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The arrows are different. The (white) arrows purely tell them where to position themselves, not how much effort they put into runs off-the-ball or tracking back to defend.
Hmm I see the white arrows as which runs they should be making (ie workrate related) and the other ones as to how deep or high up they should play, is there an actual EA guide to these arrows/settings? I use the white arrows on my forwards especially to send them on overlapping runs, my left forward has an up right white arrow and my right forward has an up left white arrow and they constantly cross each other with their runs which helps them lose their marker.
From what I heard in Canada, the workrate settings won't override the player's natural habits, but it will influence or tweak them. What has been Berbatoved cannot be unBerbatoved.
By workrate you're presumably referring to tactical/positional arrows not the actual attacking/defending workrate stat that each player now has
Player Base Position ("Use Base Positioning to adjust player positions and create custom formations")
Player Work Rate ("Set the Work Rate of individual players on your team")
Player Positioning ("Use this to tweak your formation when attacking and defending")
I think the focus of the past two years has been the gameplay, Clubs, Virtual Pro, Live Season etc etc. This year, MM has been the topic that has infuriated fans the most. Posting the Manager Mode buglist on Peter Moore's blog, while quite an extreme course of action which almost got Marcel Kuhn the sack despite it being his first year and him taking over some very outdated code, clearly got EA's attention.
I'd be amazed if, now that there are more features in the game than most people will ever use, Manager Mode doesn't get something like the long overdue overhaul we've craved. Not least considering some of the things PES pulled off with their ML this year (not played it much but it does seem incredibly deep)..
The board.
Inspired by the MM (Masochistic Mode) I'm attempting with Turkish minnow Ankaraspor, in which after a very narrow 0-1 defeat at home to title-challenging giant Fenerbahce, I was told that the board 'expected a better result against this opponent'
1. Board Comments.
What use is judging my result based on expectations if I was not informed of those expectations beforehand? If I should be doing X, please lay it out clearly prior to the attempt.
Not only would this flesh out the feature to something more well-rounded, it would also give some character to that fixture. Am I the underdog against a dangerous opponent? Am I expected to go and win this? Are we expecting a tight game against an evenly-match opponent? It creates tension and gives the gamer an outline of what sort of atmosphere surrounds this particular fixture, helping to make it different from the last.
It also gives the subsequent feedback comment more meaning. If I get a very positive/negative comment after a win/loss, I know it's because beforehand I was expected to lose/win, etc etc.
Needless to say, the other important thing is to make these expectations/comments logical and authentic... but I'll try to keep away from moaning about endless bugs for this post.
2. CONF. LEVEL
Presumably 'board satisfaction', represented by a half-assed coloured bar. This un-engaging bar has no authenticity, no relevance to real football... however, I imagine this bar is a cheap and easy graphical way of representing feedback without requiring tons of localised text, which is understandable.
At least expand on the bar to make it more readable, easier to judge. Something as simple as using coloured lines to split the bar into sections that represent different grades of satisfaction. If I know I'm hovering just above the red line (unhappy), it adds tension and also lets me know where I stand. If I see the level move closer to the green sector (happy), I know where I stand better than just a white bar filling up/down a bit.
I'm sat looking at my Conf. Level now, it's about, I don't know, maybe just over two-thirds full and white. Is that good? Am I doing well? If it drops a bit further, will the board still be happy enough or will they start considering my position? I don't know what to expect. What is this value that the white bar is supposed to be telling me? It provides no reference. It's like being given a thermometer with no degrees of temperature marked on it.
3. Seasonal Expectation
In the Board Assesment screen, it says my expectation for this season is "Avoid the releg. zone". Next to that, the 'CURR. RESULT' (this front-end design is so bad!) says: "17" in a white font.
Okay... so how am I doing?
I'm assuming that '17' represents my position in the league table; it doesn't say.
Nor does it say that I'm 17th out of... how many?
Nor does it say how big the relegation zone is (and this is in a league with only one division represented in the game). How am I supposed to know what minimum position I'm aiming for? It doesn't even tell me on the League Table screen either.
Nor does it give any indication whether or not my CURR. RESULT is matching/surpassing/failing the expection, which is the important thing.
Given that the very purpose for the existence of all the above features is to provide feedback to the gamer on their progress, which is hugely crucial in any game, such impenetrable ambiguity is crippling. I don't mind things being simplistic, in fact in some cases that's often the better approach, but some semblance of application of logic and care could very easily make this part of the MM so much more sastisfying and engaging.
Where did you hear that Marcel almost got the sack?
If Marcel Kuhn was given the job to improve or rewrite the MM, and his team produced that many bugs, then surely he's not doing his job right? There's a reason he was called back to HQ for an emergency meeting and almost got the sack.It's not really fair to blame Manager Mode on the guys currently working on it. As far as I understand until last year it was still the old manager mode from the PS2 etc days which was a mess. Last year was basically a rewrite of the code behind that to be able to improve in in the coming years.
Of course they are paid low wages and work long hours..it's the gaming industry (but no, EA is not as bad as they were a couple of years ago).
Where did you hear that Marcel almost got the sack?
One thing very concerning is the standard of EA's programming. If MM is to really move forward it needs to improve. Today i played Manager Mode for the first time in over a month because ive been playing the World Cup game and there were 2 Blackburn Rovers in the Premiership and it said my league position was 1/16. Just 2 ridiculous bugs i instantly noticed.
PES 2010's Master League is more in-depth than MM yet you never see duplicate teams in the league and 2 matches being played in one day, nearly every match played in the rain, etc.. which leaves you wondering why.
Some people say it's because Fifa has more game modes. I don't buy that excuse because how many modes does Fifa actually have. Offline, Fifa has BAP and PES has Be a Legend. Fifa has MM, PES has ML. Online Fifa has more modes than PES i gather but modes such as Online League's have barely changed since last year if not at all so it's not like EA are spending a lot of time enhancing those modes. Clubs has changed quite a lot but for the worser in a lot of people's opinions.
I have heard that EA's programmers are paid low wages and work long hours. I don't know how much truth there is in this but would be interesting to know if that is the reason for the sheer amount of bugs.
It's not really fair to blame Manager Mode on the guys currently working on it. As far as I understand until last year it was still the old manager mode from the PS2 etc days which was a mess. Last year was basically a rewrite of the code behind that to be able to improve in in the coming years.
Of course they are paid low wages and work long hours..it's the gaming industry (but no, EA is not as bad as they were a couple of years ago).
I agree that it doesn't have to be FM-style deep, but I disagree about the layout. I'm not looking for something super deep and complicated (and I should just give up now, if I was!), but what is there could be made so much better with some simple thought and care applied to the way it is implemented.The layout and the amount of Depth in manager mode is more than good enough, it's also clear they are working on online, gameplay and oher aspects so i wouldn't expect manager mode to be a bitesize football manager or even like total club manager was back on the PS2.
Pretty sure David Rutter said it was the most popular mode recently.
Pretty sure David Rutter said it was the most popular mode recently.
There's a lot of incentive for EA to make as much of the MM as possible. The problem last year was they tried to dress mutton as lamb. They can't afford to keep using the same old system.
I do feel positive about MM, precisely because 10's was so dire. If 10's had been average with only a couple of bugs then I don't think this year's would be as good.
Was the MM code from Fifa 10 ported from CG (PS2)? As the Career Mode for Fifa 11 has been specifically coded for NG does this mean that it should be more stable and efficient?
Great to hear about the new Career Mode
I would only agree with that for players who are free agents. If you could bring an unattached player in for a trial, that makes some sense. Being able to trial players from other teams doesn't.Looking to the future, one feature I'd like to see added is the ability to try-out potential transfer targets - it sucks getting a new player only to find you don't like how he handles, or he doesn't quite fit with your squad like you'd hoped. One way to accomplish this would be allowing us to include players on our transfer short-list in a practice session.