Shape, mentality and the theory of relativity

This is taken from my blog at addictedtofm.com, and I plan to do a video guide on this soon as part of Season 3 of the Torino Diaries. If you can't see the screenshots I am afraid you will need to go to addictedtofm.com. I was going to edit the pictures...but its too much work. If you want to see them as a slideshow then head to the blog.

Football Manager 2016 is an interesting game, and each season something happens that grabs my attention. This season its Shape. It has a huge bearing on how you want to get your side to play. In previous additions of the game I would recommend people choose any shape or don't even bother because it had such little impact on FM Tactics. That's now changed. In order to explain, I need to explain my notion of relatives. I'm not taking about me aunts and uncs. I'm talking about relativity of everything in the game.

In Football Manager 2016, nothing is absolute, everything is relative to something. When you compare teams, stop thinking in terms of absolutes. When you find a 5 star player in a league in Serbia, and you decide to drop him into Real Madrid, that 5 star potential changes once he's compared relative to the Galacticos. It will drop. He may be a big fish in a small pond, but he's a small fish in a big ocean. The same applies to comparing tactics. When you set your team up, it inevitably becomes an attrition of attributes as you need to outnumber your opponent in key areas. When you outnumber your opponent and then underperform, then its your system. Understanding this is the key. Since everything is relative to something else, how does this affect tactics?

Now we need to split the roles up. Ignoring the oft-lambasted "auto" role, we have 3 : defensive, support and attacking. There used to be a time when mentality was the sole factor that affected positioning. Today that's affected by more than just mentality. Even shape affects it in some way. The effect is not huge but how this affects the team, affects how the roles interact. If you have a side playing on defensive mentality, and if defensive is 2 on a scale where overload is 12, then a defensive player will most likely be 1, a support player could be 2 and an attacking player will be 3. Now that we have that outta the way, let's look at other stuff.

I know its really oversimplifying things, but its the easier way to explain it. Trust me I know the Tactical Creator like it was my own child, to some extent I played a part in birthing it. Now those numbers which modified the players mentality play a part in adjusting their risk appetite, their creative freedom, their runs with ball and their pass selection. Other attributes then come in as limiting or enhancing factors. Now that we have mentality sorted, how does this relate to shape? Everything is relative.

Basically Shape affects the depth of a team. How far each player is from each other and how each player's roles in turn affect them. A structured shape will typically create more lateral gaps, whereas a fluid one will reduce those. In other words, a structured shape is more disciplined. Each broad role focuses on their jobs, but Shape, affects transitions. This in turn has a knock on effect on systems. Let me show you what I mean in this sequence of screenshots taken from a side playing a basic 442 who go from defensive structured to defensive fluid.

We started the game on Defensive/Structured, with minimal shouts and then switched to Defensive/Fluid to notice patterns.

This is a long slideshow of all the images plus an explanation of whats going on and what to look for, if you want to see the slideshow you need to go here. It's my blog and its a real pain having to upload like 17 images again.

Mentality affects a lot of things, from the relative positions between players, to decision making. A player on a higher mentality is always more likely to play the riskier shot, but this can be mitigated by getting him defensively. However the effect won't be so large its like telling a player with attacking mentality of say 15/20 (20 being max) to take it down a notch.

Shape affects depth, so when a team has a fluid shape the relative distances between the midfield and defensive lines are more compact. However these too can be modified by mentality, player instructions, team instructions, attributes and ppms. The biggest thing we need to know is that at any standard higher than flexible the relative distances decrease. This means that players on certain instructions are likely to go towards the same target. For example, at a fluid setting you could see a fullback and an MC heading to close down the same opposing player. The compactness makes it easier for you to play a gengen pressing style or keep 25 yards between midfield and attack.

Finally roles themselves modify the behaviour of a team. Defend players stay back and support players stay in 50-50 land. In a fluid system, there is also the chance that a 50-50 ball that lands near midfield and in between the defenders and midfield could see a DC leave the defensive line and head up the field to cut out the pass.

In this screenshot you will notice that when we are attacking on fluid with a defensive mentality, the side is very compact attacking. The distance between midfield and attack is small. With this line, it leaves us open to .....the ball over the top. Fluid systems are great to use, players are close together and you can move the ball around really fast and play intricate passing patterns. The risk is obvious. Mentality acts as a modifier for passing decisions as well. In the third screenshot Inler has various options to pass to, he chooses the least risky pass. If he was on defensive he may have chosen the even lower risk pass.

1.The defending side launches a counter 2.The risk of the overthetop ball 3.Shape creates a lot of passing chances, mentality says who in red

These all have significant implications on the creation of various kinds of systems. An attacking system be either fluid of structured, it does play differently in both situations. Knowing the effect mentality and shape has on the team is vital. There are things you can do to mitigate and these should already be obvious to most. I don't plan on revealing everything, but its clear what these mitigating acts should be.

It certainly answers one question on the forums. Someone asked why their standard/flexible system wouldn't work so well. The roles were all logical. Now when you consider all the facts, you will understand why standard and flexible can be even harder to get right then attacking/structured. In a standard/flex system, mentality is 50-50, distances are 50-50. The factors now that influence the game are player selection/role selection and your choice on shouts. If you are not scoring goals, don't go messing with the shouts unnecessarily, always begin with a mentality change first. I have to thank several people for the apple that landed on my head : The Hand of God, for his synopsis on shape, Cleon's thread on counter attacking arts, which inspired me to think of the Dark Arts of Attack, and ricki.bertolino for this thread on the SI forums. Finally who can forget RTHerringbone and his search for the perfect 4141. That was the gimme that kicked this off. I personally am having a BALL OF A TIME with attacking systems. I feel the Dark Arts calling.

Now THIS is the type of article I want to read! Great insights rashidi!

Finally who can forget RTHerringbone and his search for the perfect 4141. That was the gimme that kicked this off. I personally am having a BALL OF A TIME with attacking systems. I feel the Dark Arts calling.[/font][/color][/size]

Happy to have helped I love bouncing ideas off you and Cleon, and it's nice that sometimes a casual bit of Twitter "conversation" can prompt all of us to have a bit of a think, and then some fun on FM. Have absolutely loved looking at an Attack Mentality system, and I'll be interested to see what you come up with - and explain in more than 140 characters!

Happy to have helped I love bouncing ideas off you and Cleon, and it's nice that sometimes a casual bit of Twitter "conversation" can prompt all of us to have a bit of a think, and then some fun on FM. Have absolutely loved looking at an Attack Mentality system, and I'll be interested to see what you come up with - and explain in more than 140 characters!

I think our little chat as spurred all 3 of us to write about attacking system, so be interesting to see how we all end up different but the same principles I imagine.

This is another great thread Rashidi, so simple and straight to the point. You over simplify things but I think that's better than over complicating things and will be better for the user to relate to. I love how you keep everything basic yet at the same time it's so complex the thing you are talking about. It makes it easy to understand and follow.

Thanks guys, even the simplest of conversations can spur an idea. I have been perplexed as to why some people were finding it hard even to play standard/flexible. That thread got me thinking, and then the Twitter conversation just made it "click". I am now working on a youtube video to explain the whole thing. Will incorporate that into the Torino show as their Season 3 opener. Its a season where we have to make a statement.

At the risk of dropping this into offtopic-land and confusing newbies, I'm still puzzled by the overhauls, and I think that duty now is tied to mentality too is actually a conflict. Said it elsewhere, but the original inception of duty was primarily forward movement, i.e. the old RFD instructions. So if you now have somebody on defend duty, not only is he by default told to "hold position", he's also playing a less aggressively game. The more structured you go, the effect is this big, the team mentality becomes useless. On very structured you have defenders on defend duty essentially told to "shut up shop", and attack duty midfielders and forwards told to "go grab and smash". The visual feedback on each player's mentality appears actually genuine, also from playing experience and watching those players, even on the least aggressive strategies attack duty players would play forward passes almost exclusively. Which in turn therefore also bombs the initial idea behind there being an overarching team mentality/strategy, as this had required a team that wasn't at all split any. It's exactly what wwfan has always described as teams locked into different rooms prior to kick-off, with the one guy told to play it super safe, and the other we'd be out to have a hugely go at 'em. I'm thus still wondering if he was much involved in this thus, as he was one of the original authors behind all those concepts that eventually have made it into the game. AFAIK the only one from back then outside of SI still being involved, Millie for instance hasn't been around in ages it seems.

Additionally mentality only really affected space in between players in conjunction with runs from deep (or forward runs). If players didn't have any leeway to move forward from their position, the impact positionally was zilch. I.e. a CM with a maxed out mentality and one with the lowest possible next to him, you wouldn't notice any difference if they were not given freedom to move forward from their default position (i.e. rfd mixed, or rfd always, which is "gets further forward" as a player instruction now). This is highly technical still, but as FM 2016 for me was always likely to be one of the fringe iterations I'd skip, I've gone back to 2015 and none of those changes have any bearing on my style of playing as far as that is concerned and so long I'm not going too deeply into 2016 and beyond. At the moment I'd pick anything but very fluid as the individual gaps in mentality in structured look pretty absurd. That said, still an interesting read.

That's on top of the issues with supposedly improved accessiblity. If that was one of the concerns, it should be actually less opaque than before.

At the risk of dropping this into offtopic-land and confusing newbies, I'm still puzzled by the overhauls, and I think that duty now is tied to mentality too is actually a conflict. Said it elsewhere, but the original inception of duty was primarily forward movement, i.e. the old RFD instructions. So if you now have somebody on defend duty, not only is he by default told to "hold position", he's also playing a less aggressively game. The more structured you go, the effect is this big, the team mentality becomes useless. On very structured you have defenders on defend duty essentially told to "shut up shop", and attack duty midfielders and forwards told to "go grab and smash". The visual feedback on each player's mentality appears actually genuine, also from playing experience and watching those players, even on the least aggressive strategies attack duty players would play forward passes almost exclusively. Which in turn therefore also bombs the initial idea behind there being an overarching team mentality/strategy, as this had required a team that wasn't at all split any. It's exactly what wwfan has always described as teams locked into different rooms prior to kick-off, with the one guy told to play it super safe, and the other we'd be out to have a hugely go at 'em. I'm thus still wondering if he was much involved in this thus, as he was one of the original authors behind all those concepts that eventually have made it into the game. AFAIK the only one from back then outside of SI still being involved, Millie for instance hasn't been around in ages it seems.

Additionally mentality only really affected space in between players in conjunction with runs from deep (or forward runs). If players didn't have any leeway to move forward from their position, the impact positionally was zilch. I.e. a CM with a maxed out mentality and one with the lowest possible next to him, you wouldn't notice any difference if they were not given freedom to move forward from their default position (i.e. rfd mixed, or rfd always, which is "gets further forward" as a player instruction now). This is highly technical still, but as FM 2016 for me was always likely to be one of the fringe iterations I'd skip, I've gone back to 2015 and none of those changes have any bearing on my style of playing as far as that is concerned and so long I'm not going too deeply into 2016 and beyond. At the moment I'd pick anything but very fluid as the individual gaps in mentality in structured look pretty absurd. That said, still an interesting read.

That's on top of the issues with supposedly improved accessiblity. If that was one of the concerns, it should be actually less opaque than before.

I kind of agree. I think the fundamentals of the TC are flawed due to the changes being made over the past two years. It feels outdated and while the new ideas are enhancing it, it means the older stuff also needs updating. But currently some sections are very outdated and no longer make sense or conflict other parts.

Fwiw I never understood the need for team shape, its not how football works.

Fwiw I never understood the need for team shape, its not how football works.

I totally agree. It would be much easier if shape was replaced with a 'depth instruction', to determine how spread out the formation should be. And creative freedom should be a team instruction that isn't related to that depth.

Fwiw I never understood the need for team shape, its not how football works.

Yes exactly. In fact in your possession thread you talk about a highly structured and emphasise lots of movement and roaming.

The way you explained this in your thread makes a lot of sense but when I look at teams in real life who keep the ball with lots of movement, I think most people would think of that as a fluid system.

I totally agree. It would be much easier if shape was replaced with a 'depth instruction', to determine how spread out the formation should be. And creative freedom should be a team instruction that isn't related to that depth.

Fully agree

I totally agree. It would be much easier if shape was replaced with a 'depth instruction', to determine how spread out the formation should be. And creative freedom should be a team instruction that isn't related to that depth.

I personally don't as in and on itself this doesn't apply. This only comes into play and the extent to much depending on how the duty structuring is set up. In and on itself the big mentality splits on structured don't cause there to be bigger gaps, at least previously they didn't. It's when players are given leeway to move from their default position that this applies, as the higher the mentality, the slightly earlier a player is encouraged to engage into that attacking movement. Remember it isn't only human players who should be able to pick things, it is also AI affected. It must have been a bitch to program the AI routines previously already, as evident by the many more creatively human tactics. And I don't see how this has been improved since as, starting with a pick in duty, you don't only think about primarily movement anymore, but actually generally riskiness/aggressiveness. Apparently defensive shapes have also been made more complicated. This was likely a response to that previously you'd absolutely need to have a player in the DM slot to have somebody sitting deep right in front of the CBs (which always improved defensive stability tenfold, but then defending with flat lines should have that weakness of there being space in between them). Regardless if you pick a CM/D he apparently sits now considerably deeper, whilst previously things were as easy as: what you line up on the tactics screen is your defensive shape, simple as that.

I'm with Cleon in that that I've never been a hugely fan of the entire shape/fluidity thing. However it would make more sense to lock levels of creative freedom/self expression to them, with the more fluid you go, the more creative freedom/self expression players are allowed. This and nothing at all more. It's easy enough to grasp, and it'd be also reasonably easy to grasp why say very specific roles that are limited in their individual instructions on occasion wouldn't show 100% if players would be given lots of leeway. Such as no-nonsense defensive jobs such as anchor men never encouraged at all to play risky balls/initiate attacks or poachers being about finishing exclusively rather than carving out chances much for others. And secondly it's actually that would see a roughly equal in real football, as Cleon said. The way it is that's not something that at all applies in football.

I'm with Cleon in that that I've never been a hugely fan of the entire shape/fluidity thing. However it would make more sense to lock levels of creative freedom/self expression to them, with the more fluid you go, the more creative freedom/self expression players are allowed. This and nothing at all more. It's easy enough to grasp, and it'd be also reasonably easy to grasp why say very specific roles that are limited in their individual instructions on occasion wouldn't show 100% if players would be given lots of leeway. Such as no-nonsense defensive jobs such as anchor men never encouraged at all to play risky balls/initiate attacks or poachers being about finishing exclusively rather than carving out chances much for others. And secondly it's actually that would see a roughly equal in real football, as Cleon said. The way it is that's not something that at all applies in football.

I have long been an advocate of doing away with the "shape" concept so I am with you. I also like your point above about making it entirely a creative freedom setting and I would add to that roam from position to the various levels in the same fashion. These settings can then be tempered by the use of TI and PI to find just the right level of both that you want. Not only would it simplify things for the user as you point out, but it would also reflect what you expect to see from something named very fluid or very rigid.

Great stuff. This has been an element I've really struggled with this year. I always used to stick to the adage that if I had more layers i.e. a 41221 with players in different strata, I'd be better leaning towards the structured end of the spectrum, but for flatter formations, I should go more fluid. Does that still ring true?

I have long been an advocate of doing away with the "shape" concept so I am with you. I also like your point above about making it entirely a creative freedom setting and I would add to that roam from position to the various levels in the same fashion. These settings can then be tempered by the use of TI and PI to find just the right level of both that you want. Not only would it simplify things for the user as you point out, but it would also reflect what you expect to see from something named very fluid or very rigid.

I don't think shape needs be done away with, at least not in so far you have an instruction that determines how compact you are playing. Compactness is a significant concept in football and a fundamental aspect to the possession tactics of the likes of Guardiola or Sacchi. You do need to relabel the instruction and disentangle creative freedom from it (but I'm basically repeating everything Mcinnay proposes).

And I don't think it's a good idea to entangle roaming and creative freedom instead, since these perform quite different functions and much one of doesn't preclude little of the other. Moreover, roaming is already linked with mentality and if it also gets linked with something else it's just to become a mess.

I have long been an advocate of doing away with the "shape" concept so I am with you. I also like your point above about making it entirely a creative freedom setting and I would add to that roam from position to the various levels in the same fashion. These settings can then be tempered by the use of TI and PI to find just the right level of both that you want. Not only would it simplify things for the user as you point out, but it would also reflect what you expect to see from something named very fluid or very rigid.

This or depth/creative freedom needs to be split so that it is clearer. I've never bothered too much with shape and for the most part used Flexible unless I specifically wanted more/less Creative Freedom, which was rare.

I don't think shape needs be done away with, at least not in so far you have an instruction that determines how compact you are playing. Compactness is a significant concept in football and a fundamental aspect to the possession tactics of the likes of Guardiola or Sacchi. You do need to relabel the instruction and disentangle creative freedom from it (but I'm basically repeating everything Mcinnay proposes).

And I don't think it's a good idea to entangle roaming and creative freedom instead, since these perform quite different functions and much one of doesn't preclude little of the other. Moreover, roaming is already linked with mentality and if it also gets linked with something else it's just to become a mess.

I don't want to do away with the options, just the concept and the way it is implemented. I think compactness as a width/depth setting would be excellent, but not call it shape, and as you say, having a creative freedom attached. I also don't like the way it spreads mentality either farther or closer together. This should be role specific within the larger team mentality. Roaming is not really linked with mentality, though if you think of it as more lateral movements and diagonal movements versus just a get forward/drop deeper setting. When I think of a very fluid system, I think of something approaching a total football type of play, where you really do need more moving around to find space than you do with it currently. Whatever they choose to do, though, it ought to be clearly labelled and obvious to see on the pitch.

If anyone remembers I was loudly asking for binning the "shape" feature in the game. It made no sense. It was a legacy of the old philosophy category which banded different mentalities together to account for unique team behaviors. Those days players on the same mentality = Very fluid. Today the roles themselves have different mentalities, so the "shape" of old doesnt work anymore. And SI acknowledged that and made the changes in FM16 to make Shape more relevant. What they have done, and this is an assumption, everything I said before isn't, is that they have blended Shape/Mentality and Roles. I see it on the pitch, and it does make for a more challenging gameplay style. And, this, I enjoy.

Great stuff. This has been an element I've really struggled with this year. I always used to stick to the adage that if I had more layers i.e. a 41221 with players in different strata, I'd be better leaning towards the structured end of the spectrum, but for flatter formations, I should go more fluid. Does that still ring true?

So... if I want a more classical 442 with faster transitions I go for a more structured shape?

Depends what you mean by "faster". The main factor will be the teams mentality, the player duty and team shape will slightly modify it.

If you want your defenders to be more attack minded then you will need to go more fluid, but that will make your forwards less attacking minded. Hence I would expect defenders to play slightly more forward actions than there duty.

Going more structured would make your defenders more defensive so less inclined to make forward plays and your forwards would be more attacking minded. Hence I would expect my defender to play slightly less forward actions than there duty.

in this case mourinho team mentality should be fluid then as they are a compact team

I don't want to do away with the options, just the concept and the way it is implemented. I think compactness as a width/depth setting would be excellent, but not call it shape, and as you say, having a creative freedom attached. I also don't like the way it spreads mentality either farther or closer together. This should be role specific within the larger team mentality. Roaming is not really linked with mentality, though if you think of it as more lateral movements and diagonal movements versus just a get forward/drop deeper setting. When I think of a very fluid system, I think of something approaching a total football type of play, where you really do need more moving around to find space than you do with it currently. Whatever they choose to do, though, it ought to be clearly labelled and obvious to see on the pitch.

But the way it spreads mentality farther or closer together is exactly what creates degrees of depth. If depth is strictly dependent on roles then there's no way have a team with an AF in one end and DCs at the other to play more expansive. And that's exactly what I like about shapes, you can get 2 teams with otherwise identical setups to play more or less compact.

And I'm confused about your statements re roaming. Are we talking about real life or FM here? In FM the more aggressive the mentality, the more players are set to roaming, as explained in THOG's guide: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/423054-Lines-and-Diamonds-The-Tactician-s-Handbook-for-Football-Manager-2015?p=10256030&viewfull=1#post10256030

Has anyone else thought about how exactly they've gone about setting up the mentality frameworks in the current shapes? I'm assuming that flexible has remained the same as before, which amonts to +3 for attack duties and -3 for defend duties. The other duties start from there as claimed by THOG, but I speculate that in fluid shape duties in the AM and ST strata are given one less mentality compared to the MC strata and duties in the defending strata are given one more mentality vs default. In very fluid these would be +2 and -2 vs default (or perhaps -1 for AM and -2 for ST and vice versa). The reverse happens to structured: one more mentality vs default is given to the upper strata and one less vs default to the lower strata. Very structured goes on to mirror very fluid.

If all of that makes sense: the thing is that in previous versions of FM flexible fluidity already was the most expansive shape (along with structured) when setting at least one striker on attack duty, so if you additionally reduce mentality in the lower strata and increase it in the upper strata, you quickly run into the risk of disconnect. Hence, it may be better to remove very structured from the TC entirely and only keep 4 shapes, labelled differently so it's clear that a depth setting.

Farina- I am talking about replicating real life football more so than we can do in the current match engine. I typically use very fluid shape in my current save, and I don't get the sort of movement one would expect with something called "very fluid." The compactness is there, but it can be handled without an all encompassing instruction called shape. I think your match strategy should dictate the degree of depth (i.e. the overall framework) and the roles create the depth within the mentality framework. At any rate, I want it simplified/changed/removed whatever so that it is more clear what it does, and that we have more options in setting up our team. I don't mind differing views on it for sure I just want something different that what we have!

If all of that makes sense: the thing is that in previous versions of FM flexible fluidity already was the most expansive shape (along with structured) when setting at least one striker on attack duty, so if you additionally reduce mentality in the lower strata and increase it in the upper strata, you quickly run into the risk of disconnect. Hence, it may be better to remove very structured from the TC entirely and only keep 4 shapes, labelled differently so it's clear that a depth setting.

If on previous FM's you would pick the shapes based on some kind of lateral "compactness", which was supposed to have some serious impact and difference in between the options, you were mistaken. The old mentality theorems didn't allow for there to be hugely spaced out splits, as if they would, you would have teams totally separated in all aspects of play (as you now have on very structured, apparently).

THOG did some absolutely ace illustrations on this, but even he knew that there'd been barely an iota of a difference as far as that is concerned. The term "compactness" wasn't even a thing back then when those mentality theorems were created, they came from different community members back then when everything was sliders, mass confusion regarding the mentality slider of old (and curiously SI positional pre-sets which during one stage of tactical "development" further fueled confusion). That's one of the reasons why wwfan or Cleon adviced to focus on the creative freedom aspects exclusively, and wwfan is one of the main authors of the previous stuff. In parts FM's very mechanics don't allow for there to be some kind of setting that would exclusively dictate and hugely influence such a thing as compactness. It took the overlap instruction to absolutely max out the mentality of the full backs (plus naturally max out the forward run instruction in conjunction as else there'd be no movement altogether) to make him seriously advance earlier, which illustrates that with the barely gaps in the previous set-ups, this meant very very little if your main concern was actually space. It's also a kind of micro-tweaking that none of the AI managers likely ever dealt with. AFAIK they picked shape based on the flamboyancy attribute given by the research, and that's it.

Would be interesting if a mechanics that would allow for there to be a specific setting for such could be shoehorned into things retrospectively, and likely would require a lot of work too. Not against it, by the way. It seems SI are on a route after getting away from the sliders, to create an altogether different set of conundrums, where settings don't merely link, but each setting in isolation already influences altogether different things. Such as the mentality slider of old did. Not sure where they're actually going with this, and would be still interested in the thoughts behind the overhauls.

Farina- I am talking about replicating real life football more so than we can do in the current match engine. I typically use very fluid shape in my current save, and I don't get the sort of movement one would expect with something called "very fluid." The compactness is there, but it can be handled without an all encompassing instruction called shape. I think your match strategy should dictate the degree of depth (i.e. the overall framework) and the roles create the depth within the mentality framework. At any rate, I want it simplified/changed/removed whatever so that it is more clear what it does, and that we have more options in setting up our team. I don't mind differing views on it for sure I just want something different that what we have!

Wait, are you talking about actual roles or duties? I realised role often is meniotned here when it's actually about duty. If you mean duties: if depth can only be set by your choice duties, then the implication is that there can be very little variation in depth, since there are only 3 duties. Things could be a little more compact when you choose to give your striker(s) a support duty instead of attack, but that's about it. And you could only play at the most compact with a defensive forward on defend duty. OTOH when you have separate depth settings that stretch out or compress the mentality framework indepedent from your choice of duties, you'd have more freedom in setting these (as well as roles).

And I think you're too hung up on the label "fluid" etc. These labels never correctly described the content. I think you'll agree with me that actual fluidity is determined by how many players roam and how you set your duties.

nice discuson guys very informative. I would like to add my two cents since you're also speaking about posible future changes. and sorry for going off topic a little.

how about replacing current tactical system (contain,defensive,counter etc.) to actul football styles which would replicate real life football logics. this would also be of great help to all the FM gamers who don't visit these forum and maybe even more importantly it should improve AI managers a lot. we got all the tools needed to improve tactical system, they just need to be put together corectly. (***since I don't play FM16 I might be saying things that changed with this version but basic tacical concepts are still the same).

it's funny that nobody mentions but in ***current FM Tactical setup we are playing the guessing game. you have tactical systems which produce opposite football than what their definition is. for example counter mentality producing slow tempo posessional football. or high mentality, attacking tactics producing fast tempo counter attacking play. as I said I'm not playing much FM in last few years and hopefuly things have changed but the original idea of gradual moving of all sliders to the right is flawed and doesn't simulate real life football. with constant changes being made like witnesed in this thread and others it adds a lot to the fact that FM tactics are probably way more complicated than real life tactics and confusing to both human and AI managers.

what most of FM players would probably like to see is to simplify tactical system so it produces football as intended. not to play guessing game with trial and error or reading through hundreds of pages on this and other forums. the thing that it's maybe even more important is that AI needs to be on same playing ground as human player and with current tactical logics that's simply not possible.

instead of current system which is gradual moving of all sliders to the right I suggest actual FOOTBALL STILES, which should be based on real life tactics. I think it would be so much easier to put together new tactical templates than work the match engine to fit the current one. so what is the big difference with current system and the one I'm proposing? here's an example. in current system the game between AI vs AI. lets say it's a game between Arsenal and Sunderland, Attacking strategy vs contain for example. would this game look anything like real life game between this two teams? I highly doubt any real life Sunderland manager would ever try to implement those tactical ideas in any Premierleague game. and than in next game, a cup game vs 3rd league team the AI Sunderland manager is favourite to win so now it's him playing Attacking strategy etc..

this is plain wrong because these two tacics are completly different football styles (not tactics). most real life teams, with a couple of exceptions here and there in top level football, simply don't or can't play slow tempo, short passing game in one and than ultra fast, direct style in other game. or any other combination. of course zhey change tactical aproach depending on opposition strength. but they change it within their football style and ability to change it. they will drop deeper and push forward the defensive line, fullbacks will behave differently, with less or more players in the box, less or more dribbling or risk taking etc.. but still their overall football style will be the same no metter what oppsition they play with. with current tactical system it's completly different football.

so to sumirise what I wanted to say.

-current tactical system is outdated, doesn't replicate real life football concepts, too complicated for casual FM player and it doesn't support AI managers mechanisms. for a game like this the AI needs to be on the same playing ground as human players. in current state it isn't and won't be without significant changes and simplifying.

-FM has the tools needed to improve the preset templates into logical system based on real life tactical styles and move awey from strategy based concept which is nothing but gradual moving of all sliders to the right.

-we have the knowledge to replicate real life tactics. put these different real life tactics together into logical system so it replicates different football styles depending on club tradition, league standard, manager preferences etc.

its a great article no doubt - just to add, remember the amount of specialist roles selected within a team will also determine which team shape to chose - the more specialist roles the more your shape should lean towards being structured.

Wait, are you talking about actual roles or duties? I realised role often is meniotned here when it's actually about duty. If you mean duties: if depth can only be set by your choice duties, then the implication is that there can be very little variation in depth, since there are only 3 duties. Things could be a little more compact when you choose to give your striker(s) a support duty instead of attack, but that's about it. And you could only play at the most compact with a defensive forward on defend duty. OTOH when you have separate depth settings that stretch out or compress the mentality framework indepedent from your choice of duties, you'd have more freedom in setting these (as well as roles).

And I think you're too hung up on the label "fluid" etc. These labels never correctly described the content. I think you'll agree with me that actual fluidity is determined by how many players roam and how you set your duties.

Actually I meant roles AND duties, because they work together- you're right they often get unintentionally conflated, and I did that in this case. And, yeah I do get hung up on the label, because that is one of the key problems with it right now. It *should* accurately describe the content, and then we wouldn't need a thread like this, or at least we would be talking about it in an entirely different context. And yes, I agree with your statement generally on fluidity as a function of roaming and duty, and it has always seemed to me to be better to handle it that way than a nebulous idea like "shape"

its a great article no doubt - just to add, remember the amount of specialist roles selected within a team will also determine which team shape to chose - the more specialist roles the more your shape should lean towards being structured.

That was a basic guideline from WWFan's 12 step guide, but really it doesn't matter once you get to grips with the tactics and know what you are looking to do. I use a very fluid shape and sometimes, depending on what I want, few or no specialist roles.

nice discuson guys very informative. I would like to add my two cents since you're also speaking about posible future changes. and sorry for going off topic a little.

how about replacing current tactical system (contain,defensive,counter etc.) to actul football styles which would replicate real life football logics. this would also be of great help to all the FM gamers who don't visit these forum and maybe even more importantly it should improve AI managers a lot. we got all the tools needed to improve tactical system, they just need to be put together corectly. (***since I don't play FM16 I might be saying things that changed with this version but basic tacical concepts are still the same).

it's funny that nobody mentions but in ***current FM Tactical setup we are playing the guessing game. you have tactical systems which produce opposite football than what their definition is. for example counter mentality producing slow tempo posessional football. or high mentality, attacking tactics producing fast tempo counter attacking play. as I said I'm not playing much FM in last few years and hopefuly things have changed but the original idea of gradual moving of all sliders to the right is flawed and doesn't simulate real life football. with constant changes being made like witnesed in this thread and others it adds a lot to the fact that FM tactics are probably way more complicated than real life tactics and confusing to both human and AI managers.

what most of FM players would probably like to see is to simplify tactical system so it produces football as intended. not to play guessing game with trial and error or reading through hundreds of pages on this and other forums. the thing that it's maybe even more important is that AI needs to be on same playing ground as human player and with current tactical logics that's simply not possible.

instead of current system which is gradual moving of all sliders to the right I suggest actual FOOTBALL STILES, which should be based on real life tactics. I think it would be so much easier to put together new tactical templates than work the match engine to fit the current one. so what is the big difference with current system and the one I'm proposing? here's an example. in current system the game between AI vs AI. lets say it's a game between Arsenal and Sunderland, Attacking strategy vs contain for example. would this game look anything like real life game between this two teams? I highly doubt any real life Sunderland manager would ever try to implement those tactical ideas in any Premierleague game. and than in next game, a cup game vs 3rd league team the AI Sunderland manager is favourite to win so now it's him playing Attacking strategy etc..

this is plain wrong because these two tacics are completly different football styles (not tactics). most real life teams, with a couple of exceptions here and there in top level football, simply don't or can't play slow tempo, short passing game in one and than ultra fast, direct style in other game. or any other combination. of course zhey change tactical aproach depending on opposition strength. but they change it within their football style and ability to change it. they will drop deeper and push forward the defensive line, fullbacks will behave differently, with less or more players in the box, less or more dribbling or risk taking etc.. but still their overall football style will be the same no metter what oppsition they play with. with current tactical system it's completly different football.

so to sumirise what I wanted to say.

-current tactical system is outdated, doesn't replicate real life football concepts, too complicated for casual FM player and it doesn't support AI managers mechanisms. for a game like this the AI needs to be on the same playing ground as human players. in current state it isn't and won't be without significant changes and simplifying.

-FM has the tools needed to improve the preset templates into logical system based on real life tactical styles and move awey from strategy based concept which is nothing but gradual moving of all sliders to the right.

-we have the knowledge to replicate real life tactics. put these different real life tactics together into logical system so it replicates different football styles depending on club tradition, league standard, manager preferences etc.

Fully agree with this

What happens for people who don't want to use a template of an existing style?

People already get annoyed by having to adhere to SIs interpretation of Roles. Having to be constrained to their interpretation of a "style" would not go down well with everyone. It sounds restrictive.

What happens for people who don't want to use a template of an existing style?

People already get annoyed by having to adhere to SIs interpretation of Roles. Having to be constrained to their interpretation of a "style" would not go down well with everyone. It sounds restrictive.

People could OPT to use the templates or create there own depending on how experienced an FM player they are. I think rather than the 7 match strategies, templates of existing styles would be of huge benefit.

A template is still just a template. People can choose existing Mentality templates and modify them accordingly. What would the actual styles in the new system be? How would those templates differ? In the end, however it is dressed up, it's just a set of preset instructions which SI would subjectively interpret as befitting a "style".

Mentality setup is nothing more than gradual moving of team sliders to more agressive settings. but it's still a templete.

the difference between current mentality templtes and the ones I'm talking about is that they should actually produce the type of football as inteded. they shouldn't be subjective interpretations. of course people could change and fine tune it just like now.

tectical setup in current state it's just a guessing game for many FM players. what this changes would do is just like the real life managers who have clear idea of what kind of football they want to play (in FM terms it's templates), you would have clear idea of what you want to do.not to mention it would massivly improve the AI tactical ability and games would actually look like real life games. unlike now.

A template is still just a template. People can choose existing Mentality templates and modify them accordingly. What would the actual styles in the new system be? How would those templates differ? In the end, however it is dressed up, it's just a set of preset instructions which SI would subjectively interpret as befitting a "style".

Bringing up playing styles is a good point though. Maybe an optionally thing and one for the assistants, similar to how you can assign him on classic/touch already to have different game plans (which are universally about increasing risk/decreasing it during stages of play in relation to a scoreline as far I understand them rather than actuallyl style). In the long run it'd be tons of easier if the actually research options would find a 100% equal in the tactical options too. I think the research guidelines explicitly state that the flamboyancy attribute influences which shape an AI manager picks. Not only am I 100% certain that not all of the research know the truly impact of shape (nor to how translate that to something that applies for the actually managers they try to recreate). But it doesn't at all translate 1:1 to anything in the actually game when things kick in.

Likewise there is a certain kind of direct influence as I understand it to give say AI Guardiola a bias towards possession based TI's and the like. But none of that would keep him from making his players far too aggressively for a truly continental game where the ball would circulate deep for prolonged periods, and likewise the duty structure was/is/appeared to be the same all over the shop. Hence typically Lewandowski in the 4-1-4-1 always rushing far ahead of play, as would be the same for any AI, which would basically make him little involved in build-ups at all. Not sure how things look in FM 2016, but previously there always used to be one forward on attack duty for any AI no matter what else. Similarily AI favourites: aggressive mentalities, and vice versa for underdogs, universally. Naturally all of this played a part in how human managers could outperform in conversion, let alone create much more pronounced playing styles. Maybe there'd need to be no rigidly templates, probably the wrong word for it but ready-set duty structures and mentality suitables that are linked to styles directly. This also further would include roles suited to a style and further influence AI manager's prefered transfers. Well in the long run this is needed imo anyways (in particular for the AI managers). The reserach could directly assign an actually playing style such as "continental probing passing game" or "British wing play" rather than edit nonsensicals such as "flamboyancy" and chose it accordingly (if there's truly a distinctive style attached to a manager). Optionally this could be made of the AI manager's game plans for those who want to use it.

I understand it's not as easy as the way AI managers increase/decrease risk already is highly dynamic already, with duties being chopped and turned around during matches, defend duty upped or vice versa attack duties increased. And roles being switched. Naturally mentality too, if rather simplistically so (defend for the underdog, attack for the favorite, overload for the panic attempt at snatching an equalizer, contain for rigidly protecting the lead, to overly simplify). No AI will ever be able to use any of the tactical tools creatively or even apply any out-of-the-box thinking, the way wwfan did when he previously did his "Barcelona style interpretation". Any game AI absolutely relies on what it is given by a program. At that point no Barcelona AI would have even been able to even roughly approach any of it. SI have taken the sliders to actually tactical concepts. However they have yet to define playing styles, if they were ever to truly show for AI managers. It's subjective and it will be an interpretation. But as things are, there's little to none of that in the game whatsoever.

edit: And naturally what has been argued for earlier applies still as far as the AI is concerned in terms of the overhauls. Playmakers have been split into two distinctively types (addying another layer of complexity). Duty doesn't at all have an impact on mostly forward movement anymore (ditto). If shape truly has this implicitly impact now too, the AI stil choses this purely based on flamboyancy™ given by research who might or might not actually know the truly impact of his chosing. Still slightly reminded of the initial duty overhaul for attacking players as of FM 2015, which as I understand it was actually intentional as the SI staff responded with that they'd like to give players additional options to suit things to their liking. For those who don't remember, initially the entire AMC stratum and beyond either did track back or didn't based on whether you had given them a support duty or attack duty. Not only did this link two entirelly different things likewise and create conflict: why would you not actually put somebody on the advanced forward role so that he would spearhead the line when in possession, but at the same in doing so nailed that he would never get any behind the ball when without? On tops you couldn't possibly field a shadow striker or an attacking playmaker/a at AMC without him given license to not bother about all that tracking. And secondly they didn't manage to get that any across to the AI.

In some competitions this was less immediately obvious, but in Argentina, where formations such as the 4-4-2 diamond wide was wide-spread, it resulted in sides averaging up to 7 goals for/against as they couldn't possibly defend for toffee if the AI upped it's risk/mentality and/or started aggressively from kick off, as that had the attacking midfielder and both forwards just staying highly up the pitch, with the remaining defensive midfielder hopeless to cover all that central space in front of his alone, whilst any opponent was completely oblivious to the threat posted by basically three players just waiting for the break (still actually applies if any side plays 3 central forwards to an extent, btw). Speaking about which, is it internally found to be the dynamics of these quite impactful overhauls to be partially linked to multiple players reporting Bayern Munich winning the Bundesliga with as little as 50 goals in 34 match days?

Mentality setup is nothing more than gradual moving of team sliders to move agressive settings. but it's still a templete.

the difference between current mentality templtes and the ones I'm talking about is that they should actually produce the type of football as inteded. they shouldn't be subjective interpretations. of course people could change and fine tune it just like now.

tectical setup in current state it's just a guessing game for many FM players. what this changes would do is just like the real life managers who have clear idea of what kind of football they want to play (in FM terms it's templates), you would have clear idea of what you want to do.not to mention it would massivly improve the AI tactical ability and games would actually look like real life games. unlike now.

So what you're suggesting is completely ignore roles and make it more about mentality? As you say you want the mentality to produce the football the name suggest, when in reality the roles you use are the biggest factor in this.

And why shouldn't mentality be subjective? It's the same in real life too, read this;

http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/jan/06/the-question-what-is-attacking-football-jonathan-wilson

I also fail to see your point about it improving the AI's tactical ability. How would your changes make it improve? I can't see how. You're just replacing like for like really without improving the system as a whole, which is what's needed for the AI to improve.

I do think we need to be able to focus on different footballing concepts more easily though. But I'm not going to pretend I know how to achieve that.

The biggest issue with trying to replicate real life though is every second person you ask will have a different take on it. It's difficult because one mans attacking football is achieved differently by someone else and so on. Football is subjective and always will be. Yet you're asking for a system to be built on these subjective foundations. You're just wanting to replace the current subjective system with something equally as subjective.

I think everyone is in agreement for a different way of approaching tactics in FM but until someone can provide a proper alternative I can't see much changing.

So what you're suggesting is completely ignore roles and make it more about mentality? As you say you want the mentality to produce the football the name suggest, when in reality the roles you use are the biggest factor in this.

And why shouldn't mentality be subjective? It's the same in real life too, read this;

I also fail to see your point about it improving the AI's tactical ability. How would your changes make it improve? I can't see how. You're just replacing like for like really without improving the system as a whole, which is what's needed for the AI to improve.

no I'm surely not suggesting that. I'm suggesting a system of templets or whatever which would produce actual real life football. currently only human managers are able to set the tactics which imitate real life tactics. that's achieved through team instructions and roles&duties.

I do think we need to be able to focus on different footballing concepts more easily though. But I'm not going to pretend I know how to achieve that.

as Svenc said, no AI will ever be able to use any of the tactical tools creatively and out of the box. so the only way to improve the AI is with pre-set tactics.

The biggest issue with trying to replicate real life though is every second person you ask will have a different take on it. It's difficult because one mans attacking football is achieved differently by someone else and so on. Football is subjective and always will be. Yet you're asking for a system to be built on these subjective foundations. You're just wanting to replace the current subjective system with something equally as subjective.

I think everyone is in agreement for a different way of approaching tactics in FM but until someone can provide a proper alternative I can't see much changing.

no, quite contrary the point is to move awey from Defensive, Counter, Attacking perception which does nothing more than moves the sliders towards the most agressive ones. they become a tactic only when you put other input with TIs and Roles&duties. with the changes I'm talking about FM would make a big step forward in right directin because both human managers and (more importantly) the AI would have clear idea of what kind of football they want to play. for exapmle high-tempo British style tactic should produce exactly the same football as intended if not than the templete is wrong and should be improved. I can only guess but this would also make the ME changes much more easier because you would have a clear idea what you want to achieve.

no I'm surely not suggesting that. I'm suggesting a system of templets or whatever which would produce actual real life football. currently only human managers are able to set the tactics which imitate real life tactics. that's achieved through team instructions and roles&duties.

Who decides what the real life templates are? SI? Then surely we are back to what we have now no? One mans version of what they think football is and how they believe it works whether that is right or wrong.

as Svenc said, no AI will ever be able to use any of the tactical tools creatively and out of the box. so the only way to improve the AI is with pre-set tactics.

I understand this but I still don't see how this improves the AI and makes it more intelligent that it current is. It would just be the same as now, because nothing would have changed. It would still be using a template like now and the managers input would determine how passive/aggressive they'd be. You said it would improve the AI, I've asked how yet you've still not illustrated exactly how. It's just a sweeping statement unless you can explain exactly why the AI would be more intelligent compared to now.

no, quite contrary the point is to move awey from Defensive, Counter, Attacking perception which does nothing more than moves the sliders towards the most agressive ones. they become a tactic only when you put other input with TIs and Roles&duties. with the changes I'm talking about FM would make a big step forward in right directin because both human managers and (more importantly) the AI would have clear idea of what kind of football they want to play. for exapmle high-tempo British style tactic should produce exactly the same football as intended if not than the templete is wrong and should be improved. I can only guess but this would also make the ME changes much more easier because you would have a clear idea what you want to achieve.

But your ideas aren't moving away from this are they? They're exactly the same just labelled differently. You still want to base stuff off a template and stereotype styles of play and assume all British high temp sides all do it the same way. This is what's wrong with your idea. It's limited. We need more customisable options not more templates.

I still don't see how your idea makes it more clearer than the defensive, counter, attacking perceptions people have now (I'm not saying these are perfect or fine btw). It's just labelled differently in what your suggesting but still using the same methods really when you get to the bottom of it. Your not suggesting anything new.

Who decides what the real life templates are? SI? Then surely we are back to what we have now no? One mans version of what they think football is and how they believe it works whether that is right or wrong.

I don't know who, it's not on me to decide these things. and no, different football styles are quite obvious in terms how teams behave on the playing ground. it's about reproducing real life football in computor game and while some human managers are more than able to do that, AI is not. current system doesn't represent these different styles per se. it's a guessing game and misleading on many ocassions. for example a match between Contain vs Attacking strategy is way of realms how any real manger would set their team to play. playing contain in one game and than Attacking in another is simply not realistic because it's toatlly different style of football and there are not many teams in the world who would be able to adopt to such changes. football style is often linked to club or league tradition. of course managers do have plan B and C but it doesn't include such drastic changes as playing totally different football style.

these things need massive improvement and at the moment pre set tactics are the only way to improve it. I agree it doesn't change the logics behind a setup, but does what's the most important. it changes match-day experience, a football game per se, in realistic manner. it's hard for me to explain these things since I'm not a native english speaker, so if enyone has an idea how to explain it better than me, please do so.

I understand this but I still don't see how this improves the AI and makes it more intelligent that it current is. It would just be the same as now, because nothing would have changed. It would still be using a template like now and the managers input would determine how passive/aggressive they'd be. You said it would improve the AI, I've asked how yet you've still not illustrated exactly how. It's just a sweeping statement unless you can explain exactly why the AI would be more intelligent compared to now.

I agree it wouldn't improve AI integilence. I'm not a computor programer so I don't know how to do improve AI inteligence and I highly doubt it will be possible in near future to improve AI manager so it can think like real manager.

but that's exatctly why there's a need to have pre-sets. So that AI Barca (example) tactic looks at least half realisticly, because in curent system it doesn't. that's a big improvement in my books. and no I think it's a current system that lies on passive/aggressive logics which didn't change since CM days. on the contrary, pre sets would try to implement real life logics and real life tactics, which is again a massive improvement. also this would greatly simplify things both for human and AI manger. with one click you could achieve things what you need to go through trial and error or reading through many threads here. I think basic football concepts should be clear and simple to achieve, which is surely not a case currently.

But your ideas aren't moving away from this are they? They're exactly the same just labelled differently. You still want to base stuff off a template and stereotype styles of play and assume all British high temp sides all do it the same way. This is what's wrong with your idea. It's limited. We need more customisable options not more templates.

yes i agree with the above. but still it's a great improvement to the current strategy system. until someone thinks how to improve AI inteligence so it can think more like human. in a game like this I think it's really important that AI is on same playing ground, having same options as human and being able to use it as powerfully as human. what I propose sure does that better than the current system.

as for your comment about ''stereotype styles of play and assume all British high temp sides all do it the same way'', I can only say I surely don't believe that any real life manager would aproach premierleague game with Tempo setting at 5. which happens all the time currently.

I still don't see how your idea makes it more clearer than the defensive, counter, attacking perceptions people have now (I'm not saying these are perfect or fine btw). It's just labelled differently in what your suggesting but still using the same methods really when you get to the bottom of it. Your not suggesting anything new.

that's true, nothing new. but much more realistic and simplified.

Now when you consider all the facts, you will understand why standard and flexible can be even harder to get right then attacking/structured. In a standard/flex system, mentality is 50-50, distances are 50-50. The factors now that influence the game are player selection/role selection and your choice on shouts.

This is interesting. I was thinking about creating 2 variants of tactics (like home/away or weaker/stronger opponent) without changing mentality and shape. If i understand correctly, I could choose flat 4-4-2 formation with standard mentality and flexible shape and then work only with roles and duties (and TI's)?

Let's say I want more offensive approach:

GK-Sweeper Keeper/Support

DR-Wing Back/Attack

DC-Central Defender/Defend

DC-Central Defender/Defend

DL-Full Back/Support

MR-Wide Playmaker/Attack

MC-Central Midfielder/Defend

MC-Roaming Playmaker/Support

ML-Winger/Attack

FCR-Advanced Forward/Attack

FCL-Deep Lying Forward/Support

With TI's like Press more, higher defensive line plus maybe more roaming.

So I have four attacking duties, some pretty aggresive roles like winger, roaming playmaker, adv.forward, wing back and aggresive TI's.

Then if I want more cautious approach, I change some roles and duties (Wide playmaker from attack to support, Wing Back/attack for Wing back/Support, Adv. Forward to Complete Forward, Winger for Wide Midfielder etc.), I change TI's for less risky and my tactics works completely different without changing mentality and shape? Is this way of thinking correct? Would it make any sense to create tactics like this?

To continue the debate re the link between depth and creative freedom in team shapes: I've been thinking that perhaps it does make sense to link depth with creative freedom. When a team plays compact, a natural consequence will be that spaces will be tighter, which would require the use of more ambituous techniques to keep moving the ball around. Moreover, there's a reduced danger of losing possession because the use of a piece of skill went wrong, since as players are relatively close together, it will be easier to them to win the ball back.

Conversely, when a team plays more expansively, there's less need to use ambitious techniques because there's space enough to keep things straightforward. And consequently it is also more risky to lose possession, since as players are more spread out they will find it harder to win the ball back.

To take Atletico as an example, while they're impressively disciplined in defence, I wouldn't exactly say that they're workmanlike in possession.