"Match engine is sensitive" and "you need to move this and set that"

I see just too many ppl saying how every little detail, every little seting is soo important in tactics. How every little detail can change the game. Do you people realize then in reality is NOT like this? How many of you did really train a football team? I would like to see coplete different tactical setup for this game. You can do formation, you cant tell player to be more defensive and to watch this winger and to hold ball and wait for second MD to get forward. In real life who tells to the player "on scale from 0-20 when 10 is neutral you are going to be at 14... that mean you will attack, but not that much, not even like medium attack, you need to be little bit lees on attacking mode then medium. Next i will tell you how your creativity will be... 16... surpised huh?!

Where is the reality here?

are you being serious? i'd say there are a hell of a lot more variables than 20 when telling a player whether or not he should be performing attacking/defensive duties

then again i've never coached a sunday league team.

I see just too many ppl saying how every little detail, every little seting is soo important in tactics. How every little detail can change the game. Do you people realize then in reality is NOT like this? How many of you did really train a football team? I would like to see coplete different tactical setup for this game. You can do formation, you cant tell player to be more defensive and to watch this winger and to hold ball and wait for second MD to get forward. In real life who tells to the player "on scale from 0-20 when 10 is neutral you are going to be at 14... that mean you will attack, but not that much, not even like medium attack, you need to be little bit lees on attacking mode then medium. Next i will tell you how your creativity will be... 16... surpised huh?!

Where is the reality here?

So what's the alternative? Is there a better way to convey tactics and player instructions that you have thought of?

Just shout at your pc then,it might work,it is real anyway

Just shout at your pc then,it might work,it is real anyway

That only works if the volume on your pc is turned up to max

I see just too many ppl saying how every little detail, every little seting is soo important in tactics. How every little detail can change the game. Do you people realize then in reality is NOT like this? How many of you did really train a football team? I would like to see coplete different tactical setup for this game. You can do formation, you cant tell player to be more defensive and to watch this winger and to hold ball and wait for second MD to get forward. In real life who tells to the player "on scale from 0-20 when 10 is neutral you are going to be at 14... that mean you will attack, but not that much, not even like medium attack, you need to be little bit lees on attacking mode then medium. Next i will tell you how your creativity will be... 16... surpised huh?!

Where is the reality here?

I take it you don't use the creator then?

So what's the alternative? Is there a better way to convey tactics and player instructions that you have thought of?

Of course... why not to tell players on scale to 1/2/3 ? Or you will be defensive or normal or attacking... same with other. Why for crist you need scale like this? In reality you don't tell you players be 16 from 20 right? They wouldn't know what to do. Would you know if i tell you be 13 attacking and 15 creativ what to do? Where is end of 14 and start of 16 for to stay in the 15 range? i think this numbers are obsolete and make game complicated for no reason. It is not realistic.

Of course... why not to tell players on scale to 1/2/3 ? Or you will be defensive or normal or attacking... same with other. Why for crist you need scale like this? In reality you don't tell you players be 16 from 20 right? They wouldn't know what to do. Would you know if i tell you be 13 attacking and 15 creativ what to do? Where is end of 14 and start of 16 for to stay in the 15 range? i think this numbers are obsolete and make game complicated for no reason. It is not realistic.

It's beeen said again and again that you can make the game as simple or as complicated as you would like. To go on the scale that you propose, why not set things using blocks of 5 (5 for defence, 10 for standard, 15 for attack, 20 for all out attack or 5 for limited creative freedom, 10 for average CF, 15 for high and 20 for Very high). Some people like the detail and others like to keep things basic and simple. It's win win.

It's beeen said again and again that you can make the game as simple or as complicated as you would like. To go on the scale that you propose, why not set things using blocks of 5 (5 for defence, 10 for standard, 15 for attack, 20 for all out attack or 5 for limited creative freedom, 10 for average CF, 15 for high and 20 for Very high). Some people like the detail and others like to keep things basic and simple. It's win win.

Well you are right. Just i always see ppl here bashing everything else and saying how this is realistic and how every little slide change the game. I must say this scale is really not realistic at all. It is akward for me, very far from directions i would give real players before game. The first is to analyze oponent. Here most ppl have just one tactic (or maybe 2) for all and really how many look at oponent formation before game?

Well you are right. Just i always see ppl here bashing everything else and saying how this is realistic and how every little slide change the game. I must say this scale is really not realistic at all. It is akward for me, very far from directions i would give real players before game. The first is to analyze oponent. Here most ppl have just one tactic (or maybe 2) for all and really how many look at oponent formation before game?

If anything the game allows you to give much more information to players then you would have to if you were to manage a real team / players which is a good or bad thing dependent on how you see it. Having one or two tactics is not a problem, it's up to you how you play the game and no one is suggesting that you have to significantly change tactics every game. Sometimes a slight tweak can make the biggest difference. Looking at the other teams formation is surely a very important thing to do prior to a game, it's the base from which you can plan (if you want to) your match strategy

There's a tactics wizard for this reason.

There's a tactics wizard for this reason.

For what reason? I'm not complaining i canot put up solid tactic, i'm in this game from CM serie. What i was writing is: 20 levels on slider is too much for me to feel like real deal. I feel more like acountant then manager. I was trainer of amateur squad for 7 years and im still into football.

For what reason? I'm not complaining i canot put up solid tactic, i'm in this game from CM serie. What i was writing is: 20 levels on slider is too much for me to feel like real deal. I feel more like acountant then manager. I was trainer of amateur squad for 7 years and im still into football.

For the reason that some people, such as yourself (and myself, for that matter) see 20 notches as too much, so the tactics creator is a good way to simplify (for want of a better word) or put real life football practices into the ME.

No matter how well you "mask" or "tone down" the sliders, they will always be emplyoed and exploited by the AI during a game...

So what's the point in having "Less, Normal or More Creative Freedom" if the ME still has 20 settings for it?

You use 3 settings for something the AI still uses 20... Basically you're trying to paint Mona Lisa with a wall brush.

Less is more...

Also, I'd put an end to the change formation craze during matches.

How often do teams go from a narrow 4-4-2 diamond to wide 4-2-3-1 in real life? During a match?

If you have the players to play conservative/destructive football, you can't just go Ajax-total-football during the game "because the opposition struggles against so-and-so".

Either you have the players to pull it off, or you don't. And even if you have them, they're used and trained to play Tactic A, not Tactic B.

Could Barcelona suddenly start playing and winning a "pump ball into box", Ireland 1980s style?

Or could Portsmouth start playing like Barça does?

AFAIK, the AI only uses the tactic creator settings.

No matter how well you "mask" or "tone down" the sliders, they will always be emplyoed and exploited by the AI during a game...

So what's the point in having "Less, Normal or More Creative Freedom" if the ME still has 20 settings for it?

You use 3 settings for something the AI still uses 20... Basically you're trying to paint Mona Lisa with a wall brush.

Less is more...

Also, I'd put an end to the change formation craze during matches.

How often do teams go from a narrow 4-4-2 diamond to wide 4-2-3-1 in real life? During a match?

If you have the players to play conservative/destructive football, you can't just go Ajax-total-football during the game "because the opposition struggles against so-and-so".

Either you have the players to pull it off, or you don't. And even if you have them, they're used and trained to play Tactic A, not Tactic B.

Could Barcelona suddenly start playing and winning a "pump ball into box", Ireland 1980s style?

Or could Portsmouth start playing like Barça does?

The AI doesn't exploit anything does it. It uses the same tactical set up as the human player.

I agree with the formation changes (not tactical changes which are / is a different beast) that the AI managers use throughout a game being unrealistic. I have no problem with the AI manager changing stratagey to score a goal/ defend a goal / waste time. That's fine. However I do find it strange when I play against a team that changes it formation numerous times in a match and is able to play very very well no matter what formation it uses and no matter that some players are playing out of position

i slightly agree with the OP

when you think about it if you told rooney to have a mentality of 16 with creative freedom of 13. He would probably be confused in real life.

Basically what the OP is getting at is that all these sliders and the endless varialbles are just way too complicated in reality ( reality is what this game is based on). In real life i few changes such as what we do with the sliders would not have such an impact as it does in the game

In reality it mostly comes down to the team with the better players. ( Not to say tactics are not important, but just not as important as it is in the game)

Infact this game has way too many things such as teamtalks and conferences which have way too much effect on the way your players perform

So you are saying as long as a team have better players, it's equal to 99% win. Then I guess the likes of Fulham and Burnley will 99% lose to Man Utd in the game. Then what's the point of playing? Play for the 1% to win?

Then the game can just be simplified to just buy players and select 1 formation. No tactics or anything else involved.

I do not know if this is true, but people at SI are currently taking coaching badges to improve their understanding of real football and its tactics.

the way id love the tactics screen to be is like a tactics board with moveable pieces being able to tell people to overlap by for instance clicking over lap and dragging "their piece" on the board,

the way id love the tactics screen to be is like a tactics board with moveable pieces being able to tell people to overlap by for instance clicking over lap and dragging "their piece" on the board,

Good point and intersting point that you maybe refering to our old With ball Without ball.

On a Personal thought I dont think we need to go completely back to with ball without ball as this completely could find loopholes in ME. However saying that this was used on pc's which had less computing power and a very limited match Engine. So maybe it would not be so bad.

However my Thinking is we should be allowed to control some parts of tactic which currently the game removed from us such as Defending line formations. Defending strategies like things like double banking where they should stand etc.

On attacking stand point I want to be able tell players where to run do I want him to check and change direction, Arc his runs these are tactics used by managers. I want in long ball to be able to tell players where to punt the ball ie area on pitch not just flank central I want to be able to tell player to move to an area that the ball will be punted, Where the angle and location crosses should be done.

I want to be able to be more strategic in corners/freekicks being able to allow me to set angle of runs direction and arc the run. I want to recreate my clubs 1970's setpiece system which had all players huddle in semi circle then suddenly run all directions into the box to lose there markers. It was damn effective and still the best corner routine Ive ever seen and suprised noone ever done it today.

Basically its completly strange but the OP is pretty much wrong there is not enough options but can the game now handle without WBWB using exploits.

Then again it was removed due to exploits yet we still get tactics out there which do exactly the same.

AFAIK, the AI only uses the tactic creator settings.

Do we know for sure?

Actually the difference between success and failure in football is often settled by the most minor of things, the "small details". The likes of Mourinho Wenger and Benitez have all said this many times.

I see just too many ppl saying how every little detail, every little seting is soo important in tactics. How every little detail can change the game. Do you people realize then in reality is NOT like this? How many of you did really train a football team? I would like to see coplete different tactical setup for this game. You can do formation, you cant tell player to be more defensive and to watch this winger and to hold ball and wait for second MD to get forward. In real life who tells to the player "on scale from 0-20 when 10 is neutral you are going to be at 14... that mean you will attack, but not that much, not even like medium attack, you need to be little bit lees on attacking mode then medium. Next i will tell you how your creativity will be... 16... surpised huh?!

Where is the reality here?

to be fair if it was realistic you'd have to take players into your office and talk to them when theres a problem, lay out cones during training, etc. as its a game, you have to focus on what is statistical and practical, not reality, which i think is the best part of fm.

Actually the difference between success and failure in football is often settled by the most minor of things, the "small details". The likes of Mourinho Wenger and Benitez have all said this many times.

thats true I would say IRL75% goals there is an error in buildup by defending side. Even sometimes when a player hits a unstoppable shot or produces magic when analysis of the game it can be down to someone out of position or he was given too much time on the ball.

Sadly even from top to bottom goals are due to errors, deflections, goallie unsighted and outside interference ie refs/linesman allowing ofside/infringements to go. Players and officials are human not robots but us fans seem to think they should be perfect robots.(wink)

No matter how well you "mask" or "tone down" the sliders, they will always be emplyoed and exploited by the AI during a game...

So what's the point in having "Less, Normal or More Creative Freedom" if the ME still has 20 settings for it?

You use 3 settings for something the AI still uses 20... Basically you're trying to paint Mona Lisa with a wall brush.

Less is more...

Also, I'd put an end to the change formation craze during matches.

How often do teams go from a narrow 4-4-2 diamond to wide 4-2-3-1 in real life? During a match?

If you have the players to play conservative/destructive football, you can't just go Ajax-total-football during the game "because the opposition struggles against so-and-so".

Either you have the players to pull it off, or you don't. And even if you have them, they're used and trained to play Tactic A, not Tactic B.

Could Barcelona suddenly start playing and winning a "pump ball into box", Ireland 1980s style?

Or could Portsmouth start playing like Barça does?

Great point, and i totally agree with it.

Its true, in real life big club can swap formation in a game, but i never seen them change more than 1 - 2 times in a match; here instead EVERY club (even the smallest, non-professional club, with less training time during the week) change and swap formation, tactic, everything.. and even every 5 minutes, it is not only unrealistic but a little absurd.

Actually the difference between success and failure in football is often settled by the most minor of things, the "small details". The likes of Mourinho Wenger and Benitez have all said this many times.

Even this is true, but we could ask.. why?

Because, IMHO, in this modern days people knows almost all about football, and there is no "super tactic".. every tactic is good until you have the right players for that, and until you have time enough to train players so they learn as work together, and until the team is balanced.

The "little things" are, often, set pieces (very important in modern football), little errors from players (and i mean "little", as be slightly out of position, not stupid ones as a 50 yards backpass or walking away from the ball etc as we can see in fm) and similar.

Obviously it is very difficult to translate this in a computer program, so dont take what i wrote as a rant because it is not my intention.

Good point and intersting point that you maybe refering to our old With ball Without ball.

On a Personal thought I dont think we need to go completely back to with ball without ball as this completely could find loopholes in ME. However saying that this was used on pc's which had less computing power and a very limited match Engine. So maybe it would not be so bad.

However my Thinking is we should be allowed to control some parts of tactic which currently the game removed from us such as Defending line formations. Defending strategies like things like double banking where they should stand etc.

On attacking stand point I want to be able tell players where to run do I want him to check and change direction, Arc his runs these are tactics used by managers. I want in long ball to be able to tell players where to punt the ball ie area on pitch not just flank central I want to be able to tell player to move to an area that the ball will be punted, Where the angle and location crosses should be done.

I want to be able to be more strategic in corners/freekicks being able to allow me to set angle of runs direction and arc the run. I want to recreate my clubs 1970's setpiece system which had all players huddle in semi circle then suddenly run all directions into the box to lose there markers. It was damn effective and still the best corner routine Ive ever seen and suprised noone ever done it today.

Basically its completly strange but the OP is pretty much wrong there is not enough options but can the game now handle without WBWB using exploits.

Then again it was removed due to exploits yet we still get tactics out there which do exactly the same.

nope im not refering to the old wbwb as i thought its too easy to exploit using that but i think it had its merits, as creating tactics yea it can be as complicated or simple as you want, but i just feel hending more to moving the dots around on a board is a more realistic way for example, theres not alot of ways to do a old wales tactic under hughes where when wales had the ball the played 4-4-2 but without the ball they were 4-5-1,

Yea that could sound like the old wbwb system but dont want individual squares rather have a way (not sure how) of getting people to drop from the forward line to midfield, dont get me wrong i like the new wizard but in the tactics screen could still do with more graphical representation of whats happening, even if its for example

now i have no idea on how to implement any of my ideas so im pretty useless there.

We have tons of stats and attributes, but we don't have the "Tactical Profieciency" rating for every tactic...

In the old days of CM, every team had an hidden "Blend" attribute, which IIRC was an index of how well or bad new players would settle down at the club.

Now we have the "Tactical Attribute" of a team (in the Editor), which IMO makes little sense, because a club doesn't have a preferred formation or anything.... It's all down to the manager...

The closest we have to represent how often or how successfully a team can change formation, it's the "Flexibility" attribute, but still, I think it must be depending on the players, not on a generic "atmosphere" at the club.

I mean, Cambiasso and Sneijder can't switch roles without a huge drop in performance... Pirlo can't play box-to-box, Kaká and Ronaldinho need different roles and duties in order to deliver...

Instead the AI just seems to change formations without taking all these factors into account.

Ditto for human teams...

I shouldn't be allowed to easily switch from wingless 4-4-2 to winged 4-1-1-3-2, basically revolutionizing every offensive role, gamestyle and gameplan. And all of that with maybe one or two substitutions. And with no negative effects... Actually I've turned many matches around with a nice switcharoo

Can an AMRC get tossed around the offensive area, being played as Winger, Trequartista or Second Striker depending on the need of the moment?

I mean, players do need STABILITY and a clear gameplan. Playing them in different positions with different roles and dutirs won't do them any good, and it'll affect their performances.

Instead none of that happens, at least not according to my experience, in FM2010.

In the old days of CM, every team had an hidden "Blend" attribute, which IIRC was an index of how well or bad new players would settle down at the club.

Now we have the "Tactical Attribute" of a team (in the Editor), which IMO makes little sense, because a club doesn't have a preferred formation or anything.... It's all down to the manager...

For the 1st 1, we have the assistant manager telling us how the current players are blending together. For individual, if a player has problem settling in, there will be a message.

For the 2nd 1, why should a club have a preferred formation? Mourinho brought with him his 4-3-3 to Inter who are used to playing a 4-4-2.

For the 1st 1, we have the assistant manager telling us how the current players are blending together. For individual, if a player has problem settling in, there will be a message.

Yes, but it doesn't tell me "the team is doing fine with this 4-4-2", or "good God stop playing a 3-4-3 because it doesn't suit the players".

And what I meant was: if I have fielded a 4-4-2 for like two seasons, with the right players, I shouldn't be "allowed" to switch to a 3-5-2 and being able to achieve the same results as before.

My point is: there always is some sort of "penalty" for teams who can't seem to find a "default" formation. Usually changing formations as often as underwear means the manager and the players are clueless.

Instead in FM it's rewarding!

For the 2nd 1, why should a club have a preferred formation? Mourinho brought with him his 4-3-3 to Inter who are used to playing a 4-4-2.

Ask SI...

I was just stating what's in the Editor.

P.S. Mourinho has switched back and forth from (fake) 4-3-3 to 4-4-2, but you proved my point: teams do NOT have default formations

i slightly agree with the OP

when you think about it if you told rooney to have a mentality of 16 with creative freedom of 13. He would probably be confused in real life.

Basically what the OP is getting at is that all these sliders and the endless varialbles are just way too complicated in reality ( reality is what this game is based on). In real life i few changes such as what we do with the sliders would not have such an impact as it does in the game

In reality it mostly comes down to the team with the better players. ( Not to say tactics are not important, but just not as important as it is in the game)

Infact this game has way too many things such as teamtalks and conferences which have way too much effect on the way your players perform

To be fair, if you tell Rooney anything other than "PUT BALL IN GOAL - THAT WAY -->" he'd be confused in real life.

Personally I see all those levels of slider possibilities as being a way to put your coaching / touchline personality into numbers.

In real life you could shout instructions in many different ways depending on your own personal view of how the game should be played, and having so many divisions on the sliders reflects that.

If I'm watching my team play and they're passing straight to the opposition, I want to be able to say "slow it down a little" without having to be restricted to saying "play at medium pace" or "play at slow pace". On a real touchline, my demeanour could convey at least as many divisions as those we have on FM for most of the sliders.

Admittedly, creativity is a funny one and I would think you could achieve realism with 7 or maybe even 5 divisions, but I think 3 would be too few - I'd like there to be at least something in between "Do whatever you like", "follow the plan but also keep an eye out for ways to do your own thing" and "do exactly as I say and don't even think about doing something that isn't in my game plan".