Mitja

These instructions are typical for core style which doesn't mean they can't be changed of course. Some instructions are not available for each core style. For example in Counter very short passing would be unavailable or high d-line. In Control Possession direct passing would be unavailable of course. Or higher tempo. These unavailable instructions could help against overpowered tactical setups and avoid illogical happenings in ME. Like when defensive teams control possession against much stronger opposition. Without mentality all instructions become coherent and clear.

Ok guys I have something for you. This is how I see it. These are core styles every team trains at least two different tactical setups.

I like the current approach where tactical familiarity is being trained by different sessions. Sure you can always go more in-depth but I don't tinker around with it too much.

But you said mentality first instructions follow. Where's mentality? And you are not giving them a list of instructions you play a tactic which was being trained continuously and prepared for next game.

Everything you mentioned are instructions exactly what I said that mentality is a sum of other instructions. Bob is asked how to position himself, Johnno pretty much the same and to press more I don't see any connection to mentality in FM terms. As I mentioned every team has more than one approach which are practised on training ground and keep evolving they change depending on your strengths and opp weaknesses. Etc etc. It's a bit more complex then right lads we'll be 25 percent more attacking today.

Force wide should make team defend narrower. But those gifs you posted don't look very well. There's no congestion in middle, no shifting.i I don't know why they keep adding things before old issues are resolved. It shouldn't be possible to ask team to force wide and block crosses at the same time imho.

Seriously allow stop crosses is now a new instruction? You can defend narrow but still ask players to stop crosses? Wow.

What would mentality be in real football? Other than being a sum of all other instructions the only thing I can come up with is team spirit. Attacking or defensive are just labels a quick way to describe teams who play more on front foot or more conservative. Attacking fullback still behaves according to set of instructions and his ability not because coach told him to be attacking.

Well you proved our point with "mentality is TIs simplification" it means TIs are surplus or mentality is. In real life mentality is just a sum of all other instructions imagine a coach saying to the team: listen guys we play arsenal tonight we'll play our normal game but we'll be doing everything 35 percent less risky. I really doubt.

I think that's a nice idea but a little too in-depth for me. Linking training and tactics is definitely a realistic approach. What I meant with simplification, I'll give you example of pressing instructions. There's d-line, trigger, intensity, counter press, tackling, probably even all encompassing mentality. For me this is overkill. I mean how do you press without intensity? Can you really instruct Gatusso to press in gently manner? There needs to be difference between him and Messi. By having such control in football game players attributes simply can't stand out everything will feel too robotic. I think even having two sliders for intensity is too much let alone five.

Don't worry about personal thing I enjoy having these conversations and sometimes it's good for discussion if people don't agree. What I mean with simplifying it's mostly got to do with how mentality works and why keeping it is holding back the game. Sometimes a step back is worth considering sometimes less is more. If mentality is ditched all other instructions become transparent and perfectly clear. Football style will start to look like what is supposed to.bYou play as attacking/defending as role and duty selection and team instructions dictate. Not some vague and hardly understandable mentality which interferes with other instructions, a dinosaur from CM days when there were only like seven or eight team instructions.

But you sound like Mourinho never had a plan b when he needs to score. I admit I don't watch Roma too much but I was watching them against Inter the other day for last half an hour and it was them who were playing on front foot. Fast attacking modern football. I don't know how he approaches home games or against poor teams but this is just a thing of preference and like any other team he will have attacking style tactic and defensive one. While I agree with most of what you said about gegenpress and defending deep in ME, modern football is all about fast tempo, finding space and transitions be it counterattacking or attacking style. The only other style I can think of, the control possession is not so popular anymore because of the reasons I mentioned before. Today you can only afford to play such way if you have the right players.

Absolutely agree with what you said below but for the sake of discussion I only see games full of tempo, running, transitions be it EPL, Bundesliga, SA, La Liga, France even City sometimes play exciting football. I don't know if that is Gegenpress but football became very globalised before every league or nation even clubs had unique style. Very few teams still play slow possession football at least not when they need to score. And let's not forget that every team will play different style depending on opponents, result etc. But there are at least two core issues one being balancing what's the point of maxing everything it's like in formula one game you don't use brakes. Even best teams still use some counterbalance like lower tempo or gegenpress instead of super high press. You shouldn't be able to use same intensity tactics in lower leagues etc. The other issue is that high intensity attacking tactics are op compared to defensive ones. And we know why is that so.

You are talking about defensive and attacking shape/formation which doesn't have much to do with football style. SI stated they are not inclined to introduce separate def/att formations. With positional play and careful role selection you can achieve similar stuff in more dynamic manner. I agree there are limited options but also there are things unnecessary too complicated. And there is stuff that works differently than what is being claimed.

I think SI would do themselves a favour if they simplified tactics creator. There are more styles in FM than in real life with all combinations of team instructions and mentality it became a mess. Some styles don't work simply because they are not doing its job compared to what's being claimed in description like defensive ones we discussed. For example there's is no defensive possession football irl but in FM any tactics on lower mentalities turns into that. Tools are there but they aren't being used carefully.

I'm not sure it's the low block defending that's responsible for "defensive" tactics being ineffective. Play that park the bus on higher mentalities and you'll instantly get better results. Such tactics use too many passive instructions and on top of that employ defensive mentality which only enhance passive approach. Just like in attacking tactics there should be some counterbalancing hopefully we'll see it in future. It's more concerning that you need to max every instruction than defensive tactics being underperforming.

Discussion about presets won't get us nowhere but can someone explain what's wrong with that Catenaccio?

Had a look at Catenaccio preset except for pressing intensity maybe nothing else stands out really. In theory looks solid. It's defensive mentality which is a big issue there.

I agree with you that presets should be a starting point but what is a finished tactic? It's something for you and something completely else for a new player. How do you know when it's finished, are Knaps finished?

I think Cities and Liverpools should serve as extreme examples of how far to go with intensity but as I said even they need to counterbalance with stuff like lower tempo or counterpress instead of super high block. On the other hand more defensive minded tactics should be counterbalanced to ba a little more intense. One of the challenges should be finding these sweet spots. I don't play games but I doubt there are many where maxing out everything is the way to go or at least where it doesn't punish you.

I think there are at least two major reasons why tactics which in theory look fine and logical fail defensively. First is that defensive side has been neglected with very little improvements compared to attacking part. Just look at basic marking mechanism when player will retreat to his predifined position after opponent passed the ball. Never you will see him chasing opponent to cut out the pass you can have Gatusso or Messi defending it will be the same. Even though pressing is horrible in FM it is still somehow more effective than defending with men behind the ball. Cutting first passing options, shifting and space congestion, anticipation, strange positioning etc there's plenty of room for improvement here. I bet it's hard for a game to look like real life but the marking mechanism I mentioned hasn't been looked at since the introduction of 2D. The other thing is that the ME favours high intensity attacking high tempo stuff. I agree that top class football nowadays is intense and "attacking" minded but even Liverpool or City have to counterbalance something, nobody ever tried to max everything. You can play same intense style in EPL or in Vanarama league which is another big failure.

In FM 21 I posted pkms of games where attacking AI teams like Liverpool had 100 crosses in matchwith 40 shots but still lost possession battle. I remind that average crosses per game is around 15 in epl maybe less. I've also shown that a match played on lower mentalities never hits those crazy numbers. Also football starts looking similar to what it should be. I'm talking about FM 21 on control or higher mentality players start running with ball instead of passing. You get that gung ho approach, running down the line to cross the ball like there's no tomorrow. We had discussions about this as long as I remember. It looks like it so much hard coded into ME it's not possible to get rid of it. But it's also completely outdated from today's football reality and what's even worse is that the ME is capable to degree to play something which looks like football but sticking to outdated underlaying tactical mechanisms is holding back the game. Now with transition instructions being added which is great it should be the other way around, it's the attacking approach which should be patient to control possession in opponents half. Just get rid of mentality work a little on defending and you have a brand new ME. I'm sure PaulC would understand that.

Ok I could agree the meta team figuration is unrealistic but it doesn't change much. It's a team of extreme athletes who never played football. But let's forget about them. The vetera team on the other hand was too good if anything. How could they underperform so badly? The pizza analogy makes no sense to me how does eating pizza for whole year compare to playing football is beyond me.

The veteran team is within reasonable boundaries since such players do exist. If anything the op was too generous with them. I don't agree with the other part of what you said. You need to use extreme values in such test.

Doesnt tell us anything? How would you test meta attributes than? You need to put extreme values. The team of ca 180-190 veterans should walk the league not being relegated.