Total Club Manager 2006

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We recently fired off many of your questions to AI developer Gary. Lots of questions, just as many answers - plenty more TCM 2006 info for you all to take in.

When will a complete real time 3D match video movie be available online? Can we tell the teams bugs/strange AI play and that being improved for release version?

I don't think we will do a full-length movie but I will certainly endeavor to provide more movies over the coming weeks. Furthermore, there will be a demo available in a few months.

Will the keeper AI from UEFA Champions League engine being improved? If so how? At the moment when you see the keeper on the ground, he stands up and dives the wrong way (facing his own goal). Is this going to be fixed?

This is already fixed.

Do we see difference in speed of the game (low/high league teams) and tactics (slow/fast build up) effectively this year?

The speed of the play will be dependant on your tactics as they will have a much greater bearing on your play this year.

Will man-marking custom formations be effective? Will we see players try to man-mark the man and not running at different places on the field?

Defending in general is much better this year. The marking algorithm has been re-written, it can cope with any formation set-up.

Players on the wing are currently like robots who are programmed to cross each time they get the ball, no matter if the goal is open in front of them or a player is in a better position. They will even change their direction towards the wing and cross to someone far and in bad position. In real life he would instead continue running as long as he has chance, dribbling and making tricky passes.

With the additional dev time this year lots of work has gone into improving the players basic on-ball decision making. The game now plays, what we believe to be, a significantly more realistic game of football. The above problems have not been encountered for months.

Too much direct passing, why ? Real players can pass with their eyes closed. I don't see that match direct passing in real matches.

This year we have introduced the concept of 'pass vision' so there are a number of factors which influence a players choice of pass.

You would often see unrealistic long passes which noteven Platini or Zidan can do, yet in TCM even a player from 4th division can do them! Where balls fall exactly on the foot of the player, and miraculously, all the time players are controlling it like they have magnets in their feet or chests - not even Ronaldino can perform like that. Normally the high balls touch the player and he can't control it directly so it goes a bit in front or beside him by 0.5 - 2 metres depending in his concentration and control skills.

Passing error and control error have both been re-written for 06. Bad players may still try ambitious passes (dependant on skill and tactics) but they will be less likely to be accurate. Also, players receiving passes will be less likely to pluck the ball out of the air like last year.

Tactic didn't work in TCM, I tested that, as I put all the team in one wing and left the middle and other side empty. But in the match all players ertr positioned as normal. I said, ok, may be I had to position each player based on their position on the pitch, but the same thing continued. I think that tactics are just a decoration part in TCM, and lost of space.

With the limited time we had last year we did not manage to get tactics working the way we would have liked. This has been one of our focuses this year and we are confident that we will have a set of tactics which will have a meaningful effect on the outcome of matches.

In the minute the crossing is done, u know already if it is a goal or not, or will he headed it use superman power to control the ball magically and shoot it. So more variation is needed in crossing and heading or controlling. Crossing, are always high, and go in 90% to the head of the attacker, why ? while in real life, even David Beckham can have 50% only from his crosses go to the right destination, in most time it gos out or 1-2 meter short or longer , lower or higher. This should been reflected in TCM.

As with passing and control error, crossing and heading error has also been re-written. Crosses now have much more variety in direction, height and trajectory. Good players like Beckham will be able to whip in a cross whereas lesser players will more likely loft the ball in giving the defense and GK time to intercept. Furthermore headers will be redirected much more realistically depending on angle of incidence and player skill.

It seems players have eyes in the back of their head to make some direct passes and intelligent passes even when their back is to the ball. Other times it seems they are not looking in front of themselves, so they will sometimes continue running even when a player is blocking them, and so stupidly loses the ball. This should be corrected urgently.

Part of the problem here was due to the unresponsiveness of the dribbling in the EURO engine we were using. This is no longer a problem now we are using UEFA. Furthermore, player AI has been improved to help combat this.

No more assisted passing please, where even when I put the best defenders and position them well in the tactic, as there is an assisted passing, the attacker can make non-tacklable and magical passes which is ended by a big chance, so can someone tell me hat is the use of arranging the defend in the tactic, if the other team can go through with the assisted passing system. Please don't use this option as it damage any management thinking, it might work for FIFA but it kill management concept.

I am not aware of any code to produce this type of behaviour. Hopefully with the improved defending, passing and pass error routines you will not feel like this is the case on TCM'06.

Skills don't shine in the game. Instead EA has used a system of overall skills whereby even a player with bad heading is able to do perfect headers because he is good in other skills. That kills and destroys any management thinking as choosing a player or a tactic is related to player skills.

I cannot speak for previous versions of TCM but contrary to popular belief TCM 05 did not use overall skill as opposed to individual player skills to dictate player behaviour (though overall skill was used in some places to cover in areas where we did not have a suitable attribute - hence we have added more attributes).

Player AI took a big step forward last year but was obviously not as good as we would have liked. It was perhaps not apparent that player's individual skills were affecting match outcome.

I would like to re-iterate TCM's standpoint on this matter. We believe (as you do) that it is important that each individual attribute has a balanced and realistic effect on the outcome of matches. Without this it removes the team-building aspect of our game. While we do not prevent users from modifying the game using 'ini' files, we would like to point out that in doing so you risk unbalancing the game. On release the game is balanced so that good teams beat bad teams in the correct proportions. Any settings you change in the 'ini' files risk breaking this balance, thus minimizing the management aspects of the game. Obviously changing the 'ini' files could also have a positive effect on the game balance but it is important that you understand the risks of doing this as we have noticed that some 'ini' file patches have actually broken this balance.

When trying to reduce direct passing, player are taking more time to pass as normal, hard tackling has appeared too much, I think it was hidden behind the direct passing which don't allow the defender enough time to tackle, so please try to make tackle raisonable.

While we are currently in the process of trying to balance this, slide tackling behaviour is already much more realistic in 06. Player's AGGRESSION, TACKLING and TACTIC setting are the factors which will dictate how many aggressive tackles will appear. Players will also become agitated during a match and this will increase their tendency to tackle.

In real life, players tend to pass or cross very low and make strong passes across the box hoping it finds a leg or touches a defender and scores a goal. In the end theses passes create a lot of confusion in the box but in TCM this happened to me only once or twice during 5 seasons.

Players will use low crosses or through balls when they feel the situation is right.

Keepers don't rush to deal with a ball even if they are the nearest player to it! Instead they stand there waiting for the attacker.

GK's now come off their line to narrow the angle and dive at attackers feet.

In 3D mode, teams should have a better home record than away record. This doesn't always happen in TCM 2005. Will this be addressed?

This is something we will be working to balance in the coming weeks.

Are setpieces still more assisted, as we see the attacker running to the ball while defensive players watching or make a very bad marking, hope that have been dealt with.

No. Set-pieces now have MUCH greater variety both in delivery and outcome.

In 3D mode, will there be a more realistic number of penalties and goals from long range?

These are areas we are in the process of balancing. Goals from long range are currently quite balanced but penalties not so much. We have researched to find roughly how many penalties occur in real life and are debating how close we should get to this value. With a reduced match length (i.e. not 90mins) we may not want to mimic real life exactly as this may 'feel' unrealistic (disproportionately high).

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Op maandag 8 augustus 2005 14:18 schreef Luutgaert het volgende:
Ik hoop dat je bij de opstelling je spelers wel weer kan ranken op level zoals in TCM 2004, ik heb heel TCM 2005 nooit gespeeld omdat dat er niet was.

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Op woensdag 10 augustus 2005 17:02 schreef Tomasso het volgende:

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Ik heb me altijd wel kunnen vermaken met de weinige TCM games die heb ik gehad.

Wanneer komt TCM 2006 uit?

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Op woensdag 10 augustus 2005 18:44 schreef Luutgaert het volgende:

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Ja, maar vaardigheden kijk ik eigenlijk nooit naar. Gewoon wie 't hoogste level heeft. Maar dat je daar niet op kan ranken is vooral irritant als iemand geblesseerd is en aan het begin van een seizoen als je net veel aankopen hebt gedaan enzo, dan moet je telkens elke spelers af om te kijken wie er de beste is.

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Op zaterdag 10 september 2005 13:42 schreef MrDoegewoon het volgende:

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Bwahahahhahahaha

* MrDoegewoon leest die zin nog een keer

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA