Why are the curved arrows in tactics gone?

As i opened up my tactics screen in FM09 i realised that the curved arrows (which used let u choose if a player can move to any side) is not there anymore, only farrows and barrows. I thought the curved arrows were very helpful in FM08 so pls keep the carrows in the ful version.

yes i agree i would like them back too or if we couldent get them back i would like to see more options and features to achieve certain tactics that get used in real life professional football !

no more cheat tactics for the kids

YES!

no more cheat tactics for the kids

YES!

they could bring the arrow thing back but just limit the usage of them sort of thing or just make extra features to compinsate for the loss of them

I agree they need to come back. I always used to play players who could play wide and up front, put them running into the centrefoward posistion and then get my strikers to drag the centre backs wide. But now i cant work out how to do it. Boo

The arrows just represent forward runs as a cosmetic look. If you set the slider to mixed you don't get the arrows.

I don't see the point of having arrows if they don't do anything.

The arrows now just represent what the players 'forward runs' option is.

Guys, I was concerned about this as you are but I've had a look at some threads here and I'm changed my opinion. There are other ways to make this work. There are no problems with the M.E.

The arrows just represent forward runs as a cosmetic look. If you set the slider to mixed you don't get the arrows.

I don't see the point of having arrows if they don't do anything.

You can easily set foward runs on any player buy clicking and dragging them, it makes it easier to modify the tactics in a game situation.

You can easily set foward runs on any player buy clicking and dragging them, it makes it easier to modify the tactics in a game situation.

that's right, but the wide playing strikers are now gone. or at least i don't see any option to use this tactics anymore

It's a lot harder to play with 3 defenders, or you have a left, right and centre back (which probable won't work very well) or you have 3 CB's which don't move to LB or RB positions...

really need the arrows back. it's been by far the most dissappointing thing in the demo. that or the fact that there are like 8,000 wonderkids

ive only just found out that the arrows on the demo are here to stay.

Having read a few of the articles on here, i can understand why this decision has been made, but then again, am i?

from what I can gather, managers have created "super-tactics" to dominate the game?

Well, if it was FML i could understand the need to bin them, but seeing as i will be paying cash to play the game on my own, i find this annoyong.

Secondly, it seems people are saying the arrows in FM08 were cosmetic and had no real value, well keep them to keep us happy!!!!

Thirdly, back to the cheating, rather than bin the whole lot, why not just limit certain ones?

Overall, im very dissapointed as my preferred formation uses wide wingers cutting into the box.

I see we can get them to do this via other methods, but preferred nice, simple arrows.

It seems too, that many many other people agree, yet SI insist they wont be put back in, which I think is a shame, as they obviously know99% of us will buy thegame anyway.

I agree with everyone who thinks that the lack of arrows is the biggest disappointment of FM 2009. In my oppinion the arrows are essential in order to create interesting tactical looks. I used to like experimenting with different formations but tactics now just seem kind of boring to me since I'm not really able to get the movement/positioning from players that I want anyway. SI needs to bring back the arrows or implement some other way to instruct a player to act in a similar way. If this doesn't happen I for one will continue playing FM 2008 and not buy 2009. It's that simple. I don't get the decision to remove the arrows in the first place. I mean, real life managers get to tell their strikers to play wide for instance, right?

I miss the arrows too but I don't miss the uber-cheat tactics. You can probably teach the wingers a preferred move to do what you want them to do.

The arrows were the creative element of tactics. It was not the case of just adding arrows but still balancing a tactic using arrows providing variety.

My current view of FM09 tactics is that it's like painting by numbers rather than using artistic talent.

The arrows should have been developed rather than just binned. If a player can have a free role then a directional arrow rather than a positional arrow should be made available.

On the basis I can win games with 5-0-5, I'm not sure anything has been achieved and the crazy super formation will appear rather than crazy arrows.

couldn't agree more...

5-0-5 eh? Can you upload a screenshot of the formation?

Terry

I played the 90mins with this formation, totally crazy result.

hehe, that is a bit silly all things considered.

There is no way a team with no midfield in real life would get any kind of result, never mind a win away.

no more cheat tactics for the kids

YES!

why are they cheats?? liverpools wingers come inside all the time IRL so is that cheating?

How come wwfan hasn't found this thread yet? I'm amazed.

Anyway, there's about a 10 page thread on GQ about the removal of the arrows.

One of the things we discovered in the FML beta (FML uses the same match engine, and allowed vastly more testing of the ME than ever before) was that a significant proportion of managers didn't understand what the arrows meant, misused them, or abused them - in a multiplayer game this is a massive problem obviously. We had a lot of people using side arrows from one corner or side of the pitch to the opposite one.

Arrows basically dictated that players had two positions - one for defence and one for offence. The player would then run madly, wildly, desperately to get from one to the other each time possession was gained/lost. Note: this is not a forward run. It is a mad, instant attempt to change from a right midfielder to a left striker and so forth. A side arrow did not indicate a player would tend to drift wide, but would play midway between two positions. Arrows were broken, and needed to go.

What has been significantly improved is a player's ability to judge for themselves what they should do in a given situation - right backs intuitively know how to play like right backs and so on. The match engine suddenly played vastly more like real football when arrows were absent - what started out as a controversial experiment rapidly became widely accepted.

So, gaps - there are obvious gaps left behind by not having arrows. SI are looking at this for future improvement. But it's still possible to produce many of the old effects with clever tweaks of the new engine.

Arrows are not coming back - ever - and after playing thousands of games without arrows, I'm 100% confident the match engine is infinitely better without them.

why are they cheats?? liverpools wingers come inside all the time IRL so is that cheating?

You obviously have not encountered a REAL cheat tactic.

Does this look like a realistic tactic to you?

Even then, this one is one of the OK ones. There are crazier ones.

You obviously have not encountered a REAL cheat tactic.

Does this look like a realistic tactic to you?

Even then, this one is one of the OK ones. There are crazier ones.

many people call my tactic are cheat tactic, but this is not cheat tactics coz ME allow it happen

if ME allow unrealistic tactic work then it proof :

- ME is flawed and suck

- that unrealistic tactic beat ME

if unrealistic tactic work then it means football manager ME is an unrealistic ME....... in other word this game is far from simulation and its just a game

SI should hire better game tester imo

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a cheat tactic, but it clearly doesn't relate to any real world footballing possibility - you want players to play wide in attack when you have the ball, but then run like mad to get back to a central defensive midfield position when you're defending?

It doesn't make any sense, players physically wouldn't be able to achieve it. This is the sort of thing that indicated the arrows had to go!

that's right, but the wide playing strikers are now gone. or at least i don't see any option to use this tactics anymore

Well, if you put Crossing on Often the strikers will move wide a lot, put it on mixed and they'll do 50% of the time.

It's a lot harder to play with 3 defenders, or you have a left, right and centre back (which probable won't work very well) or you have 3 CB's which don't move to LB or RB positions...

Same goes for the CD's. The outer defenders should have crossing on mixed so they'll move to the sides.

I miss the arrows too but I don't miss the uber-cheat tactics. You can probably teach the wingers a preferred move to do what you want them to do.

Thats another way of doing it. Perhaps you can 'teach' them to either run along left/right wing of hug the line.

Also, using a left-footed player on the right wing will likely lead to him cutting in more onto his preferred foot.

There are plenty of little tricks to be found...

Same goes for the CD's. The outer defenders should have crossing on mixed so they'll move to the sides.

Thanks mate!

The name of the game is Football Manager. This kind of indicates that you get to manage all aspectcs of your team. Thus you should be allowed to make crazy tactics like the "cheat tactic" posted above if you please. You should at least have the opportunity to have a player play wide in attack when you have the ball but then run like mad to get back to a central defensive midfield position like in Super Bladesman's example. Tweak the game engine so that the players fitness more realistically reflects the workload of the player having to do so or have the board and the press question your ability when you make crazy tactics but don't completely remove the option.

Well. As it seems that the arrows won't be coming back could anyone please tell me how to make the following examples happen without the use of arrows?:

- Two strikers drawing the central defenders apart by playing slightly wider than normal thus leaving leaving space for the single attacking midfielder who plays the role of striker in when his team is in possesion.

- A player taking up the position of sweeper in defence and the position af defensive midfielder when attacking.

- A right back playing the AMR-position when attacking.

I think the main problem of FM tactics is that you can't have a defensive tactic, you can't lay out how you want your team to defend. For example Porto play a 4-3-3 and the DMC is almost a DC and the two MC give back up to the full backs, you can set them to do this but it would be a lot easier if you could have a tactic with ball and without IMO.

Well. As it seems that the arrows won't be coming back could anyone please tell me how to make the following examples happen without the use of arrows?:

- Two strikers drawing the central defenders apart by playing slightly wider than normal thus leaving leaving space for the single attacking midfielder who plays the role of striker in when his team is in possesion.

- A player taking up the position of sweeper in defence and the position af defensive midfielder when attacking.

- A right back playing the AMR-position when attacking.

1 . Set their crossing to mixed (or often)

2. Good question! I heard something about multiple running lines, but I havent found any!

I think the main problem of FM tactics is that you can't have a defensive tactic, you can't lay out how you want your team to defend. For example Porto play a 4-3-3 and the DMC is almost a DC and the two MC give back up to the full backs, you can set them to do this but it would be a lot easier if you could have a tactic with ball and without IMO.

Set two DC's to zonal marking and your DMC to man mark their best striker. Set two MC's to man mark their wingers and voila! solved!

Also, using a left-footed player on the right wing will likely lead to him cutting in more onto his preferred foot.

There are plenty of little tricks to be found...

but i dont want little tricks to be found, that would be fair enough if you could watch training matches but you cant so you can only try things like this in a proper match.

these sort of things should be publized so its not a guessing game.

Set two DC's to zonal marking and your DMC to man mark their best striker. Set two MC's to man mark their wingers and voila! solved!

As I said it is possible, however it would be a lot better if you could micro manage this more (thanks any way mate;))

Same goes for the CD's. The outer defenders should have crossing on mixed so they'll move to the sides.

Yeah that's much more realistic;) Tell your CB's to cross and they'll cover wings on defense. I have no problem with the removal of arrows, but to say they're unrealistic and then having to resort to something like this is not a fix. I think a realistic fix would've been the ability to arrow to one spot away from the original position, forward, backward, left, or right. Then make the arrows contextual for positions. So a sarrow for a defender would mean cover the wing when needed. A winger could cut inside when on a run. The players would still only play one position, but would easily go where you want them. Would this be totally unrealistic? It seems to me that it would be no more unrealistic than controlling movement with width and crossing settings. Either way I suppose I'm fine with I'll just have to get used to the new system, but I like flat 4-4-2's anyway so it doesn't hurt me any;).

removal of 'crazy' arrows is ludicrous, and i never even used them in a 'cheat tactic'

i love the line 'What has been significantly improved is a player's ability to judge for themselves what they should do in a given situation - right backs intuitively know how to play like right backs and so on'

Thats such a relief, as far as I was aware my RB played like a RB, not like a ST or AMC.

FM seems to be getting sillier by each update, why dont SI allow people to play the game as realistically as they want to.

I'm sure for all the 'lose & reload people' you will be the next target to be screwed over by SI.

Well... perhaps the closing down is the 'fix'... because I've heard that your should look at closing down as a circle around the player's position... so if you increase closing down the more area the player will 'play' in...

I do agree with what two ppl said regarding making the wingers learn to cut in frm the wings and using a lefty on the right and vise versa this cud solve the problem to an extent, i'll giv it a try. But there's still one problem which is i only used the arrows for my fullbacks so that they can support my DM both in attack and defense. So is there any way I can make my fullbacks go up infield beside my DM when we have the ball?

I do agree with what two ppl said regarding making the wingers learn to cut in frm the wings and using a lefty on the right and vise versa this cud solve the problem to an extent, i'll giv it a try. But there's still one problem which is i only used the arrows for my fullbacks so that they can support my DM both in attack and defense. So is there any way I can make my fullbacks go up infield beside my DM when we have the ball?

Mentality.....

Mentality.....

No no u'r not gettin it. I know with attacking mentality or playing them as wingbaks wud mean they will go up when we hav the ball but they will still be near the two sidelines but i want them to move infield as they go up. It was easy to achieve in fm08 simply by using the carrows but now i don't know how to do it.

No no u'r not gettin it. I know with attacking mentality or playing them as wingbaks wud mean they will go up when we hav the ball but they will still be near the two sidelines but i want them to move infield as they go up. It was easy to achieve in fm08 simply by using the carrows but now i don't know how to do it.

You mean kimz style arrows to MC? You can't.

not that much just where the wing forwards come bak to. i want my fullbaks to go up to that space.Is it possible in fm09?

i had an adventurous right back who i trained to arrive late in the opponents area and with narrow with he came infield and shot from distance centrally alot..

anythings possible with this new match engine!

viva SI

I am with SI on banning the side arrows... I have seen some really dodgy tactics manipulating the use of arrows (forward, backward and sideward). Some of them are just so unrealistic (yeah maybe SI needs better game tester, but they are moving to the right direction by removing the side arrows )

I think PPM can act as an tactical instruction as well as what it is now, to cover the lost of side/long arrows.

So that you can "instruct" your player to do something when you feel needed. If they have the same PPM as youre instruction then they will perform better, if they have PPM that contradict with your instruction then they will underperform.

Apparently, Sir Alex Fergusonasked C Ronaldo to play in central midfield, just behind the front two and to pull wide left to make space. Rafa Benitez said that this was cheating however, so the FA banned it.....................

How can use of arrows be cheating? If the use of arrows creates a winning tactic that , on paper, should be impossible, then its the fault of the match engine.