Tactic Wizard causes more problems and creates a new playing field

Now we know that the new tactics wizard is just a mask that hides the old tactics system of sliders. Playing with the wizard and testing the match engine. I came across a small flaw with the touchline instructions.

Don't get me wrong, it's a nice feature and one that we should keep but the flaw I see is the settings won't work if you manually adjust the team/individual tactics to suit your individual preference. This overrides any instructions given by the touchline instructions.

Example I manually set the width line to be quite high as I wanted to use my wingers alot. When I watched the match I noticed it wasn't as affective so decided to use the touchline instructions and set it to play narrower, exploit through middle. After a few mins, I noticed my instructions had no affect, went to tactics screen and noticed none of the sliders had moved from the previous settings I set them. Therefore rendering a useless feature.

Now the touchline instructions is a good feature to have. What I propose is that we can pre-set the touchline instructions to change our tactics accordingly. So touchline instructions for play narrower is pre-set to - 5.

my width line is set at 17. When I use the touchline instructions of play narrower it should automatically drop my width line to 12 and should override the individual team player instructions until I take it off.

Deltaroad, thanks for your testing to confirm this for the rest of the forum community. Much appreciated!

I think your idea of how to proceed is a likely evolution for this feature in the future, its a good suggestion.

This problem - which instruction takes precedence? - comes up anytime we've discussed adding a second UI interface through which one can reach the same controls, e.g., such as having player-specific "individual instructions" which override the ones selected in the main interface.

For the moment, I'm not disappointed .. I'm usually an uber-control-freak, preferring an Advanced UI to a Wizard-like one, but for this release I was planning on tackling the Wizard until I find something I can't get it to do the way I want it.

Deltaroad, thanks for your testing to confirm this for the rest of the forum community. Much appreciated!

I think your idea of how to proceed is a likely evolution for this feature in the future, its a good suggestion.

This problem - which instruction takes precedence? - comes up anytime we've discussed adding a second UI interface through which one can reach the same controls, e.g., such as having player-specific "individual instructions" which override the ones selected in the main interface.

For the moment, I'm not disappointed .. I'm usually an uber-control-freak, preferring an Advanced UI to a Wizard-like one, but for this release I was planning on tackling the Wizard until I find something I can't get it to do the way I want it.

Thanks I am glad my idea is being read and considered. I too don't like the wizard, I mean everything is preset. When you want to adjust things you can't you have to adjust things via individual settings

I think the wizard is a good idea as a guide but can should also allowed tweeks to be made WITHOUT going to the individual screen.

This is something SI needs to implement.

As for the argument of which should override what it should be this order.

Touchline instructions can override individual instructions, individual instructions can override team instructions.

This is an issue i raised in another thread here.

I share your sentiments to be honest. The fact that you can't change settings yourself if you want the touchline shouts to work properly puts me well off using the wizard. For one, it's confusing. If i make enough tweaks, i'm liable to forget which shouts are going to affect who and which individuals won't be affected.

As it is, i think the wizard is good for those who have no patience to find success with the original way, and it is good as an idea to see how roles are set up in a pre-set way, but i don't think it satisfies me at this moment in time.

I can see the problem with whether touchline shouts override individual instructions or vice versa. Personally i think shouts overriding is best, but then there may be a situation where you do not want a shout to effect a person. I think though that you can get around this simpler as you will know who you want it not to effect and can quickly go into the tactics screen and change it for them. If individual instructions override shouts, you may have a lot of people with individual tweaks that won't be affected and that is more complicated.

I also think that when you give a touchline shout it takes to long to implement,

Certainly needs a lot more work done to it

Quick one if i change the amount of long shots a player takes or through balls does that then screw up the touchline shouts?? or does that only apply when you change the attacking sliders ??

As far as I know it's designed to be like this currently.

I'm sure that others would complain if it worked vice versa...

SI just had to make a decision either way and both would have been fine with me (just as long as I'm aware which setting overrides the other, which I do now, thanks to your input ).

Quick one if i change the amount of long shots a player takes or through balls does that then screw up the touchline shouts?? or does that only apply when you change the attacking sliders ??

If you manually set any setting, long shots in your example, away from where it was after using the tactics wizard, no touchline shout will change that, even if it would normally alter the specific setting.

Are they screwed up then? Depends on your view. I think it's okay, we just have to be aware what they do and do not do.

Quick one if i change the amount of long shots a player takes or through balls does that then screw up the touchline shouts?? or does that only apply when you change the attacking sliders ??

All players with a team instruction will increase LB or TB by 1.

This is what I mean by the flaw in the design. Would mean everyone has an increase of an attribute that you may not want to be in the game.

It's screwed up because it's confusing. If it has to work like that then the shouts that will not change anything need to be disabled and greyed out. Right now it will cause moments where the player will be punished for mistakes that aren't actually his fault - like using the 'drop deeper' shout after scoring a goal when his defensive line is manually set therefore rendering the shout useless. The game does not warn about this in any way.

Playing around with the Tactic Wizard (TW) is good fun but it has the inability to fine tunes things. It lacks fine tuning of Team Instructions (TI) as it is already been pre-set. Often the pre-set TI isn't good enough or too much has been set and you want to tone it down or up, but you can't and you are forced to combat this with tweaking of Individual Instructions (II).

This then throws the tactics structure to a whole different level of tactics creating. For one as I have mentioned here A flaw in the Touchline Instructions when II are tweaked the Touchline Shouts (TS) cannot override the II. Therefore only half of the team will respond to the TS.

The TW should allow you to tweak TI as well as II, it should only be used a guide not as a basic to create a starting tactic. The TW actually causes you more problems in tactics making because it changes how tactics are made as you have to take into account the TS and how that will affect you. Of course you don't have to use the TS but for those who do, think how it will affect the outcome of the play.

I actually think TW and TS are both conflicting each other. They don't work together at all. This is something SI needs to address. Infact lot of the time TS is useless as more then likily TI has been tweaked and tampered with.

I think TW can be taken out of the game and leave in TS. TW is just the pre-set tactics we had in the previous FM series but instead the pre-set are customised to our requirements. If we just built the tactics from scratch the TS will work alot better as we are able to change the teams philosophy with a touch of a button. Either that or have the ability to tweak TI without tweaking the II settings as well.

Overall classic tactics > Tactic Wizard.

Thoughts?

So, that means that that touchline shouts are useless?

So, as I said in the your other thread, the Touchline shouts are useless.

So, that means that that touchline shouts are useless?

It's only useless to those that have individual instructions sets. Which is more then likely.

It's screwed up because it's confusing. If it has to work like that then the shouts that will not change anything need to be disabled and greyed out. Right now it will cause moments where the player will be punished for mistakes that aren't actually his fault - like using the 'drop deeper' shout after scoring a goal when his defensive line is manually set therefore rendering the shout useless. The game does not warn about this in any way.

Well, we are warned now. Let's wait for the manual to see if users are warned.

I expect many shouts to have an effect on more than just one slider. So they are useless only if you have customized really anything manually for every player (remember, this is exactly the need which Si want to get away from by creating the wizard). While some specific settings might be overridden and thus not alterred for some players, I expect no touchline shout will be fully useless or close to that.

Yes only if the II settings are set ON.

It's only useless to those that have individual instructions sets. Which is more then likely.

So, it's useless then... I can't imagine many people not wanting to give individual instructions to players...

Oh my...

SI didn't say anything like that... Did they expect us to not find out?

Yes only if the II settings are set ON.

Sorry, the what?

Individual Instructions (II) See opening post.

DR, I'm coming more and more to agree with you. To keep it short, I think we should look on the wizard as a starting point - something that was always said about TT & F set-ups. It's an arbitrary notion of how tactics should be set, and not a finished article, which we need to complete ourselves.

Well, we are warned now. Let's wait for the manual to see if users are warned.

I expect many shouts to have an effect on more than just one slider. So they are useless only if you have customized really anything manually for every player (remember, this is exactly the need which Si want to get away from by creating the wizard). While some specific settings might be overridden and thus not alterred for some players, I expect no touchline shout will be fully useless or close to that.

A section in the manual is not exactly enough though is it. The game should make it apparent that while you shout 'drop deeper' to your players you're actually not going to change anything. I have changed several settings manually on several players and I've also customized team instructions. So unless I remember every change in detail as well as study the exact effect a shout will have on each setting then all the shouts will be completely useless as I'd still have to go to the tactics page to check if it actually worked or not. Kind of defeats the purpose of having them in in the first place.

I think TW can be taken out of the game and leave in TS. TW is just the pre-set tactics we had in the previous FM series but instead the pre-set are customised to our requirements. If we just built the tactics from stretch the TS will work alot better as we are able to change the teams philosophy with a touch of a button. Either that or have the ability to tweak TI without tweaking the II settings as well.

Overall classic tactics > Tactic Wizard.

Thoughts?

I strongly disagree with them taking out TW. They should rather fix it with a patch. TS should always take priority. If you have instructed you players to play wide and you see it doesn't work, you should be able to use TS to quickly have them go more narrow.

Just like if Wenger have told them how to play they would adjust their style if Wenger told them so from the touchline.

You often see managers calling the team captain over when there stop in play and give some orders, the captain tell a few other players and in seconds the whole team know the adjustments.

I have always hated the 20 point sliders coz I thiink its so unrealistc. A manager would never tell a player to have creative freedom 9 or 17. And the Wizard made alot more sense in terms of realism.

Fix the conflict between TW,TI and TS. don't remove any of it!

I strongly disagree with them taking out TW. They should rather fix it with a patch. TS should always take priority. If you have instructed you players to play wide and you see it doesn't work, you should be able to use TS to quickly have them go more narrow.

Just like if Wenger have told them how to play they would adjust their style if Wenger told them so from the touchline.

You often see managers calling the team captain over when there stop in play and give some orders, the captain tell a few other players and in seconds the whole team know the adjustments.

I have always hated the 20 point sliders coz I thiink its so unrealistc. A manager would never tell a player to have creative freedom 9 or 17. And the Wizard made alot more sense in terms of realism.

Fix the conflict between TW,TI and TS. don't remove any of it!

I suggested it being removed because it isn't something new. The TW is just the pre-set tactics we had in FM09, FM08., FM07 and so forth. There is no real difference besides customising some aspects but even then before the TW the pre-set tactics we customised some aspects ourselves anyway. So I don't see what the TW had that the pre-set tactics didn't have.

As for the 20 point sliders being unrealistic and the TW making more sense it really doesn't. The TW is just the sliders systems underneath. Pretty much all football manager game has a slider concept underneath the bonnet. When you give instructions like play more narrow the AI just adjust the sliders accordingly. Difference is, in FM we can actually see the sliders and can adjust to to a degree of what you want. Which is actually more realistic.

I have always hated the 20 point sliders coz I thiink its so unrealistc. A manager would never tell a player to have creative freedom 9 or 17. And the Wizard made alot more sense in terms of realism.

Actually they would. Managers would give instructions to their AMC to be more creative but on certain game he may wish to exploit the wings and tell them to creative things from their wide positions. In term toning down his AMC creativity and giving more creative freedom to his wingers.

A section in the manual is not exactly enough though is it. The game should make it apparent that while you shout 'drop deeper' to your players you're actually not going to change anything. I have changed several settings manually on several players and I've also customized team instructions. So unless I remember every change in detail as well as study the exact effect a shout will have on each setting then all the shouts will be completely useless as I'd still have to go to the tactics page to check if it actually worked or not. Kind of defeats the purpose of having them in in the first place.

I doubt SI has spotted their mistake or else why would they release a thing knowing it didn't fully function? (Ok cue past feature that didn't work from people) but my point is I doubt SI has tested it fully.

As for shouts changing anything, I am sure some shouts tweak two or more settings. Example "retain possession" will adjust players mentality as well creative freedom. So both settings will have to be on default if you plan on using that.

Deltaroad: Very good analysis and wanted to show my support. Also with the whole slider part, I think a lot of people don't realise that they are dealing with a 'calculating mechanism' which we have some control over as long as we keep the settings within realistic boundries. Sliders are just a 'mathmatical' translation of how tactical instructions work, and it really doesn't have anything to do with "should the setting be 9 or 8" but "9 or 8 in conjunction with what other slider(s) will make a tactical decision workable". Sliders have two mechanisms: an attacking one and a defensive one, so it is up to the Gamers to figure out which direction they have to move the slider to activate the 'desired' mechanism. Keeping the sliders in the same relative 'mindset' should make their tactics functionable, but they will experience the opposite if they somehow make contradicting instructions. When they look at the few options they have it should become visually clear...

OMG, I can't believe this hasn't been taken care of? I haven't tried the demo yet (I will wait till next Friday) and was really looking forward to the new tactical part of the game, but now I'm a bit skeptical!

I believe that the "Tactic Wizard" and "Touchline Instructions" were implemented to make the tactical part of the game quicker and easier to handle. Now, having the Individual Instructions overruling the Touchline Instructions - it just doesn't make any sense... (!!!) Is this really how it was ment to be implemented? How many are using global settings in their tactics? It's not many! I hope SI could look at the overruling thing for their first patch...

Despite all the analysis, the Touchline Instructions will be a non-working feature for most players.

Amazing.

I thought the wizard was for people who didn't want to delve into all the tactics. If you do then you don't use it.

I see it as two seperate implementations of the same thing, rather than them both working together

I strongly disagree with them taking out TW. They should rather fix it with a patch. TS should always take priority. If you have instructed you players to play wide and you see it doesn't work, you should be able to use TS to quickly have them go more narrow.

Just like if Wenger have told them how to play they would adjust their style if Wenger told them so from the touchline.

You often see managers calling the team captain over when there stop in play and give some orders, the captain tell a few other players and in seconds the whole team know the adjustments.

I have always hated the 20 point sliders coz I thiink its so unrealistc. A manager would never tell a player to have creative freedom 9 or 17. And the Wizard made alot more sense in terms of realism.

Fix the conflict between TW,TI and TS. don't remove any of it!

Yes, this.

I suggested it being removed because it isn't something new. The TW is just the pre-set tactics we had in FM09, FM08., FM07 and so forth. There is no real difference besides customising some aspects but even then before the TW the pre-set tactics we customised some aspects ourselves anyway. So I don't see what the TW had that the pre-set tactics didn't have.

They are just another way to interface with all those sliders that is a little more human. Yes, you can do everything that the TW does manually if you want, but that's no reason to remove it.

Hope SI never get rid of the tactics creator as it adds a element of realistic fun even if it is just pre-set sliders presented in a different way. If i want to make a striker constantly poach i'd rather (through the wizard) be able to tell him to be a "poacher" rather than adjust sliders left right and center. Tactics wizard simply cuts to the chase!

It's screwed up because it's confusing. If it has to work like that then the shouts that will not change anything need to be disabled and greyed out. Right now it will cause moments where the player will be punished for mistakes that aren't actually his fault - like using the 'drop deeper' shout after scoring a goal when his defensive line is manually set therefore rendering the shout useless. The game does not warn about this in any way.

Emphasis added - I think that's a crucial suggestion; an easy short-term solution to this which could be addressed in a patch.

To some other points, I doubt SI are "unaware" of this; this was clearly a decision which they had to address and think about while coding the feature, and there isn't a "right" answer to it.

It is as easy to think of a situation where I would want the touchline shout not to affect a player whose individual instructions I have set as it is to think of a situation where I would want it to affect him.

I think opinions on this are going to come down to: how much are you using the new tactical Wizard, and how much are you stepping through to override things with the checkboxes on the Advanced screens.

If you're happily using the Wizard for 95% of your tactic and have just a few things you are overriding on Advanced screens, this may be designed perfectly. If you're not using the Wizard at all and are doing everything on Advanced screens, then "Toucline Shouts" aren't going to work for you at all.

Hope SI never get rid of the tactics creator as it adds a element of realistic fun even if it is just pre-set sliders presented in a different way. If i want to make a striker constantly poach i'd rather (through the wizard) be able to tell him to be a "poacher" rather than adjust sliders left right and center. Tactics wizard simply cuts to the chase!

TW is a good feature to have don't get me wrong I have said it's good feature from the start but I just don't see what the difference is between the TW and the pre-set tactics we had. If anything TW involves more work then the pre-set tactics.

Example If I wanted to play a 4-4-2 attacking formation. Using the TW I would go through 7 stages? to do this. Each stage- Role of player, duty of player involves as much as 11 clicks for each position. Combine with 5-6 stages of fine tuning 11 players I still have to fine tune the individual settings after the TW has created the tactic.

Where as the pre-set route just involves me clicking the 4-4-2 attacking option and fine tuning things.

Anyway the thread isn't about TW vs Classic tactic its about the buggy problems the tactic system has created in conjunction with the TS.

Ov Collyer why can't a patch be released to let TS overide II? i don't really want to wait a year to use the TS.

If you're happily using the Wizard for 95% of your tactic and have just a few things you are overriding on Advanced screens, this may be designed perfectly. If you're not using the Wizard at all and are doing everything on Advanced screens, then "Toucline Shouts" aren't going to work for you at all.

Exactly, and the game has to make it 100% clear to the player if his shout is not going to function in the way he's expecting it to. Because the option to use shouts is still right there even if you've set everything manually. A player is naturally going to assume that the function will work if he has direct access to it. Right now the feature might not work for the user at all but he'll never know unless he accidentally figures it out somehow.

Emphasis added - I think that's a crucial suggestion; an easy short-term solution to this which could be addressed in a patch.

To some other points, I doubt SI are "unaware" of this; this was clearly a decision which they had to address and think about while coding the feature, and there isn't a "right" answer to it.

It is as easy to think of a situation where I would want the touchline shout not to affect a player whose individual instructions I have set as it is to think of a situation where I would want it to affect him.

I think opinions on this are going to come down to: how much are you using the new tactical Wizard, and how much are you stepping through to override things with the checkboxes on the Advanced screens.

If you're happily using the Wizard for 95% of your tactic and have just a few things you are overriding on Advanced screens, this may be designed perfectly. If you're not using the Wizard at all and are doing everything on Advanced screens, then "Toucline Shouts" aren't going to work for you at all.

Well greying out the commands isn't a solution at all. If anything it adds to the problem. In short the Touchline shouts should override all instructions TO A GIVEN VALUE like I suggested, so example would be.

As a team our mentality is 13. But Wingers, MCa are set to 15.

The Touchline shouts for "Push further forward" is set at +3.

Which means when I activate "push further forward" it will automatically change the Team instructions and Indivdual instructions by 3 notches.

So team mentality would change to 16 and wingers, MCa would change to 18.

This means changes are conducted as A TEAM and the structures, formations are not lost. It's the same tactic but 3 notches up.

Emphasis added - I think that's a crucial suggestion; an easy short-term solution to this which could be addressed in a patch.

To some other points, I doubt SI are "unaware" of this; this was clearly a decision which they had to address and think about while coding the feature, and there isn't a "right" answer to it.

It is as easy to think of a situation where I would want the touchline shout not to affect a player whose individual instructions I have set as it is to think of a situation where I would want it to affect him.

I think opinions on this are going to come down to: how much are you using the new tactical Wizard, and how much are you stepping through to override things with the checkboxes on the Advanced screens.

If you're happily using the Wizard for 95% of your tactic and have just a few things you are overriding on Advanced screens, this may be designed perfectly. If you're not using the Wizard at all and are doing everything on Advanced screens, then "Toucline Shouts" aren't going to work for you at all.

The has been in FML for a while and this has been raised there and wwfan replied.

(This isn't word for word because I can't find the thread) but essentialy he said that the wizard sets everything up as a unit- including individual roles. Basicaly every players' instruction changes depending on whether its counter or attacking or some other strategy.

Now customisable shouts and player roles is something that he would like to see in the future but atm the coding would be too difficult- this also goes for over-riding a role and entering your own instructions. Hence shouts can't work for "classic" or for custom settings:)

I agree touchline shouts could work better when individual instructions that have been customised and there are future plans to improve many aspects of the system including this one.

But taking out the tactics creator?

Try telling that to all the people telling us how much easier it is to create tactics under this system.

I am sorry, but what's the use of giving us touchline instructions if most players won't be able to use them?

And why didn't you mention that this feature would not be working for people who use individual player instructions in the first place?

I mean... wow...

ok , so just to summarize...

If I tweak a players instructions , this will render the touchline shout feature useless for that player?

It just means that specific instructions you have set won't be altered by the touchline instructions, but the various other instructions you haven't overridden will still be affected.

To say 'most players won't be using them' is so far wide of the target it's gone off for a throw-in!

Certainly room for improvement of course, as with all areas of the game and we will certainly be taking all feedback into account for future versions.

I am sorry, but most players actually change individual player instructions. Some do it a little, some do it more, some go overboard with it.

The point is that most of them do it, even if it means changing the instructions of just one player.

Touchline instructions are only useful to people who don't bother with the above. I mean, why put it there in the first place if it is not a working feature for all?

It is just baffling and clearly shows that it's just something you did in order to advertise it as a new feature.

Which in turn could explain the reason why you didn't clarify this in the first place, hoping perhaps that we wouldn't notice?

I'm not convinced that having TSs override PIs would always be what you want anyway.

It depends on what you wanted - I might want to tell my wide man never to run with the ball because he's a useless dribbled and maybe I wouldn't want a TI to change it for him.

The solution is more complex and maybe involves being able to specify how you want overridden instructions to work, but is something we aim to improve in future.

In the meantime, unless you override many instructions for many players, which I don't believe the vast majority of people who might buy pthe game are going to do, then I think the

the existing system works just fine.

How about a small tick option to say touchline instructions to override whole team, attacking players only, defensive players only, wingers only or individual players?

So for individual players there will be a pulled down list where you can click/choose which player the shouts will affect.

ok , so just to summarize...

If I tweak a players instructions , this will render the touchline shout feature useless for that player?

Yes, that's correct.

ok , so just to summarize...

If I tweak a players instructions , this will render the touchline shout feature useless for that player?

Tocuhline instructions only works for default settings.

So if AML has a default setting and AMR has a personalised settings TS will only affect AML.

Why put it there in the first place? Have a read of some of the other threads where people are really enjoying using the touchline instructions. Ask them if they'd like it now removed because you dislike one aspect of it.

Similarly, ask other people if they're even aware that their shouts don't work half the time because they've made manual adjustments to tactics. I don't have that much of a problem with how the system works but you have to make this aspect clear to everyone who uses it.

The whole ignore it or allow it is a good suggestion. There is no way Si can implement this in time for the next patch? Or make any adjustments to the Touchline shouts before the FM11? It's a shame if not.

As for people enjoying the TS feature, I don't think they even release half of the instructions they give don't even work lol. I doubt people play it as just with the default settings.

To me, i think a simple solution would be to have touchline shouts that work with the classic system. It would be different in that it would override individual instructions (as all instructions would be manually created). People who want to create custom tactics can do so and still use the shouts, even using the wizard as a guide. People who are not confident creating their own tactics can use the wizard and hardly adjust the instructions, so shouts as they are now would work reasonably effectively for them.

It's maybe a compromise. Two separate systems for different people. (As it partly is now, only managers who want to use the classic system don't get the benefit of the touchline shouts feature.)