant at the same time. I hear people above refer to the old question of realism or entertainment. Dare I say it, at this rate the game risks ending up as neither.

Very constructive. basically this is code for: “I am losing and I don’t like it” Last time I checked, great defenders sometimes defend terribly. The game has to simulate this possibility ne probability. (this year ref: VVD, koulibaly, 100m full back on Trent etc)

Clearly I am just using it to push the point to its extremes (a Dall-e + human for 10 minutes is exponentially better, as is anybody with graphics or illustration chops), but the idea that this can’t be sorted quickly and efficiently with big perceived quality of life improvements is absurd. I am no graphics expert, but presumably similar tools exist to help a resource-short team make improvements rapidly? Or just take the 15 minutes of your day to upres a stone wall at one of the rendered stadia?

And for Latin America I am only doing this to highlight that this is hardly a strategic drain on resources. Literally 30 mins (I could even do the above in the graphical style of FM) and tag into database metadata. Some of us feel instantly 5% better