Tactic Wizard causes more problems and creates a new playing field

[Wilson123]

so to clarify for those who are reading this and just want a simple answer...

If I use the tactics wizard to make my tactics - touchline instructions will take affect

If I click individual players and edit their roles - touchline instructions will not affect these players that have been individually edited, but will effect the players who aren't?

I for one particularly prefer to play a unit style tactic anyway so this won't affect me

[viniciusvbf]

The whole point of Tactics Wizard is to be like a "Tactics for dummies", for me it was obvious that if you wanted more advanced stuff you would have to do it in the traditional tactics screen.

[Ov Collyer]

so to clarify for those who are reading this and just want a simple answer...

If I use the tactics wizard to make my tactics - touchline instructions will take affect

If I click individual players and edit their roles - touchline instructions will not affect these players that have been individually edited, but will effect the players who aren't?

I for one particularly prefer to play a unit style tactic anyway so this won't affect me

A touchline instruction won't change a specific instruction you have changed for a player but will potentially change any instructions for the same player that you have not edited.

[CHINNERY]

It will mean that the particular tweak you have made will not be changed by a touchline instruction but any instructions for that player you have not tweaked will still be able to be changed by a particular TI.

Ah ok thanks , that makes things a lot clearer. No biggy as far as im concerned.

[OriginalSHare]

I'm really enjoying the game again. I hadn't really enjoyed FM properly since the sliders were brought in but the new tactic wizard makes life alot easier when you just want to dive into the game and have some quick fun. The touchline shouts are a wee bit of a novelty at the moment, I use them occasionally but I generally just change my team instructions or tweak my formation if I feel changes are required. I can see a few of my friends that haven't bought a FM since the days of 01/02 returning to the game with this one and mainly because the TW makes the game more accessible.

From the demo so far, I think the guys at SI have done a cracking job.

[The Amazing Dale Watkins]

I actually agree with Ov here, simply letting the touchline instruction override individual instructions isn't a good idea either. If I tell my team to play wider and try long balls using a touchline instruction, I probably don't want my carefully fine-tuned central defenders to start forgetting all I've told them before and suddenly go wide. Now, as to how to resolve the issue, I think this needs some careful analysis rather than just throwing some more options at the user at the expense of confusing people who would assume a touchline shout should be a simple thing.

In my opinion, rather than complicating the touchline shouts with more options, leave it up to the players how they interpret the instruction. IRL, I doubt a manager shouts something like "go wider and punt the ball, with the exception of this and that player". They give a simple instruction to adjust the play, and individual players react more or less to the instruction, with some players assuming it doesn't apply to them.

[Deltaroad]

To me, i think a simple solution would be to have touchline shouts that work with the classic system. It would be different in that it would override individual instructions (as all instructions would be manually created). People who want to create custom tactics can do so and still use the shouts, even using the wizard as a guide. People who are not confident creating their own tactics can use the wizard and hardly adjust the instructions, so shouts as they are now would work reasonably effectively for them.

It's maybe a compromise. Two separate systems for different people. (As it partly is now, only managers who want to use the classic system don't get the benefit of the touchline shouts feature.)

Not sure who plays the game with just the default settings. Would definitely take out 60% of the fun as the game revolves around winning matches. The default setting isn't sufficient enough to do that. Even before TW was developed. I am sure people still modified their tactics in some shape or form.

[x42bn6]

Not sure who plays the game with just the default settings. Would definitely take out 60% of the fun as the game revolves around winning matches. The default setting isn't sufficient enough to do that. Even before TW was developed. I am sure people still modified their tactics in some shape or form.

I think the wizard makes tactics as easy as they should have been. Inevitably you'd want to tinker but you don't really want to use 40 mouse clicks to adjust your formation - the wizard lets you do it in around 10.

[Mitja]

you can change II manualy, what's the big deal (if you're aware of it )

First thing they should do is to make sure some features and instruction do what they should do, and not having cosmetical purpose only.

[Amaroq]

Ov, there was one good suggestion in the other thread, which might be worth considering.

It is currently possible that there could be a Touchline Shout which would have absolutely zero effect. For example, if I'm using Advanced team settings to manually control my Defensive Line, then the Touchline Shout "Push Higher Up" may actually do nothing as the Defensive Line setting overrides it.

In that case, or others like it, perhaps the ineffective TS could be grayed out, to prevent confusion for the user as to why their touchline instructions are being ignored?

[eduardo-is-king]

I also think that when you give a touchline shout it takes to long to implement,

Certainly needs a lot more work done to it

If you press pause before clicking it will happen a lot faster!

[TSH]

The whole system, in my opinion, is not bringing anything new, except from the tactics wizard which helps people understand the sliders better. The sliders are still the core.

The touchline instructions do not work for those who use individual instructions, attacking or defensive. So we have one of the most famed new features being worthless, since most of the players tweak some individual instructions here or there.

I was really expecting these touchline instructions to be the cherry on top of a new way of fine tuning... Now I can't even use them.

I am really disappointed because the demo showed some prospect. Every year it's always something, isn't it?

[Deltaroad]

Ov, there was one good suggestion in the other thread, which might be worth considering.

It is currently possible that there could be a Touchline Shout which would have absolutely zero effect. For example, if I'm using Advanced team settings to manually control my Defensive Line, then the Touchline Shout "Push Higher Up" may actually do nothing as the Defensive Line setting overrides it.

In that case, or others like it, perhaps the ineffective TS could be grayed out, to prevent confusion for the user as to why their touchline instructions are being ignored?

What if I decide to push my defensive lines higher up, I won't be able to unless I do it manually?

The whole purpose of a TS is to give instructions there and then. Greying out seems like a bad solution. It's like Capello shouting to his team to push higher up and Stuart Peace popping up behind him telling him it's been greyed out and that isn't an option.

[Dave C]

I speak to a lot of people who play FM, not people here, but people who "dabble" and enjoy a bit of FM-lite.

The one complaint they always make to me is that they hated the direction tactics had gone, they just couldn't take the time to get to grips with the system.

Now, guess what?

Every one of those people has tried the FM10 demo, and every one loves the new system.

Taking the wizard out would be a huge retrograde step for the overall usability of the game.

Deltaroad is right to point out flaws, but his "baby with the bathwater" solution is just not thought through.

[Cerritos]

It will mean that the particular tweak you have made will not be changed by a touchline instruction but any instructions for that player you have not tweaked will still be able to be changed by a particular TI.

This may seem elemental, but what constitutes a "tweak?" I understand that if I go into a player's advanced instructions, click on a box, and adjust the passing style, say, that's a tweak. But what if I use the Wizard to set up a Standard 4-5-1, but assign Inside Forward to the left winger and Winger to the right winger ... are those tweaks? What if I sub a player at LW and, at the time of the sub, change his role from Inside Forward to Winger ... is that a tweak? I get the above, as stated by Ov, regarding the relationship between tweaks and touchline instructions. I'm just not clear about when something becomes a tweak.

[Deltaroad]

This may seem elemental, but what constitutes a "tweak?" I understand that if I go into a player's advanced instructions, click on a box, and adjust the passing style, say, that's a tweak. But what if I use the Wizard to set up a Standard 4-5-1, but assign Inside Forward to the left winger and Winger to the right winger ... are those tweaks? What if I sub a player at LW and, at the time of the sub, change his role from Inside Forward to Winger ... is that a tweak? I get the above, as stated by Ov, regarding the relationship between tweaks and touchline instructions. I'm just not clear about when something becomes a tweak.

Anything that isn't a default setting are a tweak. So those things you mentioned are tweaks.

[purple haze 18]

In real life - the manager may ask his wingers to play narrower at some point in the game via a touchline shout.

In the game - with a default tactic one can do this via the TS.

In the game - when creating a tactic using individual instructions one should have the option to add a customizable shout to the default shouts. For example - select which players custom shout should be applied to - select which slider to adjust - select +/- notches - choose name for custom shout. Custom shout then appears in drop-down list.

Then everybody could be happy.....

[dz47]

I’m not really sure that this is much of an issue TBH. I really thought that the addition of the tactics creator and the touchline shouts were to make the game more accessible and ‘realistic’ for those who didn’t want to manually set up their tactics (and the 3-5 different versions thereof to cater for different match situations).

I have played around a bit with the creator and as someone who was quite comfortable with the old slider system, at first I wasn’t that impressed and found myself making so many tweaks it was pretty pointless even using the creator. I think what you need to do is play around with the default tactics and find one that suits how you want your team to play ( I would think probably either a ‘balanced’ or ‘control’ tactic that you can then adjust effectively using the shouts), and then check the individual settings to make sure they are pretty spot on (ie so that the shouts will still work). I think if you only make a few tweaks, then it should be ok to use the majority of the shouts ( I think the greyed-out options is a good idea though).

My experience so far would really suggest that you need to watch these defaults work in game (in either full or extended view) because what I have found is that how you think they will play based on the settings, is not necessarily how they actually play in a game situation. For example I’ve been really impressed by how the default 4-2-3-1 asymmetric tactic works in a ‘control’ framework. When I first looked at the settings I wasn’t convinced, but then when I played a few games with Arsenal with this set up, I was really impressed.

In some ways I was reminded about a couple of threads on here for 09 talking about ‘simplicity’ in tactics and trusting more in the default tactics. I think maybe many of us (me included) have followed forum ‘wisdom’ in setting up the sliders in a particular way (and yes this often did work), when the defaults tell us that there are other ways of setting out tactics.

Anyway, getting back to the point a bit…I would have thought that if you didn’t ‘trust’ the settings in the tactics creator itself, then you wouldn’t really ‘trust’ the touchline shouts to make the changes that you want anyway? That’s why the option to set up your own tactics from scratch is still in the game. Maybe this could have been communicated more clearly by SI, but I personally am not ‘surprised’ that touchline shouts won’t override individual settings.

I think I should stop typing now!

[dz47]

Anything that isn't a default setting are a tweak. So those things you mentioned are tweaks.

Now I could be wrong, but I would have thought that if you make these changes in the actual tactics wizard (ie when you are first setting up the tactic), then these wouldn’t count as ‘tweaks’, and as such, would still be effected by the touchline shouts? Like I said I could be wrong though, so would be good to have this confirmed by those in the know.

[Robot42]

I just want to throw some support in for keeping the TW, as for me it is a great help. I never played football since i grew up in Australia playing aussie rules although i have for some years followed the sport on tv. So when i want to set up a tactic i have a general idea of how i want my team to play based on what i have seen and learnt, however i do sometimes struggle with what the finer points of the tactics system mean from a coaching perspective so having a wizard to guide me down a path is a great asset for me. I can't really understand a reason for removing it anyway as you dont have to use it. Just use a basic formation and then adjust the sliders to how you want them?

[Deltaroad]

Now I could be wrong, but I would have thought that if you make these changes in the actual tactics wizard (ie when you are first setting up the tactic), then these wouldn’t count as ‘tweaks’, and as such, would still be effected by the touchline shouts? Like I said I could be wrong though, so would be good to have this confirmed by those in the know.

Aything altered after the tactic has been created is a tweak.

[wwfan]

Part of my motivation for designing the creator was to remove the 'gamey' feeling that the micro degrees of slider control gave, and replace it with more generic instructions that the manager perfectly understood, and then used badly/well. As many people have mentioned, the 5% control notches in the slider system are not realistic, whereas shouting at your team to play narrower leading to a noticeable but not perfectly defineable reduction of width is. Balancing the shouts with the base concepts of the creator requires a balanced approach, rather than a customisable one, at least at first, so we can evaluate the relative effectiveness of each action. Adding full customisation options for every shout would have caused more problems that it solved, at least in the short-term.

Having said that, we are certainly aware of the need to continue improving the creator in the future and extra customisation is very much on the agenda. Furthermore, for those who want full slider control, the classic system still exists, plus a quick load tactic shortcut in the shout bar, which allows instant loading of multiple tactics which has the exact same effect as shouting. It might take longer and be more fiddly to construct all the tactics you want to use, but you haven't lost anything by not using the creator, except for access to 'pre-defined' shouts.

[Indi75]

So we have one of the most famed new features being worthless, since most of the players tweak some individual instructions here or there.

Nonsense. The overwhelming, clear, and arguable feedback from last year was that a majority of the populous didn't want all these individual sliders and options, hence the tactics creator being developed, and it's splendid reception by the majority of the community since the release of the blogs and demo.

I for one am quite into II's, but am happily using the TC for a base to understand a few things better and then tweaking accordingly.

Something I have noted is that every substitution now seems to require a look at the players role which is a superb development - no more of this straight swap nonsense as no two players are alike.

[Cerritos]

Anything that isn't a default setting are a tweak. So those things you mentioned are tweaks.

Based on something you said further down in this thread ("Anything altered after the tactic has been created is a tweak"), I'm not sure you're agreeing with yourself :-). I mentioned setting up a formation using the Tactics Wizard, where I assign non-default roles to particular positions. And I mentioned subbing during a game and switching the player role based on the skills of the sub. The latter would be a tweak under both of your comments, but the first? I'm not using the default setting, but I make my changes before I save the tactic. So I'm still wondering if moving away from defaults during the creation of a tactic using the Wizard is a tweak for the purposes of this discussion.

[Cerritos]

Part of my motivation for designing the creator was to remove the 'gamey' feeling that the micro degrees of slider control gave, and replace it with more generic instructions that the manager perfectly understood, and then used badly/well. As many people have mentioned, the 5% control notches in the slider system are not realistic, whereas shouting at your team to play narrower leading to a noticebale but not perfectly defineable reduction of width is. Balancing the shouts with the base concepts of the creator requires a balanced approach, rather than a customisable one, at least at first, so we can evaluate the relative effectiveness of each action. Adding full customisation options for every shout would have caused more problems that it solved, at least in the short-term.

Having said that, we are certainly aware of the need to continue improving the creator in the future and extra customisation is very much on the agenda. Furthermore, for those who want full slider control, the classic system still exists, plus a quick load tactic shortcut in the shout bar, which allows instant loading of multiple tactics which has the exact same effect as shouting. It might take longer and be more fiddly to construct all the tactics you want to use, but you haven't lost anything by not using the creator, except for access to 'pre-defined' shouts.

For my money, the Tactics Creator is the best addition to FM in years. It's the only reason I stayed with FML as long as I did ... didn't much care for FML but didn't want to lose the chance to play with the Wizard. Someday we'll look back on Wizard 1.0 and it will seem as dated as One-Nil for DOS does now. But for a 1.0, it's a remarkably solid tool, even though I am still confused about what constitutes a tweak :-).

[fuzzrab]

The whole ignore it or allow it is a good suggestion. There is no way Si can implement this in time for the next patch? Or make any adjustments to the Touchline shouts before the FM11? It's a shame if not.

As for people enjoying the TS feature, I don't think they even release half of the instructions they give don't even work lol. I doubt people play it as just with the default settings.

I play it exactly this way. i much prefer using the TW to create a tactic and then TS to change things. So far i have played 2 games on the demo for the allowed 6 months and not once have i touched the II, or for that matter even changed the tactic i have created now that i think about it.

I have found the last 2 FM's difficult to get into as i am fairly poor at tactics and the sliders just confused the hell out of me. This new system allows me to create a tactic that i can understand 10 times more than if i was using sliders.

[Coop]

THe TW is clearly aimed at those who do not like messing about with the sliders. Fair enough. The problem they then have is that the TS may not work if they've tweaked their tactics. Therefore the TS need to override II.

There is a problem for people like myself who like the classic way. We would like TS shouts too and feel that we are missing out because we are playing the 'traditional' way.

I say have the TS overide II and this way they can be available for Classic users as well.

[MSCCG]

I like messing with the sliders, but I also enjoy having a template to work on. I'm disappointed that touchline shouts don't work for ticked settings because I use them quite often.

Which settings are taken out in the TW? I have been tweaking TI...

[dz47]

Based on something you said further down in this thread ("Anything altered after the tactic has been created is a tweak"), I'm not sure you're agreeing with yourself :-). I mentioned setting up a formation using the Tactics Wizard, where I assign non-default roles to particular positions. And I mentioned subbing during a game and switching the player role based on the skills of the sub. The latter would be a tweak under both of your comments, but the first? I'm not using the default setting, but I make my changes before I save the tactic. So I'm still wondering if moving away from defaults during the creation of a tactic using the Wizard is a tweak for the purposes of this discussion.

My understanding would be that if the change to the ‘default’ is made within the wizard, and before the ‘completed’ tactic is created, then it is not a tweak; its part of your standard tactic template.

wwfan can you confirm or deny???

[wwfan]

Any manual change to the creator settings turns off the shout instructions for that setting. For example, if you manually set width, width will remain at that setting no matter what shouts or strategies you use. If you turn off long shots for a player, the 'Shoot on Sight' shout will not influence his long shooting.

[Sweed]

It will mean that the particular tweak you have made will not be changed by a touchline instruction but any instructions for that player you have not tweaked will still be able to be changed by a particular TI.

Thanks Ov, I can live with this.

As others have said there is no right answer for this issue. I also don't think any one at SI is sitting in the office now saying "oh my, we hadn't thought about that". It was a decision that had to be made one way or the other.

FWIW I would rather have it "as is" eg. not overriding PI rather than changing individual instructions I have set. I'm no tactics guru but the things I tend to tweak are things like long shots, run with ball, crossing eg. specific player skills. So, if I have a player with poor long shots and I set him to rarely I don't want that overridden by a shout when I'm trying to come back a goal down late. I want that player looking to pass the ball, not shooting from range.

The way Ov explains it here means my tweaked player will adjust his mentality to stay in the team concept, (whether I'm going offensive, defensive, wide, or narrow) but won't change his individual instructions I gave him to take advantage of his specific skills or to protect him from his deficiencies. Maybe being an American who still has much to learn about football I'm missing something here but in my simplistic tactical world I'm thinking this is the best way to go for now.

As others have said as Tactics Wizard 1.0 it is a very good start. I have already read a few posts from guys here in the US, that could never get into FM because they were just overwhelmed, that can't wait for Oct 30th to get into there first real game of FM. So, while the wizard has it's shortcomings it is doing what SI and Sega hoped it would do, open up the game to a large group of potential players that could never "get into" FM before because of the complexity.

Having said that I look forward to seeing how SI continues to improve this feature. No doubt it can be improved and I'm sure it will be built upon for many versions to come. I particularly like Deltaroad's suggestion in the other thread...

How about a small tick option to say touchline instructions to override whole team, attacking players only, defensive players only, wingers only or individual players?

So for individual players there will be a pulled down list where you can click/choose which player the shouts will affect.

If something like this could be added by patch that would be fantastic. A lot of posters say things like "this should be easy" but since I'm not a programmer so haven't a clue how much testing a feature like this would take to make sure it didn't break something else in-match I'll leave it to SI to determine how and when to make improvements. So, If not this year via patch I can wait, no choice really:), for next year.

Good discussion, topic. Thanks for bringing it up Deltaroad.

[The Gaffovski]

I've played FM for years and back when I had no problem with sliders it was because they followed this pattern -

Very Defensive

Defensive

Normal

Attacking

Very Attacking

Simple and real. A manager does not give players an instruction from 1-20 for anything.

I believe that in trying to put new things into the game, in an attempt to help us managers have more say in how our teams played, SI decided to give us more clicks, notches, whatever you want to call them. But now that we have more pertinent things to evoke variety such as Wide Play, type of Crossing etc, ADDED to so many Touchline Instructions available, wouldn't it be a good time to get rid of the unrealistic 1-20 clicks, and go back to a range of 1-5 with actual distinguishing names and meanings for each 1-5 value? Which we can actually SEE make a difference in our team's play on the pitch?

That would make synchronising the Touchline Instructions with ALL the other instructions (Team and Individual) so much easier, I believe. Instead of the mathematical and computing headache it must be now.

Nothing at all would please me more when it comes to FM than if this were to happen. I know I'm not the only one who plays FM, but it would be great if you guys did a serious official poll on it.

[DizzyIzzyB13]

I think maybe one solution could be for a box to pop up when giving a shout allowing you to choose to a) over-ride personalised instructions b) keep personalised instructions or c) cancel the shout when employing it, in the same way you have to confirm substitutions and other tactical changes. With that system, players would be able to take different approaches to different situations and it'd not add any real extra work in for people making shouts.

[The Gaffovski]

Some additional comments -

Imo, stuff like Closing Down hasn't worked right for years now and I believe it has a lot to do because of the 1-20 range for mentality and for closing down. Because that's when it started happening. It only seems to work right when you are "lucky" (once in a blue moon) that the mentality the opposition's winger is playing on, is a 17-click, and you have set your fullback's on a 3-click. If you don't, the players seem to rigidly stick to their set mentality and closing down levels, and don't close down and just watch the ball like confused idiots. Advice to use Opposition Instructions has proved fruitless. Even when the full-backs are on closing down - whole pitch (20-clicks), it happens. Why?

Closing Down could become Very Small Radius through to Very Large Radius (range 1-5). And there'd be no more problems. The general area where the player puts this into effect would simply be determined by their mentality and playing position.

Very Small Radius would mean that unless the opposing player is walking with the ball a couple of metres beside you, you don't close them down. You don't ignore a player walking a couple of metres beside you even if your manager has told you to close down only in a very small radius. And that's realistic. Very large radius would obviously mean a larger radius where the player has to seek to close down a player who has entered his range. Say 10-15 metres or something.

Wouldn't closing down be more intuitive by doing it like this? Rather than a counter-intuitive pitch-length basing? Because the way things are at the moment, players (especially full-backs but also midfielders) are sometimes ignoring other players walking beside them with closing down set to whole pitch. Really annoying.

If mentality and closing down reverted to a range of 1-5, that would mean a far greater frequency of getting (and SEEING) your defending tactics right, and your players defending realistically. Defensive would counter Attacking. Very Defensive would counter Very Attacking.

The paper - stone - scissors (that childhood game with the hands) principle.

At the moment I don't have a clue if I'm doing things right defensively. Gee, I wonder what mentality the opposition is playing on? Could it be 12 or 14? It would be nice to SEE if I'm doing it right on the pitch.

Absolutely every instruction, whether team or individual, could be transformed into a range of 1-5 easily, with just a little thought. And that could provide a better template for reducing or increasing levels through Touchline Instructions.

e.g. Wide Play -

Go wide maximum

Go wide

Normal

Cut in

Cut in maximum

(there might probably be better names for it but I wouldn't use hug touchline for example, because I wouldn't want my centre-backs to hug the touchline even if I asked them to to go wide maximum)

Less range per instruction = more player intelligence. Less headless chicken syndrome. And there'd still be plenty of instructions for us to give our teams their own unique character. Not to mention PPM's.

Less range per instruction = less doubt for us managers as to whether we have things as good as they can be. i.e. You play a match which you dominate but ends up 0-0, and you wonder, gee, maybe it required a 16-click mentality instead of a 15? Whereas if you were able to set your team to the only Very Attacking setting (5th setting out of a 1-5 range), and things still didn't work out, you would simply accept that it just wasn't your team's day and that's it.

You would also be able to try out all 5 levels (for mentality let's say) during the time-span of one match, to see what works best or simply out of necessity. Again, realistic. I see teams do this all the time during the course of one match. Goal behind with plenty of time left? Attack. Goal behind with little time left? Very Attacking. Etc etc. At the moment, it's inconceivable for us to try out 20 levels during one match to see which works best. That's 20 tactics changes. For one instruction only.

[Chauzu]

I am sorry, but most players actually change individual player instructions. Some do it a little, some do it more, some go overboard with it.

The point is that most of them do it, even if it means changing the instructions of just one player.

Touchline instructions are only useful to people who don't bother with the above.

You mean "used to"?

Wasn't much choice in the past, was there? Either you learned how to, downloaded a tactic, or (god forbid!) use a pre-set.

I've been using this new system in FML for a few months and it has made my gameplay experience better. It's all about football now; I never even think about what slider changes are being made when I play anymore. To say the least, it feels good.

[MSCCG]

I think maybe one solution could be for a box to pop up when giving a shout allowing you to choose to a) over-ride personalised instructions b) keep personalised instructions or c) cancel the shout when employing it, in the same way you have to confirm substitutions and other tactical changes. With that system, players would be able to take different approaches to different situations and it'd not add any real extra work in for people making shouts.

Wouldn't that defeat the idea of having a quick way to change the way your team plays? I don't even want a button to confirm my substitutions, just a cancel button would do.

[dsch]

The whole thing would be solved by an implementation of player instructions, which are attached to the individual player. Someone had a thread with pictures about this, but I can't find it now.

Basically, the instructions you wouldn't want overridden are usually tailored to a player's attributes. For example, if a player has no long shot, you want him set to LS = rarely whenever he's in the team; or if a player is a terrible tackler, you might want him at easy tackle regardless of other instructions. So once we can attach certain instructions to individual players, we won't need to override instructions in the tactics wizard, and touchline instructions would function as intended. It would also have the happy consequence that you will be able to move players in and out of the team without having to remember to fiddle with your team set up if you don't need to.

[Butters76]

I suggested it being removed because it isn't something new. The TW is just the pre-set tactics we had in FM09, FM08., FM07 and so forth. There is no real difference besides customising some aspects but even then before the TW the pre-set tactics we customised some aspects ourselves anyway. So I don't see what the TW had that the pre-set tactics didn't have.

As for the 20 point sliders being unrealistic and the TW making more sense it really doesn't. The TW is just the sliders systems underneath. Pretty much all football manager game has a slider concept underneath the bonnet. When you give instructions like play more narrow the AI just adjust the sliders accordingly. Difference is, in FM we can actually see the sliders and can adjust to to a degree of what you want. Which is actually more realistic.

Actually they would. Managers would give instructions to their AMC to be more creative but on certain game he may wish to exploit the wings and tell them to creative things from their wide positions. In term toning down his AMC creativity and giving more creative freedom to his wingers.

He would tell the player, you have some freedom to do what you see fit in attacking moves. Or you have complete freedom, He would never say a number from 1-20.

And he would never have 20 diffrent option in how long players should pass the ball. it would be short,mixed, direct, long ball not 1-20.

[LukaM]

Personally I think TW is a great feature on FM and I absolutley love it. I always hated these sliders and to worry about how many notches should I push my defenders forward and how will that look and so on. I t was always an abstract sort of thing where I really didn't know what I'm doing and had no clear vision of how my team looks like on the pitch. Now if I want Pirlo to play as my deep lying playmaker I can just tell him so and I know what his role is. I don't need to bother with all these sliders and hope I did it right. I think this is great plus TS which are really usefull, you can really change the outcome of the game with them. As for these guys lamenting about how they cant use them because they have a need to alter every single thing manually...well gentleman please do so. You dont really need TS because you can alter everything you want on your beloved sliders. So I don't see the problem. I want my tactics to be clear and simple. And this is what TW does for me. So, thanks SI..you've done a wonderfull job with it!

[MSCCG]

He would tell the player, you have some freedom to do what you see fit in attacking moves. Or you have complete freedom, He would never say a number from 1-20.

And he would never have 20 diffrent option in how long players should pass the ball. it would be short,mixed, direct, long ball not 1-20.

I think you are wrong. With the same logic, player stats shouldn't be made of numbers, training should be made of tick boxes and star ratings instead of out of five should be made "good, bad and ugly". Fact is that the numbers have always been a representation of the control a manager should have over the player, because you can always have a value between say short and mixed. It represents better the tweaking that a manager can give to his instructions, i.e "not like that, even shorter" or "no, stand just a little bit further back/closer to the side". 1-20 is a simple way of saying "reallyreallyreallyreallyshort, reallyreallyreallyshort, reallyreallyshort, reallyshort" etc.

Even if you can't see it, distance of passing, attacking mentality and width etc are on continuous scales and having it out of 20 is much more realistic than having it out of 5. However creative freedom should probably be on a five point scale and time wasting probably a five or a three even.

[jayahr]

Everybody knows that the TW can never cater for the detail which the sliders offer. That's why they still remain in there.

The real test is whether people will be able to create successful tactics with the tactics wizard (and I mean not just one option but many varieties of successful tactics) without having to tinker further. If so, then it's great because it makes the game more accessible. If not, it will be a failure and only frustrate people more about having to back to sliders.

However, I guess that if you are perfectionist in detail, you will still need to tinker around with details anyway, but that's not the TW's fault. It's only there to enable us to create well-working and sound tactics in a way which is a lot more accessible than the old sliders which too many just didn't understand.

[The Gaffovski]

1-20 is a simple way of saying "reallyreallyreallyreallyshort, reallyreallyreallyshort, reallyreallyshort, reallyshort" etc.

Which no manager would ever say, unless he wanted to be laughed at by his players or at the very least have them scratching their heads.

[jayahr]

So, as I said in the your other thread, the Touchline shouts are useless.

That's a statement which might have truth in a subjective approach, but it's ridiculous with a view to other gamers.

The absense of any argument in favour of such a bold statement already hints at it being nonsense.

[ldktalin]

The notion of tactics created using the Wizard are "not good enough" is flawed to say the least. Not good enough for whom?

It may not be good enough as tactics made from scratch by somebody reasonably good at it. And I'll bet you anything you want that's a rather tiny minority of the people who purchased the game. The others, who had no patience, motivation or willingness to suffer hours of frustration to fine-tune each slider where it's supposed to be to get something that looks like modern football happening on the pitch - for them it didn't work out so well at all. You've had like two threads a day on here venting that frustration out, for gods sake.

Those people actually get results using TW. Not the super tactic results, but believable results, and believable football on the pitch. Which is a whole lot more than they were getting before. So again, not good enough? Explain to me how not getting results is better than getting results, and I'll believe it.

[Deltaroad]

People saying we should have a 1-5 scale is laughable. Haven't 1-5 gives you far less control.

Managers do not say attack and everyone knows the degree of scale to do so.There is far more aspects then just "attack"

Playing 1-20 scales gives you far better freedom to pinpoint where to attack and how. The 1-20 scales gives you options of how far your defenders, midfielder, attackers (DMA) are pushed up. How big the gap between DMA are, where each DMA should be positioned offensively, defensively.

How players should pass the ball, 70% direct balls, 20% short, 10% mixed. < And yes managers don't say Gerrrad play 70% direct balls, 20% long, 10% short. What the 1-20 scale passing does is it gives the AI player a % of passing injunction with how the players move/gaps between players and the the type of balls the team expects to play/receive. So 70% direct because we have strikers who are good with 1st touch, off ball moment. 20% long because we have wide midfielder to run at the wing but their main focus is to cut inside.

Having a 1-5 scale does give you that option. The most we can do is set gerrard to direct passing. Not this just means he will play 100% direct passing and doesn't play long balls, shirt balls as much as his range of passing set doesn't allow that.

1-20 gives you far better representation of real life in mathematical form, something which can be recognised and calculated by AI.

[alesim]

I am also very happy with the new TW. In past edition I was very frustrated with the tactic setup, because I always felt that I needed a million tactics for every different situation on the field, each with a single slider click difference.

Now I can setup the team the way I want and I don't need to spend hours trying to find the scientific formula to break the game (which is basically what every super tactic was in the past).

By the way, if you setup your tactics in the old way customizing every individual instruction to death, why would you want to use a generic TS that will change your slider setting in a way that you maybe don't agree with or doesn't match your perfectly researched aritmetic formula?

[Jexz]

Interesting thread! But...

When is it an II/IP? I use the TW, but if I set Giggs to Winger/Attack, is he then om II, or is it from the moment i press 'Advanced', check the 'Cross from' button and change to 'Deep', then he is on II only on crossing?

I'm a bit confiused about the TS working, if I set my players with roles/mentality (defend/support/attack), but not altering the 'advance'-settings of the players.

[jayahr]

People saying we should have a 1-5 scale is laughable. Haven't 1-5 gives you far less control.

Managers do not say attack and everyone knows the degree of scale to do so.There is far more aspects then just "attack"

Playing 1-20 scales gives you far better freedom to pinpoint where to attack and how. The 1-20 scales gives you options of how far your defenders, midfielder, attackers (DMA) are pushed up. How big the gap between DMA are, where each DMA should be positioned offensively, defensively.

How players should pass the ball, 70% direct balls, 20% short, 10% mixed. < And yes managers don't say Gerrrad play 70% direct balls, 20% long, 10% short. What the 1-20 scale passing does is it gives the AI player a % of passing injunction with how the players move/gaps between players and the the type of balls the team expects to play/receive. So 70% direct because we have strikers who are good with 1st touch, off ball moment. 20% long because we have wide midfielder to run at the wing but their main focus is to cut inside.

Having a 1-5 scale does give you that option. The most we can do is set gerrard to direct passing. Not this just means he will play 100% direct passing and doesn't play long balls, shirt balls as much as his range of passing set doesn't allow that.

1-20 gives you far better representation of real life in mathematical form, something which can be recognised and calculated by AI.

Of course you are right, but then again with the same argument we may suggest another scale, maybe 1-30, 1-50 or 1-100 and where to stop then?

As I said, the TW is neither meant, designed nor able to replace the slider system in its full depth. That's why the slider system remains in place. If it entirely replaced the old system, the TW would be a massive catastrophe.

Just remember what was going on here over the last years. People didn't understand sliders. People were lost in trying to create a well-working tactic and were given no hint why their efforts failed.

The TW allows us to create a well-working tactic in a way which people can understand (football terminology, not '1 to 20' on a scale whose effects are so complex that it can only be worded badly). It gives you 90% at just 10% of the accessibilty effort. As such it's a great step forward. If you want 100% you still have to go into depth a bit further but that cannot devalue the fact that your default starting point before doing that is now way better than it was before nor the fact that casual or regular non-hardcore gamers, which I assume to be the majority and who won't spend a lot of time on tactics anyway, now get less frustration.

You should not overestimate the TW in what it is meant to achieve. If you compare it to goals which it is not meant to achieve, disappointment is inevitable.

[TSH]

That's a statement which might have truth in a subjective approach, but it's ridiculous with a view to other gamers.

The absense of any argument in favour of such a bold statement already hints at it being nonsense.

The absence of any argument? Didn't you read any of the posts above?

They are useless for anyone who likes giving individual instructions to the players. I can't imagine many people not giving individual instructions to at least one player.

This is not about if the sliders are ok or not, it's about a new and important feature which many people won't be using and the fact that SI never said anything about it in the first place.

[DANNY1000000]

I was using the TW and I had the team performing very well but I wanted to go deeper and fine tune things so I tried to convert it to the old style tactics like the menu offers, but I found that this doesnt match the created tactics i.e. I had closing down very often and man mark yet when I converted it was zonal marking and closing down was mixed.

Has anyone noticed this?