herne79

In reality, non-elite teams and lower division teams can play a form of gegenpress. It is of course relative to the level at which they play - this is true both irl and in FM. So Naff Utd FC playing gegenpress in FM 4th division is not the same thing as Elite Club FC playing gegenpress at their level. That’s perfectly reasonable imo and reflects reality. The issue for me becomes when we pit a newly promoted / relegation fodder / low to mid table team against an elite team in the same division and can successfully pull off a gegenpress system. That’s not reflective of real life, which is SI’s stated intent after all. There is of course a decent sized player base who don’t really care how they play, so long as they win. So do SI just shut that off to be truly reflective? I doubt it, they’ll exclude a fair amount of players and I personally wouldn’t want to see that either. So where does that leave us? For me it’s about choice. If we want to simply play to win and don’t care how, we can choose to do so. On the other hand, if we want more of a challenge and try to win by other means (more realistically perhaps) we can do that as well. As previously said, the Tactics forum has been full of guides and articles for years demonstrating how non-gegenpress tactics can be every bit as successful. In my opinion gegenpress is nothing more than easy mode and no more overpowered than many other well thought through systems. So I think we’re agreeing here, I’m just throwing in the “it’s all relative” angle .

Because heat maps (and average position maps for that matter) are not exactly great at helping you to draw conclusions about what your team are up to. This is because there are more influencing factors than just where the ball is such as what your opponents are doing; where players go for throw ins/corners/free kicks; substitutions; tactical changes and so on. There is also the consideration that flipping the tactic may have been better suited to the players and role selection that way around and perhaps better suited against the opponent(s) you happened to be playing against. However we don’t know the context of your test. So use heat maps as a starting point if you like but there is no substitute for watching what is actually happening on the pitch.

Nobody is trying to manipulate someone else’s perception of reality. It’s just a game and this is just a discussion. The reality is that pretty much any well thought through tactical system can be “overpowered”. People in this forum have been demonstrating that for years. The difference is that such systems tend to require more thought and effort whereas gegenpress tends to be easier to set up. Easy is not the same thing as overpowered. If people want to use gegenpress they can, no problem at all. On the other hand if people want to have a discussion about how they can do otherwise, that’s when threads like this pop up. So no “gaslighting”, just discussion .

This. It’s long been a “quirk” of the system that we can employ a decent coach in each category and then get any old rubbish coach to balance out the workload.

As said above, Team Fluidity just counts the number of Attack, Support and Defend duties you use - nothing more. If you notice differences in how your team plays it’s down to that role/duty selection. Feel free to use “be more disciplined” if that’s how you desire your team to play, but don’t base your use of it on fluidity. imo it’s time to remove the “Team Fluidity” label once and for all (something I asked for when the change came in) because it just causes unnecessary confusion.

The only up to date guide I’m aware of is the Online Manual linked at the top of the forum. This link heads to the Tactics section where descriptions of TI and PIs are found. Combine that with the in game descriptions for a decent starting point .

Yes. A couple of factors to consider though: 1) Don’t have them in certain positions such as central defence or midfield. If I have someone with “bad” personality traits, I’ll put them out on the wing or even as a striker. I don’t want my central defender failing at the last moment because he’s wilted under pressure. 2) Don’t fill your team with them. One can be ok, two is (for me) borderline. His teammates can pick up any slack but not if there’s a whole bunch of them with poor personalities. 3) Age and other personality traits can also be a factor, so take care if choosing a player like this. If they’re young enough and uninfluential then you could see improvements in his personality from mentoring and/or natural squad influence. But if he’s older and has other strong personality traits and/or he becomes an influential team member he’s unlikely to improve his personality and (worse) could actually start to have a bad influence on others. 4) I draw the line at players with very low determination. That’s a key attribute for me and one I won’t compromise on. I’ll give players a fair go if they’re young enough to improve but will get rid if they don’t match up to my standards. So yes, I have seen players with poor personalities have decent careers, just exercise caution if you go down that road.

You seem to be trying to make a point for some reason. You should understand that known issues don’t necessarily affect everyone in the same manner. As I said, I personally don’t regard this as being an issue (apparently I’m not alone in that) and as you do you should raise a bug report (or, as the case may be now, contribute to the existing one with examples). btw, even though SI state it’s a known issue that shouldn’t preclude anyone from uploading specific examples - the more actual examples SI have (such as match pkm or game saves) the better to help them track things down in the code. So if you’re going to reply to me again, reply there instead with a pkm - it’ll be far more constructive.

Then you have plenty of facts to tell SI in your bug report when you start it .

Seeing as this has been in the game for “10 years” and it’s now so “risky” being 2-0 up, it should be pretty easy for both of you to go through your season’s results, count how many goals you’ve actually conceded from throw-ins during that time, open a bug report, post those findings and upload your saves. Or at the very least quantify exactly how large a problem this is in this thread. Personally I don’t see such issues. That doesn’t make me right and you wrong, and there may well be room for improvement in the ME, but please post exactly what the problem is rather than all of these anecdotes. How many goals have you actually conceded from throw-ins in your current season / previous season? How many goals in total did you concede during the same period? And also tell us (or, better, tell SI in your bug report) how many you’ve scored / scored in total. I’m really not having a go here, it’s just that generalised statements never lead anywhere. Quantify exactly what the problem is, back it up with hard facts not anecdotes of 10 year old issues or struggling when being 2-0 up . (btw if you struggle when 2-0 up you probably have other issues than throw-ins).

No mission? You stated it’s impossible to play a possession game. I’m merely saying it’s not impossible at all and if you would like advice you should start a new thread, post your system and someone will help improve it. Further, there are plenty of threads which already explain how to do what you say is impossible.

Of course you can . If you want to know how start a new thread, show your tactic and someone will be able to help. There are also plenty of guides on the forum to read.

Well that’s just nonsense isn’t it. You won the league in your first save in your first season, so how is that “making it not possible to win anymore”. Come on. So yes, it is what is happening. Save 1 you had a great start and it carried on from there. Save 2 you had a poor start and it went downhill. You then did nothing to stop that slide except perhaps make a futile attempt to change the tactic into a system which you didn’t know would actually be effective. You then compounded that by playing low morale players without rotating in fresh faces. It’s a pure recipe for disaster. And, as said, don’t forget your own expectations. You’re not doing badly, but your previous save has given you a false sense of achievement. Ah well, just give up then eh? Clearly the game’s out to get you . You need to get out of this mindset. There is nothing “suspicious” going on. If you are “experiencing the same thing over and over again” or you finish 17th for 4 seasons in a row, you have got a lot of room for improvement. People above (not just me) are explaining to you what is happening. Notice how nobody is saying it’s because of the game being suspicious. The game doesn’t give the best feedback for sure, but there is nothing in the coding which makes you lose. The match engine doesn’t even know who the human player is and who the AI manager is. So, if you want tactical advice of how to get one of the worst teams promoted in the first season you will struggle to get that. Being able to do that tends to involve an awful lot of micromanagement of your squad (not just tactically), with lots of tactical adjustments and tweaks during matches. In all honesty, if you won the league in your first save without micromanaging the club using the tactic in the OP, you got extremely lucky. Second save your luck ran out (although just to repeat again, you’re not doing badly). People here can (and do) provide great insight and help but be reasonable in your expectations both in game and with this forum. Nobody is going to tell you in a post or two how to overachieve to the extent you want.

The reason is that no 2 saves are the same. In your case you have hit a downward spiral. As mentioned above, in your first save you enjoyed great success so your players were full of Morale and your opponents had adjusted their play style accordingly. In your second save, you started the season poorly so your players suffered Morale issues and your opponents played well against you. As has also been mentioned a lot of your team also have fitness issues which is just compounding things further - you’re continuing to play out of form players with bad morale rather than rotating in options. What have you actually done to stop the downward momentum? Or have you just carried on regardless (which is folly)? There may well be tactical things you can change (why run at defence if you have one of the weakest teams in the league for example) so take a step back and consider if your players can actually play in the style that you are asking them to. Finally I’ll also mention your own expectations. You massively overachieved in your original save. Remember that you are one of the worst teams in your division so the fact that you are still in 15th shows you’re doing well. It’s just that your expectations have now been set so high you now think you’re doing badly. You’re not.

The topic is attributes being useless, which is what I’m referring to. I agree about AI squad building and player interactions - I’m not playing the game atm because of it.

Fair enough . I’d suggest though that if you draw your own conclusions those conclusions should be based on actual verified data, not just Reddit posts or YouTube videos. This is why it’s important the data from these tests must be given to SI for verification otherwise potentially erroneous data gets out into the public and myths quickly start and snowball.

No it doesn’t. At all. Not even close. No conclusions should be drawn. That is sheer folly and leads to this type of thread where people end up believing it. The ONLY thing that should happen to these “tests” is that a bug report should be started, the data given to SI and they review it. But that rarely happens and that is the real problem here.

Then why do you keep asking? /confused.

As said, in answer to your posed question, yes there are plenty of much more thorough and rigorous tests which have been carried out which contradicts these Reddit results. You just can’t see them because they have been carried out by both in house testing teams and non-affiliated people who are subject to non-disclosure agreements. Attributes matter.

Other than frequent posts by the developers saying that such tests are flawed or that attributes absolutely do matter? You either believe SI or you don’t. Personally I’ve never had any reason to doubt what SI tell us - that’s not just blindly accepting things but based on first hand experience of how they operate, the passion they have for their game and seeing how much testing goes on before each year’s game gets released. I’d also suggest that if (some? all?) attributes really are pointless then what’s the point in having a global network of Researchers who spend countless hours meticulously going through all player attributes. Believing that attributes are somehow useless is, quite frankly, stupid. SI do refute these rumours. But they tend to get buried in lengthy forum threads. I agree that these rumours are increasing and it’s about time something was done about it imo. There are too many echo chamber threads that gather momentum with lots of confirmation bias egging posters on where people who offer better insights get shouted down. Things snowball from there. Such people do genuinely believe they are trying to help but they’re so far gone down the rabbit hole of mistrust in SI (some of which is SI’s own doing) they’re no longer prepared to listen to reason. Test the game for sure, no problem with that at all, just open a bug report on these forums and give the results of the testing to SI for their review. That’s all that needs to be done but these testers rarely (if ever) do that. Which is just bizarre.

Yes, literally thousands of hours of testing done by the devs, quality control team and all of the alpha & beta testers most of which are not affiliated to SI. All of that not only contradicts these “tests” but are also carried out in a much more controlled and detailed manner. The difference is this testing isn’t released to the public. Perhaps some of it should be, if only to quickly close down such “tests” .

Something to consider - you are using Overlap Right. This tells your WP to hold up the ball to wait for the WB to make his overlapping run. This may be the root of your issues. Try removing the instruction and see if your WPs (or WMs) does more of what you are after. Personally I’d use a WMs or even a Winger (support) if you are after deeper/wider crosses along with someone who is actually good at crossing. James Ward-Prowse has always been my go-to player for that, even though he isn’t a natural (or even accomplished) wide player. Other than that I like the look of your set up much better now .

1) Formation. Having multiple lines of players tends to be easier to build possession systems than formations with fewer lines. So 4231, 4123DM, etc rather than flat 442. By no means impossible with 442 and the like, but can be easier with other formations. 2) Use a higher Mentality such as Positive or Attacking. Many people will use lower mentalities with great effect however personally I prefer the higher mentalities as I find it easier to build and (imo) uses possession better when attacking. 3) In combination with that higher mentality, use plenty of support duty players with a couple of attack duty players in key areas, such as from central midfield (if using a midfield 3 including a DM) and one of the wide players, such as an IF, IW etc. I’d shy away from giving a fullback/wingback an attack duty - use a player with the Trait to get forward often + a support duty role instead. 4) That’s basically it for a starting point. Add in tactical instructions as you see fit once you start testing the system to help retain possession and win the ball back. For example Shorter passing; Dribble less; higher LoE/Pressing and so on. Don’t just add them thinking you need to - add them having actually seen there is a need. Better to add things gradually to help achieve your aims than trying to figure out what to remove.

No, you haven’t. As said above, the effect is cumulative, it’s not overwritten. The game could be clearer in that regard. Also bear in mind that instructions are not actually instructions - they are tendencies. Players are not robots and do not simply follow our “instructions” blindly. As said, imo this isn’t a bug and you’ve come to the tactics forum asking for help. So until you’ve exhausted all tactical options, stop thinking in terms of “bug” .

This is probably your answer, although without any context of your tactical setup and players you use it’s impossible to be 100%. OI’s don’t overwrite other tactical instructions, it’s more of a cumulative effect. So telling your players via OIs to not press but also telling them to press as much as possible with PIs is a) confusing and b) not telling them to not press. We also need to take into account other factors which are missing such as the Mentality you use (which affects pressing); the roles and duties you give players (which affects pressing) and the player’s own attributes (which affects pressing). So to answer your question imo it’s unlikely to be a bug and you’re doing something wrong.