Suggestions to make Sensational Soccer improve

[elyorch]

I've read in the blog that Sensational Soccer is not being as successful as it should. I think it's a great match engine. But I've got a couple of suggestions that would help Sensational Soccer to be more successful:

-Online mode: I know previous versions didnt work, but if you get this to work Si... this game would be a massive hit.

-More competitions: more cup modes, predefined cups like Champions, UEFA, World Cup... maybe entire seasons...

What do you think Si?

Anybody else has more suggestions?

[tezmac]

A create your own team career mode where you start in a bottom league (replacing any other team of your choice) but you start with a certian amount of points to distribute amongst your players. Then you play your games and can earn points by winning games or making a specific number of passes in a match etc etc

[wonder]

Ability tomove from clud to club.......

[Alex Reeves]

Just started playing SS final. Some ideas I'd like to see - apologies in advance if some of these are actually in the product and I've missed them so far. Could I also suggest a .pdf game manual in the install package, which perhaps explains the options and custom keys/commands could be put together?

- Keyboard shortcuts to change tactics and substitute/call for subs Particularly the tactics change, it would make a big change to the game if you could change your tactics on the fly.

- Drag/Drop for switching players. The method for switching players and substitutions is pretty clunky at the moment, drag/drop of the player to the position would make this a lot easier. Similarly, a mouseover popup of essential statistics of a player (name/position) would make figuring out who is where a lot easier and make tactical/formation changes easier.

- Quitting match still has a bug - I was losing 2-0 in a match, and decided to quit. The final score shown was 1-0.

- Better context for controlled player changes, perhaps using the direction of the ball rather than its location to select the best player? perhaps the joystick/keypad direction in conjunction with the switch player selection could be used to assist in assess which player you wish to change to.

- Multiplayer league/cup options, where multiple players can control different teams in the same league and alternate games, with a 2-player game when they meet?

- The rain animations are too heavy - they distract a lot from the gameplay, and make the ball and the players hard to see. I'd like an option to remove these, and/or reduce the visibility.

- A "watch match" option, so a more CM style experience can be had (combined with custom tactics and tactical changes on the fly, this could make for an interesting strategic game!)

- Maybe this is the NSS in me, but I'd still like to have the play as individual option. Perhaps you could play as any member of your team, rather than a specified player, to make the expereince different from NSS. This could also possibly get co-op play up and running as two ppl playing on the same machine.

- LAN Support for multiplayer. I know the online thing is still troublesome, but would a LAN game be easier? I'd happily buy this as a LAN game, and I think it'd be fair to require one license per player in that context. I would imagine the issues around letency and client/server models would be MUCH easier in that model.

More later - I have to rescue Liverpool's awful start to the season!!! Congrats Si on the game - I think the roots are there of another great gaming experience.

R.

[Tali-banana]

- It rains to often. I'm getting depressed by it

- And online is a huge selling point.

[RichPG]

It's a shame that SS is not proving as big a hit as expected. This may well be down to the success of the NSS series as a single player game. As a single player game SS is lacking a little in depth. A transfer system & online play would certainly improve it's appeal. I would still like real names if that's possible.

I probably played Sensible Soccer for the last 17 years off & on in it's various guises. What kept me coming back to it, was a great 2 player game. Sensational Soccer is a fantastic two player game. Sure it has it's faults, the way the nearest player is in your control can change between 2 players is sometimes maddening. Sensible Soccer suffered with this too, but to a lesser extent.

With the cost of games at the moment (i've got an Xbox360), Si's games are a steal. I do think NSS3 is far superior to most games i've played in ages & can't wait for successor.:dance:

[wonder]

- It rains to often. I'm getting depressed by it
It depends on whiich weather youre in, and if you dont like it, switch weather off......

[Tali-banana]

Well, in my opinion a game should leave a nice feeling. I'm not a guy that checks the "options"-part of the game before I play. It should be right from the start ;) As a default, it just rains too often. Not all countries are like England, Si ;)

[kentdevil]

First of, I could not find a thread where you could post about bugs and/or improvements. The thing is I noticed some of the player stats are just flat wrong. I play as newcastle united and I noticed that for instance Scott parker had a strength of 1, Albert Luque had positioning ability of 1. In real life I would not dare to pick a fight with scott, but he is a weakling in sensational soccer. Is this just a display error, or do some players actually have almost zero skill in some abilities? I have previously played nss3 and I know that the game got a lot better after some patches, I suppose this is the case with this great game too.

As for bugs in the game, I randomly switch keepers, I played against tottenham and the next game I had Paul robinson in goal. The same thing happened after I played boro, then I got Mark Scwarzer. Sad thing to trade Shay given for Mark Scwarzer, I am really depressed.

I love that you can give a back pass to the keeper when you are under pressure, however I find that the goalkeeper is a bit slow. Sometimes the ball comes towards him and if he has to run a couple of yards, he hesitates for ages. And why is the keeper always standing on the goal line? In real life he would sometimes stand outside the box to stop long balls and passes. And work as a sweeper.

And the final bug has been around since nss3. Sometimes when I beat the keeper with a shot, another team mate is positioned on the goal line and stops the shot, and the linesman blows for offside. This happens quite a few times. Anoying when you get a perfect shot past the keeper.

This became a rather long thread, but I feel that these issues ruin the gameplay somewhat. Bah, Now I saw the thread where you could post bugs, Feel free to move this one. :)

(moved)

[Fabrizio Gatti]

Actually, I prefer playing without rain, as I find easier to control the ball when it stops more (not sure if I made myself clear) so a little less rain could do well :D

[Bubka]

Although I also dislike the rain, I do find it necessary. Playing in rain isnt easy, so why should it easier in a game?

[Alex Reeves]

I don't have a problem with playing in the rain, but the sound and the animations are WAY too distracting as it is at the moment. When the rain animation makes it really hard to see the ball in a crowded penalty box, then there's something wrong.... not to mention the sound - an option to tone both down would help...

R.

[Bubka]

tone down sound had been there all the time. It is called windows sound options ;-)

[Alex Reeves]

;-)

It still takes away from the atmosphere when the volume of the rain drowns out the crowd noise... unless of course all the crowd leaves to find cover (or an ark?) once the heavens open....

It probably doesn't help that I usually play with headphones on, and the headphones make white noise appear a lot louder.

Si, if you're around, how much time will you be putting into improvements on SS compared to NSS4? I imagine NSS4 is going to be your big priority, just trying to assess how elaborate we should make our suggestions...

[Fabrizio Gatti]

This sound like a lot of work, but there could be a choice for climate, where you can choose a climate like London, but then there could be a climate like Arica, where it rains about once a year :D

[elyorch]

Of course it's hard playing when it's raining, but this happens in real life too, so I don't mind. Maybe there should be more kind of rains: a softer one, etc.

Also the weather should be the one of the country you're playing. In "Championship Soccer" there was an option to play with the current weather of your city. Only possible if you are online, cause that connected to some kind of weather service.

[JJU]

I haven't spent too much time playing SS but if the rain is anything like in NSS3 then I'd imagine it could do with toning down both visually and aurally (is that a word? :lol:)

[Fabrizio Gatti]

I think it's thicker, and maybe makes more noise :(

[Alex Reeves]

More issues/suggestions:

* When a player is sent off, you cannot change tactics. You have to kick the ball out or commit another foul before you have the ability to change tactics.

* I think this game really needs a sprint feature. This would be a fairer way of allocating Stamina values in a team environment - the more stamina, the more "sprint" a player has for a game. The idea is similar to what Sensible Soccer 2006 tried to do, but didn't quite pull off. This could also be used to simulate fatigue better i.e. you only get back a certain amount after each game, so if you sprint a lot in a game, you'll have less for the next game (this would encourage squad rotation in a league, for example). Similarly, your chance of getting injured if you are tackled while sprinting is doubled, so there's a risk in doing it.

I like this idea because it brings into play a whole new tactical level - you can sprint at defenders to tire them out and win man-man matches through attrition and tactical/positional changes. It also gives meaning to substitutions late in the game - a fully relaxed striker with lots of sprint in the final quarter of a game could be used to devastating effect. I guess the hardest element in this would be determining how the AI would use its sprint, tactics and substitutions functions, but I don't think it would be that hard to code that in.

[kentdevil]

I have played some more today and I find that the goalkeepers are sloppy. When you shoot straight at the keeper, they have a tendency to touch the ball and fumble the ball into goal. Often the ball crosses the line very slowly, but the keeper does not react. This happens regardless of weather conditions.

Also why should you have a huge squad when players hardly ever get injured or get suspensions?

[siread]

I will be updating soon but my main focus now is NSS4. Hopefully i'll have a new version of SS by the weekend. :)

[wrz]

in case there is some new SS version coming out, i noticed few things :
- Most of the time, when you cross the ball, cpu teamates just run to the net and goes offside all the time, they might just stop and stand somewhere free in box
- When there is a throw-in stick to the goal kick/corner line, player picked up to throw get out of the pitch and make it goal kick/corner
- I think ball curving control is too long after you kick it, you cant properly control other players it just made the ball curving again and again
- Sometimes i have to exit the game because i found myself stuck with few greyed option (after loading a game and going back to menu)

Great game tho :D cant wait to have some online action in NSS4 despite i think its more funny to control a full team when you face someone else (or thats what is planned in nss4 ?)

[AfterDeath]

-Online mode: I know previous versions didnt work, but if you get this to work Si... this game would be a massive hit.

Agreed. SS Online was what made the game for me. Although playing the AI is good fun, sometimes you wish that you were playing another human.

[Fabrizio Gatti]

You can play another human in the same PC ;) But I know what you mean :)

[Master Chief123]

Maybe the ability to buy/sell players in League Mode would give SS MUCH more depth. Also, it doesn't seem like you can have more then one team in League Mode..am I just doing something wrong ?

[VDSF1]

sensational soccer 2 suggestions/ideas:for atleast now

-ball control system:this should actually must be THE basic element of football/soccer
but well,that you really must use your ballskills from now on to control it,
just like you must in real life also,that would make the game
much more tactical to