Medical center, hate and love
The three main innovations of this edition of football manager excellence concern the part of accident analysis and prevention, scouting new talents around the globe and changing the dynamics of the dressing room, how delicate it is if you want to get results worthy of note .
We start from the first, with which a hint of love and love is immediately sprinkled: if, on the one hand, the excessive propensity of players to injury (both muscular and traumatic) has not been corrected, forcing coaches with aspirations of summit to set up very larg
e roses (with all that comes in terms of budgets and complaints of less-used players); at the very least, the medical center offers a discreetly reliable
tool for optimizing recovery times and preventing accidental injuries from overwork. With a couple of clicks, coming to a clear and comprehensive screen, you can have a clear picture of the situation of the injured, which includes recovery times for the patients but also the risk of injuries for the players still healthy,
However, deploying a reported player as a high-risk injury leads, in fifty percent, to having to do so for a variable period of time: it is good to keep in mind the advice of the medical staff and to make sensible and measured rotations when possible.
The entire search phase of players suited to team insertion has been enhanced, adding to the possibility of devoting part of the budget for transfers to this branch: more funds are destined for the search for new talents and the greater the chance to get first
on the best promises at international level, especially with the persistence of covering, with expensive but necessary trips, areas of the globe of which the observation team does not have a widespread knowledge: send a couple of the best payroll scouts for a month in Latin America, for example, can be a good idea if you want to focus on quality (Brazilians) or so-called “Garra” (Argentines and Uruguayan).
Sniper reports are more complete than in the past, although they require more time to complete. When a player’s knowledge is complete, in addition to displaying all the values, the observer will provide a vote in cents that symbolizes not only the intri
nsic quality of the player in himself, but also the adaptability to the chosen championship and the form used: even if you go find out strangely young people remains an activity always tasty, in short, improvements to the scouting phase are obvious and to set up
a youth-based company policy.
For those who want to take this road, we recommend stealing some observers to a historically attentive nursery company, such as Borussia Dortmund, Atalanta, Ajax, Porto.
Last but not least, the introduction of locker room dynamics significantly strengthens the social aspect of the game and highlights the quality of hu
man relationships between players and between the group and the puzzle: in the dedicated screen accessible from the column on the left, it is possible, at a glance, to see if things are hoped or if there are problems between groups of players.
A pyramid effectively represents the hierarchies in the locker room: at the top there are the most charismatic players, such as the captain, vice captain and group veterans, while at the base there are usually newcomers, youngsters promoted by nursery
or more players dodgy, struggling to get in touch with the group.
Buying a player with great technical potential but with a difficult character could alter the balance of the locker room, and this rating adds weight to the player’s choices.
Keep the locker in hand
The ability to keep the dressing-room in hand, demonstrating command and tactical skills, is even worse in the Football Manager 2018 than it was in past editions: gamers’ complaints are still numerous , probably more than the ones actually taking place in a dressing room of a professional team, and knowing how to handle it adequately often marks the difference between a cohesive group and a split.
In particular, we have noticed minor complaints about poor use (unless you have signed contracts that warrant ownership of the player …) and larger ones, instead, regarding the contractual situation: there are enough three well-played files let the prosec
utors beat the cashier, with the result that, satisfying all the players, the company’s crates will be emptied in a blink of an eye. On the other hand, denying a wage increase to a player capable of winning only important matches can be counterproductive in the mid-term …
With the usual practicality, the development team decided to condense in three basic values the confidence of the locker room against the puzzle and its working methods: team cohesion, dressing atmosphere and support for the coach.
The first value is related to the ability of players to group, and improves consistently with time and maintaining a solid core of players even with the passing of the seasons: we have seen drastically dropping this coefficient by sending three long-running players in one session of the market, and therefore prudence and diplomacy are always advised.
The dressing-room atmosphere is inevitably linked to two factors such as the results obtained on the pitch and the player’s attitude toward his team: be too obedient and disfigure little professional behavior, expulsion and inadequate performance but also long-time players badly hang on iron sergeants that leave no room for their experience.
The thing that, as always, leaves it pleasantly surprised is the realism of certain dynamics: understanding the moments of the season and the moods of its players can really make a difference: spurring them after a victory against a neopromous can serve a lot more than locking them in the locker room after an undefeated defeat in a big match.
It closes the circle with the value of the coach support: after years of militancy (if you can not get rid of it) this value splits to the
stars, but winning the group’s trust just come on a bench is by no means a simple business.
Support has to be gained day by day by modifying the training methods, keeping the promises made in the contract renewal, protecting the players from the press c
ritique and observing the internal rules of the dressing room: having a captain on his side helps tremendously because many of the complaints of players not belonging to the most influential group of the dressing room can be managed by the captain without even the mistress getting their hands dirty.
In view of the inevitable Football Manager 2019, then, we strongly hope that Miles Jacobson’s kids will turn to the press section (pre and post-match press conferences, tunnel interviews and assorted questions), and put a brake on the frequency of injuries, really unrealistic at certain times: two troublesome issues, of course, but that nothing detract from the greatness of the larger design.
This is the moment
Lastly, the technical department, which has always been a little more than an accessory in a product like Football Manager : this 2018 version comes with clean and intuitive menus, and even those who skipped last edition will immediately find their ease among the tendons, menus disappearing and contextual.
The engine that manages the display of matches has enjoyed, like every year, the addition of new animations and more general care and cleansing but remains an option rather than the heart of the games, especially in situations where you are has only one hour to play, opting for the usual text view will allow you to earn a lot of time.
Sound, as always, did not arrive: beyond a very well-made introductory song (called “The Moment”), stage chorus and background noise will probably be silenced after a few hours of playing, as it has always been for this series.
Where, however, the product has improved considerably in the overall loading speeds, even by loading huge databases and not having a front end PC (we also test
ed the product on an i3 with 8 gb of DDR3 ram): the times of waiting are considerably lower than the last two editions of the game. Note the
margin for the cleansing of the game code, despite all the test hours being done on a beta version: in over one hundred and forty hours we were forced to reboot the program once, when in the middle of a game (which we were losing, fortunately) th
e screen suddenly became black. The longevity values, finally, touch the infinity as per custom for this franchise: we are sure we will invest at least twice the hours spent playing with the game over the next few weeks, as we have done for years at every iteration. At least until the next year.
