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There has been a bit of push around the FM Community forums lately with Los Wonderkids & FM View promoting the Lower League challenge for when the new Football Manager 2010 hopefully arrives at our doorsteps on Friday. One of those rules within an LLM challenge is the ban on using the player search/filter feature within the game to find the players that you want. It is argued that it is so easy to build a world class team in a few season just by knowing what attributes to search for, even for the high league teams, but is this cheating? Or can the Football Manager player filter be used in such a way that assists and not plays the game for you?
Using the players filter, is it cheating?
At the end of the day we are playing a game, games are made up of rules and we giving tools be it from the game or our own skill to compete within that framework. Obviously the Football Manager player filter is one of those tools therefore no, using the players filter is not cheating. People will use the player filter to the best of its ability to find the best players that they need to fill their fantasy team full of players. But instead it begs another question for us Football Manager gamers, who from the community at least bang on about realism within the game.
Is the player filter realistic?
From the basics of what the player filter does, no of course it isn’t. Only David Moyes at the moment has the ability to filter through a database full of some of the best players in the world, among those players are those players of the future. If know what you are looking for and you can grab yourself one of the best players in the game, using the right option you will know as well if that player would be a realistic target for a club like your own.
But this way of playing is obviously down to the FM gamer to decide how they want to play. But from a personal view I think using the player filter takes a little away from the game. Using the filter is just like using any of the many fantasy football websites or newspapers. You take the budget you have and then throw it towards those players that come in the search and look for the positions that you want them in. What is the point in using the scouting system, taking any advice from your backroom staff or the joy in genuinely discovering a gem of a player through hard word? I think it takes alot of the enjoyment out of the game when you aren’t made to work as hard to find success in each aspect from tactics to results.
But how can the player filter be an assistance?
The filter can’t be totally ignored though, it allows us to do a few things within the game that we wouldn’t be able to do elsewhere. View a transfer listed players, surely it is only realistic for those players that have been placed on the market for you to be made aware of, especially for big clubs with a huge array of contact and ears to the ground they will know who is available from the other clubs on the transfer list. What is the point in putting them on the market if you can’t market them to other sides? As well as being able to filter out those players that have got only six months left on their contract. Until the game finds out another way to let us know how those players who want to leave on the Bosman ruling we are only left with trying to filter them out every December to see if we can nab a deal, from one of these. In my view this is the only way that you can keep to the realism of football management if thats how you want to play the game, everything else is just like searching a huge database and the game can only be viewed as a big excel sheet if this is the way you play it.
A little addition to the filter, that could make a huge difference
Although one of the features that I would like to see in one of the next game is to be able to filter those players that you have already scouted, that makes more sense to me to be able to only include the players you or your scout has already reported back to you on. This would be more realistic and help aid in the sorting through the mass of scout reports that you gather throughout the game. Maybe keep a little to the LLM philosophy while doing it and just use it to sort those players so you can look at them in an easier way. When I have used the player filter in the past I usually have my searches sorted with the highest recommended players at the top, only actually taking notice of those players that I have already looked into before either personally or via my scouting network.
Something Interesting
Although some people can take the realism to the extreme Rob discovered over at the official SI Games forums. One gamer has decided to ignore the attributes all together. Arguing that being able to see such stats is unrealistic and instead uses his own ability to spot the players on the pitch, his scouting reports and real life performances to gather whether a player is worth buying at all. This is not something that I subscribe too though, but an interesting extreme. I think that there is always going to be room for the attributes to be visible within the game as they allow us to compensate for the shortcomings of the game being a virtual environment, there are certain aspects of a persons game you can’t see till they are on a training ground or you have spent a little time with them on a daily basis as real life managers get the opportunity to do.
In conclusion, the player filter is an aspect of the game that for the more enjoyable experience I believe should be cut out or just stripped down because in fact it does take away from the gaming experience of a Football Management simulation. It is easy to ignore for many players and I can see why it is in there to help along the casual gamer who does just want to build their fantasy football side. Those who are going to play the LLM rules for the next game as I think a few people seem to be on board with will want to disregard the players search all together, making sure you use your own scouting skills and those of your backroom staff to make the final decision on who the best players to sign for.
What are your views on the player search function, is it cheating or part of the game? Do you use the search function in an innovative ways or any suggestions or comments please leave below or discuss them at the forums.
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My only question with this is, how does enabling hide player attributes at the start of the game fit into this?
for me i always have it ticked and if i can see someones attributes on player search then it is okay for me to use it. the more i scout the more names (or at least attributes) i can see on the player search screen.
Just because my scout didnt file a report for a player does that automatically mean that they know nothing of those players?
Well your right, just because you haven’t scouted a player doesnt make him an enigma. You could have seen them play against you or on the TV as many managers could have.
Also managers to have to their grips scouting databases that help them find players. Everton themselves using the FM database.
So I think it is good idea to use the ‘fog of war’ as some people will argue. When you look at players in real life you don’t neccessarly have a range of attributes that you can assign to players, so that will force you to look into players a bit more and do a bit more work. I think better for the gaming experience.
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