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Football Manager 2019 Feature Blogs: Revamped Tactics Module


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11 minutes ago, johnnyyakuza78 said:

Now I've looked at it all in a little bit more detail, I think I am actually quite disappointed. 

These changes really seem to just be UI and UX changes to the interface, very little actual change or thinking into how tactics work or what you do. I was hoping for more change.

These 'style' changes are really just moving around functionality that already exists, making it a touch clearer what settings are doing. Fine, thats a positive change, but it feels like its the only change that tends to happen from year to year. We are still mainly working with the same sliders under the hood, they are just glossed up with new definitions and moved about. Just feels like a nod to get new players in more than anything, which is understandable, especially when so many people find the current system confusing. I guess I was hoping for something more... innovative.

Kind of yes, and kind of not. I see quite a few new TIs there:

- you can now choose separately "attacking width" and "defensive width"

- you can now set a "line of engagement" (though I'm waiting to see if this is fundamentally completely different from what team shape was, or purely only a modifier for mentality of forwards when out of possession, how far back do they go to defend)

- in transition you can now choose between "counter-press" or "regroup" when ball has been lost; or between "counter" and "hold shape" when ball has been won (previously none of this was available EXCEPT for counter which came in automatically at the lower mentalities)

- you can now use "play for set pieces" (what is this, try to bait the opposition into committing fouls?)

- you can now set "underlap" separately for each wing

And gone are:

- "team shape" (which is now a function of the other TIs)

- "retain possession"

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4 minutes ago, noikeee said:

you can now choose separately "attacking width" and "defensive width"

This was the most needed thing, imo.
I avoided using wide team shape because the defense would be all over the place with that setting.

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 you can now use "play for set pieces" (what is this, try to bait the opposition into committing fouls?)

Your players intentionally kick the ball into defenders so they can get corners? :D

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5 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Kind of yes, and kind of not. I see quite a few new TIs there:

- you can now choose separately "attacking width" and "defensive width"

- you can now set a "line of engagement" (though I'm waiting to see if this is fundamentally completely different from what team shape was, or purely only a modifier for mentality of forwards when out of possession, how far back do they go to defend)

- in transition you can now choose between "counter-press" or "regroup" when ball has been lost; or between "counter" and "hold shape" when ball has been won (previously none of this was available EXCEPT for counter which came in automatically at the lower mentalities)

- you can now use "play for set pieces" (what is this, try to bait the opposition into committing fouls?)

- you can now set "underlap" separately for each wing

And gone are:

- "team shape" (which is now a function of the other TIs)

- "retain possession"

This really, even from just a surface glance, there are instructions there that simply didnt exist before. And it some existing options have been separted from others, which will change their functionality entirely

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7 minutes ago, noikeee said:

Kind of yes, and kind of not. I see quite a few new TIs there:

- you can now choose separately "attacking width" and "defensive width"

- you can now set a "line of engagement" (though I'm waiting to see if this is fundamentally completely different from what team shape was, or purely only a modifier for mentality of forwards when out of possession, how far back do they go to defend)

- in transition you can now choose between "counter-press" or "regroup" when ball has been lost; or between "counter" and "hold shape" when ball has been won (previously none of this was available EXCEPT for counter which came in automatically at the lower mentalities)

- you can now use "play for set pieces" (what is this, try to bait the opposition into committing fouls?)

- you can now set "underlap" separately for each wing

And gone are:

- "team shape" (which is now a function of the other TIs)

- "retain possession"

Well I'm interested to see what these things actually mean. 

Line of engagement.. is that just affecting pressing and mentality of strikers or is it an entirely new behaviour.

Defensive width was sort of affected by mentality before, it just wasn't something you could affect otherwise.

The counter press stuff I do like the idea of however, that could well be a fundamental change as pressing was the area of the game that really needed updating.

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2 minutes ago, noikeee said:

I wonder if "play for set pieces" is what they turned "retain possession" into. Retain the ball until they kick you. Sort of like ticking "hold up ball" for all players. :D 

Also just noticed "roam from positions" is gone....

well now you put it like that :D 

Agreed just saw that Roam from Positions is gone. I think for Play for set pieces they might hang around near the box to win a FK or PK for longer duration's than expected.

 

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6 hours ago, kandersson said:

Might be just a matter of semantics but can anyone suggest me a real life example of vertical tiki-taka? It sounds like it could be my go-to style btw...

Ahead of the Man City V Napoli Champions League game in October 2017 a Daily Telegraph Sport article looked at various tactical systems:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/10/17/napoli-bring-sarri-ball-man-city-glossary-footballs-tactical/

Napoli's Sarri Ball was described by L'Equipe as

"vertical tiki-taka", and is a possession-based style with plenty of short, quick passes but an emphasis on moving up the pitch quickly. In other words: "liquid football".

It will be interesting to see how FM19 implements gengenpressing, tika-taka, vertical tika-taka.........some experimenting ahead with beta before starting my long term Chelsea FM19 save.....

Edited by mhaffy
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3 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

Really surprised with the depth of TC overhaul. Dind't expect all things we were moaning about to be addressed in the TC.

Game phases are finaly split. We got line of engagement, defensive width, different framework for overall strategy... it is really encouraging and above all expectations. Now it only remains to see football produced by the ME. because these things need to work on the pitch. We already had play from the back instruction that didn't really create proper behaviour on the pitch so I remain cautious. However, this has to be the biggest change in the tactics after removal of sliders.

The ultimate test will be  watching Guardiola's City play. If they even remotely look like in real, this will be the best release in the decade.

Be interesting to see if city's template is in there. And if not, if it's replicable. Lots of the individual ingredients seem to be there 

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Re: Vertical tiki-taka discussion/speculation:

@noikeee suggested Pep's Barca was VTT (cba typing it in full multiple times :D) while Spain was TT. I'd suggest that they're both TT, but Pep's City team utilises VTT often. Sometimes City are quite direct once into the opposition half, especially with Sané and Sterling running the channels. Obviously they are much more associated with hogging possession but they don't wait for an opening; blunt force direct football is often used (only reason we managed to get so many wins, we adapted against opposition teams defending deeper by being more direct and incisive). I believe Barcelona probably played like this a lot too (I have a shocking memory so I'm not gonna know without google).

I think Sarri is probably a fairer representation (as someone whose teams play this way for the majority of the time) but then I think quite a lot of similarities can be drawn between the way Pep and Sarri think in terms of attacking and possession football (with them skewed oppositely in terms of the direct/patient approach). 

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The tactics module is the thing I look forward to seeing most in each new version of FM.  It's the bread and butter of the game.  This update looks really promising and more than anything else has whetted my appetite for Beta day  :thup:

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This is excellent news, and a lot of positive changes. Not only does it appear you will have much more control over what happens during different phases of play (which has been an area we were sorely lacking before) it looks like it will be significantly simpler for new players (and those less experienced with tactics) to understand and set up the football they want to see. 

I am very much looking forward to this. Role on the Steam Winter sale.

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vor 1 Stunde schrieb johnnyyakuza78:

Well I'm interested to see what these things actually mean. 

Line of engagement.. is that just affecting pressing and mentality of strikers or is it an entirely new behaviour.

Defensive width was sort of affected by mentality before, it just wasn't something you could affect otherwise.

The counter press stuff I do like the idea of however, that could well be a fundamental change as pressing was the area of the game that really needed updating.

As far as I understand, and how it works in RL, you´ll let the opposition play until a certain point of the pitch and then you begin to press them.

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things look positive on the surface, but the real test will be on if the match engine has seen imrovements or not. If my players still pass the ball into my teammates heels or strikers shoot inside the box and the ball ends up at the corner flag I'm going to be very disappointed. Graphical and tactical changes are nice, but the match engine has to show real signs of improvement for me to buy it this year.

Edited by Sticx
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vor 6 Minuten schrieb johnnyyakuza78:

That kind of happens now, it just happens via a mix of pressing and mentality instructions.

Pressing is basically non existant in the game right now, what you see is not really how managers like Pep, Klopp, Schmid etc. set up their team to press the opposition. And I am sure that you cant set a straight line of engagement right now, no matter what mentality you choose. For pressing, you have the pressing slider and the defensive line to determine how much you want to press, but not where. All your players will press all the time and you have to be careful not to press too much because then your defense will be out of position.

Whats missing is pressing not only the player with the ball but the channels and passing options, we´ll see if we can create that kind of tactic with the new changes.

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1 minute ago, Joey Numbaz said:

What is (was?) wibble-wobble? I haven't seen that term used re: FM before.

Champ Man 3 series had tactics where you could set player positions in areas of the pitch with the ball and without the ball (wibble-wobble). Long time ago now, obviously :D 

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Looks really promising, hopefully, this time we will be able to reflect the football in our minds to the pitch! Instruct to the players exactly what we want to see from them. :thup:

p.s. The UIs have reminded me 'sliders'. :) 

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1 minute ago, ben carter said:

I take it that you can still tweak within a chosen style? The choice of tiki-taka, wing play etc aren't fixed are they, you can still go in and fine tune things?  

Just look like names for presets of tactical instructions, effectively. So I'd imagine so.

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1 hour ago, JDownie said:

Re: Vertical tiki-taka discussion/speculation:

@noikeee suggested Pep's Barca was VTT (cba typing it in full multiple times :D) while Spain was TT. I'd suggest that they're both TT, but Pep's City team utilises VTT often. Sometimes City are quite direct once into the opposition half, especially with Sané and Sterling running the channels. Obviously they are much more associated with hogging possession but they don't wait for an opening; blunt force direct football is often used (only reason we managed to get so many wins, we adapted against opposition teams defending deeper by being more direct and incisive). I believe Barcelona probably played like this a lot too (I have a shocking memory so I'm not gonna know without google).

I think Sarri is probably a fairer representation (as someone whose teams play this way for the majority of the time) but then I think quite a lot of similarities can be drawn between the way Pep and Sarri think in terms of attacking and possession football (with them skewed oppositely in terms of the direct/patient approach). 

My take is VTT is the natural reaction to Gegenpressing. When teams tried to stop Pep teams from playing from the back, he developed a style of play with more freedom to pass vertically to pass over the press. 

Obviously not sure if that’s how it’ll work in FM19, but the Ederson assist for Aguero against Huddersfield would be a real life example of VTT

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Love the look of these new tactic screens. I feel like in the current game it feels a bit like unless you know exactly how the engine works then it's quite hard to recreate proper tikitaka/gegenpressing/man utd drudgery tactics so you end up copying something from the forum or downloading from the Steam workshop. This looks like it will offer much needed tweaking to particular things but in a very accessible way that hopefully won't push people into downloading stuff other people have made.

 

Hurrah!

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vor 3 Stunden schrieb johnnyyakuza78:

Now I've looked at it all in a little bit more detail, I think I am actually quite disappointed. 

These changes really seem to just be UI and UX changes to the interface, very little actual change or thinking into how tactics work or what you do. I was hoping for more change.

These 'style' changes are really just moving around functionality that already exists, making it a touch clearer what settings are doing. Fine, thats a positive change, but it feels like its the only change that tends to happen from year to year. We are still mainly working with the same sliders under the hood, they are just glossed up with new definitions and moved about. Just feels like a nod to get new players in more than anything, which is understandable, especially when so many people find the current system confusing. I guess I was hoping for something more... innovative.

If the newer system allows you to see how all your decsisons in the individualtactics parts take shape on the field in a general oversight i see this actually as a positive. Tbh in later versions i got totally lost in the disconnection between individual instructions and the general tactics so far i was jsut clicking on the most green player role and let them play which basically worked but was unsatisfying , because you really didnt know really what it all means and how it works. In Eastside Hockey manager at least there where clear tema instruction and individual player intructions that overrode the other . In FM it got to a point were allt the individual instructions failed to picture a coherent tactic on the pitch , and for e it turnedinto a guessing game and my tactics into a tr and error with no philosophical input how i want to play really. Especially in lower leagues i missed the options to indivually adrees they players then see how it affects the gneral connection of the team on the pitch.

I am no tactics buff at all but it theres a system now that gels the different parts together a bit more again , gives access to individual intructions which can be locked easily , while showing the results of the instructions on the pitch and teamwork it would eb a huge step in the right direction and make me interested in this part of the game again.

 

So far  what i saw it really was the old system with a new UI slappen upon it, but maybe there really is something to it that goes further . Would really be a reason to get into the new game after all.

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I try not to look at this with too much hype, although I like what I see.

The removal of 'team shape' is a good decision, it clearly caused more harm than good.

The tactical styles seem to be basic templates for tactics, which is good if the user wants to use that as a base.

The new roles are just new names for Defensive Forward, Defensive Centre Back, and Defensive Full Back... so this adds nothing more than marketing hype. I see the Defensive Winger role was not considered for a return in the AMR/L slot which is a disappointment.

The TI screens for different phases in interesting, but in truth the TI were already assigned to phases of the game, but they were all together in the same screen.

Overall I'm pleased with this, SI conceded the 'team shape' question was not working as intended and they tried to use another approach. I'm happy with that although I believe that we can still reproduce 99% of older tactics.

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vor 2 Minuten schrieb analogset111:

Love the look of these new tactic screens. I feel like in the current game it feels a bit like unless you know exactly how the engine works then it's quite hard to recreate proper tikitaka/gegenpressing/man utd drudgery tactics so you end up copying something from the forum or downloading from the Steam workshop. This looks like it will offer much needed tweaking to particular things but in a very accessible way that hopefully won't push people into downloading stuff other people have made.

 

Hurrah!

It will be teh definign question , if  the game gives you basic setups you can understand the working of, you can adjust them easily to new intructions and players , locking some things in individual instructions while not detroying the whole system and you dont have to do it all over again for every player and every game it could be very interesting. If its just a tactics selector at the beginnign of the game it doesnt add much.

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I read all the other new posts first and was underwhelmed/outright disappointed with them overall. Read this one and am actually excited by the potential. Obviously the proof will be in how well it is replicated in game, and especially if the AI uses the options realistically/can cope with user tactics, but this certainly looks a lot more like the sort of tactics module that has been called for some time. 

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First impression is really good. I've been begging for more pressing control (other than terms like 'sometimes'). I think the split to transition, possession and out of possession is a great platform for future enhancements, and whilst it was all there before, this will make it a lot more transparent and in the tactics forum far less noisey opinions and one version of truth. 

Is the idea of 'automatic' counters (generated when there is only x amount of defenders between the ball carrier and the goal) now extinct... Or still integrated into a mentality or part of the transition instructions? 

I like the ui change and overall feel of the overhaul... I just hope it works as well as it is presented. 

P. S. Who created that default counter? Would be slated in the tactic forum for using a bwm and mez! :thup:

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37 minutes ago, kingjericho said:

I try not to look at this with too much hype, although I like what I see.

The removal of 'team shape' is a good decision, it clearly caused more harm than good.

The tactical styles seem to be basic templates for tactics, which is good if the user wants to use that as a base.

The new roles are just new names for Defensive Forward, Defensive Centre Back, and Defensive Full Back... so this adds nothing more than marketing hype. I see the Defensive Winger role was not considered for a return in the AMR/L slot which is a disappointment.

The TI screens for different phases in interesting, but in truth the TI were already assigned to phases of the game, but they were all together in the same screen.

Overall I'm pleased with this, SI conceded the 'team shape' question was not working as intended and they tried to use another approach. I'm happy with that although I believe that we can still reproduce 99% of older tactics.

Several instructions were not in the game. And several more have been unlinked. I think people massively underestimate how much this csn change things. If all works as it should, this is a massive change in the match engine. 

@MBarbaric we had long discussions on how to take the TC forward. Would be interested to hear your thoughts so far. 

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They've implemented so many of the things that forum users have being crying out for. I'm staggered that anyone would not be encouraged by this overhaul. The ability to set in and out of possession instructions, including defensive width and counter-pressing could indeed be a game changer. What will make the game sink or swim is how these inputs visually play out on the pitch. 

The best way to show this off would be for some of the devs to record a video demonstrating them to us, whilst playing a match in 2D. For example:

'Here we can see we've lost the ball and the team is falling back and narrows defensively. This is because we have selected the 're-group' instruction'

'On this example you can see that when we lost the ball, the front 3 are relentlessly chasing the opposition to regain possession. This is because we selected 'Counter-press' instruction'

Proof of concept is what is needed to win hearts and minds.

 

 

 

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All looks good, but I did ask the following question for FM18 - and didn't receive a reply.

"When defending a wide free kick (And to some degree corners) I do not have an option to place a man outside the area. The only options seem to be "join the wall", "mark players in the area" or "stay forward". This inevitably leads to the opposition playing the free kick to one of their players just outside the area - with none of my players being able to close him down. I have to say that my team also take advantage of this when having attacking wide free kicks. Why cannot we place players anywhere on the pitch for set pieces?"

Does anyone know whether we will be free to position our players where we want for set pieces?

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5 hours ago, noikeee said:

I thought "vertical tiki-taka" was Barça under Guardiola (keep the ball but attack) and "tiki-taka" Spain under del Bosque WC2010 (keep the ball forever to be sure not concede any, and hope a goal eventually happens somehow and you win 1-0).

Pep at City and Sarri at napoli are what you call vertical tiki-taka. It's playing quick short passes into the vertical spaces than shifting the team side to side  and exploiting the space ithat creates. 

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42 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Several instructions were not in the game. And several more have been unlinked. I think people massively underestimate how much this csn change things. If all works as it should, this is a massive change in the match engine.

I agree, the TI divided by phases are a great addition.

One thing I noticed in the OP screenshots is that team fluidity is still there, I'd like to know if that is still a setting we choose or is it calculated from the mentality and TI assigned.

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Are the slider settings (ie Press) determined by preset notches with limited intensities or are they free range where we can drag it around however high or low we desire? Also, can you give individualized instructions to players for each phase of play? 

Edited by rain94
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I realy like the idea that I can just chose a play style and the game will offer me suitable tactics with preferred roles and duties! I really cant wait to try all the game styles with the suggested tactics! I hope they will develop this even further, to also include players important attributes for the chosen playstyles. I know that they suggest best roles, but sometimes still, some attributes need to be highlited more than just player roles. For example, on gegenpress, Stamina and Work rate should be highlighted as very important for this playstyle..

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Wait a sec guys..Why do I think that all those features were already in previous games but not in this detail level?Only if those three phases let you change positions and not only width pressing etc would be an overhaul..

For example.. With the new tactics shall I be able to to play a 4-4-2 while attacking and while defending 4-1-4-1 or not? Could someone let us know?

So what is called an overhaul it was the same in previous versions by just adding each player instructions...It reminds me the last year's Hierarchy which was already in game but they made a menu for it so nothing new...

Hope I am mistaken...

Edited by Alekos
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I'm really exited about the tactics module as it seems that you'll have more control about the style of pressing you want to implement (via line of engagement, transition options, etc). Pressing was pretty much generic in previous versions.

One thing I hope we'll also get in FM19 is a new set pieces module and generally more options to control players movement in the box (and I wish we can get the 'love train' option :D)

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