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Re: Need Questions About Manager Mode.....
Here are two Q & A's with Marcel Kuhn over MM. Good stuff. This is Wepeeler's:
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I took some time ask MM Producer Marcel Kuhn a few questions regarding my favorite FIFA mode, Manager Mode. Please post your constructive feedback and perhaps we can get more insight from the dev team on other modes as they are revealed shortly. Enjoy...
Wepeeler - "I'm big into transfers and building ultimate teams. Is that harder this year?"
Marcel Kuhn - "Definitely, two major reasons for that are the new layers of decision-making in the transfer process and the re-written financial system. Let's start with the financial system, instead of relying on the sponsors, this year the board will be the major source of "income" for your club. The board will grant you two different budgets you will have to manage, Club Budget and Wage Budget. Club budget will be used to pay for players transfer fees, purchase staff upgrades and so on, while the Wage Budget will pay for your players wages. You will start with a specific amount of money, which ensures that Chelsea and Manchester City are rich while Bolton or promoted side Burnley don’t have a lot of cash to spend. During the season you will make a bit of money via ticket sales and sponsors, but what matters the most is to fulfill your board objectives. At the end of the year the board will look at your performance and refresh your Club and Wage Budget accordingly. Obviously, they will only grant you more money to spend, if they are happy with your performance. As you’re dealing with a limited amount of money, the new player transfer and wage values come into play. Players like C. Ronaldo or Kaka were fairly affordable in FIFA 09, in FIFA 10 they will be much closer to the actual transfer and wage values that are being paid for them at the moment."
"As a little bonus, we’ve added a Board Difficulty level this year which will affect your starting Club and Wage budget. This will allow users that want to try out the mode for the first time to start with a fully loaded wallet, while seasoned Manager Mode veterans can challenge themselves on a higher difficulty level and work hard towards signing their dream players."
"In terms of the transfer system, there are a couple of key changes, i.e. which players are for sale, but the most time was spent splitting the logic into a two-tiered process. First you have to convince the club of the desired player and then you have to convince the player. The factors that play into this are not only the offered money, but also things like, how many players you already have in the same position, is your club going to play in Europe next season, how much mentorship can you offer the player as his manager and so on. The overall result will be that you will have a harder time building your ultimate team, but it will also be more realistic and transparent to you why you were able to sign or not sign players."
Wep - "How is the experience point system different? Last year it was easy to get a team of 99s after only 2 seasons. Has that been tweaked?"
MK - "Another portion of the game we completely re-did. We weren’t happy at all with the growth system in FIFA 09 and a lot of post-release user feedback showed us that we’re on the right track. As a first step we removed manual growth, Manager Mode is supposed to be a realistic and authentic experience, being able to make Sami Hyypia from a 84 rated centre back into a 99 rated left winger is neither realistic nor authentic. Therefore we decided to reset to clock on the growth system."
"What you will see in FIFA 10 is, that players will collect experience in 3 different categories – Physical XP, Mental XP and Skill XP. How fast they collect XP depends on the amount of time they play, who they play against and so on. Once they hit a growth point in either of these 3 categories, the related attributes will either increase or decline. In addition every player will have a potential he can reach, this way every player will have its own individual growth. Younger players with high potential will collect XP faster, especially their physical skills will improve quickly, while older players have a higher overall but might start to decline. As a result the user will have to make a lot of decisions regarding his line-up, do I play the young hotshot and allow him to reach his potential as fast as possible or do I go with the currently high skilled player that has started to decline?"
"To give the user a some help making these decisions, we’ve added a new ability for your scout. Your scout will be able to predict the future overall for a player, depending on the scout’s level he can look further and more accurate into the future."
Wep - "Are there "practice sessions" where you can prepare your team for a big game?"
MK - "In FIFA 10 we will introduce pre-season friendlies where you can fine-tune your line-up and maybe get some good results in order to improve your players form before the going gets tough. Player form is a new concept we adopted from Live Season. Note that within Manager Mode, we actually don’t use the real world player form, the form will be solely based on how the player performs within the Manager Mode World. The result of playing really well over a longer period of time will be that the players form increases and his attributes will be slightly improved for the time being. Of course the same applies if your players don’t perform well, which will make it harder to get your club out of a slump."
Wep - "Can you practice with your actual squad?"
MK - "Practice Mode is not included within Manager Mode for FIFA 10. That being said, if that is a feature that users would like to see specifically for Manager Mode, this can be an early addition for the next FIFA wish list. In the meantime, for FIFA 10, there will be a new Practice Mode. It will be accessible via the arena and in this mode you can practice set-plays, do “n vs. x” (i.e. 5-on-5) training matches or improve your finishing in 1-vs-1’s against the goalie."
Wep - "Has the messaging system with the front office been tweaked? If yes, how so?"
MK - "Overall there have been several improvements to get the information to the user in an easier and quicker way. In terms of the information you receive from the Board, you will have a summary right on the new Manager Mode HUB screen. This HUB screen acts as a desktop to provide you with the most important pieces of information at a glance. It will show, i.e. the latest table, activities on the transfer market and the before mentioned Board Summary. As the Board Confidence will play a crucial role and change very dynamic, you will get an update on Board Confidence after every game."
"The incoming message system has one major change that goes in-line with the overall attempt to make navigation more user friendly. For all emails you receive that require a decision, you will have a direct link to the place where you can make this decision, i.e. when you have a failed negotiation you can re-negotiate with that player on the spot rather than having to remember to go to the “Negotiation History” once you’re back in the HUB."
Wep - "Can you edit kit numbers?"
MK - "Big “YES”. We’ve added a screen where you can re-assign kit numbers manually at any point."
Wep - "Is updating your office (ie keepers, strikers, tickets etc ) different?"
MK - "We’ve made minor tweaks here and especially tuned the impact of coaches on player fatigue. We thought that on lower staff levels players got tired way too fast, so we’ve reduced the impact that coaches have on the recovery rate to avoid having to rotate your squad after every 2-3 matches."
Wep - "What exactly do you guys mean about a total football experience. Crowd into it more? Banners, flags, scarves etc?"
MK - "For Manager Mode it means that we wanted to remove everything that takes you out of the immersion of living as a manager in a authentic football world. Let me give you some examples, i.e. C. Ronaldo transferring to Aalborg = not total football, Wigan beating Manchester United 5-0 = not total football, playing in Sunny / Dry weather in the EPL, every week, no matter what time of the year = not total football…. To achieve this we reworked the fundamentals this mode is based on, we work towards avoiding these unrealistic events from happening and replaced them with more football authentic events. In the end we’re aiming to create a game mode that contributes to the overall “Total Football Experience” FIFA 10 will deliver via all its features."
A MAJOR thanks goes out to Marcel for his very thorough answers to some key MM questions. Please post feedback as I am interested in what you guys think, and I know the dev team will be also. |
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This is FSB's. Good Stuff again.
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Looking over Marcel Kuhn’s MobyGames CV I smile from ear to ear, and not just because of his football game pedigree. According to the site the first game he worked on was SSX Tricky, one of my favourite games of all-time (and what a way to start your CV, with one of the most-loved PS2 games that I can think of). Since then he has worked on five FIFA games, two FIFA Manager games and a FIFA Manager expansion pack, so if anyone is qualified to turn Manager Mode into a deeper and more fulfilling experience, this is the guy.
Thankfully he’s also ridiculously accomodating and after a barrage of questions from yours truly - Manager Mode’s #1 fan - he took the time out from his busy schedule to give us some answers. Thank you Marcel, the community salutes you.
[CD] Will the financial/sponsor system be overhauled? Currently you get so much money from sponsors at a lower-league level that you could literally afford one new player every single week, where in reality you would have very little money at your disposal.
[MK] The financial system has been rewritten for FIFA 10. The sponsors are still in the game, but they are not THE big source of income anymore. Each sponsor will pay you a small bonus off the bat and in addition offer you a win bonus that gives you some extra money. But the centre-piece of the new financial system in FIFA 10 is the board of your club. We’ve split the financial system into 2 parts, Club Budget and Wage Budget. Club Budget will be used to purchase staff upgrades, pay for player transfer fees and so on. Wage budget is used to determine how much cash you have left to spend on wages & your wage budget during the season will only change when you buy or sell players. When planning to get new players for your squad, you now have to balance these two budgets and the wage budget in particular will now make it harder to purchase new players. The only way to have the board grant you more Club and Wage Budget is to fulfill their expectations before the season is over. Another cool sub-feature related to the financial system is the Board difficulty level we’ve added this year. By changing the Board Difficulty level, users that are trying the mode for the first time can start off with a well-filled wallet and sign players right away, while seasoned Manager Mode veterans might challenge themselves by having less budget and work their way towards being able to sign a star player.
[CD] If you get fired, can you look for another job instead of seeing a “game over” screen and having to start a new game from scratch?
[MK] Once fired new clubs are going to try and hire you based on “Manager Reputation”. The higher your reputation is, the more likely it will be that better rated clubs are going to bid for your services. This will not only happen when you get fired, being successful will mean that you will be tempted with offers from other clubs at the end of the season as well. Manager Reputation will be used to judge your long term performance over multiple years, only the best managers will be able to clinch the level of reputation needed to coach top clubs such as Manchester United, Barcelona or Bayern Munich.
[CD] Will you get job offers mid-season from other clubs instead of being end-of-season only?
[MK] Unfortunately we couldn’t get this feature in this year. That being said, new clubs will actually tempt you to change clubs at the end of the season, especially if your past season was a successful one.
[CD] Will your choice of jobs be restricted to your prestige (instead of being able to pick a job at any club you like)?
[MK] At the beginning you will be free to start with any club you wish, as we didn’t want to prevent users from living out their dreams of becoming the Manager of Manchester United or Chelsea. Managing these high-profile clubs will come with a trade-off though, the board will watch you very closely and have very high expectations. Any signs of you not being able to bring home silver-ware at the end of the season will result into drastic reductions of the “Board Confidence”, which means there’s a good possibility of getting yourself fired really fast.
[CD] Will you be able to become an international manager?
[MK] This is a tough one for me as we looked into this for a long time and tried to find a way to integrate this into FIFA 10 in a meaningful way. But given the state of the Manager Mode, we had to admit that we have too many fundamentals to fix before we can add this. That being said, I really like the idea of becoming an international manager and it not happening this year doesn’t mean that the idea is dead and off the table forever.
[CD] Will you be able to see the scores of other games in your league at half-time (so that you can keep an eye on the teams around you)?
[MK] This is very closely linked with us improving the result sim engine, and while half time results won’t be in for FIFA 10, we’ve made great improvements to the way we simulate results, match events and especially final league standings. A lot of factors will be taken into account when you simulate a game in Manager Mode, formations and even individual player skills will make a difference in the outcome of matches. This way we were able to fine-tune the system, get more realistic results, ensure that the right amount of goals are being scored and the correct amount of cards are handed out over the course of a season.
[CD] Will you be able to play pre-season friendlies?
[MK] At the beginning of each season you can fine-tune your starting 11 and tactics by playing friendlies, which your assistant coach will schedule for you. In addition other clubs will play friendlies as well, so you can judge their pre-season form before playing against them.
[CD] Will the pre-season friendlies aid the players’ fitness come the first game of the season or will they be shattered by that point (which isn’t what happens in reality)?
[MK] Player fitness will be affected in a similar way as last year, you play games which will tire out your players. We’ve tweaked this system to avoid players from getting tired too fast, as we’ve felt that professional players should be able to play a few consecutive matches before tiring out completely. In addition, you can use the pre-season friendlies to improve your players form, which is a new concept we’ve added to Manager Mode. Form was introduced into FIFA via Live Season last year, this year we will also apply it to Manager Mode. That being said, we will NOT use the real world player form we use for Live Season for the Manager Mode. The Player form in Manager Mode will solely be based on the performance of the player within Manager Mode. When playing well over a significant period of time, the player’s form will go up and increase some of the players abilities for the time being.
[CD] Will fitness throughout the season be more realistic? In FIFA 09 at lower-league level you found your CPU opponent’s entire team down to 10% fitness after barely any games.
[MK] The CPU did not rotate it’s squad based on fatigue last year, it based its decisions simply on overall. Therefore the top players got tired really fast and another, not less annoying, side-effect was that even when new players were purchased by the CPU, they were never introduced into the line-up. This year the CPU will rotate it’s squad based on overall, fatigue, injuries, suspensions and so on. One really cool thing is, that when the CPU is playing a game it thinks of as lower importance, i.e. Manchester United playing a 1st round cup game, it will rest it’s better players so they’re fit for the more important matches. You will see different CPU line-ups and better rested CPU players as a result.
[CD] Will the loans system be more realistic? In FIFA 09 you could only do two one-season loans, whereas in real life (in the lower leagues) you tend to see three or four loans a season, around three months each time.
[MK] We didn’t have a lot of time to work on the Loan system for FIFA 10. I was not aware that you can only do two loans per season, we will look into this issue and try to address it!
[CD] Will the staff system be tweaked? When starting as a lower-league team I always have to upgrade the fitness coach to at least level 5, that way you still have to rotate your players without them all being wrecked after one game.
[MK] The staff system especially in relation to fatigue has been tweaked. The fitness coach definitely had too much of an impact on the recovery rate, it is now more based on the conditioning of a player and since all players included in FIFA are professionals, their conditioning is of a very high standard.
[CD] Finally, will the scouting system be tweaked, allowing you to find real players instead of randomly created players? (For example, playing as a lower-league team your scout could look at reserve players of big teams looking for first-team football, or rising stars in leagues lower than yours looking for a step up.)
[MK] The scouting system remained relatively untouched. The one thing we fixed is, that you will get more “appropriate” players based on your team skill. That being said, there’s still a small chance that you will scout a gem, that will develop into a great players. |
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06-16-2009, 04:47 PM
