Why Masking Attributes is Wrong (But Necessary)
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- Опубліковано 9 лют 2025
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I had never played Football Manager another way until the network game. This was the first time that I was ever forced to consider that scouting is about a lot more in FM than just figuring out what all those pesky numbers are. That is really the less important part, because even when you have the numbers you don’t know where they are headed on your favorite wonderkid, or what the other numbers are behind the screen.
Football Manager is intentionally opaque, so I say either make it completely opaque and realistic or decide that you want to play the game a bit faster and save yourself the time. As scouting becomes more monotonous with the increase in number of scouting levers you need to pull, it’s time to just admit that pulling the attribute masking off of Football Manager is worth it to save time and provide the same experience.
Much Love,
FM Senpai
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It annoys me when people say “play realistic, play with a small team” it’s a game, yes it’s cool if you make it harder but who gives one, it’s a game, your supposed to have fun
Exactly…if someone wants to start as Real Madrid and build a “Super Team” because that’s what they enjoy, it’s up to them!
i agree but you should definitely try to play with a small team at least once if you have never before. If you don't find it enjoyable, that's fine but at least give it a try. I did and haven't looked back since.
@@GIBBO4182 I've done games from like tier 12 of england, the prem with Newcastle, nation building saves in czechia, all are fun for different reasons, people need to stop gatekeeping this game
Do whatever you want. Play at whatever “difficulty” you want to
@@ricardoraposo3630 i dont use twitter like a normal person
People need to seriously re-evaluate their lives if they're having actual fights over this. And that goes for a lot of you in the comments, too. One of the greatest things about FM is how modular the difficulty is. Team selection, coaching badges, attribute masking, etc etc etc
Its so cringe, its literlly a singel player game with no end goal and yet eveyone takes it so serious lol
I like giving a trash team a billion and go on from there
I like to give a 10th tier team a premier league sized stadium and perfect facilities and try to win every honour available to an English club (so fa vase has to be won before going to 8th tier where it's no longer available, fa trophy before getting to EFL, and each promotion needs to be gained by winning the league. Also, community shield, uefa super cup, all three tiers of European competition...etc etc
I would love if they added a system like OOTP has where you have full stats but they are not a set number. Instead they are based on your scout or assistent's way of telling a player is good along with their performance. Would it make it harder? Yeah but it gives you a better idea and its way more realistic than either knowing everything or the current hidden system that is pretty bad with how little knowledge there even is at the start of a save where you can have 20 scouts and know next to nothing about almost any player.
Agree
Exactly what it came to my mind, it's way more intuitive like that
That’s kind of what the No-attribute skins do because unlike Zealands quick hack to do this it doesn’t totally hide them. It shows you a bar or a star that’s coloured according to your attribute boundaries. Which personally is what I like about playing like this, it can be so easy to stick with say a striker because he has 19 in finishing over one who is 17 totally ignoring how he plays because in your head you tell yourself that the one with 19 has to be better and it’s just bad luck they aren’t performing. And even if the skin in question keeps the stars those depend on so many other factors from staff quality to factors like they are homegrown that when you know that (which FM could do a better job highlighting) you have to stop using these as absolute’s (for example in Fm21 Tomori was Chelsea’s best defender star wise, despite his Current Ability being well down and his attributes both visible and hidden not being the best, a big part of that was t(E positives his age and home grown and club trained status gave him).
All in all it gives you a guide still as you would know in real life who was good at something and who wasn’t but it doesn’t make it as obvious as being able to tell the difference in a stat by a single point as FM gives. That to me gives the perfect balance, you have all the data you need from the attribute colours, the coach/scout reports, the data hub, the training reports and simply from watching the matches but nothing is absolute and you have to put it all together as they all play their part
A lot of people who play FM DO NOT have the time to watch every match on key highlights to make out how good a player is and SI won't spend time and resources making a system that only 5-10% of the playerbase will use.
@@metro3313 The thing is it would be a system that replaces both the current systems. Knowing everything about every player in the world outside of hidden attributes and potential is great for quick playing no doubt. The thing with the system i named i that you still have that(just that a current 14 might actually be displayed as a 12,13, 14, 15 or 16 depending on how good your scouting knowledge in that area is. Incomplete knowledge doesn't mean you have to play every match on key highlights to determine is a player is good and even with the current system a lot of times a player with "lesser" attributes on the surface can clearly outperform a better one depending on those hidden attributes.
Zea, I wanted to let you know that it's YOUR fault I am now a player of having attribute masking on. I was binge watching your Oriental Dragons game and noticed how much fun you were having with it on. So, I decided to give it a go. While I miss being able to go "here's my criteria for min attribute levels for X position at X age, now gimme a list of everyone who meets it" and instantly find those players, I'm loving finding a player whose attribute ranges are on that bubble. That indecision when everything looks good, but one or two attributes are either okay-good or meh-okay, and you're getting desperate to choose which player to sign. Do I take the punt? Do I hold off? Can I risk it? Can I not risk it? It adds a whole new level of thrill in the transfers for me.
And really, that's the only time the masking truly changes my scouting routine asides from the time factor. If I get a player who has everything in a range, but all those ranges are well below what I'm looking for, I don't need to keep scouting the legless Mr Potato Head and can focus on whether that speed demon winger I'm looking at has the intelligence of Road Runner, or the blind insanity of Coyote.
Another option Zealand/people might not know about that could be a good compromise between the 'having a precise numerical value on every attribute of every aspect of every player at the club' of the default settings and the 'manager somehow not being able to tell that Maguire is slower than Rashford from one training session' absurdity of the more realistic no attributes skin is the various skins out there that hide the number of attributes and just show a colour/star using the low/average/good/excellent thresholds in the game, essentially turning the attributes into somewhat noisy ratings from 1-4
Completely agree, since the game engine takes the attributes to determine the outcome, having a 1-20 knowledge is unrealistic. irl different people have different opinions on players ability, and so having a 1-4 rating would mean the attributes include the noise associated with differing opinions.
The other option is to have two sets of attributes, where the attribute values you can see as a manager is your staff opinion of that players attribute values, based of the "true" attribute which remains hidden. But that would be mad...
@MANUEL FONSECA search for Shrewnaldo attributeless skin for FM 20. I installed it, but didn't move ahead with the save
Hi there! If you could spare some time and have a look at our channel it would be much appreciated! Drop a sub if you like what you see👍🏻
I agree to some extent, but one training session of sprints would tell you that there is a wide range of faster and slower, ranging from Mark Noble to Ryan Fredericks, where there are many almost as fast or slow but degrees thereof. The numbers, for me, are still the most adequate balance of realism and sim.
I mentioned this in another comment, but I'd love a system where scout reports were not accurate to players stats. One scout might give a player 12 vision based on the games he saw, and another 16 based on different matches watched.
I'd love to believe that my club wouldn't approve a record 40mil signing based on the word of a single scout from a scouting team of 12 people.
I have always played with attribute masking on. But three things have happened since: i) it now takes far longer to fully scout players, ii) players can’t be scouted in the same quantities as before, and iii) I, sadly, now have less time to commit to the game due to real world responsibilities. So, from next year, I will unashamedly play without attribute masking.
Before those three things, attribute masking contributed to my enjoyment of the game. And after those three things, no attribute masking will contribute to my enjoyment. I play the game to ENJOY it. Own how you play *your* game and stop telling others how to enjoy theirs!
This is pretty much me. Since my son was born a couple of years back I can't dedicate 8 hours of my day to FM. I want to enjoy the game - I don't want to spend the few hours I can play the game scouting hundreds of players!
@@jpeach17 fair play. Part of the fun for me, is that moment of discovery when your scouts rock up with a speed demon winger or a passer who can drop the ball on a penny from 50 yards!
Once, I found a skin (I think it was a skin) that showed only the color of the attributes but not the numbers. So, for example, if an attrubute was deep green, that meant it was 16-20. I really want to try it someday if I find it again
I found something similar, it gave a star rating for each attribute.
It just lowers the precision of the number rating system, which the default numbers already do. Player stats are not integers between 1 and 20, they have some decimal points.
What I would love to see is scout reports that are wrong in the same way scouts can be wrong about current ability stars (relative to CA) or potential (relative to PA). You'd still get a good idea of the player type, but maybe one scout says he has 12 vision and another says he has 16.
@@maxsterry5013 Hm yeah like what the scouts already do by having some numbers like 12-18 before scouting someone to 100%.
But not being able to see the real value until you transfer this player to your team.
That sounds like a nice idea and it doesn't make the game too "difficult".
I personally play without attributes just because I found myself focusing on attributes way too hard. I wanted to give the other aspects of the game a bit more weight in my saves and honestly I don't really notice that much of a difference
How do you know who's good mentally Vs physically or technically if all you have are the stars and scout reports?
@@orosztamas1158 well, if I go to the tab of my scouted players I have a view with weaknesses, strengths and playing style of each player listed. It works just fine for me
@@Renatoioi sounds way too restrictive to me, but I'm glad it works for you! Having fun is the only thing that matters :)
@@orosztamas1158 cheers mate ;)
@@orosztamas1158 i would like to frame this interaction. truly a miracle on the internet. just goes to show the class of Z's community
I absolutely have watched a match between two other teams, I wasn't doing it for scouting purposes though, the result of that match was determining whether or not I qualified for CL. And I assure you it is far more painful to watch as your hopes slip away than to just see the result appear.
I almost did that, but it was like 1am and I decided it was best to just get the result and go to sleep.
I've done that for a promotion decider
I do that a lot, I'm doing a build a nation save in the Faroe Islands and I try to watch other teams' European qualifiers. It's such a great feeling when you watch them pull off an upset like KÍ Klaksvík reaching the UCL group stage.
Hi there! If you could spare some time and have a look at our channel it would be much appreciated! Drop a sub if you like what you see👍🏻
I like playing with masking on, it's what I've always done so it's mainly inertia, but I feel that scouting takes abit too long even with top tier scouts. Sometimes it feels it would be faster for me to go irl and watch the players than wait for my scouts.
A portion of the FM player base has always been this way, there’s multiple ways you can play the game but if you don’t play their way you are somehow ruining the game 😂
stop moaning about people who like to play differently than you
10:49 As NZ's manager, I must do that. Scouts in international teams don't do much. Even with attributes visible, you could miss out on players that you think in unstoppable, but they actually play so few minutes off the bench in a lowly club team.
How many leagues do you have loaded when you manage NZ? Whenever I look at the national squad in game, they seem to be missing half of the real life players.
@@bbqR0ADK1LL Only A-League, and everyone that is NZ national.
I always play with masking on lately. Discovering wonderkinds you know nothing about beforehand is just more satisfying for me. It's too easy to filter without masking. You might say but you don't know their potential and hidden attributes which is true. However there is sort of a limit how much a player can progress from where they are. If they are terrible at 17 yo they'll never be a world class player even if their potential would suggest so. If you are looking for a pacy winger for the future he can't have less than lets say 13 or 14 or even more pace already. And so on. Most attributes won't improve more than say 3 or 4 units throughout the career. You can quite realiably judge a player at youth intake already. Will he necessarily develop well? You don't know that. But what you can do is filter out vast majority of other players that you already know will never be great. You can focus your reasources on top lets say 50 or 100 candidates rather than scouting 1000+ each year which is huge.
I'd like to especially point out it's not just a matter of saving time, it's not that with masking you get the same information just later. In the end most of the information you get without masking you'll never know with masking on. You can only get X scouting reports per year, you need to manage resources far more, potentially missing players which is fine, or another team scouts and signs the player before your scouts get the chance to even see him once etc. There are a lof of opportunity costs and managing that for me is part of the enjoyment.
Obviously each plays the way he likes, just presenting my perspective.
Valid. I'd never considered it narrows your pool of knowledge to a more real level too.
The main issue i have with hidden attributes is the physicals.
With stuff like vision or finishing, i understand the realism of not being able to tangibly rate a player.
But with physicals you absolutely can
I had the same issue mate, I wanted to try non-attributes but the daftness of not realising the fastest player at the club was faster than the slowest was too much for me. I think I am going to try one of the skins where the numbers are changed to just colours based off the attribute threshold which seems more realistic on the physical side to be able to group players into like rapid average and slow at least
@@robbiearrowsmith6006 Could you not try what Zealand just did in game? Turn all numbers to zero, but leave the physicals visible?
@@stonywings5888 I don't think you can edit it to affect technical/mental/physical numbers differently but I'd love to be corrected if I'm wrong!
The ratings are abstract and relative. If you see a player like Xavi, or Iniesta, you can determine that they have the best vision of the field in football and get a 20. The experience of a scout or manager is then able to compare different players, for example that player is not as good as Xavi but still better than everybody else so he is a 19.
Hi there! If you could spare some time and have a look at our channel it would be much appreciated! Drop a sub if you like what you see👍🏻
For real (bar a multiplayer save), play however you want. I play with the editor on and I check the PA of my youth intake players before signing them. I enjoy playing this way and it doesn't affect anyone else
I like masking. Especially as a journeyman style manager I want to find hidden gems that are already good and often search by minimum attribute. The masking makes this a risk or a challenge depending on approach/finances to find the right player
Just appreciating the ODFC Tinder gag at 7:33 with swiping yes on Anssi Keurulainen and no on Luke Edwards.
Tom the animator is a legend
I play with masking off purely because I dont have much time to play the game and I like to progress through my saves. I dont really want to spend ages waiting on scout reports. When Ive got some time off I'll play with it on for a more in depth save, but having masking off really does improve my enjoyment when my time is limited.
I think the precision and accuracy with attributes is the real "problem." Correct me if I'm wrong, but the numbers you see are always "right," even when you have terrible scouts. In my opinion, and this is how games like Out of the Park Baseball do it, attributes should be imprecise and their accuracy should be based upon your scouts' abilities.
In OOTP, the default settings use the traditional baseball 20-80 scale, by increments of 5 ( I can explain this in detail in a reply if anyone wants). This allows for 13 different values that can be assigned for any given attribute (20, 25, 30, ... 80). These attributes are (again, with default settings) relative to the highest league loaded in the file (typically MLB) or you can change the league used for comparison at will. If you're playing in a lower league, you can see the ratings relative to that league. Relative ratings would be super helpful in FM. Is 10 finishing high for the National League North? Maybe!
Behind the scenes, these attributes are on a scale of 1-250 (with some attributes allowing overages), so the game engine can use the precise values for simulation purposes, yet it still shows you a much less precise number. And, like I mentioned above, the accuracy of these ratings is influenced by the scout's ability. You only have one scouting director and no individual scouts in OOTP, but having a whole scouting department in FM could allow you to ask each scout what they think and then maybe you could generate a "consensus" report or something.
Additionally, each individual attribute in OOTP also has a potential value associated with it. A guy might have 50 Power now, which is by definition average for the league being used for comparison, but he might have the potential to increase his power to elite levels (70+).
FM does almost everything better than OOTP, imo, but the fog of war in scouting is handled much better in OOTP, and I really like the potential ratings on attributes. I want to know how much faster or better at passing or how much stronger my scouts think a guy can get, not just that he has 5-star potential overall, or whatever.
Great detailed comment- for sure it needs a revamp!
Z played some Tennis Manager on stream, I'd love for him to try a few streams of OOTP.
@@wasteofspace04 gotta pay him to do that
Only if it’s by a deviation of 1-3 at most (which wouldn’t really have a huge effect on the game anyway), because the game should always be a reflection of real football and irl scouts & data analysts have little problem accurately marking a player’s shooting attribute out of 20, never mind when they have access to ridiculous datasets we fans don’t. If we all had to mark Haaland’s finishing out 20, most of us would say 17-19 just from watching him on TV. Nobody would ever say 12. His long throw ins however would be a different matter because there isn’t much data available, so if it was realistic only the irrelevant stats would be largely unreliable.
What they really need to do is bring in more hidden attributes that affect development - and when I say hidden, I mean HIDDEN. No access full stop. Because that’s how it is in real football; mysterious. IRL you may have all the data feasibly possible and still not know why a player isn’t working out. Perhaps it could be something you could try to find out via a psychologist over many years?
Zealand, thank you for coving this topic, you brought up really good points. I've always been conflicted on which way to play since I started playing FM touch a few years ago and it had the masking off by default. The digital projection of yourself in the game as the all knowing savant with the cutt off jean shorts and huge beard made my day.
I once got stuck with a save and used the Genie Scout. Set some rules for myself: could only sign players from my own immediate area, limited to 160PA. I enjoyed it very much and had fun, so I win.
Personally, I have attribute masking off and play without using the search bar. I only look at the players my scouts find or national teams. It's the way I have enjoyed playing the game the most
I have watched several matches to scout a player. If you set a player as a transfer target or top player it will begin to generate news articles when your scouts go to their games to scout them, which can reinforce your club's interest in the player. But if you personally go and watch the game and show the personal interest it could be the step that changes the player's mind about whether or not they want to sign for your club. It's not a common occurrence but if you find someone you really want to sign but is uninterested in signing for you or extremely doubtful it can help change their mind.
The fact that you are using Brisbane Roar for the 2nd time is hilarious to me considering I am from Brisbane and we are really bad at football so this is really great content.
As somebody in law school just starting the game and worried about the time sink, I think this video convinced me to try with attribute masking off to start with
Only want to comment: MASSIVE FOREHEAD :) That was a great easter egg! Kudos to editor Ayal!
And of course, superb animations by Tomleggosaurus!
Also: play as you like it, it is a single player video game most of the time!
I have always liked Hidden As as I say to myself as a lower league manager (the only way I like to play personally) I would not know the abilities of a U23 RWB from Charlton that might be on a free next year. Theres a lot of fun with scouting a player and the slow unraveling of their ability and finding that one gem to sign. The best feeling in FM for me that is
Hi ! Zealand, I'm Hernan from Paraguay i liked the content of this video and i agree with you so much ! Love the channel ! Great work dude !
FM is a sandbox game and attribute masking really just changes play style. What do you like most about the game? Do you want to 'beat the game (engine)' by making the best strategic decisions or do you want to roleplay a little bit. In the first case you should not mask attributes and in the 2nd case you should play with attribute masking imho. To make the comparison, it's the difference between playing Crusader kings 3 as a map painter or a Malinese dwarf pope, both are valid. Finally, if you're a masochist you should play without attributes, it's all fine.
Using my Home club Brisbane Roar as an example! Well Done Zealand!
I remember skinning this with a custom font for the attributes, meaning it was always just a square. Then just simply colour coded based on a range.
Attribute-free Football Manager is the ultimate and the best difficulty the game has to offer. If you play with that difficulty then you're the best FM Manager in the world. I can't wait for you to play with that mode someday.
People that claim playing without hidden attributes is unrealistic just don't get how scouting in real life works. It isn't like 40 years ago when you watched videos from players in foreign leagues and then have to guess how the speed you can see will compare to players in your league.
Scouting nowadays works exactly like in Football Manager. Clubs rent databases from providers like Statsbomb that contain all the informations of all players available in the package you paid for including stats like speed etc. You add the search critereas like left footed centreback with age under 25 and a value with und 10m, filter the players even more until you have a pool you are happy with. Exactly like in Football Manager. Then you call the agents to find out if the players are interested and after that you send your scouts out to do "character scouting" of the remaining players.
Most of these databases have general rating systems from 1-10 for many attributes and even there wouldn't be one, the stats in the database can give you a more precise range than 20/20 scouts in Football Manager could do with masked attributes.
I'm playing with director of football challenge only for the past 3 years because the game became to easy for me and i was looking for a challenge. I would never play with hidden attributes because it isn't increasing realism. But i also don't blame people that use the option the same way i don't blame people that are save scumming. Football Manager is, apart from the multiplayer, a singleplayer game and i have no right to tell people how they have to play their game.
It's just gatekeeping bullshit like in metal music where people try to tell others how real metal has to be. Listen to the metal genre you like and STFU.
I just play with them hidden because it makes me feel even better when I find a mad wonder kid hidden away
Yup, I physically scout players especially to influence them prior to or during a bid made when other clubs are interested.
Zealand fell in love with the game with masking on I fell in love with the game before it even existed, back in the 90s when it was purely text commentary as your match engine. I predominantly play Network saves with my mate now too though so just makes things quicker for us on that.
In comparison with real life on FM we have the disadvantage of not seeing players in training so the attributes are the way to contour this limitation
I watched a player in another club's match, not to scout them but to make the player see how much I wanted to sign them
I've played the CM/FM series for many years, back in the days it wasn't even possible to mask or hide attributes. So I've always kept the masking off after it became an option. Everyone should play the game just how they want.
Unintentional shade thrown at me be Zealand there...as I have indeed watched other games to scout a player in older versions of FM. 🤣
How much info the game should show vs. keep hidden/ambiguous is a never ending question. Things like fatigue and sharpness used to be percentages, now they're more ambiguous.
There's no right or wrong answer, but giving people options in how much they want to see for certain things is good.
might have to try playing without attributes, seems interesting. no data, all vibes type of save. although I always play in the Scottish lower leagues where attributes are so low that not seeing them would hardly matter.
As someone who plays with attribute masking off, I still rely on scouts a great deal. Also, you can tell it’s a video where Zealand forgot to take his headphones off because his voice is about 1.3x louder than normal.
My save in football manager is now in the year 2048, this is only the 2nd ever football manager save I have ever done so I decided to go all in, I have watched every single game up to this point. My club is Boston United a small semi pro club when I started. We started in the vanarama north where we won in 2022, and eventually by 2027 we had made our way up into championship football. After 6 long years in the championship we made our way up into the premier league in the 2032 season.
Since then we have became the greatest club in the entire world, we have won the English premier league in 2038,2041,2043,2044,2045,2046,2047, and 2048 (yes 6 times in a row)
The champions league in 2036, 2044, 2045, 2046, 2047 and 2048 ( yes 5 times in a row)
8 super cups
2 club world championships
7 FA Cups
7 community shields
And pulled off back to back sextuples (6 trophies in 1 season)
Best player in the history of Boston United is Regen from Bosnia & Herzegovina named Denis Fejzic who has scored 512 goals in 595 appearances for the club.
Yes we are the greatest club in the world and not finished yet
The stats being a number is realistic because the manager or a scout can watch the player and just give them a rating of 1-20 for a given stat like pace. From the arrows, we know that the number is adjusted fairly often so its not perfect omniscience but a rating that can be off.
I watch other teams games to scout a player once I've declared them as my top target. You even get mentioned in the news for making an appearance and has the ability to get a player more likely to want to join you.
Man if you ever did a save with the fully invisible attributes I'd love to watch that.
3:20 - LOL
I've been playing FM since 2005 (not counting Eidos times, in that case since 2002) and always played on masking off.
You used to be able to play with a bar gauge instead of number attributes and I like it that way because in the real world you can never tell Ronaldo's shooting is 17 or 19, but you know its very very good.
In previous FMs, you could reveal a player's attributes by watching one of their matches. Useful if the player was outside your scouting range, because there doesn't seem to be a cap on how much your club will spend on you travelling the world scouting players
Probably because you're the one paying for those trips 😉
In fm21 you could see the value of every player. You can’t anymore. I disagree because in real life you can just go onto transfer market and look up any player
But you should look up how they calculate the player value, its not as reliable always as it looks
@@Golradir There was an article about that somewhere, defining player value is VERY tricky because there are many variables: status of player in squad, stats, country of origin, league, interest in player (demand), player injury history, player character, agent, what does the player want and it goes on. Depending on circumstances any of the above take more or less importance as well.
@@Golradir I agree but it’s a bit like star ratings. Its a way to see that one guy is good, and another one isn’t. Atleast in fm anyway
That one too. In FM20, I remember going to the Youth Transfers screen every time there was a youth intake, and only try to poach those players with an abnormally high value.
You cannot do that anymore because you need to scout them in most cases.
Football Manager hits a new level when you start attending other games. It shifts transfers and the media in your favour and gives proof to big players that you're invested.
Is this genuine?! Never thought of doing this 🤦🏻♂️😂
@@robWolvesfan1 yep, if you attend games for a player you've declared interest in or shortlisted, it affects the players relationship with you. I used a program of watching games, repeatedly declaring interest and having a player big us up to Raul Moro in one save and after a few months he was interested in talks.
@@davidrichards613 And it aids in the actual negotiations as the player will favour your club over others that are interested in him.
Also, if you're an international team manager, you can increase the value and performance of your national team prospects by attending their games.
@@robWolvesfan1 Try it, it really sells the "I am a big manager" feeling, especially when you see news articles about having attended certain matches, and watching journalists trying to decipher your intentions.
Interesting topic. I ALWAYS played with visible attributes (mostly due to laziness I think) but, after watching Z’s Floridsdorfer save and how thrilling he makes discovering talent through scouting, I switched to hidden attributes in my latest save (also with Floridsdorfer!). I must say, it makes the game SO much more enjoyable to discover and scout cheap affordable talent and start building an empire.
PRO TIP: Load and scout Syria, insane young talent for no money there.
That's Sudan for me. I don't know why, but for whatever reason I always end up having at least one world class Sudanese player generate in as well as a handful that can play at a high professional level.
Mexico for me
Got a very good Wonderkid
03:20 at least we know there's no masking on that "MASSIVE FOREHEAD"
I have not played FM for a while but I will admit I've watched other teams' matches to watch how players I was interested in performed in big games, I've also watched matches of players I've loaned out that seem to be doing well.
Marking those matches in the calendar setting up sometimes months in advance as "view match".
Sometimes I actually wanted to watch the match in question, other times just for realism, for example a manager watching a match of a prospect they've loaned out as a way to show he's in my plans for the future or watching the match of a player I want to sign to see how he performs in big matches as I said earlier, plus the game actually acknowledges when you watch the match (or at least it used to, I haven't played this year's version) and you even get news about it with a little buzz over you being spotted at the stadium watching.
I’ve only ever used attribute masking once and found it frustrating so went back to full attributes, the thing that I haven’t explored and should is the analysts, they would be the ones telling you about the players physical stats, how good they are at the technical stuff, even the upward or downward curve of their stats, since recruitment analysts became a thing they have basically been a way to get extra nation knowledge but not done anything of purpose.
Play how you want. It's meant to be fun. If your idea of fun is to use an editor and fm scout go for it. If you want to mask attributes etc go for it
I prefer masking on - like yourself it's how a truly started to love the game.
Also, I have on a couple of occasions watched another match to see a player in action as it were - you also get the news story that you were at the stadium to look at a player you're interested in and it can help when trying to sign a player their club is not wanting to discuss a sale as it can unsettle the player if they're not allowed to talk to you, I say it can I don't know fully how much of an impact it has when you do it.
If I'm really unsure about a player and I can't make a decision based off scout reports alone, I'll watch a match myself to see what he can do. Recently, I also had a scenario where I had 3 potential options from Brazil for one left wing place, though one of them could also play right wing, another position I had in the back of my mind, and all could double as a backup striker. All 3 had very different attributes, strengths/weaknesses. All of their strengths would have worked in different areas of the game utilised in my setup. I needed to see what they could do for myself and in rare cases, its helpful to do that. In the end, after much agonising, I decided to not sign a single one of them. I did sign an 18 year old Uruguayan after watching him in person though.
I personally have always played without attribute masking, but attributes was not the main factor for me when choosing my starters it was always the performance and the match ratings of the players, that is the way i feel the game is more realistic, even when i am buying new players i rely on pros and cons of scouts reports and not on the attributes
I literally always scout even though I don’t attribute mask it so much easier! I also filter, It literally doesn’t matter anyway, I don’t want to go through the hassle of scouting every damn player
i saw on reddit another skin that had different coloured stars instead of an attribute number of 1-20 which looked really cool. So Mbappe has green stars for pace, agility, accelleration etc so you know he's rapid but then you can't tell precisely whether he's gonna beat rashford in an out and out footrace. Can't remember the post but looked pretty interesting I might give it a try soon
The best way to play is with the screen off. Now that's a challenge.
Would be good to have a star rating for each attribute as an option, similar to the overall star rating. Or have like a very bad, bad, okay, good, great rating relative to your level. Like a guy with 13 pace at tier 6 could have "great" pace for your team or division but then at prem it's obviously different
I think that's a great idea! Do you know if there's a skin for this?
"Oh no! People are having fun with a thing in a different way than I am having fun with it! Now I'll have to be an a-hole to them."
Until I saw this, I never really thought about attribute masking. I had thought (because I didn't read the description) that attribute masking ON meant what I see is a fog of war based on my scouts ability to scout talent. And attribute masking OFF would mean the attributes were 100% accurate. I didn't realize the masking was mostly about the time it takes to scout and find players. I think if they never change how scouts operate (meaning, a 20 scout ability should scout attributes better than a 10) - then if you can play your game with discipline to not open FM Editor, then as long as you follow Zealand's advice here on how to not "cheat" with masking OFF, I feel like it's not a bad idea.
I have physically attended another game to scout a player. I've only done this to unsettle a transfer target to encourage a transfer request hand in.
I play with attributes masked for the simple reason that immediately signing every wonderkid that's generated around the world becomes too easy
10:43 when you manage a national team then yes, you find yourself in need of watching players. You can't rely on scouts much for international management. They can't cover all the players in the pool so you got to chip in sometimes.
I like the idea of attribute masking (I use it, with resentment.) but, they go overboard with it.
You can know certain abilities instantly irl, certainly when you play against them, it gets kinda stupid having them masked for months.
Then there's the addition of statistical analysis, the game is based on it, so when in full effect why don't you scout analysts cancel out certain masking altogether. 😐
I'd never checked but doesn't playing against players increase knowledge? As for stats, they can mislead. Only very few attributes could truly be discerned through stats. Check the next u23 player stats in game and I'll wager some of the top scorers have woeful finishing and composure.
I sometimes attend matchs to unsettle a player I am interested in and basically leave the match after the first whistle lol
Hidden Attributes is not realistic dispite alot of people saying it is. However, what it does is adding another layer of difficulty in building your team. Some like it while others don't. Both sides have their own share of points but aiming for realism shouldn't be the focus when using it since thats not what maskning stats of players are intended for. It's there to be an obstacle for added challenge like doing Ironman's and 0 Death Runs in other games.
After you've been playing for a while you can just feel where the attribute ranges are going to land before your scouts are able to pinpoint it exactly, so it doesn't really matter tbh after a certain level of experience with the game. It's a matter of saving some time and stress when it comes down to it, really.
Always maskin attributes, also with first window closed when starting a game. Go to filter on scouting and wait for the scout to give full rapport on the player and not feedback after every report on the player. Have played FM since CM.
I don't mind either, I don't have a lot of time so I don't go attribute masking, Here's the thing, IRL if you started as a manager at a Man City just for example, they would have significant player data on every player in the top 5-10 major leagues in Europe to the point you could give player ratings 1-20. One aspect of attribute masking I don't like is you start with a team like a Man City, you go to a bottom half team to look at players, lets pretend Zaha at CP and his attributes are masked. Mate its Man City they already know everything there is to know about that player and virtually every other player in the league, those sort of players shouldn't be masked. I think the masking should only take place the further you get away from your level/leagues, IE: Your in EPL then players in Brazil are masked. LOL when you're a non-league team and Messi's attributes are masked
I still consider myself a novice eventhough I’ve been playing since FM19. But for the first time I actually sit down and watch most of the highlights in slow motion and base how good my player are off of what I see on the pitch. I’ve had players with 17 finishing score 3 goals in a season and then a guy with 11 fishing score 30
yes, i have watched other matches for scouting purposes. i also watch matches in major tournaments. 😅
Yes... I actually have attended another team's match (if I'm honest MATCHES so it's even sadder than it first sounds!) to scout a player. It did work out though so at least there's that! Was on the fence about signing a young Belgian midfielder who wasn't quite able to break through at Barca, he had all the talent in the world but my scouts found some serious red flags (injury prone & dreads big matches - that kind of thing). So when I noticed Barcelona had a few injuries so this, then like 19/20 year-old, enigma was going to get a shot, I attended a few of their games just to see what bonkers flair, knees of swiss cheese and zero confidence actually looked like... and he was great! So I pulled the trigger, it was pretty big money for my Greek team even after a couple of CL quarter-final runs, and roll on like 4 or 5 years now and he's won two CL titles in Greece and just led Belgium to the Euros.
"You don't scout by watching players from other clubs"
I literally do that haha. One time I thought I'd be so smart and watch the full game... I got 15m in before calling it quits haha. I only do the occasional game or two because it takes too long if you do extended highlights. The bonus of watching the match is that you can unsettle players a lot easier
Thanks honestly didn't know you could unsettle players if you attend a game. There's so many options and settings in FM that I honestly don't know how new players even know where to begin
Play unmsaked attributes AND without them showed for faster scouting is pro giga Chad move
I like masked, sometimes you think the player ain't that good but you need him as back up, you sign him, and it turns out he is almost as good as the starter (with smaller clubs)
When this first came out I was annoyed with it and turned it off but for probably the last 3 years I’ve kept it on as it makes the game more challenging.
Agreed that it doesn't matter how you play the game. I play with attribute masking on but the idea of no attributes gives me palpitations!
I think one big aspect of whether to have masking on or off is what type of save you're doing.
I like to do more shorter saves with midtable/relegation level teams that have interesting set of players, where the focus isn't so much on squad building but tactics and game management. Hiding attributes is just a nuisance.
If I'm doing a longer, lower tier save or a longer save in a smaller nation, squad building becomes a bigger part of the save and masking is on.
My current long term save has attribute masking off but it does make the game way too easy, I regret not putting on attribute masking. The idea you can instantly know the stats of any player anywhere in the world definitively with no chance of being wrong is so unrealistic and makes it so even easier to farm wonderkids.
Next year I’m going to do my saves with attribute masking ON at least for more of a challenge. Maybe even attributes off if I’m feeling ballsy but probably not.
Side note - is anyone else’s save overrun with regen strikers who are great at everything but with terrible finishing attribute? And I can’t find good regen fullbacks for the life of me
The regen strikers that are great at all things but finishing are wingers to me😅, I have a regen striker whose got 17 finishing, he's got 11 acceleration tho so that's the downside but he's 196cm tall I think that's 6'1, 6'2 great goalscorer for me in my 3rd team of that save
@@DCUEmp_prinzy 196 cm is VERY tall... 6ft 5 in old/empire/freedom units.
Same problem for me with Full backs, there's either 70mil+ world class Full backs or 5 mil average ones nothing in between. I've been buying wingers/wide midfielders and training them at Full back. It's working pretty well so far.
@@Simon.Thornley funny thing he's 23 when I'm at now and Chilean I got him for £1.7m, for stade brestois (I chose them because they hadn't won anything and they just fired their manager nothing else), he's a goal machine but I've never just floated crosses to him oddly his heading is 11
@@joshdavenport91 that's pretty interesting you play really attacking fullbacks
Seems the obvious is if they had a setting (or maybe could be done via skin somehow?) where attribute masking is off, but players only show up in player search if they've been scouted.
I played a couple of seasons in Brazil with attribute masking off. It definitely speeds things up when you don't have access to a huge scouting team. The 'realism' argument can go both ways, so I'd definitely consider playing that way again.
I’m guilty of watching matches of the club I used to manage because I’m attached to the players I might’ve signed
The most realistic attributes would be the same logic the game already uses with player ability and potential. Make it depending on who you select that gives this ionformation and make the accuracy depending on the staff abilities. For the summary screen there should pretty much always be a little of attributes masking, showing that the staff isn't 100% on the same page, which is pretty realistc. So you could switch from summary, to a specific staff member, maybe your co-trainer, because he has good abilieties in judging and you trust him (like inr eal life) and ask his specific opinion, which shouldn't show ranges, but this specific ratings, maybe after a player plays a full season with you his main attributes should be getting also clear in the summary, because after a time I think most staff in real life would also agree on certain key strenght of a player. I mean this is how it is in real life, Teams also use rating system, even casually if you ask your collegue, hey how do you think about XYZ, often you say hmmm, out of 10 I think its a 6...or whatever, the point is attributes as ratings are actually really realistic as a measurement. Also it kind of makes sense, because the most unrealistic aspect of FM Player Masking, is that it just adds more scouting time, I mean you can literally buy the player blind, he arrives and you know his ratings anyway. Thats unrealistic, the maskings miss the point. What should happen while scouting is you should literally start nearly blank and just get the attribute rating a little closer to each other. Start 3-16 and at the end of the scxouting you have maybe 6-11. And even this dependeble of how known the prospect is, which is the most important part. A superstar player should have nearly no masking, I mean you don't need to scout Ronaldo to know what he can do in every team, because he played at the top and performed. On the other hand a scout is merely giving reccomendations. FM tries this hidden attributes, CA and Potential. Why not attributes too? Not saying this is the most fun btw. just saying if we speak of realism, nothing in the current system is good.
10:50 never done this but did watch Andorra vs Northern Ireland who played a euros playoff final
to be honest when i really want a player i will go to the next matches they are playing in and watch especially if it says looking to impress "insert manager name" with his next performance and then i can get that interest boost it gives
Moneyball + No Attributes seems so fun
I've played both, just for the difficulty, but i'm not going to say it's more realistic either way.
So i think FM to be realistic, it should have attribute masking and player knowledge dependant on the degree of separation between "you/your club" and the target player. So let's say, any players your staff or your players worked with recently would make it something like a 1-2 degrees of separation at best depending on how long it has been, and ranges for their attributes being as accurate as -1/-2 to +1/+2 at most, the same for players in your own league that play regularly. Maybe have some of the most famous players fall into that range too, like players in national teams and top clubs, or players with national, continental or world class reputation.
Then, upper and lower division players should have a slighly bigger range, for example, at best -3/+3, etc, increasing the more separated you are from them. If you have like 5 or more degrees of separation to them, that is, if they belong to a different country or much lower leagues and none of your staff or players known them or know anyone that could know them, that's when full attribute masking should apply.
First time I have made it here in the first day of a video going up. No longer am I a slave to recommendations of FM21 SYS videos!
ALL HAIL THE SUBSCRIBE BUTTON!
Btw, fun challenge for you, Inverness Caledonian Thistle(yes I am biased as a supporter) but Scottish Championship team with one or two exceptional players for the league. Challenge is to hold onto them and not have to sell them for pennies cause Caley players never go for actual money. (Ryan Christie went to Celtic for 500k in real life)
Much like most things, do it the way to want to. The give options for a reason.
I play with attribute masking off because I don't have enough time to play games.
Currently i'm doing everything to progress as much as possible.
Vacation, simulate skins, and CA/PA search.
i prefer hidden. but it's a single player game (mostly) so do whatever you feel like doing (even save scumming or cheating money, have fun)
I just go with default settings because I'm too lazy to change to look/change that. Only thing I change is which leagues/nations get loaded, which is usually as many as possible starting with the most common being first.
I learned to play without attribute masking. It defnitely seems like a chore when I play with it turned on.
I've tried the 'no attributes at all' approach with the preferences changes to try something more difficult/realistic by actually listening to my staff and watching player more closely and use the Data Hub and player data and statistics more. Although the issue is that if you go with the preference changes it will hide not only the players attributes, but also your managers and all staff attributes... So I didn't know how good my scouts are at identifying the abilities of players, which could add another extreme layer of realism to the game by following STAFF success rate in identifying player abilities, but that is REALLY over the top for me (not to mentioned it takes YEARS to come to a conclusion whether a scout is good at scouting or not..). If you know a skin that hides player attributes, but not staff attributes, pls let me know, I could not find them on the first try, ty.