Offline control
You’ll be well aware that if you’re not able to log-on to fulfil a fixture, the match is played under a very basic “AI” control.
In reality, this stand-in AI “manager” does almost nothing for you - simply ensuring that if a player is injured or very tired, he is substituted and performing no other tactical changes in response to the general ebb and flow of the match.
This leads to two particular problems in FML:
1) You feel as if you are at a disadvantage especially if your opponent wins the Playing Rights”and gets to play the match. While for the more intense FAs this might be desirable (ie an advantage for the human participant) for some of our more casual FAs this means a manager can become detached from his team as it plays out a series of matches in his absence without even making some basic changes as the match unfolds.
2) Going in the opposite direction, the hardcore manager, if beaten by an AI team whose manager “does almost nothing” (which although statistically less likely than losing to a human, still happens frequently) feels particularly aggrieved and this forms the basis for many forum complaints. That is, a manager feels that despite logging on and participating actively in their GW, it is unfair to be beaten by a team whose manager appears not to care about his matches.
To aid offline control we’ll be introducing what we’re currently calling match plans. Match plans aim to provide a system where users can specify what actions they would like to take as a match unfolds, depending on key events in the match (goals, time passing, possession %s etc).
This should keep the less hands-on manager connected with his team and an element of control when away from the game. It is also hoped that users who come up against a well-executed match plan will be more forgiving of defeat than they are currently.
Bigger better competitions
Currently in FML, with FAs we’ve taken the approach that means that a user joining the GW is never more than 2/3/4 ‘promotions’ from the top division.
This is achieved via spreading the users amongst a dozen or so FAs of less than 100 teams in each and a shallow ‘pyramid’ style of promotion/relegation meaning, in-general, more teams go down from the division above than go up from the division below.
We’ve seen how these FAs can develop a strong sense of community however for the new users joining they miss an opportunity whereby a new team can gain satisfaction through climbing up through many divisions towards the top.
The result can be a situation where there is too limited a scope for a team to rise up and FAs and their divisions can become stagnant.
In addition, the whole concept of being ‘2/3/4′ promotions from the top division is a false and often unattainable goal for the majority of users - there can only be a few winners.
So by allowing many more divisions/levels we can allow more users to experience success and progress in the game.
Further, by combining this approach with the inclusion of fairly low standard AI teams in the FA (these will occupy the lower ends of the FA pyramid), we give even more users the chance to make some headway.
New screenshots
There are two brand new screenshots available on our Football Manager Live account on Twitter
More features to come
As I mentioned on Wednesday in the first blog this isn’t it! There are plenty more features in development that we will be revealing over the coming weeks and months. Keep an eye out on the forums and website for more info soon.
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