Assigning roles to players instead of position

Hi there.

I feel it's time for my yearly attempt at getting this into the next iteration of FM.

Currently, when assigning roles and tactics, we can only assign them to the positions on the formation screen. Can we please have the ability to assign these roles to each player? It would cut down a massive amount of tinkering time between matches and go some way towards bringing back the quick flow of past FM/CM games.

Alongside this ability, a simple tick box on the team and player instructions screens would allow us to toggle between positional and personal roles.

+1

10char

Agree. With my tactic, I don't really use roles as I have locked all instructions - but this means that I have very similar player types in all positions. If I could have cloned my best player in each position, I would have...

As a side note, I would say that with Liverpool for example, assigning Carroll as a Target Man, Suarez as a Poacher, Kuyt as a Defensive Striker or winger, Gerrard as an Advanced Playmaker, Lucas as a Ball-winning Midfielder, Meireles as a Box-to-Box midfielder, Skrtel as a Cover, Kyrgiakos as a Stopper, Carragher as a defensive Full Back, Johnson as a more attacking Full Back... in any formation, with reasonable short passing, relatively slow tempo and a relatively high defensive line and width... this should WORK!

But it doesn't.

It's a brilliant idea.

I constantly find myself having to edit players from box to box to advanced play makers when bringing subs on etc, all becomes annoying.

Ackter I'm not sure I understood you, but is this what are thinking of? If so, then it gets from me.

Ackter I'm not sure I understood you, but is this what are thinking of? If so, then it gets from me.

Yup thats it. Been trying to get this in for about 6 years now

I've been asking for this for a long time as well.

sometimes I have an injury to Stevie G and his replacement may be lucas. This then means i have to change their tactics as they are not the same type of player. If the tactics were bound to the player instead of the position then this would cut down on constant micromanagement.

I can see a slight problem in that you may assign an attacking midifelder / attacking style of play with long shots and short passing to your CM and then you may feel the need to drop this player back into the DM position. injuries or old age being 2 reasons you may do this.

Forgetting to change the player bound tactics would be irritating.

I still say player bound tactics is better though

Yup thats it. Been trying to get this in for about 6 years now

Yeah, I think it would really be a very good additon. In terms of time saving and making things go faster like in the old days. Well basicaly what you wrote in the OP.

I'm sure I commented on this before. I agree fully.

I'd also request to be able to save our own roles. The current ones are flawed at worst, and non-specific at best. Far too much time is taken to do what should be simple tinkering in the tactics screen.

Yup thats it. Been trying to get this in for about 6 years now

+1 from me also.

This would be very beneficial but never gets added. This would also presumably solve the problem of swapping player instructions when you ask two players to swap positions which is very annoying. Have yet to see an official response from SI as to why this has never been implemented...

I'm sure I commented on this before. I agree fully.

I'd also request to be able to save our own roles. The current ones are flawed at worst, and non-specific at best. Far too much time is taken to do what should be simple tinkering in the tactics screen.

In what way?

Totally agree about the ability to customise roles etc. in the TC btw. Customisation of the TC and shouts would be fantastic and surely has to be the next step (along with more options as default).

FWIW, I agree with the idea in this thread put forward by Ackter. I'm not sure how much I would use it though. What I've tended to do is to create a tactic and set the roles and duties that I particularly want from that tactic. I then buy and/or train players to fulfil a particular role and very rarely deviate from my preferred roles and duties. What this means is that I rarely need to spend time tweaking between roles and duties, as I always look for specialised players to fit into my existing tactic.

I'm not saying that this isn't a good idea though. Part of the reason I play in this manner is because I don't want to have to tweak and muck around with the tactics screen too much once I have my initial idea for a tactic set-up via the TC.

Once you've been playing with the same players and tactic for a season or so then it does become a fairly quick process to instantly set slider positions to the right place when you bring on a replacement sub - but totally agree that this feature is something that I always find myself wanting every now and again, and would add to the feeling of coaching your players properly. Also - it's highly annoying to suddenly remember you forgot to swap some slider settings as you see a different player subbed on and playing not how you want him to do!

I also think it could be more a feature, in line with the specific training schedules you can use with players, if the players were given specific roles outside of the tactics screen, and you could interact with them to see if they were happy with their role.

I think that this kind of changes goes hand in hand with hopefully at some point FM moving towards separating the formation screen from tactical roles (at the moment it's more a case of it being a illustration of roles and not a true reflection of formation).

I think FM should take up (the last) CM's tactics screen allowing flexible positioning and run arrows and so on - a bit like a whiteboard in the dressing room.

What I've tended to do is to create a tactic and set the roles and duties that I particularly want from that tactic. I then buy and/or train players to fulfil a particular role and very rarely deviate from my preferred roles and duties.

This is only true to the extent that good players will be able to fit into a tactic you set up without too much problem, but if you want to get the absolute best out of individual players, some sliders might have to be changed if they are subbed/brought on. For example, I even make changes as small as lowering the creative freedom by 1 for players who are ever so slightly weaker mentally (but otherwise nearly identical). Players perform at their best when they are using the same tactics week in week out.

Fantastic idea! Make player instructions player specific. It would cut down on some of the micromanagement that is choking the fun out of this game. I still feel that there are too many screens as well! Take "basic" and "advanced" instructions for example. Surely there is a way to combine these into ONE screen. In fact, I should be able to set up my entire team, both individual and team instructions from ONE screen. Player training is another area where SI could streamline the process. I am always having to set my players to "rest" manually for each player because some are more fatigued than others and because some didn't play at all. Why not have "global" rest settings?? I mean this: I instruct the game that I want any player who has less than 50% energy to rest for four days/ 60% energy three days/ 70% energy two days/ 80% energy one day. Then I wouldn't ever have to set rest instructions again. It would be automated. Micromanagement reduced. SI, if you're lsitening, FM needs a micromanagement reduction. Streamline it. This can be done without losing the depth of the game.

We definitely need this!

Also, we'd use more "detailed" green/yellow/red dots for specific roles...

Currently I can set Mikel as Advanced Playmaker and have him "bright green" becuase as long as he's in his natural position it's still ok, regardless of his actual ability to play in that role.

Sure thing, the ME itself will take care of punishing me for picking the wrong guy for such a role, but that's not the point... Especially with balanced (or too unbalanced) players it's really difficult understanding which role works best for them, so a bit of a help could be a good thing...

Well that's a problem with the difference between roles, formation, and the tactical sliders underneath. This is why I still kind of prefer FM09 (and play it over the newer games), since all you've got are the sliders. I like any attempts to make the game more pick up and play and intuitive for newcomers, but I feel it's kind of gone sideways for people who've lived with the game for years, rather than progressing.

I guess sliders are here to stay, because it's hard to think of ways you can get away from the numbers aspect of implementing football tactic design. BUT, I would prefer (as discussed above), each player gets a role-design screen on their profile/somewhere, then you simply drag them onto the pitch on match day. If they've been given the role of a centerback, you put them on the pitch at the half-way line, they'll still be a centerback, they'll just play pushed up. Or maybe they're a holding DM, you put them in exactly same place, they play on the halfway line covering the defense. Move them up the pitch to where you might expect a box-to-box midfielder to play, they won't suddenly BE A CM (as currently), they will just look to hold the ball higher up, close higher up, tackle players higher up, and generally BE higher up the pitch.

You might say that 'you can shift players around currently using mentality/other settings' - true, but you shouldnt have to adjust mentality to actually physically tell you players to get their arse to another area of the pitch! In real life if your manager shouts at you as an individual to float further to the wings, you do it, but you don't suddenly think about becoming more or less attacking or changing your role in the team!

There would be no fixed positions, within reason - I imagine it like in football games like Pro Evo, you couldn't drop a CB into the opponent penalty area, there's a bounding box. Same for the rest: give a player the role of a fake winger/inside forward, but instead of merely placing him in his assigned AMR or FR/FL 'slot' and having that dictate his role, you can place him on the pitch where you want and that entails things like how much he tracks back, how narrow he sets up when in posession, what runs he makes, and so on.

Champ Man had it right in their last iteration, the digital whiteboard with the passing arrows and the individualised player commands. Shame their match engine was a bit rubbish so it kind of fell apart.

I have a question...

what happens to us poor classic tactic users who don't assign pre-defined roles to any position in their tactic? As almost every single pre-defined role is wrong for my team, tactic and overall set-up I'd still have to change everything anyway...

I have a question...

what happens to us poor classic tactic users who don't assign pre-defined roles to any position in their tactic? As almost every single pre-defined role is wrong for my team, tactic and overall set-up I'd still have to change everything anyway...

No as I understand it thats not the case, its just about having the standard invididual instructions page represented in each players profile with a check box to override the positional instructional of whatever slot they are being inserted into in match. In fact if anything it would work better for someone using the classic method...

I have a question...

what happens to us poor classic tactic users who don't assign pre-defined roles to any position in their tactic? As almost every single pre-defined role is wrong for my team, tactic and overall set-up I'd still have to change everything anyway...

As Avelives says, and Ackter did post at the end of the OP what we want is this (with screenie):

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/150330-Suggestion-Can-we-please-have-a-quot-permanent-quot-individual-player-instruction-screen

A two year old thread that constantly gets resurrected, so there's an obvious interest in this feature.

Assigning a role should only be (an optional) part of assigning player specific instrucations. After all, I'm assuming many people will still want to override the role default settings too, otherwise assigning roles doesn't solve many of the problems.

Allowing them to be used means they'd be optional - and it should be possible to allow classic users to define and assign roles to players if they wish - would only make things easier for some and not a hindrance for others.

What I want (I'm repeating myself from other numerous threads):

• Player specific instructions for all available instructions that override the tactical instructions irrespective of where the player plays
  
• The ability to load and save your own sets of instructions (from within FM, not hacking the XML which is not user-friendly)
  
• The ability to define your own shouts (macros) to do things like "Drop all midfielders' mentalities by 2 (relative change); set STR mentality to 12 (absolute change); increase team tempo by 2 (team setting change); set DMC to HUB". Again I want to do this from within FM, no XML hacking.
  
• The ability to define player instructions in a tactic as relative to the team settings. e.g. my MC is always team mentality, my MCL always team -2, STL is mentality +1, STR is mentality + 5, but my DCs have fixed mentalities that don't change with the team settings.
  

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Overall I'd like tactics to be radically improved over the next couple of versions at the expense of some of the more gimmicky features; tactics have been nerfed in the newer versions, and there's a lot of room for improvement. I'm thinking of replacements for the arrows, specifically the means to set your width independently for attack, midfield and defence, and the ability to tell players to "drop back" on the defensive.

Thanks guys

I like it

What I want (I'm repeating myself from other numerous threads):

• Player specific instructions for all available instructions that override the tactical instructions irrespective of where the player plays
  
• The ability to load and save your own sets of instructions (from within FM, not hacking the XML which is not user-friendly)
  
• The ability to define your own shouts (macros) to do things like "Drop all midfielders' mentalities by 2 (relative change); set STR mentality to 12 (absolute change); increase team tempo by 2 (team setting change); set DMC to HUB". Again I want to do this from within FM, no XML hacking.
  
• The ability to define player instructions in a tactic as relative to the team settings. e.g. my MC is always team mentality, my MCL always team -2, STL is mentality +1, STR is mentality + 5, but my DCs have fixed mentalities that don't change with the team settings.
  

Those last two ideas are if anything even better than the original post suggestion, its always bugged the hell out of me that I cant set my players individual mentalities then alter them all up or down a notch with a shout or tactical tweak without having to fiddle with every single player (that wasnt supposed to sound perverted btw)

Yeah, those are all great ideas. I would love some custom macros in FM. Even better if the game can track the team's familiarity with your shouted commands (as I believe it does with tactical decisions you make during games - you get better, controlled performances if you are tactically consistent, and make relatively few astute adjustments per match)

I like the idea of having team-relative slider settings on player position pages. A selector: absolute/team relative. A slider, from -10 -> +10 (with 0 being the middle/mixed/balanced setting, what is currently 10).

Interestingly: if anyone has tried fudging their own per-player settings into the XML file (recommended), you might notice that what you put in that xml file is adjusts the sliders one value lower than what you would expect. Ie, 10 actually sets the sliders to one below the middle (9), the middle setting from the games point of view is 11. I think this is because the minimum value is 0, but it visually appears the same as 1 (the slider takes two clicks to move from the left). I play with FM09 so I'm not sure if this is a bug which has been corrected later - or am I wrong to consider the mid-point 10? If you specify 20 then it actually sets the slider to MAX, you'd expect it to be 19 though..