42 Flipping 4

[soundian]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Skunner:

Has anyone tried using the 4-2-4 against AI?

I may try that later, maybe see how the AI adjusts to counter it, or if you just get hammered. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's about the only reasonably consistent way I've found to counter a 4-2-4. It's high risk but if you get there first it seems to confuse the hell out of the AI.

Unfortunately because of the waiting time in tactical changes (why I can't shout the instructions on to the pitch I'll never know) you often get the AI changing to 4-2-4 at exactly the same time. Strap in, there's gonna be goals.

If I'm feeling less adventurous, barrows on all my midfield and forwards tends to keep them at bay, but it's not good for my old ticker.

[mphillimore]

Ive got to be honest, I find the AI's 424 to be fairly ineffective against me.

Yes they score, occasionally, but then I reckon my teams score at least as many as they do in that period.

I play a 4-4-2 and I find when Im a goal, or 2 goals down, pushing the attacking and width sliders all the way forward to be as effective as 4-2-4.

The guys original complaint on here though was laughably poor...he cant even spell...

[Stella]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by mphillimore:

Ive got to be honest, I find the AI's 424 to be fairly ineffective against me.

Yes they score, occasionally, but then I reckon my teams score at least as many as they do in that period.

I play a 4-4-2 and I find when Im a goal, or 2 goals down, pushing the attacking and width sliders all the way forward to be as effective as 4-2-4.

The guys original complaint on here though was laughably poor...he cant even spell... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

what has spelling got to do with it? idiot

[gunnerfan]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by james_33:

as backpackant said - there is a very simple solution - set one of the split view panes to the opposition formation - you don't need to have it like this the whole game - only from about the 70th minute on if you only want to see when the AI switches to the dreaded 424 </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, I always have one split view pane on the opposition formation. Typically, I see a change in formation a good two or three minutes of game time sooner there than in the commentary. BTW, I do it for the whole match, because the AI will often make more subtle changes during the match, like barrowing a center mid or having the two strikers switch places.

[Skunner]

Ok, I've seriously had enough of this 4-2-4 crap.

I wouldn't mind it if it was just 1 team that did it, and were known for it, but I just had 4 goals put past me against Newcastle.

I have yet been able to find a tactic that works against it. It's ridiculous. It's really ruining the fun of this game for me.

I keep an eye on the formation of the opponent, then I try to counter it, but there's just no way of doing it. And seeing as how I'm tactically useless, it makes it even more frustrating. It's as if the game has a turbo boost hardcoded into the game for the AI.

Is the AI like taking steroids during the half time teamtalks? It seems I can't ever have a good away game going because they always switch to the stupid formation when they're on a draw or losing, and they fire 4+ goals against me.

Really killing it for me. And i'm not one to moan, but this is really doing my head in. It's as if you have to be a master of tactics just to avoid losing to the tactic.

[isuckatfm]

@ Skunner

I am not saying this is an absolute cure all but it seems to work for me.

***WARNING: TACTICAL SETTINGS FOLLOW***

Move time wasting all the way to the right, Often.

Move the team mentality slider all the way to the left i.e. Ultra Defensive

Move the width setting all the way to the left, Narrow.

Move defensive line all the way to the left, Deep.

Move passing style all the way to the left for all players, Short.

Move tempo all the way to the left, Slow.

Since I started using this approach whenever I switch to this Shut Up Shop approach the clock winds down without much happening in most matches. Sometimes there's a couple more shots from the AI but rarely anything threatening.

Again I'm not guaranteeing this will work but give it a shot and see what happens. I usually switch to this with 10 or so minutes to go when the AI gets desperate. Also I don't know if this is working because of my players or because I'm in the Blue Square South, so whether or not this works at higher levels I don't know.

[turn it upto 11]

the thin to do is overload th midfield as the ai are only playing two and aswell isolate tthe wingers so essentially its a 4-2-2,i go 4-5-1 with a defending midfielder with arrows going back from him and arrows going back from the wingers, this works fine for me,

also i put it on low creative freedom, counter attact, long balls. usually dont concede from it and sometimes have scored because they have noone back.

[Skunner]

Thanks guys. I'll try all that next game.

Although I found something odd playing against Charlton. I was able to hold them down to a 2-2 draw.

What I did was as soon as they changed to 4-2-4, I went to my tactics, changed to ultra defensive, counter attack, and played the ball down the flanks, and as soon as I did that, they reverted back to a 4-4-2. I'll look into that a bit more aswell.

[Kill Rock Stars]

i think there are several problems with the 4-2-4 formation

1 - the ai uses it a bit too much. i've been the underdog away from home, trailing by a goal, and the opposition has switched to 4-2-4. i can see why they'd want to kill the game off rather than sitting back, but with a one goal lead no side in the world is going to shove four players up front, unless you've fallen through some kind of time portal and ended up in the 1920s.

2 - too much uniformity. real life managers have a million different strategies they can employ to get a goal in the dying minutes, but it feels like the ai only has one, and pretty much every team will try and use it.

3 - it's too effective. obviously there will be times when the ai will score against you, even if you've devised a near-perfect defensive structure for your side. this is fine, in fact it would ruin the game if there was a tactic you could use that would always prevent all out attack from triumphing against you.

however, i feel that as the game stands now 4-2-4 comes off more often than it should - if a team have struggled without success for 80 odd minutes they'll be tired and frequently disheartened. a tactical shift shouldn't suddenly turn them into a brilliant, effective side - it begs the question that if they can do that to you in the last ten minutes, why haven't they been doing it all game.

4 - there's not enough risk in using it. if i switched my side to 4-2-4 i'd fully expect my team to take a battering whenever we lost possession, especially as i'm pushing loads of players up for set pieces. this just isn't the case, for either the ai or human player. all or nothing formations should mean just that, but when i'm using it the worst i see happen is that the remaining minutes drift by without chances - the opposition never really manages to take me apart on the counter attack.

5 - players aren't hindered enough by the change in formation. switching to 4-2-4 often means playing several players out of formation, especially if a side have previously been playing with three centre backs or three central midfielders. in the current incarnation of the match engine players don't seem very encumbered by this. this also ties in with point 2 - if you're playing a central tactic with players adept at playing in the middle shoving two players up to act as wide forwards shouldn't really be your weapon of choice.

note than it's not just the ai that profits from the over-effectiveness of using 4-2-4. my serie c2 side was 4-0 down after an hour of the opening game of the season, and i was thoroughly bored of it all, so i brought on all my subs, pushed both the wingers up to play as wide forwards (positions neither of them could play), made no other changes, and ended up winning 5-4

in real life it's much harder for a side to suddenly change tactics and break through against opposition who've been outplaying them than it is for the opposition to simply shut up shop and get the three points. in fm the reverse is true.

[Skunner]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by isuckatfm:

@ Skunner

I am not saying this is an absolute cure all but it seems to work for me.

***WARNING: TACTICAL SETTINGS FOLLOW***

Move time wasting all the way to the right, Often.

Move the team mentality slider all the way to the left i.e. Ultra Defensive

Move the width setting all the way to the left, Narrow.

Move defensive line all the way to the left, Deep.

Move passing style all the way to the left for all players, Short.

Move tempo all the way to the left, Slow.

Since I started using this approach whenever I switch to this Shut Up Shop approach the clock winds down without much happening in most matches. Sometimes there's a couple more shots from the AI but rarely anything threatening.

Again I'm not guaranteeing this will work but give it a shot and see what happens. I usually switch to this with 10 or so minutes to go when the AI gets desperate. Also I don't know if this is working because of my players or because I'm in the Blue Square South, so whether or not this works at higher levels I don't know. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I tried that, and it works wonders. Was able to get a couple victories by holding the Opponents defensively.

Thank you good sir.

[Half-time Orange]

My non-league team has just played Aston Villa (EPL) in the FA Cup.

I expected to get trounced, despite being at home, so I played my attacking tactics in the hope of just scoring and I took a shock lead.

I immediately changed to defensive counter-attacking tactics and conceded two goal;s in as many minutes.

Back to attacking tactics and I'm under the cosh until 80th min when I decide to go for bust 4-2-2 ultra-attacking.

Of course Villa instantly score and make it 3-1.

Here's the odd thing - they now switch to 4-2-4 themselves

Why would they do that?

Oh - to make it 4-1, I see.

The same thing happened in the previous year's cup game at home to a Championship team.

Having equalised away from home - Plymouth continued in 4-2-4 to grab a winner - surely that was too much of a risk?

[Half-time Orange]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Half-time Orange:

My non-league team has just played Aston Villa (EPL) in the FA Cup.

I expected to get trounced, despite being at home, so I played my attacking tactics in the hope of just scoring and I took a shock lead.

I immediately changed to defensive counter-attacking tactics and conceded two goal;s in as many minutes.

Back to attacking tactics and I'm under the cosh until 80th min when I decide to go for bust 4-2-4 ultra-attacking.

Of course Villa instantly score and make it 3-1.

Here's the odd thing - they now switch to 4-2-4 themselves

Why would they do that?

Oh - to make it 4-1, I see.

The same thing happened in the previous year's cup game at home to a Championship team.

Having equalised away from home - Plymouth continued in 4-2-4 to grab a winner - surely that was too much of a risk? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

corrected

[muncherdave]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Negatrev:

I do wish that it would cut to match engine when a side is changing it's formation. Generally it's easy to notice, but depending on the game I sometimes only watch key highlights Which means you might not see the formation change in the engine until 10 minutes after the change, the first highlight to come up is them scoring on the break or something similar.

It's really a definition of what's a key moment. I think the opposition suddenly switching to four strikers should be just as important as a sending off. People shouldn't have to watch the last ten minutes in full match mode or have keep checking the formations page.

The only notice the match engine seems give occasionally is than '%team% is looking for more options in attack' </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I only watch key highlights with one notch away from the quickest speed the game allows and i notice it every time. this is because if i dont notice the "team is changing to 4-2-4" in the commentary i notice the subs they make (they will ALWAYS make substitutions when changing to this formation, providing they have any left of course). Its a good idea in general to get into the habit of looking at opposition instructions everytime an opposing team makes a substitution anyway because half the time they will actually change formation as well, all be it subtle or the drastic 4-2-4 and this way you are already there to give opposition instructions on the players coming on for them anyway.

[blayhod]

here's big news.

i don't know if it's sheer luck or if it has to do with 802 patch, but yersterday i was playing a match on neutral ground, i was clear favourite tto win game.

my chivas team was leading 2:0 till 71st minute when opponents pulled one back.

i was expecting 424 in next 10 minutes and pulled fuullbacks back but nothing happened.

opponents stayed in their 442 formation and i was able to put another in the closing minutes.

ain't that strange?

perhaps SI sorted it out?

anyone else had similar experience?

[Macyst]

Not all AI will convert to 4-2-4, it has to do with risk, importance of the match, etc.

I just found out after a match that Bolton switched to 2-3-5 against me for the last 15 mins.

However, I didn't concede any despite no change made to deal with that.