Improved Tactics

There are plenty of threads where people have shared their ideas on how to improve the tactics portion of FM. Adopting some of these, changing bits, and adding some of my own - this is what I would love to see, or something similar.

Formation

I would like to see individual options for players to play attacking/defending to be visible on the formation (after all, that's what differentiates an attacking fullback from a defending right back). And then adding an option for a player to play wide/narrow.

For example if you have a 4-4-2, your 2 forwards are side by side. If you change one forwards mentality to more defensive he will show on the formation screen as being moved behind the other. Then if you move his mentality to wide he will be shown as being closer to the line than he was previously.

This will make it possible to view the AI's formation and see what roles their players have, with the removal of player arrows it will be hard to find out if their playing a defensive or offensive 4-4-2, otherwise only being able to guess based on where possession is etc.

Individual Player Instructions

I waste a lot of time pausing a game to sub a player in and having to change options that are characteristic of the player being subbed, not the position, such as creativity, holding the ball up, closing down for a midfielder with high stamina and decent defensive abilities etc.

This is one feature I would absolutely be excited about, the ability to set instructions for a player rather than a position. This would allow us to play to a players individual strengths without having to change tactics between each game or during the game for a sub.

It also has other benefits such as if your playing a 4-4-2 and losing and you switch to a 4-3-3 you won't have to set any additional instructions, simply swap in your forward and tick a box for individual tactics for that position and hes ready to go.

Set Pieces List

Players missing a game, being subbed etc leaves a lot of room for the set piece instructions you spent so much time on to be useless.

I think set piece positions should be set up like penalty takers and play makers. What I mean by this is a list of players. Near Post option? Make your list of your top 5 best headers for this position and rank it has #1, being the most important to you. So if your best header has an injury, your second best will fill in.

Player Instruction Presets

We have the ability to save presets for most other things which is great but what about player instructions? You know the drop down box to select the default player instructions for a goalkeeper, or a central defender? I believe we should be able to easily set these to what we believe should be default for that position and save it as well as creating/naming our own to add to the drop downs.

I know I have more I just can't think of them at the moment....so possibly more to come

I like the individual tactics idea, in fact I mentioned it today. (Here if you're interested http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=37617&page=2)

Every player plays differently so for every substitution you make, you end up having to change all the settings which becomes extremely repetitive.

There are plenty of threads where people have shared their ideas on how to improve the tactics portion of FM. Adopting some of these, changing bits, and adding some of my own - this is what I would love to see, or something similar.

Formation

I would like to see individual options for players to play attacking/defending to be visible on the formation (after all, that's what differentiates an attacking fullback from a defending right back). And then adding an option for a player to play wide/narrow.

For example if you have a 4-4-2, your 2 forwards are side by side. If you change one forwards mentality to more defensive he will show on the formation screen as being moved behind the other. Then if you move his mentality to wide he will be shown as being closer to the line than he was previously.

This will make it possible to view the AI's formation and see what roles their players have, with the removal of player arrows it will be hard to find out if their playing a defensive or offensive 4-4-2, otherwise only being able to guess based on where possession is etc.

Individual Player Instructions

I waste a lot of time pausing a game to sub a player in and having to change options that are characteristic of the player being subbed, not the position, such as creativity, holding the ball up, closing down for a midfielder with high stamina and decent defensive abilities etc.

This is one feature I would absolutely be excited about, the ability to set instructions for a player rather than a position. This would allow us to play to a players individual strengths without having to change tactics between each game or during the game for a sub.

It also has other benefits such as if your playing a 4-4-2 and losing and you switch to a 4-3-3 you won't have to set any additional instructions, simply swap in your forward and tick a box for individual tactics for that position and hes ready to go.

Set Pieces List

Players missing a game, being subbed etc leaves a lot of room for the set piece instructions you spent so much time on to be useless.

I think set piece positions should be set up like penalty takers and play makers. What I mean by this is a list of players. Near Post option? Make your list of your top 5 best headers for this position and rank it has #1, being the most important to you. So if your best header has an injury, your second best will fill in.

Player Instruction Presets

We have the ability to save presets for most other things which is great but what about player instructions? You know the drop down box to select the default player instructions for a goalkeeper, or a central defender? I believe we should be able to easily set these to what we believe should be default for that position and save it as well as creating/naming our own to add to the drop downs.

I know I have more I just can't think of them at the moment....so possibly more to come

All for a more user friendly method incorporated in the game .

You can create presets for every player you have if you want

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=10190

Takes a while to do initially depending on how much tweaking you do but long term time saved outweighs this, especially if you have a particular type of player you like and tend to go for.

Like the set piece idea as well as I often find myself saving tactics for particular line ups. Same tactic just changed set piece instructions.

I reckon the bolded part is going to seriously hamper playing via commentary only. Admittedly those that don't won't care and I like watching the 2D but sometimes I switch to commentary only to get to the 'big picture' ending quicker. I usually used the arrows as a guide but I guess I'm going to have to learn how to judge match stats better . Maybe the assistant feedback will compensate. Have to wait for the demo to find out.

Awesome, awesome ideas... I responded to CBrooker's other thread on this. Great ideas. I hate having to slide slide sliders around a bunch just because I brought in a sub or something. Take the idea of saving custom tactics... and expand it to custom other instructions, like the ones stated above.

I like the individual tactics idea, in fact I mentioned it today. (Here if you're interested http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=37617&page=2)

Every player plays differently so for every substitution you make, you end up having to change all the settings which becomes extremely repetitive.

Yea I think I replied in your thread as well. It's been a feature I've been whining about since 07 and still waiting for.

Yea I think I replied in your thread as well. It's been a feature I've been whining about since 07 and still waiting for.

Hopefully it will be in FM09, but if not we'll just have to keep pestering!

All for a more user friendly method incorporated in the game .

You can create presets for every player you have if you want

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=10190

Takes a while to do initially depending on how much tweaking you do but long term time saved outweighs this, especially if you have a particular type of player you like and tend to go for.

Like the set piece idea as well as I often find myself saving tactics for particular line ups. Same tactic just changed set piece instructions.

I reckon the bolded part is going to seriously hamper playing via commentary only. Admittedly those that don't won't care and I like watching the 2D but sometimes I switch to commentary only to get to the 'big picture' ending quicker. I usually used the arrows as a guide but I guess I'm going to have to learn how to judge match stats better . Maybe the assistant feedback will compensate. Have to wait for the demo to find out.

I tried doing this before but couldn't get it to work, I was doing it on my own however without a guide so I will definitely give that a try.

I tried doing this before but couldn't get it to work, I was doing it on my own however without a guide so I will definitely give that a try.

Post in here if you have any problems with it and I'll help if I can.

Just follow the structure with respect to indents and keep the syntax exactly the same.

Off the top of my head there is a text description at the top if the relevant xml that explains what each one means and the relevant 'variable name'.