Removing the slider numbers?

While the new tactical wizard (which is very likely to be introduced in the next version) is a great idea, it makes use of ideas which are created by fellow gamers according to how they understand the game (i admit that i have not seen the tactical wizard in action but reading posts in the forum has led me to believe that it was build by using the TTF guide (Let me say that this is not a rant against the tactical wizard nor the good work done by wwfan and others in creating the guide/ideas)). Though the ideas are good and if applied to the right team might bring in success, i have often found that if i try to modify the mentality, closing down or the creative freedom settings even by a couple of notches, the team starts to play rubbish.

Even though i have a very minimal knowledge of the game's tactical interface, i usually play with the slider positions for a long time before finally gaining some understanding of how it works.

But the difficulty, or realism, has increased in this version, meaning that you will have to be spot on with your tactics and if there is a weakness, then you cannot hope to smudge it by buying quality players (which is a good thing).

Now assuming that the next version will maintain the same margin of error (or further reduces it) and assuming that the tactical wizard will built on community ideas, then i am in for another frustrating time when building tactics for FM10.

One of the major reasons which i believe leads to confusion (and frustration) with respect to tactics building among newbies (and those who have not managed to grasp how they exactly work) is the ambiguity of sliders. While the bottom six sliders are simple to understand...its the top four sliders (mentality, creative freedom, passing and closing down) which are the most confusing.

What i would like to see (and i hope many others will agree) is the reduction of the slider numbers from 20 (or is it 21) to just three to five. For example, the mentality slider could be limited to just ultra defensive, defensive, normal, attacking and gung ho (or all out attack). Similarly creative freedom could be limited to none, little, normal, much and free role. Passing as short, mixed, direct and long while closing down could be shortened to just own area, own half or whole pitch.

In one of the other threads suggesting the same idea, one of the posts said that the slider numbers helped in positioning a player for example a central midfielder sit a little deeper than normal. But this could be done with just five states of mentality rather than 20.

Once again let me say that this is not a post criticizing the TTF guide but instead what i think will simplify that tactic design and yet allow a gamer to develop his own idea regardng how his side should play. Would love to know what others think about this suggestion

I totally agree with your post. Was gonna post about these issues myself, but was too busy making a tactic!!!!

I think that the number slider should be ditched altogether, as it is too much of a code breaker, that has nothing to do with football in anyway. Its just that we have all been brainwashed into footie management in this way. I am currently hooked on making tactics, but from game to game, the outcome and results are so varied!!

For example, In place of the sliders from 1-20, maybe there could be a drop down box beside "Mentality" with 20 different text instructions, as this would be less confusing...i think... And so on for each slider title. (Maybe 20 instructions are too many)

Getting rid of the "Draw" arrows is a mistake imo. If anything SI could have added a different colour arrows for defensive instructions, as to which positions to run into etc...

The game is great, but its too formulaic regarding those slider. Too many a day & night has been wasted forever trying to tweek the perfect formula. Addictive & dangerous and very frustrating at times