Tricking the Wizard – Guide for Understanding the Tactical Creator Dynamics

[Lyssien]

Are you sure that its only your 3 CM players (Dm and 2 x CM from what you said) that you are seeing the effect on. I just did a quick experiment there on a similar tactic, and what i saw was a slightly interesting reaction to it. I found that my CM players were getting ahead of the ball quicker when my WM picked it up. It was almost an inverse overlap (i have fullbacks set to defend, so increasing there mentality might not have been enough to push them forward).

The reason i was seeing that, I believe, was due to the reduced mentality on my WM when i added (Look for the overlap). The CM behaviour hadnt actually changed, it was just now different comparative to the WM.

If you think you see something different, might be interesting to see some screenshots or a PKM?

Right, it's not just the 3 midfielders, but it's them too. It is not just the WM holding up the ball though, anyone taking part in the counter might do it. I was using DM+BtB+AP(A)+F9, if it makes any difference.

I may do some screenies next time a team lets me counter attack, but no promises.

[Lyssien]

I have, I don't see what you say you see

OK then, I 'll upload some screenies when I get the chance to. I 'll have to start a new save, because teams don't let me counter any more in my current one.

[Jyuan83]

Hi jpcote09, thanks for the guide as i have a better understanding of the TC now. Say for example if i wish to make my WM or winger to be the top scorer, should i make his mentality the highest possible in the whole team such that the difference in mentality with the rest is very pronounced? I was thinking of a standard mentality with fluid philosophy with the WM having get further forward in a 4-1-4-1 set-up and no other PI changes to the rest of the players.

[jpcote09]

Hi jpcote09, thanks for the guide as i have a better understanding of the TC now. Say for example if i wish to make my WM or winger to be the top scorer, should i make his mentality the highest possible in the whole team such that the difference in mentality with the rest is very pronounced? I was thinking of a standard mentality with fluid philosophy with the WM having get further forward in a 4-1-4-1 set-up and no other PI changes to the rest of the players.

I have a lot on my mind about this

First, with all due respect, aiming to have your wide midfielder as your team's top goalscorer is 'tactically' unrealistic. If you want to do it, you're gonna need a lot of things, starting with a beast midfielder, and a very poor striker (hey, in the end, strikers are not called strikers for nothing, they should be the one scoring the most goals, normally). I have never - ever - seen a wide mid being a team's top scorer (not in the run of play at least), IRL or in FM.

That being said, I assume you meant you want to try and setup your tactics so your wide mid scores a lot of goals, if possible more than most of the guys on your team. Right? For that, there are things you can try.

First, your assumption about having him on the highest possible mentality is "half-right". Generally, yes, you would want your guy to have the highest possible mentality so he's less inclined to pass and buildup, and more inclined to be the attacker. However, IME this is very hard to achieve with MLs and MRs, since (don't remember but I think I mentioned it in the OP) mentality is also dependent on position. This means, in your example, even if one of your wide mids has a higher mentality than your striker, the latter will still be the main attacking threat of your team. That said, there are a couple of things you could try to sort of 'counter' that, and IMO starting by having him on a higher mentality than other midfielders can be a good idea. For that, I would try "Balanced" and make him the only (A) duty on your mid 4. 'Get Further Forward' should be a given, but expect that it might not necessarily work (Depending on your team mentality and shape, this could make him more aggressive, but not necessarily transform him into a runner/goalscorer... not sure if 'Standard' would be enough to make him aggressive enough).

I usually find that Winger roles go forward more readily than WMs, but YMMV. Also make sure he has enough support from his fullback and that the central midfielder next to him will not necessarily go forward too much (this would encourage your wide player to pass the ball to him in more advanced positions, and what you want is the contrary).

A few other things you can try :

i) Exploit (his) flank

ii) Experiment with one or many of the following PIs (depending on how you want him to play) :

'Cut Inside', 'Dribble Less', 'Pass it Shorter', 'Fewer Risky Passes', 'Sit Narrower', 'Roam From Position', 'Shoot More Often'

iii) Experiment with TI 'Pass Into Space'

iv) Make your striker as 'supporting' as possible. On the top of my head, I'm thinking F9 could be awesome. Otherwise, DLF, maybe TM (support duties)

v) if you have a good pivot next to him at MC, consider teaching him 'Plays One-Twos'

vi) if all else fails, put him in the AM strata, make him your free kick taker and drift corners to him... I hope you have enough material here to make many tests and I'm sure you'll find a way to get him involved as you want in the end

[Jyuan83]

Thanks a lot jpcote09 for the detailed reply! I really appreciate it=) I guess i was sort of looking a long the lines of creating a wide player like ronaldo who at Man Utd scored 42 goals in the 2007/2008 season as a winger. Not only that but it seems that nowadays the goal threats from most teams seem to be coming down the flanks. I will work hard on my own experimentation with the ideas you offered and see if i can create my own pseudo-ronaldo=D. Thank again!

[jpcote09]

Oh yeah, for sure I wasn't saying that you CAN'T have an attacking threat down the flanks. However it's much more difficult than having an attacking threat down the middle from a striker, and it's only natural.

That being said, many of the teams who have great goalscorers who play on the flanks are usually either very attacking teams, or they play those players in the 'AM' strata, leaving them beyond the ball, in open space, ready to receive a pass for a counterattack. And their strikers often score many goals too. And, the fact that we are seeing more goals coming from wide areas is also a cultural thing. The modern 'way' of playing involves stretching the play and having athletic wide backs who add some presence down the flanks. This creates more opportunities in areas of the field that used to be restricted to only one guy (the classic winger).

Also have to keep in my mind that Ronaldo is a monster at taking free-kicks, and I don't remember how many he scored from set pieces in 07-08 but I certainly recall a couple.

In the end, this morning for another thread I brung up an interpretation of last season's Dortmund tactics (I love that club, haha), and watching a few games I saw my ML Marco Reus get a huge number of chances to score and converting a couple, so it's possible to get there (although that particular tactic was extremely aggressive, so YMMV).

[mdbussen]

This is a fantastic thread so thank you for taking the time and energy to write all of this! However, I do have a slightly stupid question as a response:

Is there a way to see the slider effects of each shout/tactical instruction in FM14? I can't for the life of me figure out how.

[Lord Rowell]

This is a fantastic thread so thank you for taking the time and energy to write all of this! However, I do have a slightly stupid question as a response:

Is there a way to see the slider effects of each shout/tactical instruction in FM14? I can't for the life of me figure out how.

I'm afraid you can't because there are no sliders in FM14. The slider mechanics (for want of a better word) are still under the bonnet I think but that's all.

[mdbussen]

I'm afraid you can't because there are no sliders in FM14. The slider mechanics (for want of a better word) are still under the bonnet I think but that's all.

Well that sucks. I understand WHY they did it this way. But without seeing how the individual shouts are affecting player's sliders it becomes really hard to judge which shouts you should be using, like this example:

For example, I want my DCL and DCR to play short passes out of the back, not launch long balls forward. So I should add the TI ‘Play Out of Defence’ or at least give them the PI ‘Pass it Shorter’, right? NO!!!! As stated (much) earlier, the combination of the Adventurous Approach (Control Mentality) and the fact that their role is ‘Central Defender’ will make them play short already! Plus, we added the TI ‘Pass it Shorter’ which further reduced it. So you see (and you would see from watching matches too) that we don’t need to decrease their passing style again. If anything, it would create problems by having them dwell on the ball too long or not knowing what to do when no option would be available.

I've been guilty of this I'm sure - when you're setting up an initial tactic and you go through the team instructions and tick "keep possession" and "play out of defence" and "pass it shorter" because those are all descriptive of how you want your team to play, right?

How would you know that your DCs already have "short" passing with the Control mentality without access to the sliders? Watching the games I guess would be the argument or analyzing the passing charts but that's not exactly new user-friendly.

[RTHerringbone]

I've been guilty of this I'm sure - when you're setting up an initial tactic and you go through the team instructions and tick "keep possession" and "play out of defence" and "pass it shorter" because those are all descriptive of how you want your team to play, right?

Pretty sure this isn't the route the OP wants this thread to go, but in your example all three TIs differ subtly.

Retain Possession shortens passing AND lowers tempo

Shorter Passing just shortens passing

Play Out Of Defence gets Defend Duty defenders and midfielders to pass shorter

They are distinct instructions.

[Lord Rowell]

Well that sucks. I understand WHY they did it this way. But without seeing how the individual shouts are affecting player's sliders it becomes really hard to judge which shouts you should be using, like this example:

I've been guilty of this I'm sure - when you're setting up an initial tactic and you go through the team instructions and tick "keep possession" and "play out of defence" and "pass it shorter" because those are all descriptive of how you want your team to play, right?

How would you know that your DCs already have "short" passing with the Control mentality without access to the sliders? Watching the games I guess would be the argument or analyzing the passing charts but that's not exactly new user-friendly.

I can fully understand why SI have chosen to get rid of the sliders and go down the route they have which will ultimately be more intuitive and realistic, but I agree that in the transition to a more intuitive system the necessary detail has been lost.

This is why the OP's thread is so very, very useful

[cbcruz]

Pretty sure this isn't the route the OP wants this thread to go, but in your example all three TIs differ subtly.

Retain Possession shortens passing AND lowers tempo

Shorter Passing just shortens passing

Play Out Of Defence gets Defend Duty defenders and midfielders to pass shorter

They are distinct instructions.

Is there a thread/post somewhere that explains what all the TI's do?

[jpcote09]

Pretty sure this isn't the route the OP wants this thread to go

Totally right.

[jpcote09]

This guide is meant to be an introduction, an eye-opener for users who struggle with the TC. It's not meant to be a game-solver or a cure-all. I just wanted people to realize that giving an instruction sometimes affects a whole system, and I definitely hope people use it in the right way and go see for themselves what the changes do... by watching MATCHES, not watching a bunch of sliders or charts or algorithms...

FTR, it makes me think of my IRL work. It takes place in a field of expertise that requires, just like managing football, a couple of abstract things such as 'vision' and 'experience'. Those are things that can't be taught and you can't have a set of definite answers to a set of related problems. Everything always depends on the situation, and I believe that while there are general guidelines to follow, creating the 'perfect' set of rules, charts and 'scientific' answers would just kill the magic and the individuality of being a [insert job function here]... And in the end it would not work... or we would all have the same tactics... everything would be flavour-less.

Unfortunately (IMO) people have come to want quick, precise answers, fast. Everyone wants to know "the secret". If you want the science of the TC to create the perfect tactic for you, then search on the internet ; there are countless guides on FM13 and 14 which explain what the instructions do, how to set them up, what to do with your tactics, what roles to use, what instructions to give to your defensive midfielder, what instructions to change in 'this' or 'that' situation, eveverything is there at the reach of a couple of clicks. But if you want to do like a real football manager, watch matches and adjust your tactics according to what you see and what you believe in.

[Cleon]

Is there a thread/post somewhere that explains what all the TI's do?

Yups;

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/305067-The-Full-90-Minutes-What-I-Do

A few of the new ones that where added in FM14 are missing (this was written for FM13) but everything else is the same and it covers almost all of the shouts that are currently in the game.

[gcengic]

This is an excellent read since it re-contextualizes a previous thread by cleon/thog/rtherringbone/wwfan (about fluidity through some examples from Tottenham) or whoever it was which explained fluidity perfectly. That thread changed the way I see nad think of the match engine as well as the TC in general. This thread takes that to FM14 which was more than needed. Now even if I am greatful for someone taking the trouble to do this, I still want to question why it is impossible for me to see how a crucial aspect of the TC (fluidity) works? In FM13 we could all see what was moved and to where, and while FM14 makes a nice step to be more holistic I kind of feel it is unnecessary for me to play 2 games simultaneusly so I can understand one of them.

I think translating the general "mentality sliders" into a general understanding of "risk" made a lot of sense to me in how I was to manage my tactics. I understood that it changed the way players behaved instead of just seeing it as something that dictates their lateral position on the pitch. But then again, these sliders are at heart of the game and should from a user-perspective be easier to understand/imagine/see/ than they are now. This is why I absolutely hate this years game, for the first time since I started playing FM I felt that control and information were taken away from me rather than put at my disposal.

I think that all the information that is avaliable in these awesome threads should be avaliable out of the box, in the game. But someone, for the love of god, please sticky this.

[madmike]

Fantastic Thread, really great read and has helped me immensely. I agree that FM15 should have a more visual feedback in the TC.

Can anyone answer this for me?

If I have a centre back set to defend within balanced fluidity and control mentality team setup, I then click More Risky Passes under his PI do his through balls increase from rare to sometimes or rare to often? Also as my team is set to pass shorter would his global passing become slightly more direct??

[jpcote09]

Fantastic Thread, really great read and has helped me immensely. I agree that FM15 should have a more visual feedback in the TC.

Can anyone answer this for me?

If I have a centre back set to defend within balanced fluidity and control mentality team setup, I then click More Risky Passes under his PI do his through balls increase from rare to sometimes or rare to often? Also as my team is set to pass shorter would his global passing become slightly more direct??

We can't really know for sure, but IME it would increase through balls for the CD from 'rarely' to 'sometimes'. If you would like to have him play through balls often, you would have two choices : use the TI 'Pass into space' which should increase the likelihood of through balls for everybody, plus the PI more risky passes... Or make the guy a ball-playing defender.

IMO/IME The instruction 'More risky passes has no direct influence on the length of the passes, although risky passes usually tend to be generally longer than lateral passes. A change of role would change the passing length though.

In the end, I would suggest changing the role depending on what you want to do with the particular player.. On a control mentality with no 'passing' instructions, a CD will play out if the back, a LD or BPD will have a mixed passing style. Then a LD will have low creativity and few through balls, whereas BPD will have high creativity and more dribbling/through balls

[madmike]

Thanks for replying, yes I am hoping it has increased to sometimes.

I re-installed FM13 yesterday and I took my time to build a tactic switching between the 2 TC's enabling me to see the changes mentality & philosophy made on my team as a whole. It has helped immeasurably!!

I play Control which I am happy with but seeing the change that direct passing made to the global width/tempo/def line has made me switch from short to direct as it suits how I want to play more.

Being able to use the drop down PI in FM 13 also quickly showed me that I had 4 players default holding up the ball. This enabled me to make the necessary changes in FM14 to get closer to how I want to play. I have also changed from a Fluid style to more balanced after seeing how creative freedom and mentality where affected.

I have started a save with Leamington in Skrill North, predicted 22nd we are currently sat 7th and I am enjoying the game again as I know in my head what settings all the players have.

I have no doubt that FM15 needs a visual representation for us to better understand how our changes directly affect the team/player instructions as a whole.

Great thread, well done

[AlienIR]

First of all thank you for this thread.

It's a challenge to explain these areas and your thread is really helpful, I really recommend it to any user. Although I'm not a native english speaker, it was easy to read so congratulations.

[wwfan]

Great thread. Takes me back to my attempts to explain the sliders from a user's perspective. We've needed a user's interpretation like this for a while. I am no longer qualified due to being part of the development process for the TC, wqhich puts me too close to the mechanics of the system to offer such a holistic explanation of how it can be used in practice.

Stickied and deservedly so.

[debsicus]

This getting stickied is like winning SI Games Tactics and Training Forums Ballon d'Or. Not many get up there just the elite.

This really opened my eyes. Thank You.

One question though. Do you find that the underlappling fullback and the Creative central mid get in each others way? Because it looks like that would happen with the fullback cutting into the Playmakers zone. Or does he stay wide when the playmaker is there and cuts in when the playmaker moves?

[amirko]

I am creating tactic almost on same way, I was using FM13 to see what is going on with tactic, but I have one big problem and it is spotting real issues with tactic.

What I mean with that ?

1. How you have spotted that you formation is too Wide. Ok you will say you have watched game ( I am doing too but I do not spot that probably becouse I do not have clear idea how I want my team to play). So did you spoted during game or you have checked statistic or analyse screen.

2. If you have problem with tempo too slow or too fast what are common things you spot about play so you do something with tactic?

Thanks

[jpcote09]

Hi there,

I think that is one of the biggest issues for most FM users, especially more experienced users who might be a little more familiar with the TC... Literally ´Seeing´ how your tactic plays out, what are its strengths and weaknesses, how it unfolds with the players you have at your disposal; and then making the right tactical tweaks, in match or between matches.

IMO this is the point where experience comes into play. No two matches are the same, but +/- 90% the actions performed by the players are the same (runs, passes, shots, movement patterns, etc.). If one takes the time to watch matches, one will see certain actions performed under certain circumstances by certain players, and other actions NOT performed in the same environments. When you see those being repeated 10x, you might not have a clue about what's going on, especially that there are countless actions that happen at the same time and that you have to notice. However, when you have seen something 40000x, it becomes easier to focus on other actions, and also to link those patterns with some circumstances/environments.

So I think that's how I saw those problems. My experience with the game and soccer in general. Actions on the pitch hinted at some things being wrong, and the Analysis/Stats tabs confirmed it further (I usually never use those tabs and trust my instincts instead, but for this thread I thought they would be great to help visualize some concepts - I think those two tabs are highly overlooked, underused and underrated, as they contain loads of valuable information - even if I don't use them myself).

To answer your more precise questions : In this tactic I first thought my team was a little too wide simply because my wide players weren't completing/receiving enough passes, so I thought they were probably too wide (or my players forced too many passes down the flanks, a similar problem caused by too much width).

Problems can be depicted in many ways, but for example a too slow tempo would probably see players holding the ball for too long before releasing it, underhit passes, player runs being 'disconnected' and not decisive, etc.

Too high tempo will usually see a lot of passes out of play, a lot of giveaways and passes intercepted by the opposition defenders, maybe also your players falling on the ground more, etc.

[amirko]

Thank you very much!!!!!

[jpcote09]

as i have understood fluidity is going to shape my team's actions and as i want my players to do more what i want i have decided to go rigid.

strategy is something i will change depending on game context. when expected to lose, ill go defensive, when on odds - counter/statndard/control and only if i desperately need a goal i might consider going above control.

the biggest difference compadred to current approach is going to be far less TI's. as i understood from all the work done in this thread, the strategies already employ certain, if not all, aspects needed.

defensive will already be narrow, deep, and cautious, no need to immediately use these TI's. If i want to make it more of counterattacking threat, i might add more direct passing, run at defence and such, right?

same with control - it's basics are already decently suitable for going forward responsably - d-line and closing down are already at mid-high, tempo is faster so no real need to add any of these TI's. maybe those that exploit opposition formation could be used. exploit flanks i.e. or some of mine strengths.

You understood 'Strategy'/'Mentality' exactly as I intended you to understand it. Spot on. The different mentalities already cover all aspects of the play to suit themselves. So yeah, for example, if you don't use any TIs, 'Attacking' will be much higher, faster, wider than 'Defensive' (plus many other aspects are affected, like closing down, runs from deep for certain players, etc.)

For Fluidity, not quite. If you want your players to do more what you want, you would need to give them less 'Creative Freedom', which is mostly affected by roles and duties, plus the TI 'Be More Disciplined' (Be More Expressive if you want them to express themselves more than use your instructions). That being said, Fluidity affects 'Creative Freedom' very slightly.

But the main thing it does is create 'banks' of individual mentalities (which shape how every player approaches the game). This will mainly affect how different players get involved in the buildup, in the final third, and in the defensive phases of play. I suggest that you re-read the part about Fluidity and take the time to analyze the screenshots that go with it, it really explains it well.

[Jyuan83]

Since the formation on the TC depicts how a team positions itself defensively when not in possession of the ball, in your view jpcote09, how would the positioning look like if a player is asked to specifically mark an opponent?

[herne79]

An interesting read, and well presented.

Following through the math, given that we have 8 mentality plus 5 fluidity settings, that gives us 40 different team tactical combinations straight off the bat without changing anything else. So far so obvious.

However, as you point out, individual player instructions may also be changed based on these team-level mentality/fluidity settings. So, to take just the "Fullback" player role as an example - that role itself has 3 different settings (attack, support, defend - 4 if we include automatic) which leads us to realise that just this one position has a possible 120 different pre-set combinations (or 160 including automatic). Yikes ! And that's before we start messing around with team or player instructions.

Now multiply that by all 11 player positions and roles which can be played in those positions...

Anyway, seeing some summary level information that begins to describe the interplay and correlation between the initial 40 pre-sets is quite refreshing and opens the game to new possibilities. Less is quite definitely more.

Now if you would just be so kind as to help my Plymouth Argyle team play like Brazil...

Hmm, actually on second thoughts, they already do

[gcengic]

I re-installed FM13 to see some of these things and I think I have noticed a few things.

First - just like OP said the "Strategy/Mentality" besically dictate how aggresive the teams mentality will be.

If one can imagine ones team on for example teams that are Very Fluid have one universal mentality which means that all 11 players have the same old "slider setting". Going from Balanced to Control will mean +2 on that "imaginary" scale. Going a further step to Attack will mean another +2 etc. This is consistent with all fluidity settings. This is why OP:s re-phrasing of "Mentality=Approach" makes a lot of sense.

I've had a hard time contextualizing the fluidity settings though.

If I can remember the evolution of tactical discussions and dissections of the ME over the last few years, there have been a few "theories" or "frameworks" that people have been very successfull with.

I recall Rule of One (ROO), Rule of Two (ROT), 5x5, Universal etc. The fluidity settings seem for me to replicate many of these.

Very Fluid: Universal setting (same mentality on all players)

Fluid: 5x5. Here I noticed that the Defensive Line + DMC/WB strata all shared the same mentality. Also that the Midfield/Striker strata also shared the same mentality - effectively creating a 5x5 split between attacking and defending players.

Balanced: The only setting where mentality is governed by the Duty, which can often make it appear as a ROT mentality structure. If we imagine a Support Duty player being "neutral" or x (depending on the "Approach/Mentality/Strategy") then Defend Duty represents (X-1) and Attack Duty (X+2). This can be helpful is one wants to create staggered, assymetric formations even if the tactic chosen is for example a "Flat 4-4-2".

Rigid: For me, this seems to be close to a ROO/ROT style framework. The DC have their mentality setting, followed by a an incremental increase the higher the strata is. I.e. DR/DMC = (mentality of DC+1).

DC

DR/DMC

MID

AM

ST

Here, it is interesting that the whole midfield (no matter role) share the same mentality. This means that a W(A) = CM (S) = BBM = BWM etc. In this case, you can be more sure of selecting players according to their "role" or "job".

Very Rigid: Here your Defensive line stays flat, so your FB and DC share a mentality setting. The difference is that with Very Rigid, the mentality settings stagger out more for different roles in midfieldwhere both Role+Duty affect player mentality. Also MR/ML players are less aggressive by default which could translate into wingers doing a better job defensively.

Also - just like Mentality, Creative Freedom is affected in a similar, almost mirrored with mentality (but this is a casual observation and not a fact). Basically the higher up the pitch, the more freedom your players have.

[Adsuperjenius]

good thread.but I confuse,you say many like "player in blue rectangle" player in red rectangle etc, do the pic is loss,or this is mean something?

[ajsr1982]

First of all, excellent thread. This is the one I've been waiting for for almost twelve months now! Superb work. It's frustrating that when you change your mentality it automatically adjusts other things for you. In the main, these changes are logical, but there are exceptions. For example, there is no real reason, at least in my opinion, why choosing an 'Attacking' mentality would or should increase a team's width in all situations. Pumping the ball up to a target man and getting players running off him would usually require narrower play. I know it's possible to tweak the tactics with TIs and PIs to create this, but it's the fact that there is other stuff going on that you aren't necessarily aware of that can be frustrating.

Another source of frustration for me is that on the PIs screen, many instructions are greyed out, which I assume is because they are automatically in place, or unavailable for a player with certain Role/Duty combinations. Unfortunately, that there is no distinction between the two can lead to confusion.

However, excellent thread. I think the main thing that this should result in after people have digested it is that fewer PIs and TIs should be used. It should also go a long way towards preventing people having conflicting TIs, as well as roles/duties that conflict with the style and mentality. For example, I had 'Drop Deeper' enabled along with a counter mentality. I've since removed the former and it's prevented my midfield from allowing the opposition to simply pass the ball around in front of them and dominate possession.

[ajsr1982]

I've been having a further think about this. I have, for a long time, really struggled to get my defensive midfielders playing well (or at least achieving a high average rating). I'm sure it's possible, however with your thread in mind...

When I play a DM in front of my defence, I almost always attach a 'Defensive' duty to him, whether he is playing as a DM, an Anchor or a HB. It occurs to me that playing an Anchor or a DM-D is asking that player to perform a very disciplined and specific role, even if the DM position isn't necessarily viewed as a specialist position. This would appear to be anathema to a fluid system. Is it therefore recommended that this role/duty combination is best used in a rigid system. Or if you insist on playing a fluid system, would a DM-S or a DLP-S be more appropriate?

Similarly, when playing the 4-1-2-2-1 formation (4-3-3), I sometimes like to have an IF-A and an AP-S combination in the wide AM positions. Both of these players are likely to cut infield naturally, so a 'Control' or 'Attacking' style would appear to conflict with the player roles, given that there is an underlying instruction to play wider with these styles. Is this the case?

[shirajzl]

They have also developed FMC, which is perfect for the casual player who doesn't have enough time or interest in immersing themselves in the game as much as someone like me does. Unfortunately most people just don't get FMC and sadly try to play FM, the FMC way. I really believe those two games should be sold separately with perhaps an option to switch from FMC to FM at a low cost if someone feels bored with FMC.

Totally agree that we are in a fast-paced world and people want results, fast. And that's why FMC was created. Now, the debate could go on as to whether there's a problem with people in the world making unrealistic targets for themselves. For example, losing 30 pounds in 1 week, or having great success in Football Manager without actually playing it as intended.

Firstly, I don't want to sh*t on your thread which is fantastic, but I have to refer to the quoted part. You, and many others, don't seem to realize that FMC keeps the same ME and thus is tactically as demanding as full FM (minus "tactical familiarity" feature). As a result, it's far from a casual, lighter version. Most people who seem to struggle with FM have issues with tactics so pointing them to FMC is simply wrong.

[jpcote09]

The point I was making was not that FMC is 'easier' by any means. That's not what I meant either. What I meant was, (IMO/IME) FMC is much less time-consuming because of the features being implemented in a way that lets you concentrate more on important aspects such as signings, tactics and that stuff. I really enjoyed FMC when I played it and I think there's much more fun to be had playing that game for people who just want to stroll through every season and play very quickly.

To the other guys who asked questions : sorry, I've been back to work and I'm a little overloaded by it, I'll try to answer your questions soon. Or maybe someone else can come here and help you?

[waitsfornone]

Great thread! Sometimes I get into the heat of trying to 'fix' a tactic and just start going all willy-nilly with instructions. This was a great primer on slowing down and going from one tier to the next with MATCHES in between to see the results. Lovely, lovely stuff.

I do think that adding movement arrows to the tactics board would be a great UI boost for Tactic Creation. Not runs that we can alter, but they do change as we alter the instructions. That might help us see better when we set all of our wide players to cut inside and then get frustrated when the AI beats us down the wings. A second suggestion would be different tactics views for attacking, transition, and defense (view only) so we can see the general movement of the X's and O'x as play shifts. Obviously this wouldn't take into account PPMs that could turn a brilliant tactic into a steaming pile on the pitch. (Here is looking at you AVB and Timmy!).

[olivermain83]

This is a really interesting read. It highlights the one thing that a lot of people find really hard to get through their heads and that it that all the tactics are templates. It must have taken me about 6 months to finally realise that you don't need to add 10 TI's to the 'Control' tactic to make it play possession football. With the right formation, roles and duties you'll be pretty much set. I use TI's more for tweaking how my team plays now rather than defining.

I actually think it would be helpful if it was more obvious what instructions were active when you select a Mentality. For example if you selected attacking it would TI's that were in effect like this:

Obviously you'd be free to change them if you wanted to create your own vision but this system would certainly be more user friendly to a lot of people I think by explaining what Attacking was actually telling your players to do. This style definitely would have at least saved me 6 months of frustration not being able to get players to do what I wanted.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

UNDERSTANDING FLUIDITY

Fluidity (called ‘Style’ in FM13) is a wildly misunderstood and misused concept. I remember reading a couple of threads which explained it very well, but still people don’t know what to do with that instruction and how best to use it.

To put it simply, fluidity is the level of specialization from your individual players. It determines what phases of play your players will participate in. Having read the above explanation, there is thus no surprise that Fluidity affects individual Mentality. How it affects it is another thing that we are going to look at now.

For the sake of comparison, just go back to the top and watch, in our Bayern example, how changing from *Standard* to a more *Aggressive* approach raised our DCR’s individual mentality from ‘5’ to ‘9’. Actually, it raised every player’s mentality by four increments.

Fluidity, on the other hand, will adjust mentalities on a player by player basis. Take a look at how changing from a *Balanced* style to a *Rigid* style affected our players’ mentalities (I replicated the Dortmund tactic with Bayern for this example) :

In terms of individual mentality, the full backs are closer to the centre-backs, and the MCR has also dropped considerably. The three other midfielders, however, have gone up a little bit, and the supporting striker is now much more ‘forward-minded’. Here are screen shots of mentality changes for the three other Fluidity settings (thanks, FM13).

Note that going more ‘Fluid’ DOES NOT mean going more aggressive. For example, in our setup here, the back four all have the same mentalities on *Fluid* as on *Very Rigid*. On another level, look at the very fluid settings. Our CDs have the same mentality as our more attacking players (MCR, MR, close to STCL, more than STCR). This DOES NOT mean that they are going to surge into the box trying to score. It just means they are going to be more aggressive in their play, maybe trying more killer passes, closing down more, support the attacks, etc. Individual mentality unfolds differently from player to player according to the position each one is played in.

The other big thing with Fluidity is, it affects *Creative Freedom*. Basically, the higher the Fluidity, the higher the Creative Freedom. This leads to a lot of users believing that going more fluid will make their players forget the game plan and not follow the rules. This is not true. In fact, looking at the FM13 TC, we can see that going from *Balanced* to *Fluid* gives every player a boost of 2 increments in creative freedom. 2 increments, out of 19, is not a lot. And actually, we are going to see why, IMO, the increase in creative freedom is needed (and the decrease in more rigid setups).

Let’s look at those last 5 pictures again, without the strikers’ mentalities. It tells us what fluidity does, and it’s simple.

Very Rigid = 4 ‘banks’ of mentalities : the d-line, the d-mids, the mids, the a-mids.

Rigid = 3 banks : central defenders, wide backs + d-mids, mids and a-mids

Balanced = No banks : every player’s individual mentality is increased or decreased according to their role and (perhaps most importantly) duty.

Fluid = 2 banks : all defenders and d-mids, all mids and a-mids

Very Fluid = 1 bank : all players

Strikers will complete with different mentalities, and their individual mentalitiy will, to some extent, depend on formation. In a formation with more than 1 striker (as you see here), overall attacking strikers will always have a higher mentality than all other players, and supporting strikers will usually be between the ‘d-mid’ mentality layer and the ‘a-mid’ mentality layer (again, this does not mean they will ACT like a midfielder). However, with a lone-striker formation, the said attacker's mentality will be somewhere in between, no matter what their role and duty is. For example, here with Bayern if I dropped my STCR in the AMC slot, the AF(a)'s mentality would drop by a couple of notches. This would lead to him being less isolated and a little more involved in the buildup play (again, this does not mean he would stop doing the advanced forward actions or always act like a supporting/holding striker).

Now, as you go from more ‘banks’ of mentalities to less, you have less and less players doing specific actions, and IMO this is why you need more creative freedom, so to compensate and let players contribute to more phases rather than staying stuck in their given role and duty. Vice versa. For example, in a very rigid fluidity you will have defenders on the lowest mentality asked mainly to win the ball. Then d-mids asked to link defence to midfield; mids to pass the ball and speed up or slow down play; a-mids to create plays; strikers to score. In such a setup, you don’t need your players to be very creative and you can ask a lot of specific things from each of them. However, in a more fluid setup, their roles will be less defined. For example, in a very fluid setup, players are all asked to win balls, link up play, pass, create, and score. However, if a player is (say) a BWM(d), his role/duty tell him to only win balls and pass it short to other teammates. That conflicts with the very fluid thing, so he needs creative freedom to be able to deviate from his role/duty when it is called for and make his own decisions about the flow of the match. If we want him to have less freedom, there are ways around that and we are going to have a look at them later.

One final word about *Fluidity* which is unknown to many users (I just realized it myself) : it slightly affects pressing. More fluid tactics will increase ‘Closing Down’ for every player by small amounts (probably so they act more as big fluid units), and for a reason still unknown to me the ‘Very Rigid’ fluidity also slightly increases closing down. Note that this was seen in FM13, maybe it’s not the case in FM14 anymore.

Just for fun, let’s choose the best (for now) Mentality and Fluidity for my Dortmund first team. I know I have one of the best teams in the Bundesliga and I usually like such a team to impose its will on every opponent. Yet, I don’t want to be over-aggressive with my main tactic, so I will choose *Adventurous* (Control).

Now, for Fluidity, I started with balanced but felt it didn’t quite work well. My DL seemed not quick enough when he went forward and was often ‘in-between’ and occupying the same space as my ML, so I would like them to be more separated in overall mentality (ML more aggressive, DL more cautious). Also, I felt my MCR was too enthusiastic going forward and that left a huge gap in midfield, also partly due to the fact that my MCL was sitting too deep and being too cautious when we attacked. The rest was okay, but I felt my STCR could have gotten involved a little more in the attacking moves, so I thought maybe making him more aggressive would do the trick. Based on the above pictures from FM13 (and my knowledge of the TC), I thought Rigid would be the best choice here, but of course I will have to watch other matches to make sure it really is.

Wow; this is brilliant - am I interpreting this correctly that Balanced will actually give the most fluid movement i.e. overlapping and runs from deep?

Eg. it seems that balanced gives the biggest difference in mentality between WB(A) and WM(S) or MC(A) and DLF(S)..

[jpcote09]

@olivermain83 Not a bad idea, though there would be less room for flexibility. But I agree that it would be much easier for people to see what they're doing that way.

@OziltotheArsenal Generally, yes. The players on 'attack' duties will be more inclined to go forward on 'Balanced', and the 'support' players will be generally more cautious. Note however that on 'very fluid', in an attacking strategy the supporting fullback will have a much higher mentality and thus might go forward more readily... that coupled with the fact that players havea little bit more creative freedom - so if they feel like moving around a lot is the best thing to do,they might do it more than on a 'Balanced' fluidity. Or less, depending on the situation.

[Ö-zil to the Arsenal!]

@OziltotheArsenal Generally, yes. The players on 'attack' duties will be more inclined to go forward on 'Balanced', and the 'support' players will be generally more cautious. Note however that on 'very fluid', in an attacking strategy the supporting fullback will have a much higher mentality and thus might go forward more readily... that coupled with the fact that players havea little bit more creative freedom - so if they feel like moving around a lot is the best thing to do,they might do it more than on a 'Balanced' fluidity. Or less, depending on the situation.

So am I right in thinking that a system that requires a lot of overlap i.e False 9 or something reliant on wing backs, would be best suited to Balanced philosophy rather than Fluid?

[James9]

This is a really interesting read. It highlights the one thing that a lot of people find really hard to get through their heads and that it that all the tactics are templates. It must have taken me about 6 months to finally realise that you don't need to add 10 TI's to the 'Control' tactic to make it play possession football. With the right formation, roles and duties you'll be pretty much set. I use TI's more for tweaking how my team plays now rather than defining.

I actually think it would be helpful if it was more obvious what instructions were active when you select a Mentality. For example if you selected attacking it would TI's that were in effect like this:

Obviously you'd be free to change them if you wanted to create your own vision but this system would certainly be more user friendly to a lot of people I think by explaining what Attacking was actually telling your players to do. This style definitely would have at least saved me 6 months of frustration not being able to get players to do what I wanted.

I agree this would be great to know. i would like to know what TI is affected when you choose Control, Counter and Standard Mentalities

[jpcote09]

So am I right in thinking that a system that requires a lot of overlap i.e False 9 or something reliant on wing backs, would be best suited to Balanced philosophy rather than Fluid?

Generally speaking, I would say yes. There are a lot of other factors at play though, such as player attributes, morale, motivation and more.

[TheKantona]

Fantastic thread! Once you know how the tactics works in FM and that every instruction changes another instruction it isn't as hard as many people on this forum say..

[ChrisXP]

I was always aware of the effect on the player 'instructions' caused by changes to mentality and fluidity, but still found this very helpful as I've changed from Fluid to Balanced based on what I've read and performances have definitely improved.

I think that to help people who don't know about the issues mentioned in the OP, I think it would be helpful if the TIs and PIs changed their wording contextually, e.g.:

PI - Pass Shorter could become Pass Very Short when the TI Shorter Passing is active. If Retain Possession is picked too, perhaps it should change to Only Pass Short etc

[yonko]

Keep in mind though that Standard Mentality + those TIs = Attacking Mentality (roughly). So if you add those TIs to the Attacking Mentality then it makes it even more extreme.

[jjtile]

I'm able to follow to follow OP's post up until where it start talking about individual mentalities - but I'm still really struggling with a couple of things once we get to that bit:

1. The relationship between team mentality and individual mentalities.

Am I right in thinking that raising/lowering team mentality simply moves each individuals's mentality up/down. i.e. individual mentalities are the baseline and raising/lowering team mentalities is simply an easy way of moving them all at the same time?

2. Fluidity

Still not following what you mean by "banks". Is it that high fluidity mean that your 11 players will all have their mentality set to a similar number, but with low fluidy they'll be more likely to have low mentality if they're defenders and high mentality if they're attackers?

[bababooey]

I think I already wrote something on this thread but I've gone back and read this through again and I have to say (again) just how helpful it is. This is amazingly detailed and I'm finding myself inspired to create my own style rather than constantly trying to piggy back off the style of a real life manager. Absolutely superb thread.

I hope that when FM15 launches, it comes with some sort of documentation like this. Or that the in game descriptions change, or something. I don't know. But this is very helpful.

A quick question to pose for anyone that has details on FM, will there be a change in the interface so that when I select a player role/duty I'll be able to see what changes on his player instructions without having to click "edit instructions" ? Obviously this isn't a huge deal, but it would be amazingly convenient!

Secondly, to OP, have you found that you're able to create more "real life" movement from players by tweaking their instructions? For instance, if you had Marco Reus as a WM-A and then tweaked his instructions, perhaps he would be playing in FM more like he does in real life. As opposed to just setting him as an inside forward and letting him go.

[jpcote09]

I'm able to follow to follow OP's post up until where it start talking about individual mentalities - but I'm still really struggling with a couple of things once we get to that bit:

1. The relationship between team mentality and individual mentalities.

Am I right in thinking that raising/lowering team mentality simply moves each individuals's mentality up/down. i.e. individual mentalities are the baseline and raising/lowering team mentalities is simply an easy way of moving them all at the same time?

2. Fluidity

Still not following what you mean by "banks". Is it that high fluidity mean that your 11 players will all have their mentality set to a similar number, but with low fluidy they'll be more likely to have low mentality if they're defenders and high mentality if they're attackers?

1. Exactly. Raising/lowering team mentality raises/lowers all players' individual mentalities at the same time by a fixed amount. Be aware that it does not only change their mentalities though, it also changes team and players instructions like tempo, passing style, etc.

2. Not exactly, but close. For example, on 'Fluid', all midfielders and attacking midfielders have the same level of individual mentality (let's say '14') and all defenders and defensive midfielders are also on the same level (let's say '6'). This is what I meant by 'two banks'. On the same team mentality (this is purely hypothetical), 'Rigid' would see 'three banks' : GK and CDs would be on '6', wide defenders and defensive midfielders on '10', support and attacking midfielders would be on '14'. If you follow this hypothetical example, your defensive midfielder would have a higher mentality on 'Rigid' than on 'Fluid'. But your supporting and attacking midfielders would have the same mentality. So, as you see, Fluidity is a complex thing, but I would simplify in saying it creates sort of 'sub-teams' of groups of players that are on the same level of individual mentality. Hope this clarifies it a bit...

I think I already wrote something on this thread but I've gone back and read this through again and I have to say (again) just how helpful it is. This is amazingly detailed and I'm finding myself inspired to create my own style rather than constantly trying to piggy back off the style of a real life manager. Absolutely superb thread.

I hope that when FM15 launches, it comes with some sort of documentation like this. Or that the in game descriptions change, or something. I don't know. But this is very helpful.

A quick question to pose for anyone that has details on FM, will there be a change in the interface so that when I select a player role/duty I'll be able to see what changes on his player instructions without having to click "edit instructions" ? Obviously this isn't a huge deal, but it would be amazingly convenient!

Secondly, to OP, have you found that you're able to create more "real life" movement from players by tweaking their instructions? For instance, if you had Marco Reus as a WM-A and then tweaked his instructions, perhaps he would be playing in FM more like he does in real life. As opposed to just setting him as an inside forward and letting him go.

First, thanks for your comments and I am extremely glad that it has helped you and inspired you. As for your question, well, yeah, normally if I want a player to play a certain way that does not really suit his generic role in my team, I will either teach him a PPM or change his player instructions. I always watch games to see if it works properly though.

Reus is not a good example of that though. I tried to replicate last season's Dortmund tactic a while ago, and watching games it was pretty clear that Reus does play as a WM-A with player instructions tweaked (well, at least this is the closest you can get to his real-life role in FM14). FTR, I posted the tactic in the following thread (where someone else tried to replicate the style as well) :

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/394551-It-needn-t-to-be-always-possession-based.-Trying-to-recreate-the-Dortmund-style

So yeah, sometimes, in very specific circumstances, I prefer PIs, but I usually try to keep them to a minimum and get the other instructions right before I start tweaking PIs. Of course, when trying to implement a 'real-life' tactic, you would normally have to use more, because you can not tweak the tactics exactly like a real-life manager can. For example, you can not have your MR/ML as your main playmaker. But you can tweak player roles and instructions in ways so his teammates pass him the ball more, and he passes more risky, etc. etc.

[jjtile]

@jpcote09 - Thanks for replying. That's incredibly helpful. Can I just ask a couple more things?

You mentioned that:

The reason for a different terminology here is that a Mentality change does change everything. Passing style, tempo, closing down, tackling, d-line depth, width, roaming, running, etc

All the things mentioned above (passing style, tempo, closing down etc.) can also be altered through team instructions or player instructions (obviously in a more graphic way through sliders in FM13). Am I therefore right in thinking that mentality changes (whether at a team or player level) are, at heart, just a highly efficient way of changing passing style, tempo, closing down etc. of the team and individuals players all at the same time?

Put simply - could a change in mentality be replicated by micro changes to passing style, tempo, closing down, tackling, d-line depth, width, roaming etc. across the team/players if a user had the time/inclination/knowledge to do so? (To be clear, I'm not suggesting that I would do it that way - just making sure there's not a hidden 'x factor' in mentality that I'm not getting)

[bababooey]

@jpcote09 - Thanks for replying. That's incredibly helpful. Can I just ask a couple more things?

You mentioned that:

All the things mentioned above (passing style, tempo, closing down etc.) can also be altered through team instructions or player instructions (obviously in a more graphic way through sliders in FM13). Am I therefore right in thinking that mentality changes (whether at a team or player level) are, at heart, just a highly efficient way of changing passing style, tempo, closing down etc. of the team and individuals players all at the same time?

Put simply - could a change in mentality be replicated by micro changes to passing style, tempo, closing down, tackling, d-line depth, width, roaming etc. across the team/players if a user had the time/inclination/knowledge to do so? (To be clear, I'm not suggesting that I would do it that way - just making sure there's not a hidden 'x factor' in mentality that I'm not getting)

I don't want to speak for jpcote09, but I think I can take a shot at answering this.

In short, yes you could replicate overall mentality changes by tweaking PI's and TI's. For instance, if you played on "standard" overall mentality, but then used the TI's of: "much higher D-Line" + "Much higher tempo" + "Play Wider" + "More Direct Passing" then you'd be setting the team up to be extremely aggressive, as if it were playing on an "attacking" overall mentality.

I could be wrong, and again I don't want to speak for OP, but I think this is right.

[#4]

I haven't posted in the main forum for many years but thought this thread deserved some praise.

Thanks to the OP for demystifying the TC for people like myself. I was one of those that ditched FM many years ago when the sliders made the game more like a mathematical puzzle. It really did put me off for a long, long time.

Whilst i've only just started playing FM14 again (after what is probably a 6 year hiatus) i feel like i can actually begin to understand the tactics side of things once again, thanks mainly to posts like this one! You've definitely gained SI another FM15 customer.

Bravo sir.