Manager Mode early complaints

[southernbelle]

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

^ This happened in 5 of the 11 games i actually played in my Man City season, including the game against Man Utd. The usual LB reverts to RCB, the RB becomes the LCB, and the usual centre halfs line up as fullbacks...Man Utd's backline from right to left was Ferdinand - Evra - Brown - Vidic. So Evra was marking Adebayor the whole game lol. Same thing against Everton only 4 games into the season...their starting backline was (from right to left) Yobo - Baines - Heitinga Jagielka. So Baines was marking Santa Cruz (Adebayor was suspended) and Roque scored a hat-trick...ironically, after the third goal in the 75th minute, Everton changed their formation but kept a back 4, but now the backline was the normal Heitinga - Yobo - Jagielka - Baines lol. I don't recall Man Utd 'fixing' their backline like Everton did at all, and i was leading 2-1 for most of it...won 3-1 in the end. This game was also played in snow btw in October at Old Trafford - is that realistic weather at that time of year in Manchester/England in general? Doesn't seem like it would be since it's Fall there then...plus it does it seem at least half of my games in the A-League and EPL were played in rain (this was the only one in snow though) but i'm not too fussed about that...this can probably be easily manipulated too by setting each team's home stadiums to one's without snow/rain/night conditions prior to starting an MM, if you find it annoying.

fyi - can do the cheap fix which is right at kick off change sides and alter lineup, change back

[therizing02]

Quote: Originally Posted by southernbelle

fyi - can do the cheap fix which is right at kick off change sides and alter lineup, change back

Wait... can that be done this year? I remember trying that last year and you couldn't move the controller over. This would be huge and would be a quick workaround for a lot of issues.

[calcutta]

Hmmm...yep it looks like you can switch to the opposing team prior to the game, make any changes to that team, then switch back once the game has started.

I didn't test the second part of this out yet (ie: switching back to your team) since i didn't play a game today, but i was definitely able to move across to the CPU team before the match in my MM.

Will test it properly next time i get a chance...the good thing is that, IIRC, you are shown the opponent's starting lineup before you select sides, so you don't have to start the game first before finding out their LB is starting at RCB.

[southernbelle]

Quote: Originally Posted by calcutta

Hmmm...yep it looks like you can switch to the opposing team prior to the game, make any changes to that team, then switch back once the game has started.

i actually did it after the kickoff... so just to adjust the lineup to proper positioning.

it does say something about not counting towards some kind of points or something in football world (PS3)

[calcutta]

Tested out transfers again in the off-season prior to the 2010/11 season.

SIGNING PLAYERS
With my Negotiator on level 6, i tried to sign transfer listed David N'Gog from Liverpool for about £6.5m (£1m above market value), as cover for the still injured Tevez. He was only at 35% interest to sign - the transfer fee doesn't affect this interest level, quite rightly too - but i offered him an improved salary too, along with a 15% goal bonus, both of which make the player's interest increased as you'd expect (you have to offer a significantly increased salary though). His level was just over 50% now. Players don't seem to be affected by contract length though...Anyway, after simming the next game, my offer was rejected, because he "didn't think i was the right manager for him" (remember, my manager level is only 1.5/5 stars).

At that point i increased my Negotiator to the max level 10...i figured i had the money and this was all just for fun anyway, it only cost about £3m to increase from 6 to 10, so any top league team could probably afford it. Lower league teams won't be so lucky, but ultimately it something you can effectively enforce as a 'house rule' to make MM more or less challenging and/or realistic for your club.

With that change, i still had to offer significantly above market value for players, but i was able to sign these players first time:

David N'Gog (from Liverpool), ~£7.0m, £7k match salary, interest at 82%
Adam Johnson (from newly promoted Middlesbrough), ~5.0m, £3k match salary, interest at 80%
Rafael van der Vaart (from Real Madrid), ~£20.0m, £79.75k match salary...well above his Madrid salary, interest at 72%

Even though i clearly offered each player above a 15% goal bonus too (each 5% increase in this generally boosts player interest about 4-5% too), when i look in Negotiation History, the goal bonus for each player is at 0%...? Is this another bug?

Other dodgy things included the fact that VDV was assigned #2 (forcing Micah Richards to #13) when #23 was open, but we can of course change these to our desires. N'Gog and Johnson were auto-given #9 and #11, both of which i'm pretty sure were available. Also, for some reason VDV's transfer doesn't show up in the Transfer Summary section or the Confirmed Transfers section of the overview page (it should be top because its clearly the most expensive transfer of this window thus far).

OFFERS FROM CPU TEAMS
This time around i was getting some unlikely offers for my transfer listed players...in different weeks, Everton and newly promoted Newcastle made offers for the expensive Adebayor, while Kompany, Barry SWP and Bellamy were attracting offers from bottom-half EPL teams. There were a few interesting foreign offers too - Lescott attracted the interest of Werder Bremen and Valencia in different weeks. Fortunately, my true superstars Robinho and Tevez were only attracting the giants, like Chelsea, Barcelona and Bayern.

In the end the only player i sold was Kompany, to Liverpool for £6.2m (after rejecting offers from Birmingham and Sunderland in prior weeks). Still seems a bit hit and miss overall.

CPU-TO-CPU TRANSFERS
CPU-to-CPU transfers of recognisable players have been pretty scarce so far in the four weeks i've simmed, but in the last week, Arsenal's Gael Clichy was sold to AC Milan for £6.7m out the blue...what was cool about this is that for all three weeks prior, Glichy had been rumoured to join Turkish club Fenerbahce. The Turks settled on signing Marcel Schafer (Wolfsburg LWB) instead in the same week Clichy was sold. Whether or not this is coincidence or it involved CPU logic is unknown though...

The only other significant CPU transfers so far are Blackburn's Brett Emerton joining Paris St Germain, and Lazio's Lionel Scaloni joining PSV. Right now, Clichy's transfer is the biggest of the summer not involving my club, with four weeks to go.

[calcutta]

Quote: Originally Posted by southernbelle

it does say something about not counting towards some kind of points or something in football world (PS3)

Yeah, the chance of attacining any Achievements (360) or Football World/Virtual Pro Accomplishments become disabled if you switch sides during a match...minor issue.

Probably better to do it before a game, that way you can adjust the bench too...playing Arsenal now in the Community Shield, and players like Bendtner and Walcott weren't even on the bench. I also switched Sagna and Gallas to RB and RCB respectively (they started the other way around), and was able to change roles...for some reason Arshavin was taking all set pieces, this way i was able to change Cesc to take CKs and van Persie on FKs.

EDIT: ...and most importantly, my own team wasn't screwed up from how it was set up in the main MM team formation menu, even the bench was how i set it on that screen!

[southernbelle]

[quote=calcutta;2040313177]for some reason Arshavin was taking all set pieces, this way i was able to change Cesc to take CKs and van Persie on FKs.
[quote]

ah, thats huge... because i played REAL in my Barca MM (waiting for patch to take my gooners to glory) and VDV was taking free kicks!

so i guess you just have to make sure your lineup is right in the team mgmt section?

[calcutta]

Quote: Originally Posted by southernbelle

so i guess you just have to make sure your lineup is right in the team mgmt section?

Yup, and sometimes even with Assistant Manager OFF, i've seen crazy changes to my line-up in this main Team Mgmt section (like SWP playing striker!). So it's best to check after every game just to make sure.

Changing the CPU set piece takers isn't perfect...in that Arsenal example, they had a direct FK from 22 yards or so and even though van Persie was still on the pitch, Alex Song took the kick driving it over (Song came on late for Cesc, another WTF when it was tied 1-1, even if it was just the Community Shield). Just before i gave away that FK, my man van der Vaart scored on his debut to make it 2-1

On the plus side, Arsenal's goal-scorer was none other than Vermaelen, outjumping two defenders on a corner to win a bullet header. And i'm pretty certain Cesc took the CK...but i didn't check.