MLS in FM 2006?

[Rangers1]

Has anybody played yet?

Are the rosters right?

Are the rules right?

Did they spend time on making MLS realistic?

Thanks.

[DutchFootballRulez]

i just got it and i haven't checked yet

[mellowjohnny]

i just got it and i haven't checked yet

Well that really answers the question :rolleyes: , way to rub it into the rest of us who havent got it yet :D

[DutchFootballRulez]

I'm sorry I didn't mean what I posted,[damned Enter key] I bought it. It hasn't arrived yet. I was slaloaming through the SI boards, looking for a post or two by a certain US poster.

[iansfavouritecopilot]

As RSL, I won my first 3 games:

Crew a) 6-4
Fire h) 4-0
Rapids a) 4-0

Read in to that what you will :)

Cleatus owns

[StrikerCW]

I never play the MLS in FM or WSM for that matter, might eventually try it.. don't think so though. :D

How does the draft work anyways?

[URwormfood]

Has anybody played yet?

Are the rosters right?

Are the rules right?

Did they spend time on making MLS realistic?

Thanks.

Playing MLS in WSM06 for a few weeks now. Rosters are pretty much correct. Rules are kinda. Trying to remember... I think my budget was 250,000 to start...but as you go through the seasons and gain cash you get more money to spend in the next season. Reserves are the same when you start your first season. I really cant compare to any other FM games seeing this is the first time I have played the game. I dont know if FM is different then WSM? I can say I have become a bit addicted....

~worm~

[Theo]

Playing MLS in WSM06 for a few weeks now. Rosters are pretty much correct. Rules are kinda. Trying to remember... I think my budget was 250,000 to start...but as you go through the seasons and gain cash you get more money to spend in the next season. Reserves are the same when you start your first season. I really cant compare to any other FM games seeing this is the first time I have played the game. I dont know if FM is different then WSM? I can say I have become a bit addicted....

~worm~

YES IT IS VERY ADDICTIVE! i started on WWSM 2005. FM and WWSM are the same thing, just titled for different regions.

Haven't played the 2006 version yet - but glad that MLS sounds more realistic this time around. 2005 didn't have reserve rosters and didn't have the expansion teams...and if you had the data update, you were starting the 2004 season with the 2005 rosters...ah, oh well, i have stuck to the French and Italian leagues so far, with one very bad spell in MLS with DC United...what a great, great game...

[superdave]

Just finished the first season, where the Metrostars beat Chivas :rolleyes: to win the MLS Cup. San Jose was awful, Albright was the best player in the league. Jaime Moreno wasn't good enough to start; I had a hard time believing it, but by the end of the year I realized he wasn't as good as Filemino, Esky, or Walker. Matt Nickell is about as good as Jaime. :rolleyes:

What makes the poor talent assessment inexcusable is that I was playing the 2005 season, not the 2006 season. So at least half the real season was in the bag when the MLS assessors were sending in the attributes. So there's not much of an excuse for having Moreno, who in 2004 was a legit MVP candidate and who in 2005 was very, very good, be a mediocrity. That's just one example. Nick van Sicklen, I finally realized, is better than Gros. And that's just on DC; I wonder what f'ups there are on the other teams.

I mean, if West Ham's Benayoun is underrated in the game (or overrated, for that matter), at least there's a reason for it. They were just guessing. But the MLS guys weren't just guessing.

The team talk feature, I'm not thrilled with. I'm coaching DCU, and in the 2nd leg of my first round playoff, with a 2 goal lead in the match and aggregate, I told the guys not to let down in the 2nd half. I pissed off half the team. Two guys mouthed off to the media. Pretty stupid.

I've never been a fan of the "man management" part of CM. IRL, you know the players so you can make a good guess which players respond to butt kickings and which ones respond to reassurance. But there are no clues in CM. That's one of the features they added because a bunch of halfwits demanded it for "realism," not realizing that a computer game can't be realistic about human emotions unless that's what the whole game is about.

I suggested at the SI boards that they use training feedback to give us clues on players' personality. No dice. It's just a half assed feature.

And while I'm ranting...OF COURSE the game was at its best with the with/without ball screens. It's just f'ing stupid that you can't tell a player I want you here on defense, and here in the attack. You can only tell them I want you here when the ball's in our half, and there when it's in their half. But that's irrespective of which team has the ball. As a result of this moronic flaw, the game is really biased toward 4 man backlines, because it's impossible to get wingbacks to play smart. (This was true with 03-04 as well.) And with the way it's set up now, it's even worse, because they run themselves to death, so you almost always have to sub for them. Which was obviously a problem as I was managing DC.

And the f'ing PK's!!!!!!!!!! I'm guessing that teams make PKs about 1/3 of the time. I lost the USOC on PKs, as DC missed all 4 and the other team made 2 of 4. That was normal.

Oh, one other thing...you have a transfer budget in MLS, but unlike when you're managing a Euro team, you lose it at the end of the year. It would have been nice if that was noted somewhere. See, Heath Pearce came in on loan and bookended with Albright to give LA a devastating, Brazil-like pair of fullbacks. So I figured they didn't have all the MLS rules right. Well, they don't understand allocations. IRL you don't lose an allocation if you don't use it. And there was no supplemental draft, which made half the trades offered to me retarded. Also, it's impossible to offer 1 thing from your team for 2 things from another team. I decided to unload Moreno, but I can't trade him for a "fill the roster" forward and a "fill the roster" defender. I can get one or the other. You can trade Moreno AND something for 1 thing from another team, but not Moreno for 2 things. Stupid stupid stupid.

Understandably, but still hilariously, when, for example, the Rapids score a goal in DC, the scorer runs over to the Rapids fans, and the stewards have to hold them back. I'm sure that's just part of the game script, but it's still funny, imagining several hundred crazed Rapid fans in RFK.

And finally, I d'l'd the patch, but it crashes the game before it starts because of some kind of font problem. I wonder how many of these problems would be fixed if the patch would f'ing work.

Overall, it's a big disappointment. I've adopted a "don't buy the first edition of a new CM (well, FM now)" policy because the first editions have been notoriously buggy or unbalanced. Let them fix the flaws, and I'll get the 2nd, clean edition. But man, I wonder how bad last year's game must have sucked. Cuz at least in MLS, this one sucks. And many of the problems I've seen transcend MLS.

[Theo]

Overall, it's a big disappointment. I've adopted a "don't buy the first edition of a new CM (well, FM now)" policy because the first editions have been notoriously buggy or unbalanced. Let them fix the flaws, and I'll get the 2nd, clean edition. But man, I wonder how bad last year's game must have sucked. Cuz at least in MLS, this one sucks. And many of the problems I've seen transcend MLS.


This is good advice...I've decided to wait on FM2006 for awhile. I really enjoy the 2005 overall edition overall, but MLS was pretty shaky. The player evals were just off, and it sounds like from your experience that this hasn't changed much. Moreno was extremely ordinary on 2005, most of the rest of DC was totally useless.

[Aljarov]

Just finished the first season, where the Metrostars beat Chivas :rolleyes: to win the MLS Cup. San Jose was awful, Albright was the best player in the league. Jaime Moreno wasn't good enough to start; I had a hard time believing it, but by the end of the year I realized he wasn't as good as Filemino, Esky, or Walker. Matt Nickell is about as good as Jaime. :rolleyes:

What makes the poor talent assessment inexcusable is that I was playing the 2005 season, not the 2006 season. So at least half the real season was in the bag when the MLS assessors were sending in the attributes. So there's not much of an excuse for having Moreno, who in 2004 was a legit MVP candidate and who in 2005 was very, very good, be a mediocrity. That's just one example. Nick van Sicklen, I finally realized, is better than Gros. And that's just on DC; I wonder what f'ups there are on the other teams.

.

As the MLS HR this one rests with me. I know Jaime had a superb 2004, but he was decidedly average in 2005. He looked slow, lazy, was greedy on the ball, flatly refused to pass to Freddy on any occasion, and despite his usual vision and gifted touch, was not a threat up front. He looks a spent force in my opinion, which is just that, and as always the data is inevitably subjective. Were it not for spot kicks, Jaime would have had a very poor year. Frankly I thought he looked disinterested half the time, particualrly in the continental games.

Jaime is no longer the best player on DC, not even close. Still, his CA is 126, which still rates him in the top 20 or so in MLS and is more than fair.

As for some of the prospects, well, checking the DB would see that most of them have the SI standard PA settings of -1 thru -10. This allows for the fact that player development is not a known quantity. You'll find that next time van Sicklen isn't a great player, nor better than Gros, but those two players haven't got 2 season between them yet, so it's impossible to say how they'll turn out. The PA scale works to provide longevity to the gaming experience, and is the best option available. For the record, otherplayers who have been around longer do have fixed PA's whereby it was felt a reasonably accurate determination could be made.




Oh, one other thing...you have a transfer budget in MLS, but unlike when you're managing a Euro team, you lose it at the end of the year. It would have been nice if that was noted somewhere. See, Heath Pearce came in on loan and bookended with Albright to give LA a devastating, Brazil-like pair of fullbacks. So I figured they didn't have all the MLS rules right. Well, they don't understand allocations. IRL you don't lose an allocation if you don't use it. And there was no supplemental draft, which made half the trades offered to me retarded. Also, it's impossible to offer 1 thing from your team for 2 things from another team. I decided to unload Moreno, but I can't trade him for a "fill the roster" forward and a "fill the roster" defender. I can get one or the other. You can trade Moreno AND something for 1 thing from another team, but not Moreno for 2 things. Stupid stupid stupid.
.

Actually, your finances will affect your money for the following season, so yeah, you might lose it. Allocations are not in the game as, realistically, so few of the rules of the SEM system are public knowledge, and even with a license this is still pretty vague. Furthermore the SEM would not produce an entertaining gaming experience.


Cuz at least in MLS, this one sucks. And many of the problems I've seen transcend MLS.

Well, without knowing how MLS was before this version it's hard to explain to you the progress that was made in FM06.

The MLS license has allowed the MLS back into FM, however, for FM05 it was added very late and didn't get full support from the HR at the time. Since then, I replaced him and had approximately 2 months to give the full DB an overhaul, update all the rules and test for accuracy.

Needless to say, even with help, this didn't give me a lot of time. Personally, as a fan of the game and of MLS in general, I think the series took a huge step forward.

IMPROVEMENTS:
DB
- Updated to include all the latest players in MLS (as well as in the USL).
- Updated stadia situation.
- Updated referee data, some of which was 9 years old.
- Updated wages to reflect the ones leaked to the media.
- Updated Green Card holders, as this directly affects the SI/YI roster limits.
- Updated MLS attendances

MLS RULES:
- Added Reserve Teams, Leage and schedules, inc prize money.
- Added Expansion Teams, including their YI/SI variations.
- Updated DEV contracts (not 100% but a closer representation)
- Corrected SI/YI changes
- Added Copa Sudamericana
- Revised SuperDraft to new rules and added Supplemental Draft
- Inputted an accurate cap (and one that increases over the years to reflect MLS growth in that area)
- Updated salaries to allow for player max (and the ability sign players above, yet only have the max $ count to the cap.
- Updated competition information (like Continental eligibility, prize money etc..)
- Improved the combine and regens (though this still needs a lot of work and will be 100% better in FM07).
- Set Senior/Dev limits on roster.
- Added Supporter's Shield


Basically, this is just off the top of my head, but my point is we made huge headway in just a couple of months. I also guarantee that it's going to make similar improvements next time with the following priorities :

- MLS player rights - for drafted/waived players.
- Developmental Contracts - inc Generation Adidas, Develpmental and Snr developmental.
- A complete overhaul of the draft system, combine and newgens for the US. I'm working on how this can be done, but will likely be by the inclusion of some (fake if required) colleges, or teams where players can be regened and then scouted prior to the trade.
- Improvements on the trade interface.

I'm happy you cared enough Dave to do a post this size, hopefully it's not all bad and you can grasp the improvements made in such a short time. Personally, I think MLS is very playable in its current guise and will only be better for next time around.

I'd be more than happy to have you help out and contibute, if you think there are places that could do with improvement, and can be contstructive about it all, come on over to my forums at www.americansportsgamer.com and pop onto the research board. That applies to anyone else. I don't think I'm the be-all and end-all of MLS, so I'm always open to suggestions. We have sections for bugs, data, rule changes/inaccuracies and so on.

Any help would be appreciated!

[hoboken16]

My biggest complaint with the MLS was stats like stamina, there was alot of 11's and 12's in that category. Don't even get me started on Digital River which I will never do again

[Tony Cheval]

Care to elaborate? I haven't noticed any problems with Digital River myself.

[ionprovisioner]

I'm surprised to see all the negativity here, honestly. I've been playing MLS for about four months after buying WSM through Digital River - the purchase was like butta, and my 'buy great coaches' strategy is turning DC United into Leeds United '98. :D

[Tony Cheval]

One thing I would really like to see is a fix to the problem of having to continually shuffle fringe players between 1st team and reserves in order to have them actually play in the reserve matches when eligible. Also, you might look at including the matchday squad change for 2006 in the next database update, I believe it's now a straight 18 for each team, no more loading the home bench. :D

[hymeballs]

Hi, just purchased WWSM06 and had a few ?'s
Can you edit team names and logos and such?
Obviously I want Metros to be RBNY and SJ to be Houston
thanks for any help!

[Easy Mac F.U.]

Hi, just purchased WWSM06 and had a few ?'s
Can you edit team names and logos and such?
Obviously I want Metros to be RBNY and SJ to be Houston
thanks for any help!

Yes, you can. There should be an editor in either the start menu, or in the WWSM folder. Open that and click "File" load database. load the db file. Then on the left (after it loads) there should be an explorer tree (dressed up all pretty). Near the bottom there should be "Competitions". Expand that. then click on teams in the expanded competitions. In the search box to the right, search "major league soccer". Then click on major league soccer. In the pane to the right, there should be a list of teams. Click on NY (or whatever the metros, and SJ, is named). From there, the Team screen should pop up. From there you can change the team names. On the far left, expand the "Teams" explorer, and one of the selections will have the options to change colors and kits...

Sorry if this is a bit confusing, but its a bit of an involved editing process. Since I don't mind pimping myself, if you go to www.sportssimshaven.com, I have links on the right called WWSM/FM downloads. These are logos and database files that are usable in the latest version. The MLS (and world transfers) are current as of the 18th (haven't uploaded the latest ones) with team names and colors changed. I also have downloads for logos and some player pics. There should be instructions in the zip file as to where to put all the files. The USL is also somewhat up to date, though the players aren't... this is an ongoing process. Also, visit www.sortitoutsi.net for the latest kits (except Houston and NY I think, not sure).

Still to be done.
USL player updates
MLS player pics for other 8 teams
New Papers/Web sites
Closer details for the DB (not all things like height/weight/skill are entered for all players, especially new ones).

[hymeballs]

thanks alot, but how do I incorporate into the game? Im not real savy at this sort of stuff so please be patient.....I opened the file with editor and saved it but when i start a new game its the old db file,

[hymeballs]

I got it all sorted out! thanks again for the file!

[brado09]

Hi guys, I finally purchased the full version of this game. You can call me an idiot, but I'm coaching in the MLS and when I see a reserve player listed for Loan and I click on his player profile to make an offer, all I can do is offer another player or a draft pick. Is this normal? Can you only get loaned players who are on the regular team roster? Thanks!