My thoughts on the new Browser version (FWIW)
Well, it's been a week since the new version of TE landed on my laptop and what a week it's been. I'll run through my thoughts on the appearance and then my experiences in actually using it. I will not be critiquing the game itself, only the GUI and the content vis-a-vis the old browser version, and some of the differences between TE2015 and TE2016 as far as I am concerned.
Appearance
1) I didn't know exactly what to expect from the new browser version, but what appears to be a direct port of the Android App (I don't use iOS so can't speak from experience there) wasn't high on the expectation list - due to the difference in screen sizes and resolution what fits and looks neat and tidy on the mobile phone looks big and clunky and doesn't fit on the laptop screen, causing lots of scrolling up and down to see what is just off the top and/or bottom of the screen. [4/10]
2) On the other hand, due to it being a direct port then there are advantages in that everything looks the same on both platforms (with certain exceptions, see later), but some behaviours are different, e.g. having to press buttons to get to other subscreens rather then swiping with the finger. The number of times in match situations where I've swiped across the laptop touchpad then slapped myself on the side of the head and pressed the button to get from the match screen to the squad or tactics screen or vice-versa... [8/10]
3) Main Differences between Browser and App version:
The Browser main screen in an amalgam of the three screens that make up the main screen on the App, putting all that information on one screen, with the 'News' sections a mouse-click away on tabs at the top of the screen. [7/10]
The Browser match report main screen is an amalgam of the first three report screens on the App - a useful use of the extra space available on the browser screen but has resulted in limiting the amount of the Highlights that are visible at any one time (scrolling) and forced the Statistics into a single column (more scrolling), and that column is confusingly out of order compared with the two-column full-screen edition on the App. Nice idea but poorly executed. [5/10]
The other two tabs on the Browser match report are 'Line-up and Fans', a combination of the two tabs of those names on the App. This tab is reduced in size and fits well onto the screen and is still legible. The other tab, 'Ratings' is a direct correlation with the App screen, but is not reduced in size and needs scrolling to see the bottom two players on each side - not a model of consistency with the previously-mentioned screen. [9/10, 6/10]
Main differences between TE2015 and TE2016.
1) Most of these have been mentioned in previous posts, but from my point of view the most lamentable exclusions (in no particular order) are:
- The team current season and history summary screens from the 'Club' section.
- The ability to quit the current team and take over a lower level team from the 'Manager' section.
- The ability to see opponent's squad details (including quality and SAs) prior to a match from the 'Match Preview' section - how on earth are we to make adequate preparations for a match when we are unable to set a team which counters the opponents' threat players? IRL the clubs get a chance to scout the opposition and get a handle on what they could be facing before they even train and compose the match day squad - half the time we are setting our match squads blind to whatever threats the opponent poses and have to change the team once the match has started when we know exactly what the other team contains.
- The filtering facility from the Transfer Market - no longer can we click a couple of buttons/tick-boxes and see whether there are any 20-23 yo MCs with SA in the TM (for example)... [0/10]
2) Most annoying change between TE2015 and TE2016 is the introduction of percentages over numerical Quality. IMO very confusing (120%, what?) and the cause of many click-click-click actions to get to a screen which will tell me what 95% is in old currency so I can make a reasonable decision on squad selection or whether I will purchase a player in the TM. Not much chance of getting it changed however, as it is inextricably linked into the most dramatic change to TE, the new Training system. [2/10]
3) New training system
The first time I logged into TE2016 I saw the '2' in a blue box next to the (new) training icon, wondered what it represented and clicked to find out - having a match in the next hour and seeing the message that training sessions needed to be made, and not knowing the effect should I not do the training, I saw with relief the 'Quick Training' section, clicked on a couple of those and then got down to preparing the squad for the match. It was only later when I had time that I really got a look into what it contained, and could see the intention and progression. The ability to look back and repeat training sessions that were particularly beneficial or would produce the required effect at minimal condition loss is useful, but would benefit from the ability for the manager to save some of these sessions (5, 6?) separate from the report screen, with individual names/descriptions so that the manager can recall and use them when needed. [7/10, but could go up with further experience]
4) In-match bonus/boosters
I haven't yet seen any proof that the match boosters give a benefit while in-match, the match graphics don't show any change in behaviour, or boost to condition or reduction in depletion rate, so as far as I am concerned the jury is still out there. [1/10]
Running TE2016 on a computer.
I suppose I am lucky in that I have a 4GB i3 laptop which was able to run TE2016 without modification, however to get the best results out of it I had to modify the MSConfig file to remove any non-essential start programs and services in order to run TE and still have room in memory for other things I might want to use at the same time.
Let's face it, TE2016 is a humungous beast which takes a lot of memory - Firefox memory usage goes up to 1.25GB - (how it compares to the previous TE I can't say with any accuracy) and makes things very warm. I have a 480GB SSD fitted, and in normal operation the cooling fan is definitely off, and all is silent. Even with previous TE, the cooling fan was off while I was using it. With TE2016, the cooling fan comes on the moment the startup screen lights up, and goes off and comes on with annoying regularity thereafter, except when in live match, when the fan is on continuously. I have a few other memory/graphics intensive games (Cities: Skylines is my other constant-play game) and none of them hit the computer as hard as TE, judging by the cooling fan activity. [3/10 for getting it onto PC platform, make it less resource-hungry and I'll revise the rating]
The lack of support for Internet Explorer was another surprise - as I run two teams (on two FB accounts), one was on IE and the other on FireFox, and when both had matches at the same time I could run both IE and FF and flip between the two. Not a chance with TE2016, I've managed to get two FF profiles set up so that I can run either team separately, but things go rapidly downhill if I try to run both and open TE in them at the same time. Unless anyone else has any other advice on that... [4/10 for finally getting me off IE]
[NB: somebody did suggest that Microsoft Edge (replacement for IE) in Windows 10 might be able to run TE, but as I upgraded to W10 and tried it, no it doesn't...]
Summary.
TE2016 - I like it, up to a point. As I've been using the TE App for almost as long as I've been using the Browser version, the change hasn't been so traumatic, but not without issues.
It's too resource-hungry and hits the computer like a sledge-hammer - it needs to take a lot less memory so that players with older and smaller computers can use it.
Some/most of the screens need to be redesigned or simply resized so that they actually fit onto a full-screen browser window. As it runs in FB then the FB side bar needs to be taken into account for those that run it that way. One part that needs to be redone is the order of the items on the one-column Statistics screen in the match report, there is no logic to the order that is presented at the moment, and it is very confusing.
Put back in the screens/facilities that were taken out/omitted in the redevelopment to TE2016 - it's not just the browser version that was affected, they went AWOL from the TE2016 App as well (and some, e.g. the TM filters, went from TE2015 App).
Overall rating: 6/10
Thankyou for reading up to this point, hope it's been useful...
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A handy way of using the old version of Top Eleven to improve skills?
I've no idea if anyone else has found this "backdoor" to apply skill points to the actual areas where you'd like to place them, but there is, at present, a way to do so, even after you have got the newer "updated" version of this game.
You'll find that if you can "trick/con/fool" the browser in to thinking you've had an issue when loading the newer version of the game and it will ask you if you want to reload the old version, due to problems you've "encountered"
I found that out, purely by chance, that when playing this game on my Desktop PC, as it was loading the game it had frozen up for a second or two. It then reloaded and asked if I wanted to use the old browser, as a message was on screen saying
It looks like you're having issues loading the new Top Eleven version, would you like to try again or to load the old one?
When it loaded the older version I had over two dozen "unread messages" that had never showed up in the new version, along with onscreen updates for players that had levelled up. None of these had shown on the new version of the game and also I could see my fan-base had gone up to 97.5K!
(I find it odd that I only get 19,000 in the ground though, and the gate fee is set low to allow more in too!) Has anyone got any thoughts on crowds/support at home games that could be of help? My garage/parking is maxed out too, by the way
So I tried it out again afterwards, by using the old version, just in case it was a fluke/random event by closing the game when loading it on my desktop PC and, as suggested, it offered me the choice of both versions on the loading screen.
My web-browser, by the way, is Google Chrome, and as I said I forced it to "crash" on opening the game in Facebook (basically I closed it as it was loading the game!)
I then did all my skill training on individual players, as well as smaller groups of players, and applied the skill points to the areas where I actually wanted them, even applying them to the newer positions I had added to players. No percentages or random placing of skills, no messages telling me I didn't get any bonuses etc (although these are handy in an actual game!). I just added the skill points the "old school" way by choosing where I wanted to place them and my players have improved a lot faster in the areas where I needed them to do so.
So, if you've not tried this out, give it a go, it could help you out....
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^^^ Old School ^^^
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