THOG

Aside from some differences in defensive behaviour, AMLR and MLR are basically coded as the same position and aren't really intended to be used together on the same flank.

Given how reluctant they are to carry the ball forward when they're not even under pressure, I don't think a Central Defender would ever actually use it.

It is a defensive phase/without-ball instruction, but with any instruction, effects in one phase of the game will knock on to the next.

With low Decisions, your team will be error prone in all phases of play, so I agree mentality doesn't matter much assuming your team's poor tactical intelligence is balanced out by other strengths. I would, however, consider playing a style that demands less of players' tactical decision-making and, if possible, use your most tactically intelligent players as playmakers.

If you surround him with support, he doesn't need to be a great passer and can potentially get on the end of more give-and-go moves. Use support duties at MLR/AMLR. The movement of attack duty wingers is rather one-dimensional at the moment.

The WB(A) should play slightly more aggressive and the team as a whole will try to get the ball out wide as often as possible. No to both.

For me, the goal is to build a formidable team with complementary tactics. Plugging in a super tactic is like typing in a cheat code.

The game is about managing players and their individual and collective strengths/weaknesses. Why would you want something that makes the players irrelevant? It would be like playing SimCity without buildings.

Good spot. It may be a graphical glitch or it could indicate that the instructions have been glitched. The formation graphic is also supposed to indicate relative mentality (to position) and the SS was designed to operate on a higher mentality than a standard AM (so he'd make decisions more like a goal-scorer than a build-up player). It appears some other roles that are supposed to have mentality differences (and had them in earlier 16 builds) also just have the same setting as every other role on their duty, so it looks like something that should be raised with SI.

The Shadow Striker has a slightly higher mentality than the AM-A meaning he will generally play more aggressively (starting runs earlier, shooting more often, etc.), but both will get into the box consistently and neither is necessarily more effective than the other.

I don't think it's working like it should at all.

Roaming is either on or off for an individual player, so the PI is probably just redundant. This is one area where the UI needs to give more information though. It means he'll move wider toward the outer edge of the middle 3/5ths of the pitch.

There's a brief overview of the basic principles here. They appear to move slightly wider, but it's not a significant difference. The ME has struggled to get splitting DCs to narrow appropriately immediately after a change of possession, so you won't see them moving 40 yards apart and the HB doesn't drop off as the deepest player, preventing the three from being effective at quickly switching play. Not at all, this PPM and roaming can complement one another well. Trying to beat an offside trap doesn't mean just holding hands with the last defender. It just means he'll look to break into space when he can, including making runs from deep. If he's not lightning quick off the mark, giving him a few yards to accelerate before the pass is made can help him be more effective at attacking through passes. That's not necessarily a result of the PPM. Offsides are too high generally.

The stickies at the top of the forum are a great resource. Start with wwfan's How to Play FM: A Twelve Step Guide and llama3's Pairs & Combinations. Those two are really all you need to play the game. From there, rashidi1's Bust the Net and cleon's Building a Tactic provide demonstrations of how to design and implement specific tactics. Lines & Diamonds is a comprehensive overview of tactical theory and how it relates to different game mechanics in FM. Some other recent threads worth a look: herne's 442 thread cleon's training thread Jambo's 451 reboot