Why do we have ‘defend’, ‘support’ and ‘attack’ for positions?

[DP]

Should this not be dictated by the role? I find them over complicated and unrealistic - I’m not sure if tactics are constructed this way in real life. 
 

It would be more realistic to remove this and set it by role and player instructions, in terms of how you want them to operate on the pitch. Would make it more straight forward when building tactics. 

Edited July 7, 2021 by DP

[jozza800]

I wasnt a huge fan when SI brought in the roles and removed the sliders.

But i'm now very comfortable with them and they make things a whole lot easier/quicker when throwingn stuff together.

 

You're essentially asking for a blank slate, like we had with the sliders.

 

Take a DLP - They behave differently on Support and Defend. The decision of how they are going to play has essentially been split into two. One who sits and keeps things ticking over and the other a little more dynamic. Because of this the user has been given general options on how he wants the DLP to behave, The instructions have been locked in for the two roles and duties.

If you give the user a blank slate, whilst they may be able to find the correct instructions themselves, they have a lot more work to do to figure out what are neccesary for the role.

We would have to go back to setting a players mentality as well as all they other instructions that need to be set.

 

I was massively against the Role/Duty tactic creator when it was first introduced - but I couldn't go back to the slider way of playing.

 

 

[DP]

I’m asking for it to be truer to life. I don’t think, for example, setting an inside forward as a support or attack is realistic. Whatever these options do should be a player instruction within that role or the difference between two different roles - ie and inside forward and an inverted winger. 

[Prolix]

1 hour ago, DP said:

I’m not sure if tactics are constructed this way in real life. 

It's a video game.

[WelshMourinho]

1 hour ago, DP said:

I don’t think, for example, setting an inside forward as a support or attack is realistic.

May I ask why not? At the end of the day, it's essentially deciding who you want to bomb on immediately, who you want to support transitions and who you want to hold position. I don't think it goes much deeper than that, and seems to be a fairly simple concept in the game.

[DP]

11 minutes ago, WelshMourinho said:

May I ask why not? At the end of the day, it's essentially deciding who you want to bomb on immediately, who you want to support transitions and who you want to hold position. I don't think it goes much deeper than that, and seems to be a fairly simple concept in the game.

Does a manager work in this way? I’m not sure they do. It seems overly complex and would be done by explaining in the players instructions. Not an ambiguous ‘support’ or ‘attack’ duty. 

[DP]

1 hour ago, Prolix said:

It's a video game.

It’s supposed to be a simulation. This - in my opinion - is a needless level of complexity. Put it in the instructions. 

[WelshMourinho]

12 minutes ago, DP said:

Does a manager work in this way? I’m not sure they do. It seems overly complex and would be done by explaining in the players instructions. Not an ambiguous ‘support’ or ‘attack’ duty. 

It is in the instructions though. An attack duty has "gets further forward", a support doesn't have anything and a defend role has "holds position". There might be a few outliers but for the most part it's there.

[CARRERA]

9 minutes ago, DP said:

Does a manager work in this way? I’m not sure they do. It seems overly complex and would be done by explaining in the players instructions. Not an ambiguous ‘support’ or ‘attack’ duty. 

 

9 minutes ago, DP said:

It’s supposed to be a simulation. This - in my opinion - is a needless level of complexity. Put it in the instructions. 

I dont think its too unrealistic tbh. Its about the individual players mentality and their movement/positioning on the pitch. Take real life fullbacks for example, there are some that bomb forward anytime while others may stay back. same role, different duty. One might argue tho, that you could create a different role for any type of player and situation, but i guess that would be even more complex

[Footix]

Think of the duties as pre-sets of player instructions? Instead of selecting this, that and then some you simply click "attack" and you're done. It's easier. 

But I dislike that some instructions are locked in. If I want a player do to a specific role/duty but tweak it ever so slightly - I often can't because the instruction is locked. That makes very little sense to me. Surely a manager should be able to ask his players to modify their game.

Edited July 7, 2021 by Footix

[DP]

17 minutes ago, Footix said:

Think of the duties as pre-sets of player instructions? Instead of selecting this, that and then some you simply click "attack" and you're done. It's easier. 

But I dislike that some instructions are locked in. If I want a player do to a specific role/duty but tweak it ever so slightly - I often can't because the instruction is locked. That makes very little sense to me. Surely a manager should be able to ask his players to modify their game.

But why do these then affect if the team is fluid or flexible? I can have lots of attack duties and cannot be very fluid? It’s all very messy. 

[Prolix]

1 hour ago, DP said:

It’s supposed to be a simulation. This - in my opinion - is a needless level of complexity. Put it in the instructions. 

Isn't what you're suggesting a far more granular and thus much more complex way to interact with the tactical setup?

[DP]

9 minutes ago, Prolix said:

Isn't what you're suggesting a far more granular and thus much more complex way to interact with the tactical setup?

I think it needs simplifying somehow, at the moment I have to try to balance what the duties are and it seems like more of a puzzle than anything else. 

Edited July 7, 2021 by DP

[HUNT3R]

Why do we have Duties? It gives framework to a) building tactics and b) the ability to be more specific when looking for players that can fit a role/duty in your tactic. Ever seen 'x number of attack duties is sensible for a y mentality'? Basic framework. While it can help players - it's very useful for the AI. Like I mentioned, it also helps with finding the correct type of players. There's a massive difference between a CM/A and a CM/D, for instance. There are differences, even if they're not massive, between the type of player you'd ideally want in a role/duty and the very fact that it exists, means you search by not only role, but duty as well.
 

11 hours ago, DP said:

But why do these then affect if the team is fluid or flexible? I can have lots of attack duties and cannot be very fluid? It’s all very messy. 

It's straightforward. More support duties = more fluid. More players available during more phases of play. It's just an indicator as to how you've set up and there's no right or wrong.

 

It's already been mentioned, but Defend Duties tend to hang back behind play, Support Duties support play and Attack Duties tend to be ahead of play.

[NotSoSpecialOne]

Part of me wouldn't mind just having blank slate roles in all positions - indeed, I like it - but doing it that way is more complex than what we have now and for very little gain. 

That said, I think Footix hit the nail on the head. When you set someone to Inside Forward - Attack (for example) you're not telling the player to play as an Inside Forward - Attack. What you're actually telling the player is the underlying elements of that role/duty. In essence, the role/duty is a label or container if you will.

[jozza800]

15 hours ago, Prolix said:

Isn't what you're suggesting a far more granular and thus much more complex way to interact with the tactical setup?

That was the point I was trying to make but you put it so much more succinctly!

 

 

[Luizinho]

On 08/07/2021 at 06:14, HUNT3R said:

It's straightforward. More support duties = more fluid. More players available during more phases of play. It's just an indicator as to how you've set up and there's no right or wrong.

 

It's already been mentioned, but Defend Duties tend to hang back behind play, Support Duties support play and Attack Duties tend to be ahead of play.

This is such a good/important post for everyone

[Guerin]

Seems more realistic to me. Managers don't speak in terms of these roles. Its much more general- you play on the flank, get fwd early, stayback, go inside etc.

The roles and duties is to make the game easier to code for us layman. 

But I guess you could forego that altogether by just setting up very general roles and then coding in the player instructions yourself. pretty sure fbs, wms, dms, ams and cms have no precoded instructions and all the options for PI available. 

[wazzaflow10]

The other component to the preset positions/roles/duties is it limits the user to the same set of instructions as the AI. That limitation prevents a fair (but not all) amount of possible game breaking tactics. It also allows the devs to focus on making the ME function within the predefined construct. We may not all be a fan of the ME or think certain tactics are a little overpowered but its something the devs can test reliably rather than wondering if the people reporting OP tactics are doing something crazy like you could in the old WIB-WOB or slider systems.

That said.. I do miss the flexibility of the sliders but I'm not sure I'd have the time or patience to learn it again now that I'm much older.

[Herolover]

The best way I have found to think about it is to forget Roles and Duties and think about instructions.

In the Tactic Creator you are giving instructions to your players. Instead of having to tick a bunch of boxes the nice people at SI have given us preset list of instructions.

 

The one issue I have is that there are hard coded instructions in roles that are not listed. An example is the Playmaker roles. As I understand it hard coded into those roles is the idea that the other players on the team will look to pass to them more often.