Using the Player Search and Filter Function, Is It Cheating?
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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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An intersting thing is this.
Fantastic told me the same as you – managers don’t have access to a database of players to scout from and see statistics about.
That’s completely untrue. There is a transfer list in existance but that’s not the best part. The best part is that there is a scouting tool called Scout7 which is what managers use to scout players who they don’t know much about.
FM is a very realistic simulation with regards to this common misconception acutally being pretty accurate. Then of course there is FM, which is a database of players who are ranked and rated on their abilities – every manager has access to that too.
So how unrealistic a game is it really?
Original point here: http://loswonderkids.com/community/topic/8005-the-transfer-list/
The scouting feature in LLM is cheating however imo. It’s not as realistic as real life because you have points per attribute, in real life you only have stats per game and so on – still how would you judge in FM if a player is good or not, you can’t actually see them train or play as real managers do.
Fantastic, thanks for the Comments Game, I didn’t know that the professional game has a database of their own, but it is obvious that they would come to think about it. Although I wouldn’t of thought it comes cheap and the clubs further down the tables probably wouldn’t have the money to use it. Although you make a good point that you wouldn’t be able to see attributes of these players (and granted some will be masked on FM).
I would have thought that this scout database would only have subjective opinions still of the players and a basic stats of their run of form, I would have thought it gives you enough information to be interested in them, but you would still want to send your own scout out to look at them further.
And your right that there is certain things that you just can’t figure out in a virtual world, in the real world obviously you would get to spend time with a player or watch them at games and work with them in trials. This means that attributes are important in the game to compensate for this.
An article, 2 comments and still no mention of Everton’s special access to the master Football Manager Database!
Paragraph 3 line one does give a small mention to the fact
Look it’s an Eejit! *runs*
As does my link. Q’s getting old.. \o/
I almost never filter by attributes in search, normally I just filter transfer status, contract status, position etc, and if a player looks good I’ll scout ‘em. And some people the stats etc are unrealistic, but I remember readig a while back (in FourFourTwo I believe) that some lower league scouts were actually using FM to search for players, and then scouting the ones with good stats.
Alot of the top managers also use the FM database as a point of reference of scouting players and finding hidden gems, apparently the Premiership is littered with examples. Plus David Moyes at Everton has a deal with SI Games to gain full access to the database and even seeing things that we haven’t even seen.
Sure it’s there but you truly don’t need it. I find the combination of coaches, scouts and rumours/news are more then enough to find the right players.
I have to agree with gunnerfan, although admittedly I didn’t just a few weeks back. I was guilty of using the player search function to full capability and it’s only recently (partly thanks to Levo) that I’ve veered away from this.
I’ll max out the amount of scouts I can have, preferably gaining as much scouting knowledge as possible by employing several nationalities and sending them home for a scouting trip. I’ve also started heavily relying on my assistant manager and backroom staff in the backroom advice and team report sections and also using the loan report more often as well to get an idea of players available.
It adds a new dimension to the game instead of just filtering out what you need in a list that contains the majority of the players on the game, scouting can unearth some new gems as well which gets rid of the repetitiveness.
As you say, the stats compensate for the shortcomings of the game enviroment, and that is also how I see the player search function. Real life managers can always pick up player tips through the media, through conversations with other managers and people in the world of football. Since this is (naturally) not possible in the game world, the player search basically fills that function.
In addition to that, the player search and filter doesn’t let you view all the players in the database. It carefully mirrors the aggregate knowledge of the club you are managing, of its scouts and other personell, of its affiliated clubs, and your own knowledge as the clubs manager. The size and nationality of your club, as well as your own nationality and experience, have a considerable impact on which players you can view through the search function.
So, in a way, the possibility to search only among your scouted players (or rather, among the players that you would realistically know about) is already built into the game.
I think that Walter you have very valid point that there is certain short comings that the game has because it is a game, but I do think that for the sake of the enjoyment that the player search could become a little more challenging.
you maybe could be able to build up contacts as you progress through the game, the need to talk to staff and players about possible signings could be made more important then it already is and the player search function could be a little more integrated with the scouting network.
The game is progressing this way and each year is taking a step forward towards this way of playing. I still think the current system still gives away too many secrets.