The slider conundrum

Whilst the Tactics Creator and the team shouts have offered a more realistic and much more dynamic approach to communicating tactical instructions to your players as previously, it is still fundamentally based on the old slider system of yore. It is unlikely that anyone from SI is ever going to enlighten the players in all the details, as they have kept the community trying to interprete what exactly they were adjusting by flipping it all upside down all along, while occasionally giving hints and rarely exposing it all. It was a story meant to be read backwards: Player were meant to communicate instructions by adjusting sliders, and by paying attention to the match action they were asked to guess themselves. Albeit using both sliders and the Creator, I rarely thought this to be real fun, as backwards guessing instructions from match action has little to do with tactical tinkering. Even official documentations kept it vague or worse: Anybody who knows thanks to an old post from PaulC what the "counter attack" tick box actually does can confirm that it has zero to do with how "counter attack" is being described in the manual - causing a side to sit back. In the end there were more or less a number of theories going around, and one being considered elaborated and solid enough that it developed into what is now known as the Tactics Creator™.

Rather than asking for an official answer on detailed effects of each slider, I am asking for an answer why what essentially was (and still is) a basic control element in the game is still being kept a conundrum, and in parts measlidingly documented (see above) to boot. I have three theories: 1) It was considered that if FM players ever knew what exactly they were adjusting they'd be able to control their players like puppets on a string - doubtful, as attributes, PPMs and levels of randomness all around are integral parts of the engine. 2) By keeping instructions vague the entire system is meant to emulate human-to-human (or rather manager-to-player) interaction, in which information that is being communicated to the player can get lost in poor translation or falsely understood. 3) It was simply considered that even trying to further explain the system with all its intertwining settings was akin to climbing the Mount Everest with bare feet, no clothes and but a squirrel to keep company. Or something.

Whatcha say?

what is thread about?

^^ Agreed ^^

I think he is commenting on how he feels the tactic sliders are confusing and are not clear what they actually do.

what is thread about?

About how and why SI never fully communicated basic control elements of the game, in the odd case even completely messing around with players about the true meaning to this day.

Compare this:

A counter attack in FM is launched when a team gets the ball and there are less than X opposing players between the ball and their goal.

Ticking the counter attack box means that X is a higher value.

Once on counter attack, a team will play as if on highest mentality until the counter attack phase of play ends.

If you have examples where you dont feel this is working as it should, then let me know and I will be happy to look at a pkm example.

to this:

Counter Attack: The counter attack option is best used by an underdog facing a superior opponent or a team with players capable of launching attacks at high speed with a directness about their play. They will tend to sit back in their own half and allow the opposition to have the ball in ‘harmless’ positions before imposing pressure, taking the ball, and countering.

And then take a look around these very forums and witness even some its most prolific posters still being not really sure at all.

That's what this thread is about.

Well technically both descriptions are describing the same thing, as paul says a team counter attacking will instantly go into full attack when they have the ball in order to try and score, the manual description goes a bit further and says a team will sit and not press when they dont have the ball, and then as paul says as soon as it gets the ball they go into full direct attack mode. Neither contradict each other, one description mealy goes into more detail than the first. The thread you have linked is about time wasting, not really counter attacking football.

Well technically both descriptions are describing the same thing, as paul says a team counter attacking will instantly go into full attack when they have the ball in order to try and score, the manual description goes a bit further and says a team will sit and not press when they dont have the ball, and then as paul says as soon as it gets the ball they go into full direct attack mode. Neither contradict each other, one description mealy goes into more detail than the first. The thread you have linked is about time wasting, not really counter attacking football.

Strongly disagreed.

PaulC says: Ticking the box means a counter attack is more likely to happen.

The manual says: Ticking the box makes your side to sit back, which is false. Furthermore it implies that ticking the box would be a defensive tactic that would make a side sitting back and only ever attack if a counter attack would be "on". Which is equally false. Previously the box was ticked in the creator even for "attacking" strategies. That has changed since the last patch, likely due to balance something out, maybe it was found that attacking teams had then hit their opponent on the break too often, which probably wasn't the desired result of what the "attacking strategy" of the creator was supposed to do.

Anyhow, this isn't supposed to be a debate about the documentation of the counter attack tick box, this is about how the entire slider setup has never been communicated - and why. Hence why I linked to a fairly "random" thread about time wasting, albeit one I picked because even longterm players are coming up with theories for themselves because they apparently are expected to do so. That is all, really.

But ticking the box does make your team sit back, and then when appropriate launch a full out attack on the opp, it also does not in any way mean that your team will only ever attack when a counter attack is on, i have no idea why you would think that. A counter attack is as it says, you take advantage of the opp losing the ball during their attack and punish them for it, this is achieved usually by sitting back in a solid shape, stealing the ball off the opponent and taking advantage of the fact they are high up the pitch with lots of space behind them. Again there is no contradiction between what Paul has said and what the manual says, just the manual has gone into more depth than Paul did with his two line description.

I think everyone agrees SI could do more in terms of documentation, but you could write a never ending book on all the tactical theories and ideals of FM, the book could be 10,000 pages big and still not explain everything fully.

But ticking the box does make your team sit back

Not at all what PaulC has described, and if it were the case this wouldn't fit the attacking strategies of the Creator, which until very recently were equipped with the box ticked - in fact, the "overload", the most attacking and risky strategy still is.

I think everyone agrees SI could do more in terms of documentation, but you could write a never ending book on all the tactical theories and ideals of FM, the book could be 10,000 pages big and still not explain everything fully.

I question why there were asked to be "theories" about the basic input methods of FM, rather than, well, actual tactics. It is kind of like a Command&Conquer game in which you are demanded to guess the buttons of the UI yourself by trial&error, rather than putting effort into the real tactical aspects of the game. Maybe I'm looking at it from a wrong angle, though.

Paul has described the attacking part of counter attacking play, that is all really, he hasnt touched on what happens when your team doesnt have the ball, im sure paul could write you a 50,000 word essay on what he considers counter attacking football and how it is implemented into FM, him and wwfan could run circles round us indefinitely, he has chosen in that post to keep it short.

There are theories and ideals because tactics are not a static one dimensional thing, they are suppose to be adaptive and intuitive to each situation possible, there is no set template for any style of football, there are ideologies teams try to follow. Most managers will have developed their ideologies through trial and error, i dont see why this should be any different in FM.

Paul has described the attacking part of counter attacking play, that is all really, he hasnt touched on what happens when your team doesnt have the ball

Because it doesn't affect anything if your team doesn't have the ball. I've never once seen the tick box causing a side to sit back, and it doesn't make sense as it is being implemented into the overload strategy of the creator, and used to be the same for the attacking strategy. Sadly I can't find the question PaulC was responding to, but in context it was even more clear that he was describing all ticking the box does, really. Increasing the likelyhood that a team hits the opponent on the break by a quick counter by increasing the likelyhood of the conditions in which a counter attack occurs to be more frequently fullfilled: by raising the number of opposing players between the ball carrier and the opposing goal when winning back the ball. And of course how a counter is being implemented into the slider system, by raising mentality et all to maximum for the duration of the move that would unfold.

There are theories and ideals because tactics are not a static one dimensional thing, they are suppose to be adaptive and intuitive to each situation possible, there is no set template for any style of football, there are ideologies teams try to follow. Most managers will have developed their ideologies through trial and error, i dont see why this should be any different in FM.

I think that is where I'm employing a different view, as I don't consider the sliders tactics in and on themselves, but means to communicate tactics to your player. In short, they're input mechanics of the UI, no more, no less. But maybe somebody from SI could tell us their own view on why the setup really was meant to be that vague and open for interpretation.

I think you're misunderstanding what the counter attack description in the manual refers too.

Counter Attack: The counter attack option is best used by an underdog facing a superior opponent or a team with players capable of launching attacks at high speed with a directness about their play. They will tend to sit back in their own half and allow the opposition to have the ball in ‘harmless’ positions before imposing pressure, taking the ball, and countering.

The last part is describing the general tactics of the underdog team, who will tend to sit back and then when appropriate, launch a counter attack.

Ticking the "Counter attack" box will not make your team sit back, there is no inferral of this

I think that is where I'm employing a different view, as I don't consider the sliders tactics in and on themselves, but means to communicate tactics to your player. In short, they're input mechanics of the UI, no more, no less. But maybe somebody from SI could tell us their own view on why the setup really was meant to be that vague and open for interpretation.

Are they not the same things, there is no point having tactics if you cannot communicate them to your players. All tactics and tactical instructions are open to interpretation, again there is no set rule or formula for getting things right, the game would be a lot worse if all we could do is choose from tactical templates and nothing more.

Im not ignoring your first part, but unless i see the context Paul was posting in theres little point in me and you arguing over what is or isnt counter attacking football, i'm going off my own experiences and how i set my team out, if im going for counter attacking football i want me team to sit and break very quickly, i get that out the ME, but there is obviously more too it than just ticking one box.

Edit - One thought, is the manual referring to the counter attack tick box, or counter attack mentality?

I think you're misunderstanding what the counter attack description in the manual refers too.

The last part is describing the general tactics of the underdog team, who will tend to sit back and then when appropriate, launch a counter attack.

Ticking the "Counter attack" box will not make your team sit back, there is no inferral of this

It wasn't my intention to turn this into a discussion about ticking the counter attack tick box - I mainly brought it up because it was the most extreme example of the documentation. The thing is that what I quoted wasn't taken from what the manual has to say about "general tactics of an underdog team", but this is taken from the paragraph that is describing what enabling the counter-attack box tick box in the team settings does: http://www.footballmanager.com/webmanual/fm2012/8.2. This is not to be confused with picking the "counter" strategy from the Tactics Creator(!), which indeed employs settings that would a side to employ a rather cautios "sit back and hit them on the break" strategy. The paragraph I quoted has been describing the tick box for as long as I've been playing the game, back then when there was still a printed manual. :-)

edit: Sorry, for the confusion, milnerpoint! That should clear that up. :-)

I dont think that the problem is that people (and by people i mean everybody that play the game) dont understand what "slider" do.

I think it's pretty obvious in the large majoraty of the cases, and the same way, the majoraty of people who had play the game for a little bit, understand the basics on how to make a tactic.

If we play the game for a couple of games, we will fast understand what the sliders do, what effect they have, and how they combine with each other.

I think that the main difficulty for the users, is the relation between the tactic and the players. For example, if i have central defenders with 12 for pace, how high can i place my defende (D-line slider), or for example if i want to play a zonal marking system, how good my players must be in terms of the position atribute.

This kind of relations, for me, i think it's the hardest... but the only solution i see is... try and try again.