Have WWFAN & co been heavily involved in the making of FM11?

Just wondering to what extent you've continued to use TT & F in developing the ME?

My advice would be to get away from it as quickly as possible and go back to the old, simple ways you set up tactics in versions like FM05 when the sliders seemed more explicitly releated to their names (ie. mentality) compared to now, when, if we're to believe wwfan etc, we have to use the mentality slider to help decide on:

- likelyhood a player will shoot

- likelyhood a player will dribble

- likelyhood a player will tackle

- position he will take up in attacking and defensive moves

- likelyhood a player will press in any given position

- and in general being a slider that is just doing too many things and having an unwanted knock-on effect on other sliders when we may not want it to.

It's got to the stage where it just makes no sense any more and all the sliders contradict themselves so it's lost a logical reality. We need a changed interface that allows us to understand clearly and exactly what we are telling the players, rather than guessing based on charlatan guides that overstate things. I wish the ME wasn't mixed up with these sliders because the way they are now they're too confused for people to clearly understand what they're trying to implement.

Instead of all this convoluted naming why couldn't we simply have things set up so "shoot occasionally, 10/20" means exactly that, and it not effected by any other slider?

Likewise why couldn't we have a mentality slider that simply means how likely to attack or defend a player is, rather than a slider which has a knock on effect we can't possibly understand on all of the other tactical instructions we give?

The sliders should have a single, clear, observable meaning if possible.

Cheers,

Paul

Who uses sliders anymore?

The tactics creator is the best thing included in FM in recent versions and negates any need to understand the sliders.

pauly15: Just because you don't get it or you have beef with the FMbritain guys doesn't mean the rest of us should have to suffer and move back to the dark ages. The TC is the best innovation in FM for many years and is sooooo simple to use.

Just to take the mentaility thing, you want it to "simply mean how likely to attack or defend a player is". And yet, what exactly do attacking and defending mean? Think about it: if you ask a player to play more attacking foortball, what's he likely to do? Well, he's probably going to play higher up the pitch so he's in a position that's more likely to lead to a goal. He's more likely to shoot, as you've basically told you want more goals. His passes are probably going to be aimed at other players in attacking positions. He's not going to be that interested in tackling people. And so on and so forth. So "mentality" by nature should affect a lot of things.

On top of this, I'm pretty sure that the mentality slider has always done this. What's changed is not the game, but the general perception of the players. Thanks to people like wwfan doing detailed analysis of how the sliders work, we know more about them. Maybe ignorance is indeed bliss...

And if that's not enough, we've already got a simpler, easier to understand way of setting up tactics in the form of the TC.

Regardless it has become too convoluted to truly mean anything understandable, which is my main gripe.

Just trying to make the game better here by discussing an issue guys.

Regardless it has become too convoluted to truly mean anything understandable, which is my main gripe.

Just trying to make the game better here by discussing an issue guys.

If you were complaing about FM09 and earlier, I could possibly see your point that things can be hard to understand (although I never really believed the underlying system was flawed) but we've got the TC now which is simple, effective and easily understandable. What more do you want?

What don't you understand about the TC? My gf can make a playable tactic using it and she has little football knowledge and zero fm experience.

I want to be able to understand the tactics setup and create my own stuff. It's not asking for a negative thing and the Tactics Creator doesn't really make up for it- that was really always the great thing about FM- being able to simply understand the tactical setup and create your own vision of how you always wanted a team to work.

I didn't understand the sliders, and Im not a fan of the tactic creator either.

I've only had FM10 for a week or so after finally getting tired of not knowing what I was telling my players to do in 09, and the tactics creator is literally the best invention since the wheel. Keep the sliders for those who actually get them and enjoy changing each setting for each player every time they make a substitution or a goal is scored, and the rest of us can just use the creator and be happy.

I want to be able to understand the tactics setup and create my own stuff. It's not asking for a negative thing and the Tactics Creator doesn't really make up for it- that was really always the great thing about FM- being able to simply understand the tactical setup and create your own vision of how you always wanted a team to work.

I honestly don't get what you mean. What you are asking for is now much more do able with the TC than it ever was before.

I want to be able to understand the tactics setup and create my own stuff. It's not asking for a negative thing and the Tactics Creator doesn't really make up for it- that was really always the great thing about FM- being able to simply understand the tactical setup and create your own vision of how you always wanted a team to work.

And yet the basic system we have now hasn't changed significantly since...well, probably since before it was FM. So if you can't understand it now, why are you saying it was simple in the past? It's the same system.

I want to be able to understand the tactics setup and create my own stuff. It's not asking for a negative thing and the Tactics Creator doesn't really make up for it- that was really always the great thing about FM- being able to simply understand the tactical setup and create your own vision of how you always wanted a team to work.

I dont understand what your getting at now. Everything that you say you want t do here you can do with the TC.

If you want to play attcking football then you can, if you want defensive you can, if you want to play counter attack you can. Slow build up play, long balls pumped forward, quick/slow tempo. You can set the roles of each player so if you want a big guy upfront as a target man, you can do that at the click of a button. All the sliders get done for you in the background without having to mess about.

If you want to learn and understand the sliders, set your tactic up using the TC and then just view the tactic with advanced settings and see where the TC put all the sliders for your type of play.

Make a few different tactics and see how the sliders are positioned.

Regardless it has become too convoluted to truly mean anything understandable, which is my main gripe.

Just trying to make the game better here by discussing an issue guys.

You want to have a discussion yet you felt the need to have a dig at the people who have done so much to help people understand the tactics and how to implement them.

Anyway as to the issue of the mentality slider - I do think you have a valid point.

The main problem as I see it is position and style of play as these can contradict each other although use of other sliders can help.

Examples would be wanting a player to take an advanced position moving forward when the team gets possession but then playing a more conservative style when he receives the ball.

The opposite extreme would be a player dropping deeper to receive possession but looking for an quick attacking pass.

Things have changed a lot since FM05, a totally different interpretation of the sliders is needed, which is why you can't just use the same setup you used to.

And the idea that 'you can just use the presets so everything is fine' is killing FM for a lot of people like me. It takes the fun out of it to use the presets as it's not really you- the option to be able to set up your vision is a big part of FM. At the moment the sliders are inhibiting people from doing that and the tactics creator just clouds the issue.

As for "having a dig" at people who have helped, it's my personal opinion that the game is in trouble because of the direction it has taken in the last couple of years. I think it was a bad decision to change the match engine based on a module that is confusing at best and logically contradictory at worst. It's not personal, I've just enjoyed the last couple of FM's less than any previous, and so have my friends that think of the game in the same way.

Things have changed a lot since FM05, a totally different interpretation of the sliders is needed, which is why you can't just use the same setup you used to.

And the idea that 'you can just use the presets so everything is fine' is killing FM for a lot of people like me. It takes the fun out of it to use the presets as it's not really you- the option to be able to set up your vision is a big part of FM. At the moment the sliders are inhibiting people from doing that and the tactics creator just clouds the issue.

This is exactly what the TC allows you to do. More so than any slider tinkering in the past.

And of course things have changed since FM05, thank god. Football has moved on since FM05. Its called evolution.

As for your presets comment, that I don't get, I've never advised or seen anyone else advise that you can use them for success. I've also not seen any moans about them killing FM, until now.

Things have changed a lot since FM05, a totally different interpretation of the sliders is needed, which is why you can't just use the same setup you used to.

And the idea that 'you can just use the presets so everything is fine' is killing FM for a lot of people like me. It takes the fun out of it to use the presets as it's not really you- the option to be able to set up your vision is a big part of FM. At the moment the sliders are inhibiting people from doing that and the tactics creator just clouds the issue.

The TC just gives you a base to work from. I have no clue how the sliders work and still dont but the TC has helped me massively.

I like my teams to play quick attacking football. Now in the TC, I can do exactly this. Then when playing games, if I feel things are not to my liking with regards to attacking too much/not enough, tempo too quick/slow, I can go to the advanced settings of my tactic and move the relevant sliders accordingly from the base that the TC has gave me.

Now im sure even the most tactical novice (i.e my girlfirend) can understand this. If I had to set up a tactic from scratch only using sliders for how i like to play, Id have attacking maxed out and also tempo. Then by the time ive messed about with every other slider I'd be half way through the season.

The TC gives you a rough base to work from but even if you leave it as is, it will be fine for most people.

Things have changed a lot since FM05, a totally different interpretation of the sliders is needed, which is why you can't just use the same setup you used to

Not really. Sure, there's been some changes, but overall, they still have the same basic meaning. They haven't totally changed what, say, mentality, means (and, as I said earlier, how can mentality mean anything other than what it does mean in game?).

And you can use the same basic set up, as long as it was a sensible one to begin with. If it was full of arrows, or silly instrutions that took advantage of flaws in the game, then no, you can't still use it. But if you put together a logical set of instructions, it'll work in whatever version of FM with only minor tweaks.

Calling the TC simply "presets" is a bit wide of the mark IMO. Just looking through my archive of saved tactics when starting a new game I notice I have at least a dozen incarnations of each of my tactics from various stages of the game (ranging from 4-1-2-1-2 to flat 4-4-2 to 4-3-3 and 4-5-1), each one a little different from the others.

Within the scope of position/role/duty/rigidity/passing style/tempo/strategy there's so much you can change that by the time you're finished in the TC you're no more using a "preset" than you would have been in earlier versions if you just clicked on "4-4-2" and left it at that. Perhaps the problem is the OP's fixation on the sliders? They were always a fairly convoluted and detached way to create tactics and the great thing about the TC is the way it translates everything into understandable terms.

You can still adjust using the sliders but I think trying to understand the tactics engine and player behaviour purely by looking at the sliders is the wrong way to go about things. The TC is the best way to understand those concepts. Saying that's too restrictive seems absurd to me. It sounds like you're stuck in the old days, as it were. The game has moved on, thinking in terms of concepts from FM09 or earlier may not be the most helpful approach.

Disagree with the notion that the TC allows your to create your own vision- that would be true if you take it as a given that the presets are how a 'trequartista' for example, plays.

The trequartista setting for example (from memory) doesn't have forward runs, his mentality is often quite a bit deeper than a forward etc. I don't agree with that vision of a trequartista, (and considering I'm Italian and I played that position semi-professionally for years I have some idea!). Totti for example, when Ranieri came in he often paired him with Vucinic but he made it clear that he didn't want him to play as he had been as somebody who purely sits in between the midfield and striker and never tries to get in behind.

The same with Robi Baggio and Del Piero- they are both 'three quarter strikers' but that doesn't mean the interpretation of what they do is fixed to 'no runs behind the defence' and '11/20 mentality'- I may want them to do many things which 11/20 mentality contradicts. The whole idea of sliders controlling multiple things is just fundamentally flawed.

Given that there are many ways to interpret what a "box to box" midfielder does, I want to be able to clearly understand how to set up my own vision of it. Which at the moment, I don't think is a question of understanding, but simply of impossibility because the sliders are set up to do too many things per bar.

Disagree with the notion that the TC allows your to create your own vision- that would be true if you take it as a given that the presets are how a 'trequartista' for example, plays.

The trequartista setting for example (from memory) doesn't have forward runs, his mentality is often quite a bit deeper than a forward etc. I don't agree with that vision of a trequartista, (and considering I'm Italian and I played that position semi-professionally for years I have some idea!). Totti for example, when Ranieri came in he often paired him with Vucinic but he made it clear that he didn't want him to play as he had been as somebody who purely sits in between the midfield and striker and never tries to get in behind.

The same with Robi Baggio and Del Piero- they are both 'three quarter strikers' but that doesn't mean the interpretation of what they do is fixed to 'no runs behind the defence' and '11/20 mentality'- I may want them to do many things which 11/20 mentality contradicts. The whole idea of sliders controlling multiple things is just fundamentally flawed.

Given that there are many ways to interpret what a "box to box" midfielder does, I want to be able to clearly understand how to set up my own vision of it. Which at the moment, I don't think is a question of understanding, but simply of impossibility because the sliders are set up to do too many things per bar.

Now im even more confuzzled. You do realise you can change the settings of a Trequartista or any other position for that matter if you want to. Again its all in the advanced settings. When you select Trequartista, it is just a base for what most people consider a Trequartista to be. If you dont agree with a few things then change it. If you want your Trequartista to have forward runs, or sit a bit higher up, you can do.

When you have created your tactic and set player roles, that is not the be all and end all. You can change anything to your liking.

If you don't like the current match engine, the sliders, or the TC.

Then go back to FM05.

It's your tactics.

'Nuff Said.

I know plenty of other people have mentioned it but the move away from sliders and the introduction of the tactic creator with 'footballing phrases' was much needed.

I still use the sliders to tweak things a little bit, but the tactic creator meant I was able to get the basic shape of my tactic much faster than with previous versions.

Yeah I'm aware of that SteveRobbo :->, I was just disagreeing with the idea that the presets allow you to create your own vision. Once you're out of that you have to go to the sliders, and let me give you an example of a problem with that:

Totti- I want him to play as a forward, making runs behind the defence and also dropping deeper to receive the ball from the midfield.

- I want him to do absolutely nothing for the defence and focus solely on attack: 20/20 mentality

I want his strike partner to be further advanced than him: 20/20 mentality for the strike partner (already a problem)

I want his strike partner to play with his back to goal, playing simple, conservative passes: 20/20 mentality does not fit for that.

I want Totti to play routinely DEEPER than this player: 20/20 mentality doesn't really fit.

I could go on...

Let's take another example:

I want two central or defensive midfielders:

I want one to sit a bit deeper than the other: 8/20 and 12/20 let's say

I do not want the other one to take any more risks at all passing-wise: these are two incompatible wishes because mentality at the moment is simply effecting too many things.

I want both to tackle hard, but the mentality slider changes the interpretation of what hard is. This becomes more of a problem if you consider two MC's, one that you want with 1/20 mentality, and one with 20/20. You want them both on hard tackling, (and whatever other shooting/passing settings you want) but the mentality rating you needed to change for other reasons has totally effected these settings too: just because I want one placed ahead of the other doesn't mean I want one to be a psycho and the other to put in a hard tackle but only when he is 100% sure it's going to work- his mentality and other options need to be mutually exclusive.

I want both to press only once the ball comes into our half or third or whatever, but the different mentality settings I need to change for other things forces me to change that too

the list goes on.

Personally, I am of the opinion that it has just flat out lost it's reasonability, but I would settle for even "it's confusing".

The TC is still a quite limiting tool and I am surprised people can't see this.

Sure, it has simplified things a lot, but most of the default positions and the way they affect individual sliders are simply not well thought out.

It goes without saying that if you want to really make the team play like you want, you HAVE to use the sliders too.

For example, why is the the Winger position defaulted to "cross often"? I want my player to play modern football, not the way the English perceive the winger position: run with the ball and cross.

So, in order to play a Winger but have him cut inside I must use the sliders to instruct him, on top of his chosen position. But then this creates some other problems, because the Touchline Instructions do not override the individual instructions.

In the end you get to spend much time in the sliders, despite using the TC.

Also, the non-versatile tactics system doesn't help things. Players can only be assigned certain positions and they seem to move in enclosed spaces. For example, you see a player in reach of a loose ball, yet he has to run near his space that is dictated by his position and then run for the loose ball. You see players running in parallel to the ball when they can reach it by going towards the ball, etc...

The tactics in general need a major re-think and the WWFan propositions simply suck the life out of the game.

Again, for me, the major problem is not the system's mechanism but the actual meaning of the tactical choices. Plus, of course, the inability to put your players where you want them exactly, which results in mechanised placement and a robotic feel of football.

The TC is still a quite limiting tool and I am surprised people can't see this.

Sure, it has simplified things a lot, but most of the default positions and the way they affect individual sliders are simply not well thought out.

It goes without saying that if you want to really make the team play like you want, you HAVE to use the sliders too.

For example, why is the the Winger position defaulted to "cross often"? I want my player to play modern football, not the way the English perceive the winger position: run with the ball and cross.

So, in order to play a Winger but have him cut inside I must use the sliders to instruct him, on top of his chosen position. But then this creates some other problems, because the Touchline Instructions do not override the individual instructions.

In the end you get to spend much time in the sliders, despite using the TC.

Also, the non-versatile tactics system doesn't help things. Players can only be assigned certain positions and they seem to move in enclosed spaces. For example, you see a player in reach of a loose ball, yet he has to run near his space that is dictated by his position and then run for the loose ball. You see players running in parallel to the ball when they can reach it by going towards the ball, etc...

The tactics in general need a major re-think and the WWFan propositions simply suck the life out of the game.

Again, for me, the major problem is not the system's mechanism but the actual meaning of the tactical choices. Plus, of course, the inability to put your players where you want them exactly, which results in mechanised placement and a robotic feel of football.

So in other words you want an Inside Forward and not a Winger. If im not mistaken, there is a Inside Forward option.

I know plenty of other people have mentioned it but the move away from sliders and the introduction of the tactic creator with 'footballing phrases' was much needed.

Agree. Shouldn't think of the TC as presets, instead you're giving out football instructions, rather than tweaking a slider to try and set football instructions.

And you can still use the sliders, just press advanced and tweak them as much as you like. Or even go back to 'classic' and only use the sliders.

What's the problem? The old options are still there.

So in other words you want an Inside Forward and not a Winger. If im not mistaken, there is a Inside Forward option.

No, that's the the problem.

I want a Winger because my player is playing in the MR position. I can't use the Inside FW in that position. Also, my player is a natural winger. But I don't want him to cross often, he is much better at dribbling and causing havoc. So I have to use the sliders.

Also, If I want to put him just a little more up the field I again have to use the slider.

What's the problem? The old options are still there.

That's the problem. The sliders haven't really gone. The TC is just a beautiful front and it is too limited.

The problem with the "footballing phrases" is that they can quickly become positional cliches. The other problem is that they are other peoples interpretation of these phrases.

That is a very worrying step for FM because if they take the focus off giving us a simple tactical interface we can create by ourselves, then FM loses a lot of the complexity it's loved for and becomes 'choose your own adventure'.

I am not advocating FM be 'dumbed down', the term 'more simple' is probably misleading.

We want it to be more complicated, more detailed if anything! I simply want one slider, for one thing, so i'm exactly clear about what i'm using it for. There is nothing at all negative about that and it stops anyone hiding behind any complex interpretations of what is happening.

The problem would be rewriting the prized code roy hodgson helped them out with no?! :>

You make some valid points there, Paulie (Post # 24). Here are a few points (hopefully also valid).

1/The TC is great - slider tweaking nearly lost me to the genre - boring & frustrating. I dont have my life to dedicate to the game, I just want to play it. Cant understand why you would not want to use it.

2/I have always felt that the sliders were set up from day 1 all those years back as ad-hoc devices which in combination achieved certain practical results. SI then named them and the Community tried to understand and explain them. Has always frustrated me that the game engine / tweaker explanation & understanding always felt like a half done job to me. WWFans work helped me get some enjoyment and understanding but he is one of many unofficial (he was "unofficial" then anyway) tactical gurus - who is to say that they were not spouting nonsense and had no truer grasp of the ME than the casual player (although I believe they got it pretty right, most of them)

3/The sliders were always confusing, I do not believe anymore so in last year's product.But, for those that like slider tweaking why not set up to the TC then convert to classic and tweak away.

4/Farrow/sarrow/barrows were removed - SI say WE didnt really understand them properly, er whos fault is that exactly? What we need is the arrow system and a feeds system like CM. It makes sense, its just that SI have to dedicate some effort to making it work.

I guess August will contain announcements about the new game, it did last year. What can we expect....a full ME rewrite?, more Polishing (God forbid)? A debugged data update? Time will tell

Hi Tiger,

I agree that the TC is a great innovation that's made the game a lot more fun and accessible for lots of people. I think that the TC should be in there, but that it should just be using different, more clear sliders to the same effect.

It can have the same function by doing the same thing with 10 sliders:

one purely for mentality, one purely for pressing, one purely for a loose idea of positioning (and i'm not walking about widgets before anyone starts! etc etc.) Rather than the confusing mish-mash-mangle we have now.

The whole system is pretty messed up.

For example, I want to play control. For some reason, the default closing down slider for control is way up, making almost all my players press all over the pitch. Why such high pressure simply doesn't make sense.

Anyhoo, I want some of my players to press a little less because they simply can't cope with the stamina needed. I have to leave the TC and adjust the individual sliders of the players I want to press less.

Even better, I can put 'Less Pressing' in the general tactic, but then I have to adjust the sliders of the players I want to press more.

Then I have the 'Get Stuck in' option. But if I pick that it won't override the general 'press less' choice I just put it. So I have to... oh I am too tired...

It's a nightmare and really bad design. And this is only one option.

In this forum people have given SI the solution over and over again, with excellent posts and analysis, that make the WWFan proposals look -no offense- the most souless thing I have ever seen in the industry.

one purely for mentality, one purely for pressing, one purely for a loose idea of positioning (and i'm not walking about widgets before anyone starts! etc etc.) Rather than the confusing mish-mash-mangle we have now.

The thing is, we have a slider purely for mentality. We have a slider purely for pressing (closing down). Positioning is affected by other things - such as the two aforementionned factors, so having one for that would lead to even more confusion. Unless you mean lateral positioning, in which case, yes, I'd support that.

I'm not saying the current system is perfect, but I just cannot see the huge flaws you're describing.

That is inaccurate- We do not and you can see that on several posts around the Forum by WWfan, probably Paul C and etc.

Mentality effects, for example, when a player is on dribble often, the level of risk he will take to do that. Ie. a 20/20 mentality player will dribble in more risky places than a 10/20 player on the same dribbling setting. Likewise a 20/20 mentality player will press differently to a player with 10/20 and the same setting for pressing. and so on and so forth.

You can find a lot of posts relating to that, specifically when WWfan and I last clashed on this in a post called 'ditch the mentality slider altogether':

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/108695-Ditch-the-quot-mentality-quot-slider-altogether.?highlight=ditch+mentality+slider

There's a balance that needs to be struck in the TC between a perfect initial set-up and one that needs to be adjusted. Just because the TC doesn't allow you to create a tactic instantly to your liking you shouldn't just dismiss it. The TC creates good basic tactics but you still need to make some adjustments. That can be using the sliders or the player roles and duties settings. What the TC does that is so useful is create a basic tactic that works as a good starting point for more advanced tactics. I've had success without touching the sliders and had success using the sliders so it depends on your team and style of play. If you find yourself setting up a tactic using the TC and then adjusting lots of sliders for lots of players perhaps the basic tactic you chose was wrong?

The same balance issues apply to the sliders. It's not as simple as having one slider for one specific task because many are linked in real life. Could the Mentality slider be split into two or three different sliders? Possibly. Would it lead to a better game? Maybe, maybe not. It depends how it's split and what each new slider does.

That is inaccurate- We do not and you can see that on several posts around the Forum by WWfan, probably Paul C and etc.

Mentality effects, for example, when a player is on dribble often, the level of risk he will take to do that. Ie. a 20/20 mentality player will dribble in more risky places than a 10/20 player on the same dribbling setting. Likewise a 20/20 mentality player will press differently to a player with 10/20 and the same setting for pressing. and so on and so forth.

You can find a lot of posts relating to that, specifically when WWfan and I last clashed on this in a post called 'ditch the mentality slider altogether':

Well of course mentality affects things like dribbling. If I tell a player to have a more attacking mentality, I would expect him to take more risks all round, including dribbling more often, in order to score goals. Same way I'd expect him to play higher up the pitch. Thats all part of being "more attacking".

The mentality side affects the player's general mentality to the game. What else would you expect from it?

Hi Phrox,

The point i'm trying to make is that by having one setting effect many, there are bound to be contradictions. See my post #24.

A player I want to sit deeper in his position, but dribble often even in risky situations, is a contradiction that the current setup can't support.

Hi Phrox,

The point i'm trying to make is that by having one setting effect many, there are bound to be contradictions. See my post #24.

A player I want to sit deeper in his position, but dribble in often even in risky situations, is a contradiction that the current setup can't support.

So basically you want about 150 different sliders? Yeah because that'll make it easy and accesible to create tactics

Hi Phrox,

The point i'm trying to make is that by having one setting effect many, there are bound to be contradictions. See my post #24.

A player I want to sit deeper in his position, but dribble in often even in risky situations, is a contradiction that the current setup can't support.

Give him a relatively low mentality but RWB often.

Or, even put him in the position "behind" the one you were thinking of but with high mentaility and RWB often.

Is it perfect, no, but as I said, I'm just not seeing these problems you are. My two big gripes are the lack of individual tempo and width controls, but add them in, and I can't really see any other major changes are needed.

And, just out of curiosity, what would you have mentality affect?

Give him a relatively low mentality but RWB often.

Ok:> So if I want him to sit slightly deeper, dribble often even when it's risky, but tackle conservatively.

I totally agree with you about the individual width and tempo controls. Still, I don't think we should defend the parts of the game that do have flaws.

Tactics have never been easier to design since the game moved forward from a text and tick box based game to a much deeper simulation of football. There are limits to how far you can go rewriting interfaces and creating "Wizards" before the underlying game begins to suffer.

People are going to have to realise that the game is designed to be tactically challenging. It is designed so that Patrice Evra is not going to "own" Dirk Kuyt with the same settings that "own" SWP. You have to make changes, you have to tweak, you have to problem solve, you have to play the game if you want to play it.

All the tactical instructions in slider form have pretty much "done what is said on the tin" but the problem was finding a good starting point to tweak your tactics which the TC has solved for the most part. The second major problem is that so many people don't realise that all tactical instructions are modifiers of players natural playing tendencies. You are instructing players how to alter their behaviour, you are not designing some elaborate theoretical tactical system. You are not going to get idiots and weaklings and work-shy wingers to pound the flanks making bone-shattering inch-perfect last-ditch sliding tackles.

Players and tactical instructions are two sides of the same coin of on-pitch behaviour. If things are not working on the pitch you can't simply ignore the players that are not doing what you want. If things are not working on the pitch you have to take proper account for the fact that you are instructing behaviour into players and not setting out some architectural schematic that should result in the same building irrespective of which contractor in on the job. But probably most important of all you can't expect your tactics to work if you rattle through matches at a hundred miles an hour watching only text commentry of key highlights. The game is different now and you wont get away with not bothering to watch your players no matter how much of a drag you think that is.

As for "WWFan and Co" being heavilly involved in the making of FM11, it is my understanding that these people have for a long time been "heavilly involved" in game testing, feedback, writing tactical guides and general "passionate fan of the game" behaviour like you would find for any good quality game making studio that regularly releases similar games to similar customers. "WWFan and Co" are what is known as dedicated fans willing to give up time and effort for nothing for SI to use as testers, bug hunters and to bounce opinions and ideas and new mechanics off of. While you snap your DvD in frustration after conceding a dodgy looking goal and go off to play some FIFA, these guys give up spare time for nothing other than a better game in order to replicate these issues, analyse these issues, report them in detail to SI and offer assistance to check and recheck solutions and fixes to these issues.

I couldn't say how much of the TC itself was down to "other people" but it is obvious that a huge quantity of the tactical instruction logic within the TC is based on TT&F, based on the knowledge and experience of the game from many long time dedicated fans that have built a solid understanding of how the Tactical Instructions work to produce formations and systems and tactics and tactical concepts and gameplans. That is the kind of thing you can only get from an army of dedicated football and FM fans. The day these people stop being involved in FM in this manner, irrespective of the ME or the precise Tactical Instruction system used or anything else, is the day the everyone that plays FM suffers from a buggier, less logical, more broken game.

Now I am not saying that FM requires no improvement, I am not saying that it deserves no criticism, but I am saying that whenever you want to have a pop at the game but especially have a pop at these people then keep in mind that while you use your spare time to have a whinge and a rant and launch the odd barb at "WWFan and Co." these people are using their spare time to test broken mechanics, hunt out bugs, and grind through all the junk that is in FM to make the game better.

So keep that in mind.

Ok:> So if I want him to sit slightly deeper, dribble often even when it's risky, but tackle conservatively.

You've got a tackling slider too, you know

Give him a relatively low mentality but RWB often.

Or, even put him in the position "behind" the one you were thinking of but with high mentaility and RWB often.

Is it perfect, no, but as I said, I'm just not seeing these problems you are. My two big gripes are the lack of individual tempo and width controls, but add them in, and I can't really see any other major changes are needed.

And, just out of curiosity, what would you have mentality affect?

What you are actually saying is that the TC is not enough in order to make the players play like we want them to, which is quite unacceptable for me, since a lot of fuss was made about the TC.

So, despite the TC, we have to use the sliders again.

The problem is that the initial setups from TC are quite wrong and limiting.

If this game doesn't ditch most of the sliders completely, then it will never reach its potential. And it is really not that difficult to do it.

What you are actually saying is that the TC is not enough in order to make the players play like we want them to, which is quite unacceptable for me, since a lot of fuss was made about the TC.

So, despite the TC, we have to use the sliders again.

The problem is that the initial setups from TC are quite wrong and limiting.

The TC is enough to set up a good tactic using a base of standardised roles. It is not intended to be, and nor it has never been claimed to be, able to recreate every possible way of playing. Hence why we have the advanced mode, with the sliders.

As for the initial setups being "wrong and limiting", well, I completely disagree. There are a few things I'd do a bit differently, but overall, they create realistic, sensible football. Can you recreate, say, Spain's tactic from the WC finals using purely the TC? Probably not, but that's hardly a "normal" tactic.

And how do they limit you, given that you can just go to the advanced mode and tweak whatever bits you don't agree with?

If this game doesn't ditch most of the sliders completely, then it will never reach its potential. And it is really not that difficult to do it.

Really not that difficult? So, rewriting the whole match engine to take a different set of inputs isn't difficult. Riiiiiiiiiiight...

What you are actually saying is that the TC is not enough in order to make the players play like we want them to, which is quite unacceptable for me, since a lot of fuss was made about the TC.

So, despite the TC, we have to use the sliders again.

The problem is that the initial setups from TC are quite wrong and limiting.

If this game doesn't ditch most of the sliders completely, then it will never reach its potential. And it is really not that difficult to do it.

I take it you are making your own version then that is going to outsell FM?

Hi Sfraser thanks for your response. Firstly, I'm trying to do the exact same thing- I'm a fan, and I'm putting effort into discussing something I feel would make the game better. I reserve the right to believe that TT & F takes FM in a harmful direction.

Let's remember that TT & F exists primarily because WWfan was frustrated with trying to understand the tactical system and so put a lot of time into defining it. Now, however, it seems like we've taken that interpretation as a direction forward rather than what it originally was- an attempt to understand a confusing steup. Another worry I have is that FM will now develop to try and hold on to this system.

Also, I believe WWfan and co are now directly and officially involved in working on the ME.

And finally- nobody is suggesting that you have to pick the presets and can't change them. What we're saying is that if you don't want to/don't like them/don't agree with them then you have to go back to the sliders which are horribly confusing and the reason the TC exists.

Hi Sfraser thanks for your response. Firstly, I'm trying to do the exact same thing- I'm a fan, and I'm putting effort into discussing something I feel would make the game better. I reserve the right to believe that TT & F would take FM in a harmful direction.

Let's remember that TT & F exists primarily because WWfan was frustrated with trying to understand the tactical system and so put a lot of time into defining it. Now, however, it seems like we've taken that interpretation as a direction forward rather than what it originally was- an attempt to understand a confusing system. Another worry I have is that FM will now develop to try and hold on to this system.

Also, I believe WWfan and co are now directly and officially involved in working on the ME.

And finally- nobody is suggesting that you have to pick the presets and can't change them. What we're saying is that if you don't want to/don't like them/don't agree with them then you have to go back to the sliders which are horribly confusing and the reason the TC exists.

To be honest mate, you are one of the few I have seen who doesn't get the TC. You are entitled to your opinion but I'm not convinced it is one that is shared by the majority. Still you've played semi pro as a TQ so what do I know?

To be honest mate, you are one of the few I have seen who doesn't get the TC. You are entitled to your opinion but I'm not convinced it is one that is shared by the majority. Still you've played semi pro as a TQ so what do I know?

Once again- I have nothing against the TC, I'd like to see it in all future versions of the game, I'd just like a clearer slider setup so we can implement our own ideas without confusion or contradiction.

Am I right in saying that this argument is about the TC not really doing what you want it to do and that you then have to tweak the sliders to get your desired tactic?

If so, just dont use the TC and make your tactic from scratch using the sliders. TC is an option and I for one think its brilliant because I have no idea about slider and dont really have the time or the patience to learn. I want to pick a team, buy and sell a few players and get playing. The TC allows me to play how I like by selecting a few options. It may not be perfect but its a damn site better than me aimlessly dragging sliders that I have no idea how to work.

If you get the sliders and think that its better to use then you use it. The TC doesnt claim to be the perfect tactic making tool. It is merely a guide to use or to provide a base to be worked on.

Am I right in saying that this argument is about the TC not really doing what you want it to do and that you then have to tweak the sliders to get your desired tactic?

That's half of it.

I'm then saying that the slider system is confusing at best, or flawed at worst.