Team Mentality vs Individual Mentality

[Jack722]

I would like to clear up a couple doubts that I have about mentalities. I asked something similar in the quickfire thread, but I'd like to see a more in depth discussion.

• Given completely balanced team instructions, of standard for everything, would a fullback on defend that plays with a team mentality of attacking that therefore has an individual mentality of balanced play the same way as a fullback on attack with a team mentality of defensive that therefore also has an indiviudal mentality of balanced? And so, could a defensive mentality tactic, with more attack duties, and increased sliders (higher tempo, more direct passing etc) play similar to an attack mentality tactic with more defend duties and reduced sliders?
• The assistant manager before games normally recommends a certain number of attack and defend duties to have that corresponds with your team mentality. I don't remember off the top of my head but he may recommend 5-6 defend duties for very defensive, and 4-5 attack duties for very attacking. This used to make sense to me as it sounds right to combine taking more risk with having more midfielders on attack running into the box and/or full backs bombing forward to overload attacking areas. However, if a very attacking mentality will make every player, regardless of duty, to take more risks (forward runs / dribbles / through balls etc), then surely combining increasing attacking duties at the same time as increasing team mentality will lead to inbalances, and a result that magnifies what you were orginally intending. eg way more attacking, or way more defensive than you originally wanted.

 

Cheers.

 

[CARRERA]

The players duty is not only about changes to their individual mentality. It most likely also adds certain player instructions, like "hold position", "move further forward" or "dribble more". The players duty is more about responsibilities in your overall tactical construct, where attacking duties will try to create mobility, defend duties will try to protect space and support duties are linking up the play between players who protect space and those who create mobility.

The players mentality is primarily about their decisionmaking, not about their tactical instructions. This is something different. Take a pass as an example: whether a pass is played long or short is a tactical instruction. whether a pass is played forward or backwards/sideways is a decision based on the players mentality. However, just to be clear. The best option for any player under any mentality will always be to play the ball forward, the question is just how much risk he is willing to take to make that pass. 

[Experienced Defender]

27 minutes ago, Jack722 said:

Given completely balanced team instructions, of standard for everything, would a fullback on defend that plays with a team mentality of attacking that therefore has an individual mentality of balanced play the same way as a fullback on attack with a team mentality of defensive that therefore also has an indiviudal mentality of balanced?

He won't play the same way because duties affect more than just a player's individual mentality. A player with the attacking duty will play differently from a player with the defend (or support) duty even if their individual mentality is same. 

As for the rest of your questions, I think that you are needlessly overcomplicating things. If you are asking all this purely for experimental reasons, then the best answer you can get is by trying all those variations directly in the game and then comparing what you observe on the pitch. Because answers we can offer here will probably be based more on speculation than actual facts.

P.S: Do not listen to the assistant's recommendations, because they are based on his tactical preferences and "knowledge", not yours. Instead, use common sense when making tactical decisions.

[NotSoSpecialOne]

I don't think two roles with the same individual mentality but on different team mentalities would play the same. In part because a role's duty restricts what PIs it has, can have and can't have. The other element here is that under higher mentalities a player is more willing to roam from his assigned position (so Roam From Position TI can be overkill at times as an example) vs lower mentalities.

[Jack722]

On 20/06/2021 at 13:38, Experienced Defender said:

He won't play the same way because duties affect more than just a player's individual mentality. A player with the attacking duty will play differently from a player with the defend (or support) duty even if their individual mentality is same. 

As for the rest of your questions, I think that you are needlessly overcomplicating things. If you are asking all this purely for experimental reasons, then the best answer you can get is by trying all those variations directly in the game and then comparing what you observe on the pitch. Because answers we can offer here will probably be based more on speculation than actual facts.

P.S: Do not listen to the assistant's recommendations, because they are based on his tactical preferences and "knowledge", not yours. Instead, use common sense when making tactical decisions.

On 20/06/2021 at 13:31, CARRERA said:

The players duty is not only about changes to their individual mentality. It most likely also adds certain player instructions, like "hold position", "move further forward" or "dribble more". The players duty is more about responsibilities in your overall tactical construct, where attacking duties will try to create mobility, defend duties will try to protect space and support duties are linking up the play between players who protect space and those who create mobility.

The players mentality is primarily about their decisionmaking, not about their tactical instructions. This is something different. Take a pass as an example: whether a pass is played long or short is a tactical instruction. whether a pass is played forward or backwards/sideways is a decision based on the players mentality. However, just to be clear. The best option for any player under any mentality will always be to play the ball forward, the question is just how much risk he is willing to take to make that pass. 

On 20/06/2021 at 13:56, NotSoSpecialOne said:

I don't think two roles with the same individual mentality but on different team mentalities would play the same. In part because a role's duty restricts what PIs it has, can have and can't have. The other element here is that under higher mentalities a player is more willing to roam from his assigned position (so Roam From Position TI can be overkill at times as an example) vs lower mentalities.

Thanks for the response lads, I suppose it makes sense that the different duties can change decision making regardless of indiviudal mentality, especially given how SI give descriptions to each role.

The reason I ask is due to switching from balanced / attacking / defensive in game based on the situation. For example, if my duties are as below on a balanced mentality:

                                                                                                                                                 A

                                                                                                                        A                                                 S

                                                                                                                                        S                 S

                                                                                                                                                 D

                                                                                                                    S                 D                 D               A

                                                                                                                                                 D

 

And let's say that I'm a goal down and want to score at the expense of maybe giving the ball away and getting caught on the counter. In a typical case, is it simple enough to just switch the team mentality to attacking, due to this naturally giving more forward runs and risk taking etc.. Or do I also need to encourage players to get forward individually as well? Such as switch one of the CM's to an attacking duty, such as CM(a), as well as switch the defensive midfielder to a supporting duty. Allowing more presence in the box as well as giving the DM liscence to press higher and support the attack. 

 

Edited June 21, 2021 by Jack722

[CARRERA]

31 minutes ago, Jack722 said:

And let's say that I'm a goal down and want to score at the expense of maybe giving the ball away and getting caught on the counter. In a typical case, is it simple enough to just switch the team mentality to attacking, due to this naturally giving more forward runs and risk taking etc.. Or do I also need to encourage players to get forward individually as well? Such as switch one of the CM's to an attacking duty, such as CM(a), as well as switch the defensive midfielder to a supporting duty. Allowing more prescence in the box as well as giving the DM liscence to press higher and support the attack. 

the latter one. if you want to become more attacking under any mentality you need more players to either attack space (forward attack duty players) or create mobility from deeper areas (defense/midfield attack duty players). The individual players mentality, will simply make them move higher up the pitch, but support duty players will still focus on providing support and link up play and defend duty players will still try to stay behind the ball, just in advanced position tho. However, there are some hybrid roles who either stay behind the ball or attack the space / create mobility to some (lesser) extend than attack/defend duty players would do. Those are usually support players instructed to hold position or get further forward.

I would really take mentality for what you are overall looking for and dont overcomplicate it. Looking to apply preassure with and without the ball? Positive or higher. Looking to invite preassure with and without the ball? Cautious or lower. Team mentality is not really made to be changed within the game, as it is your basic tactical layer for almost every tactical instruction. Its just too much for your players to adjust to it within a few minutes. You can change seperate instructions to some extend, but most effective will be simply keeping more players back (defend duty) or sending more players forward (attack duty) if you quickly want to impact the game to either score a goal or close down the match. Be careful about your overall tactical balance tho. Just switching everyone to attack or defend duty may proberbly fail its intend.

Edited June 21, 2021 by CARRERA

[Jack722]

1 hour ago, CARRERA said:

the latter one. if you want to become more attacking under any mentality you need more players to either attack space (forward attack duty players) or create mobility from deeper areas (defense/midfield attack duty players). The individual players mentality, will simply make them move higher up the pitch, but support duty players will still focus on providing support and link up play and defend duty players will still try to stay behind the ball, just in advanced position tho. However, there are some hybrid roles who either stay behind the ball or attack the space / create mobility to some (lesser) extend than attack/defend duty players would do. Those are usually support players instructed to hold position or get further forward.

I would really take mentality for what you are overall looking for and dont overcomplicate it. Looking to apply preassure with and without the ball? Positive or higher. Looking to invite preassure with and without the ball? Cautious or lower. Team mentality is not really made to be changed within the game, as it is your basic tactical layer for almost every tactical instruction. Its just too much for your players to adjust to it within a few minutes. You can change seperate instructions to some extend, but most effective will be simply keeping more players back (defend duty) or sending more players forward (attack duty) if you quickly want to impact the game to either score a goal or close down the match. Be careful about your overall tactical balance tho. Just switching everyone to attack or defend duty may proberbly fail its intend.

That makes sense thanks, also fits in with what I guess the assistant manager says before games.

So what I’m thinking right now, is that, starting from the basic formation I posted previously, It would make sense to:

if I want to switch to attacking :

- change the DM to a support duty

- change one of the supporting midfielders to an attack duty

- (maybe if needed) also change the supporting fullback to an attacking fullback

While if I need a last minute goal and switch to very attacking, it would be best to change to an unconventional top heavy formation with lots of attack duties? To take advantage of the direct and high tempo nature of the mentality.

[CARRERA]

48 minutes ago, Jack722 said:

if I want to switch to attacking :

- change the DM to a support duty

- change one of the supporting midfielders to an attack duty

Yes, however this will be very attacking, so be careful.

You already came up with that by yourself, but you can of course also make changes to your formation, like substituting another striker to make a 4-2-4 or a 4-2-3-1out of a 4-1-2-3 to become more attacking for example. Also works the other way around obviously.

[Rashidi]

On 20/06/2021 at 20:01, Jack722 said:

I would like to clear up a couple doubts that I have about mentalities. I asked something similar in the quickfire thread, but I'd like to see a more in depth discussion.

• Given completely balanced team instructions, of standard for everything, would a fullback on defend that plays with a team mentality of attacking that therefore has an individual mentality of balanced play the same way as a fullback on attack with a team mentality of defensive that therefore also has an indiviudal mentality of balanced? And so, could a defensive mentality tactic, with more attack duties, and increased sliders (higher tempo, more direct passing etc) play similar to an attack mentality tactic with more defend duties and reduced sliders?
• The assistant manager before games normally recommends a certain number of attack and defend duties to have that corresponds with your team mentality. I don't remember off the top of my head but he may recommend 5-6 defend duties for very defensive, and 4-5 attack duties for very attacking. This used to make sense to me as it sounds right to combine taking more risk with having more midfielders on attack running into the box and/or full backs bombing forward to overload attacking areas. However, if a very attacking mentality will make every player, regardless of duty, to take more risks (forward runs / dribbles / through balls etc), then surely combining increasing attacking duties at the same time as increasing team mentality will lead to inbalances, and a result that magnifies what you were orginally intending. eg way more attacking, or way more defensive than you originally wanted.

 

Cheers.

 

Just go check the individual mentality of the given player. It tells you what his mentality is.  Balanced individual mentality just means that his risk profile indicates that he is willing to treat both attacking and defending with equal importance. 

However thats an oversimplification because different roles behave differently too. A wingback is more aggressive than a fullback, so a wingback may tend to push higher up. 

I normally take mentality and shove it to the side when I am making tactics. I ask myself what i want to see in transition. If i want my backline to support my attacks and I want them playing an aggressive role down the flanks. I typically use wingbacks. If i want to play a 433 that has no wide central midfielder, then I would more likely opt for a wingback if i wanted a more structured attacking system. However if i wanted to play it a bit safer but run the risk that my central mids may end up having to handle transitions on their own then I could pick a fullback.

When it comes to the recommended number of defend/attack support duties, I find this advice useless and very often misleading because the game uses an algorithm and then ascertains whether you meet a threshold for that mentality with respect to the number of duties. Far too often it ignores the roles. Its my biggest bugbear with the game and I always tell people to ignore this information.

What you should instead pay attention to is whether your choice of roles and duties allows you to build play up seamlessly. That is what you want to focus on: when your keeper plays the ball out from the back, can you move the ball up the pitch? Are there enough passing options.

Things like central midfielders not using wider players is actually a function of passing, width and the players attributes ( the one on the ball). If you see play breaking down in midfield for example, where did it break down? 

This is what you should be paying attention to instead. 

When you use attacking mentality it just means that most of the team will be on that mentality, so look at your roles and duties. Wingbacks are likely to bomb down the flanks and take players on, mezzalas may look to play more elaborate passes if they are on attack and may try being KDB if you can control the final third. IFs will aggressively attack the box, and sometimes even dribble across the pitch.  You temper this by going to team or player instructions and dialling some things down. 

I for example play some of my 442s with 6 attacking duties on a positive mentality, not because the AI thinks its a good idea, but because i want to just take defensive sides on and force them into submission. Just look at the roles and duties, and ignore everything the assman says with respect to the number of duties.