why over complicate things?

Does anyone think that alot of peoples annoyance/frustration with the tactical side of the game is down to the over-complication of the system by SI?

In most cases, users of the game will be managing professional footballers. I don't think that a professional footballers require such detailed direction IRL for everygame. General team directions are fine, but can you imagine Alex Ferguson sitting with Michael Carrick before a game, detailing, how far to move forward, back, left, right exactly, where to pass everytime he has the ball etc. I'm sure he is told to go out and play his natural game, because he is a professional player and knows his job. He knows to close down attacking midfielders and pass to players in good positions without specific instrucitons. I could go into more examples, but you know where I'm going with this I'm sure.

Thoughts?

Well being a manager is all about setting up the team the way you want them if you want a player to play at his own will then set it to free role but the instructions are fine. I can see where your coming from but I just feel that it gives you more control of your players people might disagree but thats my opinion.

This years version is a lot more complicated then it should be imo.

By the end of playing this game with success, i believe im a perfect candidate for the man utd job irl..

By the end of playing this game with success, i believe im a perfect candidate for the man utd job irl..

I'm sure you are.

I agree to a certain extent but if you think that Ferguson just tells his players to play their natural game, then you're really underestimating how important tactics are IRL.

The game is a football management simulation

I guess the problem is meeting the requirements of the purists and thos of the arcade players

A bit like comparing how true or how fun a simultaion is between say Microsoft flight simulator and GTA IV's flying machine

Personally I'd lean heavilty of the reality of the simulation and its complexity

Does anyone think that alot of peoples annoyance/frustration with the tactical side of the game is down to the over-complication of the system by SI?

In most cases, users of the game will be managing professional footballers. I don't think that a professional footballers require such detailed direction IRL for everygame. General team directions are fine, but can you imagine Alex Ferguson sitting with Michael Carrick before a game, detailing, how far to move forward, back, left, right exactly, where to pass everytime he has the ball etc. I'm sure he is told to go out and play his natural game, because he is a professional player and knows his job. He knows to close down attacking midfielders and pass to players in good positions without specific instrucitons. I could go into more examples, but you know where I'm going with this I'm sure.

Thoughts?

If you really believe that is the case, what separates Sir Alex from Chris Hutchings?

Why is the former legendary, while the latter is legendarily awful?

Do you think top-flight managers sit around all week, then say, "Right lads, go out and play" .. or do you think that they study game film of their opposition, looking for tendencies and weaknesses which they can exploit, as well as strengths that they need to negate?

If the latter, does that not translate into precisely what you ridicule: showing Carrick some of that game film, and telling him what you want him to do when the opposition does X?

You might be able to support an argument that SI have made the tactical side of the game too complex for the casual gamer, but the argument that managers just sit back and let the lads play sounds like it belongs in the thirties, not the modern age of football.

but can you imagine Alex Ferguson sitting with Michael Carrick before a game, detailing, how far to move forward, back, left, right exactly, where to pass everytime he has the ball etc.

Thoughts?

Yes, I can. During training, practice matches and tactical preparation for the next game. Even with the best players in the world, a manager will give them detailed instructions. And they'll keep those instructions flowing during a game as it develops.

If you have the worlds greatest players in every position, and if by some strange chance they can play as a team instinctively, and if the opposition just stand around and don't compete for the ball, then there's a case for nothing more than general instructions and telling players to play their natural game. And it would look like a playground of kids charging about.

But that wouldn't take into account the teams composed of players who are not even the greatest in their city. It wouldn't help those who want to play a certain way, but don't have the players to automatically do so. It wouldn't take into account an opponent who plays football at you.

It really isn't over complicated, though it can look intimidating. And people take their own failures and inability to automatically be good at the game to heart. Instead of learning through experience and vicariously through the tactics forum. However, there are people who have claimed success with using a default formation and general instructions. So it is possible to succeed without endlessly fiddling.

The game has to find an artifcial equivelant for ways managers prepare their players and teams to deal with the opposition.

For example, wasn't it Mourinho who was infamous for preparing detailed folders each week on upcoming opponets, these would outline the oppositions style of play, tactics, most dangerous players and tactics which could be used to counter them, these folders would them form the basis for the way training was organized that week.

Sam Allardice also infamous for his use of player opta stats. He paved the way for many of the current managers

We see this to some extent in gamme FM09 with distance covered stats

Sam Allardice also infamous for his use of player opta stats. He paved the way for many of the current managers

We see this to some extent in gamme FM09 with distance covered stats

And I think he was one of the first to popularise the use of Pro Zone. Mangers use every tool they can find to get the very best out of their players, from psychologists to therapists to scouting their own team and computers. And that's before they start on what their opponents are like.

I feel that the sliders having around 20 notches for each instruction is over the top and results in a level of fine tuning that is unrealistic in real life. However i would be happy if these sliders were cut down to say 10 notches as the sliders are essential in the game for getting your team to play in a style that you desire. As mentioned previously, managers irl have a much greater attention to detail than we realise on the outside.

Thats us in FM10

Does anyone think that alot of peoples annoyance/frustration with the tactical side of the game is down to the over-complication of the system by SI?

In most cases, users of the game will be managing professional footballers. I don't think that a professional footballers require such detailed direction IRL for everygame. General team directions are fine, but can you imagine Alex Ferguson sitting with Michael Carrick before a game, detailing, how far to move forward, back, left, right exactly, where to pass everytime he has the ball etc. I'm sure he is told to go out and play his natural game, because he is a professional player and knows his job. He knows to close down attacking midfielders and pass to players in good positions without specific instrucitons. I could go into more examples, but you know where I'm going with this I'm sure.

Thoughts?

that is excatly what managers do, just ask Benitez

If you really believe that is the case, what separates Sir Alex from Chris Hutchings?

Why is the former legendary, while the latter is legendarily awful?

Do you think top-flight managers sit around all week, then say, "Right lads, go out and play" .. or do you think that they study game film of their opposition, looking for tendencies and weaknesses which they can exploit, as well as strengths that they need to negate?

If the latter, does that not translate into precisely what you ridicule: showing Carrick some of that game film, and telling him what you want him to do when the opposition does X?

You might be able to support an argument that SI have made the tactical side of the game too complex for the casual gamer, but the argument that managers just sit back and let the lads play sounds like it belongs in the thirties, not the modern age of football.

I'm definitly not thinking along the lines of managers saying "right lads go out and play", and of course I realise that opposition strengths and weaknesses are analysed and relayed to players during the week, maybe I didn't explain myself well. I meant that the basic fundementals of being a professional footballer should be already engrained in a player and that individual instructions are way over complicated. Michael Carrick is a defensive midfielder, and knows how to play that position very well, and as such doesn't need to to be directed on every facet of his game to make him play as a defensive midfielder. Other instructions, depending on the opponents, state of play etc are fine, eg. show Babel onto left foot etc, or push further forward if need a goal in last 10/15 mins etc, but the fundementals of his game should be there already.

I don't think Chris Hutchings ever had the calibre of players Sir Alex Ferguson to work with, which in a sense adds to my point.

I meant that the basic fundementals of being a professional footballer should be already engrained in a player and that individual instructions are way over complicated. Michael Carrick is a defensive midfielder, and knows how to play that position very well, and as such doesn't need to to be directed on every facet of his game to make him play as a defensive midfielder. Other instructions, depending on the opponents, state of play etc are fine, eg. show Babel onto left foot etc, or push further forward if need a goal in last 10/15 mins etc, but the fundementals of his game should be there already.

So your assertion is that the basic fundamentals of football are not reflected in the player's behavior? (in the match engine)

Is that a tactics problem, a tactical-interface problem, or a match engine problem?

Personally, I don't agree with the assertion. My experience is that if you take a player, place him in a position, and give him the center-point on each of the sliders, "Mixed", etc, for most of the instructions .. he actually plays fairly well. He plays what you're thinking of as a very "natural" game. He isn't going to play immensely poorly!

I suspect that the place people get into trouble is when they give too many instructions; over-specifying, giving "contradictory" instructions, etc ... and failing to respond adequately to tactical situations such as defending a lead against an all-out attack in the final minutes.

I'm sure you are.

he is ..........

So your assertion is that the basic fundamentals of football are not reflected in the player's behavior? (in the match engine)

Is that a tactics problem, a tactical-interface problem, or a match engine problem?

Personally, I don't agree with the assertion. My experience is that if you take a player, place him in a position, and give him the center-point on each of the sliders, "Mixed", etc, for most of the instructions .. he actually plays fairly well. He plays what you're thinking of as a very "natural" game. He isn't going to play immensely poorly!

I suspect that the place people get into trouble is when they give too many instructions; over-specifying, giving "contradictory" instructions, etc ... and failing to respond adequately to tactical situations such as defending a lead against an all-out attack in the final minutes.

I would say that the basic fundementals are not represtented nearly accurately enough in players behaviour, and maybe that is a mixture of tactics/interface/ME problems, or maybe one specific, in any case, i feel if SI simplified the use of the sliders on instructions, with one click up or down not making such huge differences, it would be great. But hey, that's just great in my opinion, I suppose were heading back into the old "difficulty setting" debate..

Does anyone think that alot of peoples annoyance/frustration with the tactical side of the game is down to the over-complication of the system by SI?

In most cases, users of the game will be managing professional footballers. I don't think that a professional footballers require such detailed direction IRL for everygame. General team directions are fine, but can you imagine Alex Ferguson sitting with Michael Carrick before a game, detailing, how far to move forward, back, left, right exactly, where to pass everytime he has the ball etc. I'm sure he is told to go out and play his natural game, because he is a professional player and knows his job. He knows to close down attacking midfielders and pass to players in good positions without specific instrucitons. I could go into more examples, but you know where I'm going with this I'm sure.

Thoughts?

a manager will give his players differing instructions. for example, with liverpool, no doubt benitez has given mascherano a role and told him to break the attacks down and then play short passes. alonso players long raking balls and has greater freedom to spread the ball around. gerrard is no doub ttold to get forward.

you could argue that the players do this because thats their strengths. but then the manager is going to play to the players strengths isn't he?

i'm not sure what you do but i never tell my players how far to come back/forward/left/right. i tell me defenders to play a normal line (not high) and give my wingers forward arrows and tell them to get forward.

I agree with the OP - it is over complicated and for more casual players who dont put the time in to get the results they are left frustrated and post that the game sux.

There was another thread i read mentioning how players should be able to select the level of detail they play at - good idea IMO

i'm sure all top level club managers pay attention to tactics into detailes. if they're on motivational side, they have assistens in charge for those detailes.

the biggest difference between FM and real life tactics is that real managers use training ground and training sessions to introduce their tactical wishes to players, not sliders. i find it weird that SI didn't try to connect training and tactics so far, as it is fundamental sport feature. this way any tactic would need time to work and could prove to be effective, just like IRL. we wouldn't be looking for magic slider combination like now. the goal of any tactic is to suit the players at disposal and opponent weaknesses. all this is worked at training ground and it takes time for players to adopt to bigger tactical changes. some teams never adopt to manager's tactical system.

i think tactics are overrated in FM (they certenly are compared to man managment or team atmosphere - our ability to interacti with players) in a way that players follow thier instructions a bit too literaly. what i'd like to see is them having more 'their own head'. as far as sliders are concerned 20 notches seem too much and cosmetical, there's no way a real life coach could have 7 'different notches' for attacking mentality. to say that in RL lenguage, he's only able to instruct players to try to pass the ball forward as much as possible but in the end that will come down to player ability and in match situation etc. 10 notches would be more than enough and they would defenetly be clearer to understand.

I suspect that the place people get into trouble is when they give too many instructions; over-specifying, giving "contradictory" instructions, etc ... and failing to respond adequately to tactical situations such as defending a lead against an all-out attack in the final minutes.

This is where SI has failed in my view. Do you really have to sit back and let them come to you if you're leading? If you leave your sliders set to mixed across the board with a lead they should have a better chance in succeding as the opponent has most likely over commited himself in the all-out attack. Does FM09 take this into account no. In pre FM06 titles if you did an all-out attack (either side any time) you were probably on the way to getting scored on by way of counter attack. Those days are bye-bye with the newer match engines and not true to life.

When an ai team goes into the FM famed 4-2-4 they should be getting absolutly hammered and time controlled in the midfield facing a 4-4-2 but they don't.

I kind of agree with the OP. Although each manager has his own style of managing, most of the stuff we're doing before each match have been practised on at the trainingfield. Not just before the match. How can we do that in FM, well we can't. We have to set up a tactic and tweak, knowing nothing before a match because we don't know how it works in training. Simply because we can't see our players until we play a match. That's not so realistic in my eyes.

Don't get me wrong, i love this game. But i do think it gets a bit too much on certain areas. Where in real life you can say a 2 second sentence to a player, you might have to fiddle and tweak the right sliders into the right combination to get it right. Which takes a bit more than a couple of seconds on the game, unless you really know what you're doing.

People compare to real life. When it comes to realism, a computergame can never be really be realistic, until the game can think freely and make decisions by itself.

I wonder if Sir Alex Ferguson, Rafa Benitez or Arsene Wenger can choose from a bunch of greyed out players when they have the entire first team squad injured, and the reserve and U18 inelegible because they're on international duty or playing a match in the reserve/U18 league.

It's meant to simulate the managing side of football, which for me and thousands of other people absolutely fantastic. We love it. And it's not so hard to understand why. Because FM is the greatest management simulator ever. And probably will be for a while longer. Just don't overcomplicate things. KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

You can choose to play Sir Alex or Wenger style and set everything at default with slightly more creative freedom across the board. You don't have to use all the instructions available to you if you don't want to. I think if there's any over-complication it's done by the user, not by SI.

That's what i'm doing in my games. I try to keep it as simple as possible with minor tweaks here and there. I can't get my players/teams to play the excact way i would like them to, because i can't see them train. That's where i would make my instructions - during the trainingsessions. Then i would give them a reminder during warm-up and before kickoff. But i can't do that here. That's why i would have to tweak sliders a little bit here and there to make it work the way i would want it to. Which is a bit complicated compared to real-life. I'm not saying it's easy in real-life, but it's easier to get the messages through and see the effect fast. Something that probably is hard to replicate in a computergame.

But like you say, the user can certainly simplify things as well. That's what i normally do. I try to keep it simple, and i managed to find a way that makes me happy with the way my teams are playing (can only speak of my experience since i don't know how other people play the game). They don't play exactly the way i want them to, because there are too many variables for me to consider - like the player attributes, sliders, mentality, creative freedom and so on.

So i have to say that i do understand what you're saying arnold_kidd, and i agree with what you say. You don't have to use everything available to enjoy the game and get your team to play a certain way. I don't even use half of the features available on the game, simply because i feel that i don't need it. I can achieve success and/or enjoy the game without those features.

So your assertion is that the basic fundamentals of football are not reflected in the player's behavior? (in the match engine)

Is that a tactics problem, a tactical-interface problem, or a match engine problem?

Personally, I don't agree with the assertion. My experience is that if you take a player, place him in a position, and give him the center-point on each of the sliders, "Mixed", etc, for most of the instructions .. he actually plays fairly well. He plays what you're thinking of as a very "natural" game. He isn't going to play immensely poorly!

I suspect that the place people get into trouble is when they give too many instructions; over-specifying, giving "contradictory" instructions, etc ... and failing to respond adequately to tactical situations such as defending a lead against an all-out attack in the final minutes.

Amaroq has hit the nail absolutely on the head here.

If I read and understood that nice TTP pdf, I'm getting a sense that some of the stuff in the tactic screen are relics from previous versions and rather redundant now.

I have a couple of responses to things different folks have said; the feelings aren't related, so apologies if this comes across fairly disjointed.

I would say that the basic fundementals are not represtented nearly accurately enough in players behaviour, and maybe that is a mixture of tactics/interface/ME problems, or maybe one specific, in any case, i feel if SI simplified the use of the sliders on instructions, with one click up or down not making such huge differences, it would be great. But hey, that's just great in my opinion, I suppose were heading back into the old "difficulty setting" debate..

Hmm. I guess I do feel that the fundamentals are represented adequately; certainly, I don't often sit there watching the match engine, banging my head, and saying "What the **** does my player think he's doing!!" ... or at very least, no more often than I see players go walkabout in real life.

However, as I've been working towards this management philosophy for several versions of the game now, I've been coming to place a higher and higher value on mental attributes: Decisions, Anticipation, Teamwork, Work Rate, Determination, Composure, Concentration, etc. So .. I can't say for sure that a manager who is relying on the old CM01/02 Physical+Technical approach isn't going to see the fundamentals as completely broken.

I trust my players to make good decisions because I try to only pick up players who are more intelligent than the average bear at my level of play.

This is where SI has failed in my view. Do you really have to sit back and let them come to you if you're leading? If you leave your sliders set to mixed across the board with a lead they should have a better chance in succeding as the opponent has most likely over commited himself in the all-out attack. Does FM09 take this into account no. In pre FM06 titles if you did an all-out attack (either side any time) you were probably on the way to getting scored on by way of counter attack. Those days are bye-bye with the newer match engines and not true to life.

When an ai team goes into the FM famed 4-2-4 they should be getting absolutly hammered and time controlled in the midfield facing a 4-4-2 but they don't.

Here's where I wonder if we're looking at the same game! I stay in a 4-4-2 when the opposition goes 4-2-4. I do tend to absolutely control time, killing off the game .. with the occasional late goal on a breakaway by my paciest striker.

The key changes, in my opinion, required to counter a 4-2-4 are:

- Fullbacks, Forward Runs Rarely

- Wingers, Forward Runs Mixed

- All four defenders set to "Stay Back" on corner kicks, throw-ins, and free kicks.

Sure, there are probably a few other changes that I make - Mentality, passing, tempo - but the gist of it is, explicitly telling my back four that their primary responsibility now is defense.

You could certainly argue "They should be smart enough to know that on their own" .. but if that were true, then how would setting Forward Runs, Mentality, etc, work? If the player could regularly just "decide" to override my instructions, then my instructions would be meaningless.

So, I have to give those instructions, myself.

Since I have a 4-4-2 set up as a "Saved Tactic" with all of the personal instructions set up the way I want them against a 4-2-4 (or even a 2-3-5), I click "Tactics", "Load", "4-4-2 Defending", and I'm good to go.

I translate that action as "I yell out onto the pitch, 'Bob! I want you and Jimmy to stay back now! Protect the lead!' "

i love this game. But i do think it gets a bit too much on certain areas. Where in real life you can say a 2 second sentence to a player, you might have to fiddle and tweak the right sliders into the right combination to get it right. Which takes a bit more than a couple of seconds on the game, unless you really know what you're doing.

No; see above. I load a saved tactic, it takes me about 3-5 seconds, which is about the amount of time it would take to shout instructions onto the pitch.

I figure that as actually being what you're talking about: I've set up those tactics on the training pitch, I've had my team practicing them for weeks, and we switch between tactics on-the-fly depending on what instructions I shout out to them.

You can choose to play Sir Alex or Wenger style and set everything at default with slightly more creative freedom across the board. You don't have to use all the instructions available to you if you don't want to. I think if there's any over-complication it's done by the user, not by SI.

Spot on; that's what I'm trying to say.

That's what i'm doing in my games. I try to keep it as simple as possible with minor tweaks here and there. I can't get my players/teams to play the excact way i would like them to, because i can't see them train. That's where i would make my instructions - during the trainingsessions. Then i would give them a reminder during warm-up and before kickoff. But i can't do that here. That's why i would have to tweak sliders a little bit here and there to make it work the way i would want it to.

Reading this paragraph by itself, I think you and I manage in a similar way. I'd actually like for one of my team talk options to be "Talk Tactics to the squad". I'd be a very quiet, professorial manager in real life, rarely ever giving them the hairdryer.

It would certainly be handy to see your team's interpretation of your tactics in training, especially with a "scout team" running our next opposition's usual tactic (at least, according to my scout tracking Next Opposition), so I can tweak my tactic and kind of see the effects on the pitch.

One other idea which springs to mind is, as I wind up building a "library" of saved tactics to switch to, perhaps the ability to specify which one(s) I'm focusing the team's training on.

THE game is a joke.

You cant track what is wrong with tactics.

Ive replasyed the same game over and over with different tactics but alll but once i get the same result.

Its a joke. How can i dominate possesion yet concede double the chances.

JOKE

sort it out, the fact that ive tried about 10 tactics against 1 team and get same result proves the ME is corrupt

Also, no matter how detailed your instructions are, each of your players have mental attributes that can override your tactics if they see fit (decisions, flair, teamwork, etc.). I rarely make any changes when leading by 1 goal with 3 minutes to go just because I'm too lazy to, and my players do a lot more time-wasting and running to the corners on their own without me yelling. And when I'm 1 goal down with 3 minutes to go, the players play more quickly too. These mental attributes actually make them simulate real players, not robots. Admittedly I always set Creative Freedom to at least 5.

THE game is a joke.

You cant track what is wrong with tactics.

Ive replasyed the same game over and over with different tactics but alll but once i get the same result.

Its a joke. How can i dominate possesion yet concede double the chances.

JOKE

sort it out, the fact that ive tried about 10 tactics against 1 team and get same result proves the ME is corrupt

No it doesn't. Matches are decided on many more things than just tactics and you have just changed tactics. There are several other factors which contribute to getting that result and they have all stayed constant in this case.

Yes, because it takes reading on here to try to work out what certain things do and how to try to combat how the computer does.

Football Manager lost its pick up and play appeal long ago and I dont know whether its because I'm older (and have less time to spare) but I just cannot be arsed starting the game and doing the in depth stuff thats now reqiured.

Like the last couple of versions, I start my first game and within 4/5 possibly 6 season's I get bored of the game and after that I make a half hearted attempt as starting another save which I usually play for a couple of months (game time) and quit.

I really dont know why I keep spending my money on it to be honest.

Long gone are the days when I could sit a play is after school until bed time.