Suggestion: Tactical Visual Aids

I think the GUI of tactics is really outdated. It worked fine in CM2 (and it haven't basically changed at all) when there were only couple of tactical options to choose. Now there are so many that it is hard to get a clear picture of your tactic. Picture tells more than thousand words they say and there's plenty of room for visual aids in the tactics pitch.

To demonstrate my ideas, I made couple of visual aids for you. Basically you should get at much as possible information from your tactic by just taking a glance on the tactics pitch. Also you should be able to adjust your tactics as much as possible via the pitch view.

So here they are:

First a standard 4-4-2 tactic. (Sorry for no farrows as I erased them and was too lazy to put them back)

As you can see in the picture, the players are not in the same line horizontally. You can see that the MR/ML and the other MC are more attacking minded than the other MC. The two DCs are more defensive than the fullbacks. The targetman (could easily use a label like here) is more defensive minded than the quick striker. There's also a beautiful captain's band visible on the MCd's arm!

The ghosts of the original positions wouldn't really be visible (or maybe they could be as an option), but I just wanted to show the original positions here.

You can also see defensive line here. All these should be adjustable straight from the pitch view. You could shift-click player and drag him up or down to adjust his mentality, you could also drag him left and right to adjust the whole formation width at once. You could adjust the d-line by dragging it up and down.

Next, we have narrow 4-4-2 with low d-line. You can instantly see that it's more narrower than the previous formation.

(second image here)

Lastly I made some bonus visual aids which should be prettier. Use your imagination. ML's passing zone is visible. As he is more attacking minded, the zone is brighter forward. The radius is showing his passing style. In this case it's mixed or something like that. There's also other DC's closing down radius visible in blue. Maybe the color could indicate the tackling intensity also? Closing down is "own area" in this case.

(third image here)

These are only some examples what could be done. There's no excuse for tactics GUI to be so confusing and unapproachable.

Of course you should be able to choose what is shown on the tactics pitch yourself.

What do you think? Time for a change?

edit:

Sorry, for some reason I got message that I had 6 images in my post and had to reduce them to 3 or something like that, when that was not the case. Anyway, I posted the other images on separate posts here.

The second image:

Third image:

Yes, I wholeheartedly agree with the idea that the tactics interface needs a lot of improving.

The reasons are pretty simple:

1) It would make it FAR easier to understand exactly what the different player & team instructions actually do, and so make the game a lot less daunting for new/inexperienced users.

2) It would be much less painful to design and tweak tactics than it currently is. There are plenty of times in the game where I think 'oh, I really should change my tactics for the last 10 minutes, to protect this lead' but I can't really be bothered to do it. Adjusting tactics should be enjoyable, not a challenge.

Of course, it would be a bit more challenging to visually implement some aspects of the tactics (hold up ball, run with ball maybe..) but I'm sure SI can come up with something which they can improve as times goes on.

The key thing is that tactics need to be made clearer and a lot more intuitive to use.

That's a nice first attempt, by the way. I'd love to suggest a few, but my photoshop skills are apalling!

I was wondering if the 'closing down' sliders actually work like a circle around a player, or just dictate an area of the pitch for them to close down in. The titles 'own area, own half, all over the pitch' suggest the second option, but I actually suspect it might work a bit more like the circles.

That's just one aspect of the game that would be much clearer with visual aids, right there.

In the long term, the sliders MUST go to be replaced with visual options like this, even if the underlying mechanics are totally unchanged. There are plenty of clever ways to do it, I'm sure. It's a no-brainer really, as it makes the tactics easier for everyone to understand and use.

That's a nice first attempt, by the way. I'd love to suggest a few, but my photoshop skills are apalling!

I was wondering if the 'closing down' sliders actually work like a circle around a player, or just dictate an area of the pitch for them to close down in. The titles 'own area, own half, all over the pitch' suggest the second option, but I actually suspect it might work a bit more like the circles.

Thank you!

I recall there was a debate about the closing down some time ago and I thought the conclusion was that the text is misleading and the closing down is really an area around the player where he is going to close down the opponent. I definetely could be wrong and that just shows how confusing the whole system is.

A definite YES for this suggestion. Great idea in general, and the specific cues you suggest are quite good as well.

Brilliant! Defo the way forward!

I like the passing and closing down areas, especially the colour change for the intensity etc.

Awesome idea, I'd love to see it implemented.

With mentality, I always imagined it would be easier if you placed players in their 'starting position' as you do now, and then when you clicked on them, you had a vertical line so you could drag them up or down, depending on how attacking/defensive you wanted them to be, relative to their position. Obviously, the line would only extend so far either way.

Closing down would definitely be best done with those types of circles, and defensive line with something similar to what you have (or you could drag the whole defensive unit back or forward, but that might confuse things).

If you can think of a visual way to represent 'creative freedom', I'd be impressed

Would help a lot of other people who aren't as tactically astute as some of us

Definately going in the right direction! I've suggested this on a smaller scale in terms of giving something visual alongside the sliders like in LMA(note i have only played 2003 so don't know if its changed at all!). So each notch makes the little image change in terms of how far players pass the ball etc. I'm sure this could be added to and made even better!

If you can think of a visual way to represent 'creative freedom', I'd be impressed

Maybe with more creative freedom you could add some strange arrows pointing every way from the player.

I think that this idea has some possibilities.

Sliders have long been a contentious issue and it is time that new ideas were looked at.

I like the idea of being able to adjust defensive line, mentality, etc easily on the formation screen. With careful development, this idea could be a real winner. Good post.

The sliders could also be left somewhere for the hardcore players like they are now.

I tell you what, though - if SI decide against going down this route, you could always team up with this guy and make a really good third-party app!

I'm bumping this because it needs more people to see it to become something they might implement!

op: yup very good suggestion/s.

also a sepreate offline tactic builder would be nice. istead of having to use the sliders, just input the numbers directly and export to a .tac

the beta on FM Britian seems doomed to failure because of the closed .tac format, so how about an official module? maybe as DLC?

Bumping for all the hard work I've done for it and it seems people are liking the idea. I hope also the SI will notice.

Looks like a great idea. It would help simplify the current complex system.

Forget +1, I'll give this a +10! Something similar to this would really help out the less tactically gifted and new users in on foul swoop! Perhaps it could have an option to turn it on or off, like the wizard? That would also keep the tactical hardnuts happy!

NAPPIS, You are a genious!

I posted somethng along those lines in the wishlist thread...

But you made it sound much clearer and better!

I think SI should definatly use this idea in FM 2010

Fantastic Idea!!!!

this is by far, the best post regarding tactics in fm mate.. si should really do everything possible, to implement this into fm.. the sooner the better..

this would be an excellent way, for us gamers to understand and interpret fm´s slider language.. awesome idea..

great idea hope they include it

looks like it could be a shout

Top draw nappis, SI please have look at his.

Yes very good ideas here. Really shows the sort of thing that coud be possible and the potential benefits of improved visual aids.

i love this idea, it took soooo long to read and understand the tactics whereas with the visual aids it would make understanding so much easier

those sliders are hard to figure out!

Fabulous suggestion nappis! I would love for SI to take this idea aboard and implement such visual cues in the FM series as soon as possible.

If you can think of a visual way to represent 'creative freedom', I'd be impressed

Perhaps have tiny light bulbs displayed next to each player when you select 'view Creative Freedom' and their intensity will correspond to the level of creative freedom allowed? Extremely bright for maximum creative freedom and unlit for minimum creative freedom. It is cliched but hey, it will be simple to understand.

Well, I have to say this was almost the EXACT thing I had in mind when I started this thread about improving the tactical system.

Only that, given it could be hard to control all the instructions in a graphical way without making the UI cluttered, I thought one same graphic could maybe represent two or more instructions tied together, leaving you the option to go into the individual instructions and tweak them separately if you want.

However, I believe the option to represent mentalities as an upper/deeper position of the player is a GREAT idea. After all, we're all used to this kind of stuff both in other games (PES, etc.) and even in some TV shows. It would also accomplish another goal, which is the fact that an AMC with a really high mentality would almost play in the same place than a FC with a very low mentality. This is something that currently happens in the match engine, but sometimes we fail to see it if we don't pay enough attention to the match or don't see enough highlights.

This graphical representation would underline that and other things, and would definately make the mentality setting something that would never again be missed by anyone when setting up their tactics.

I also believe some "labels" such as the TM one also need to be there. SI should choose them carefully to avoid messing up the tactical screen, but at least some of them should be in. After all, we're used to all videogames using different sets of icons (talk about RPG games... ) that feel completely un-familiar to us the first time we try the game because you don't know their meaning, and you need to hover your mouse to find out. Yet, after hours of gameplay (and we put LOTS of hours into FM), we'll become familiar with those icons and we won't need to check their meaning.

If you ask me, any usual RPG or shooter game has LOTS more different icons than what FM would need to use for the tactical screen, so I don't think it would be a problem as long as the design remains neat and clean.

Really glad that someone has come up with a graphical representation for this... I was actually wondering about doing it myself, but there's no need now

I am really looking forward to next FM and would like very much if they include this type of setting tactics.

Awesome idea.

Finally more people have seen this thread and its getting the posts it deserves! Well done nappis! Great idea, they have to implement it.

Great idea. This is easy to understand and much better than the current system. Hope SI reads this.

That would be brilliant!

Even if it's just a different representation of our tactics it would make the game much more "football like" as opposed to just setting up a bunch of sliders as it is now. Hope SI concentrate on things like this that really matter and add to the gameplay for FM10 instead of pointless features like press conferences that everyone ends up skipping after a while.

Please take note SI......for all our sakes. A great idea nappis and there are at least some ideas in there which SI should be able to investigate the implementation of without any major re-writing of code or modification to the game engine.

Wow, this thread finally burst in to the flames (in a good way)!

I am still not satisfied at all how I presented the passing zone and the closing down zone. I must work something out! And I am not satisfied with the labels either. Maybe target man could be marked with a simple target symbol and playmaker with... I don't know.

This is exactly what I proposed in the Tactics forum, but I got told by quite a few that it would make the game too easy and unenjoyable. I wholeheartedly support the OP in this. Excellent!

thats the sort of tactical display ive wanted for years.

but i would like to add to it, with a few suggestions.

this first section are of the tactics are got to by buttons, when its clicked you are then taken to the pitch to select a player, which then takes you to

Mentality - up arrow-attacking, length dependant on how attacking and vice versa for defensive

passing - you get a circle which you can size to your requirements this is the maximum length of a pass

closing down - same as passing

forward runs and dribblings - same as passing

crossing - this could be done i think with a xhair, clicking on area you want the player to cross/or click another player to cross to.

i think the rest should be ticking box's.

if someone could impliment my ideas into a image, it may show off the idea better.

Looks alot better, I dont really understand the sliders, and haven't got hours to read through treads on it

I think the sliders should stay. Just each click makes the tactics display graphically show what your sliders have done! It may be too hard to get the tactics changed by only clicking on the actual pitch and positions/d line etc, because that would be difficult!

My suggestion is... Similar to the drop downs in the flex09 skin in tactics...

You have the players on the left and then you select the different drop down for closing down/tight marking/mentality whatever.

Then the pitch will look the same but when on each different dropdown menu the pitch will display only the graphical representation of that dropdown. (ie if on closing down dropdown only the closing down circle will be shown around each player on the pitch.)

Then you will be able to see what each of your clicks is increasing/decreasing in terms of the zones etc.

Then on the main tactics screen it(the pitch) could either look the same as normal or with all the graphical bits n pieces shown(how you would do that i don't know!) you decide on this one.

What do you think?

Wow, this thread finally burst in to the flames (in a good way)!

I am still not satisfied at all how I presented the passing zone and the closing down zone. I must work something out! And I am not satisfied with the labels either. Maybe target man could be marked with a simple target symbol and playmaker with... I don't know.

Don't change the TM and PM, i think they are good that way!

Great idea

Fantastic idea, I think a graphical representation of the tactics would vastly benefit the game.

Really great idea. Would make it easier for new users especially. I could see this idea working well with the sliders (ie as you move a slider it changes on the pitch). Hopefully SI will take a good look at this and embrace it.

That's a nice idea. I hope SI take a look at it.

New year, new idea. I still think that SI haven't noticed this thread. So time to bring it up as it seems that many of you are thinking this as a right way to develop the tactical GUI.

I was thinking about the passing. I didn't like my previous passing zone presentation. So I made this:

I have many times thought "who will this player most likely to pass?" The game could tell it to me like above. Instead of looking through full match or trying to figure it out from the stats, this way you could quickly see who each player are going to pass the ball.

In above picture, the DR is selected. He has direct passing and maybe normal or defensive mentality. Target man is set on and passing is focused on flanks. So he is most likely going to pass the ball to the target man, other likely options are MR and GK. The DC® is a bit risky and so is MC®. The left flank is too far and hard to reach. (Maybe the ML should be orange as well).

Of course many many different things affect on who the player is going to pass, but this could be a general guide for the manager on what is going to happen.

What do you think? Of course this should be presented more beautiful way, but that's Ter's job or someone else's.