Effective way of testing tactics

[KCHDD]

Just wanted to ask has anyone on the forums tested their tactics out to see if they actually work before starting a save? I find that sometimes the preseason isn't enough for me to tweak my tactic so that it works how I want it to. I have resorted to sometimes loading in a tactic and holidaying but not sure if that is an accurate representation of the tactic's standard. Has it worked for you guys and what would you do otherwise?

[HUNT3R]

Holidaying won't tell you much because you're putting the assistant manager in charge. He will make changes.

When I set up a tactic, I know it's fairly solid from the start. Let's say 75% complete, but I haven't seen it in action yet. From there, I would use pre-season to tweak it over the course of 2 or 3 friendlies. That gets me to ±90% complete. From there, it's making small tweaks during the season as I spot something.

It's difficult to 'test' a tactic for a full 90 mins, particularly in a competitive match. It may work fantastically well for 80mins before the other team goes on an all out attack and your tactic crumbles. That doesn't mean it's a bad tactic at all. It means it's good but you need to tighten up toward the end, if leading. That could mean you adjust that tactic or switch to another. Possibly in combination with subbing on more defensively able players.

[sporadicsmiles]

It depends what you aim is when creating a tactic and a way of playing. If it is an idea that you know you will have to evolve and change over the course of using it (short term in games and long term as your players and potentially reputation changes) then the best way is to understand what you want it to do, and watch to see if it does what you want it to do. Both in preseason and beyond. When I have a new tactic I am trying to make, I can be certain that one of my ideas is either fundamentally flawed or I have implemented it very badly in my initial setup. These are the kind of things you can spot in friendlies. After that, you have to get to know your tactic to be able to understand what you may want to change about it. You will see how it responds to the opposition doing different things, to having certain players in certain positions, etc. Then you will slowly learn how to make changes you need in specific games, or maybe a long term change based on something you see happening too many times that you want to eliminate. I'm of the opinion that most of the time you cannot use a single tactic that you never, ever change. There is always something you may need to take into account for a given game. I'm not talking sweeping changes, but little ones to encourage different aspects of the game. The only way to do this is to play the game and get a strong feeling for what your tactic will do.

If, however, you are wanting to build one of the tactics that people download as PnP and you can use always without changing, it is different. I am not really up to date on this, but I think people who do this use special leagues which are designed to keep everything except your tactic as equal. Then you holiday and see how well it does in this league. Most of these things work on an average basis. So you will average X goals a game, X points a year, something like that. Its a very different way to play the game (although the statistical side of that does interest me). Probably better checking out the download forum and seeing if there is a thread on there about this if this is what you are looking for (or someone else will fill in the large blanks I have left).

[DarJ]

21 minutes ago, sporadicsmiles said:

It depends what you aim is when creating a tactic and a way of playing. If it is an idea that you know you will have to evolve and change over the course of using it (short term in games and long term as your players and potentially reputation changes) then the best way is to understand what you want it to do, and watch to see if it does what you want it to do. Both in preseason and beyond. When I have a new tactic I am trying to make, I can be certain that one of my ideas is either fundamentally flawed or I have implemented it very badly in my initial setup. These are the kind of things you can spot in friendlies. After that, you have to get to know your tactic to be able to understand what you may want to change about it. You will see how it responds to the opposition doing different things, to having certain players in certain positions, etc. Then you will slowly learn how to make changes you need in specific games, or maybe a long term change based on something you see happening too many times that you want to eliminate. I'm of the opinion that most of the time you cannot use a single tactic that you never, ever change. There is always something you may need to take into account for a given game. I'm not talking sweeping changes, but little ones to encourage different aspects of the game. The only way to do this is to play the game and get a strong feeling for what your tactic will do.

If, however, you are wanting to build one of the tactics that people download as PnP and you can use always without changing, it is different. I am not really up to date on this, but I think people who do this use special leagues which are designed to keep everything except your tactic as equal. Then you holiday and see how well it does in this league. Most of these things work on an average basis. So you will average X goals a game, X points a year, something like that. Its a very different way to play the game (although the statistical side of that does interest me). Probably better checking out the download forum and seeing if there is a thread on there about this if this is what you are looking for (or someone else will fill in the large blanks I have left).

to add to this, I'll also say try to know your players because 2 player would play differently in a certain role, regardless of traits.

Last year i hade 2 players I was playing either as W or IW and they didn't have any traits but one of them would always run with the ball into the box to shoot and he scored a few goals while the other had more assists because I didn't make as many runs into the box as the other player did

 

[Christopher S]

6 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

Holidaying won't tell you much because you're putting the assistant manager in charge. He will make changes.

When I set up a tactic, I know it's fairly solid from the start. Let's say 75% complete, but I haven't seen it in action yet. From there, I would use pre-season to tweak it over the course of 2 or 3 friendlies. That gets me to ±90% complete. From there, it's making small tweaks during the season as I spot something.

It's difficult to 'test' a tactic for a full 90 mins, particularly in a competitive match. It may work fantastically well for 80mins before the other team goes on an all out attack and your tactic crumbles. That doesn't mean it's a bad tactic at all. It means it's good but you need to tighten up toward the end, if leading. That could mean you adjust that tactic or switch to another. Possibly in combination with subbing on more defensively able players.

To follow up on the highlighted. 

While this is true, you can create a controlled environment that applies (if not 100%, very close to) the same variables every time.