FM14 - New Tactical Elements

[higgins]

Can anyone explain me, what position The Engache plays. Is it CM or AM?

Central attacking midfielder.

[kazm]

Enganche is a very static amc

[RTHerringbone]

An excel spreadsheet may not be what football is yet, but it's getting there. I think you want FM to evolve in the exact opposite way that all sports are evolving. Sports are becoming much more numbers based, sports analytics is a booming field as clubs start to realise number crunching is better than the unreliable nature of human judgement.

Sports analytics are, of course, heavily numeric.

However, I don't believe that the day to day interactions of football - tactical, scouting, training are communicated in a numeric way.

There has to be some sort of numeric data under the hood to allow the game to function, I just don't think that the interface needs to show those numbers.

[Bpz73]

About the new roles, they will be what SI decides them to be. Is useless, in my opinion, search Wikipedia for determining exactly how they will be. Two examples. 1: Trequartista is not a role, is the way in which in Italy we call the Attacking Midfielder. A Trequartista can play on the middle, on the flanks and in any position between the midfield and the attack. In FM you can set a striker as Trequartista which in Italy will never be since is the Italian word for Attacking Midfielder.

2: Now, the Regista. Regista is the Italian word for Playmaker. People brought Pirlo or Xavi as examples but it could be the old Donadoni or even Ian Molby for what it matters. People thinks that the Regista plays deep because modern football brought the playmaker to play more deep: it was the number 10, then the 8 and now is number 4 or 6 (talking about classical positions on the pitch). Platini was a Regista and Pirlo is a Regista because it just means "Playmaker". What will be in the game is up to what SI wants it to be in the game. Wikipedia will not be much help i fear...

[higgins]

About the new roles, they will be what SI decides them to be. Is useless, in my opinion, search Wikipedia for determining exactly how they will be. Two examples. 1: Trequartista is not a role, is the way in which in Italy we call the Attacking Midfielder. A Trequartista can play on the middle, on the flanks and in any position between the midfield and the attack. In FM you can set a striker as Trequartista which in Italy will never be since is the Italian word for Attacking Midfielder.

2: Now, the Regista. Regista is the Italian word for Playmaker. People brought Pirlo or Xavi as examples but it could be the old Donadoni or even Ian Molby for what it matters. People thinks that the Regista plays deep because modern football brought the playmaker to play more deep: it was the number 10, then the 8 and now is number 4 or 6 (talking about classical positions on the pitch). Platini was a Regista and Pirlo is a Regista because it just means "Playmaker". What will be in the game is up to what SI wants it to be in the game. Wikipedia will not be much help i fear...

We could define them as in game conventions, sliders let you mould roles with ease when you didn't agree with SI own definitions.

[dankrzyz]

We could define them as in game conventions, sliders let you mould roles with ease when you didn't agree with SI own definitions.

Will the underlying instructions even be available to view in FM14? I understand being able to tell my player to "make more runs" or "close down more" or "tackle harder", but how will I know his base instructions for his given role? How do I know what his instructions are before I ask him to alter them? Sorry if this has been mentioned already, I haven't been 100% tuned into the videos and twitter posts.

[higgins]

Will the underlying instructions even be available to view in FM14? I understand being able to tell my player to "make more runs" or "close down more" or "tackle harder", but how will I know his base instructions for his given role? How do I know what his instructions are before I ask him to alter them? Sorry if this has been mentioned already, I haven't been 100% tuned into the videos and twitter posts.

As far as I know, we won't be able too see a player starting instructions, but we'll discover that soon.

[deserter]

I'm not talking about consumption of time, I'm talking about FM evolving to a point where all the numerical references are removed.

I'd love it to become purely all about concepts and language. The only numbers to worry about should be held in the league table.

I both agree and disagree to an extent.

For some attributes a numerical representation does make sense. Most of the physical attributes obviously, but the same holds for the technical attributes. It's not that hard to measure the passing skill of a player or long shots ability or dribbling ability. Even if you didn't measure these things, you would know your own players pretty well and you could score them intuitively.

The mental attributes are a tougher ask. You can easily spot an intelligent player or one with high work rate, someone with good decision making and so on, but how do you measure these things? Still, I don't have a problem with numbers here, you ought to know your own players as I said.

When it comes to player recruitment, it's another story altogether. You can't work with other teams players on daily basis. You can't test them for how fast they sprint (unless someone provides you with this information). You can watch them play though (your scouts can anyway). You can watch them play multiple times, maybe a prolonged period of time. As you watch a player you will be getting a better picture of his abilities. You will begin to be able to score them intuitively and more accurately as you continue.

What I see as a problem is that you get to incredible accuracy incredibly fast with your scouts. How it ought to work is that you start with a vague picture of a player's abilities, then as you interact with him somehow, you get a more accurate picture gradually. This interaction would be your scouts watching him or him playing against your team. Higher reputation could realistically mean a more accurate starting point here (home rep for your country, world rep for foreign players).

The vagueness could be provided with the number with a margin of error provided. Like 12(+-X) or so.

I would welcome more vagueness regarding attributes of players that aren't mine. I think that's the part I agree upon.

[yonko]

Will the underlying instructions even be available to view in FM14? I understand being able to tell my player to "make more runs" or "close down more" or "tackle harder", but how will I know his base instructions for his given role? How do I know what his instructions are before I ask him to alter them? Sorry if this has been mentioned already, I haven't been 100% tuned into the videos and twitter posts.

It appears we wont be able to view them, which is the reason for my disappointment with the new tactical model. We would have to guess what the default instructions are for each role based on SI vague descriptions. And we wont know what the differences are between the new roles and the existing ones.It would be like playing French roulette.....

[thomit]

Do we know that SI's descriptions will be vague then?

So that I am not misunderstood, yonko - I too would like to be able to visually "see" what the roles description actually mean - not to mention what each and every individual shout does to change the "settings" for each position, role, duty, mentality, as well as the team settings. For example; my winger's description tells me that this particular role and duty makes him run with the ball a lot. I generally don't want my team to run with the ball, so I use the "play through defense" shout. Now, will I be alerted to what has changed in each and every role's settings/descriptions? Will I be told, in some way, that this and this player does no longer run with the ball a lot, only sometimes? That this and this player now rarely runs with the ball, as opposed to sometimes? But that the winger still does rwb often; he's not affected by that particular shout (which is exactly what I want, btw) ... and so on. I don't need to see the sliders has shifted, though - a simple change in descriptions, or some other device to tell me what has changed, would do. In short; we need to be told - not only what each role does and does not do initially, but also what changes are being made to their role description when we alter something, either by team strategy, role, duty, or by shouts. If not, there will be a lot of never ending guesswork, I'm afraid. So I'm with you guys who are afraid that the absence of sliders as a visual reference will be gone - but I don't think that this visual reference necessarily need to be sliders. I'm all for getting rid of them. But then we need some other method of visual reference - maybe a simple text displaying changes to the initial role/duty description would suffice.

I don't really have any clues as to how SI are going to go about this, yet. The interactions between initial role descriptions and these "personal shouts", for example. But if there's no longer to be a easy access visual reference as to what each position/role/duty actually does or doesn't, at any particular time, all deployed shouts and tactical settings taken into consideration - I'm just as worried as you are.

[TOUGHGUY]

I hear you thomit, the shouts at the very least should definitely be accompanied with somewhat detailed descriptions or rather instructions (i.e. 'all wide midfielders and wide attacking midfielders players on support will push higher and press more'). Particularly as the underlying system has stayed the same. But I'm willing to bet there will be nothing of the sort in the game and players will be left guessing.

I'm afraid the same goes for roles, really, but unlike tactical changes I don't see an easy way of communicating actual gameplay changing elements and differences from each other in their case.

[RTHerringbone]

I watched the video blog that was issued quite some time ago now, and noticed something:

One thing the removal of sliders definitely means is that we don't know straight away what a Role's settings are for running, passing, tackling etc. I'm of the opinion that the tool tip descriptions of Role and Duty do give you enough of an idea to know how conceptually a Role may perform, but I know this isn't an opinion everyone shares.

I'll confess that the lack of a reference point had me mildly concerned, but I have no intention of having FM13 open so I can look at sliders there to see what a Role settings are while I use FM14 - this would be particularly silly if any of the existing Roles get tweaked, and I am sure they must get appraised and tweaked from time to time.

It got me thinking - will we be running blind? Again, my rose-tinted view was (and is) "watch the matches, you'll soon see what the Wide Play of a Winger is", and again, I know this isn't a view everyone agrees with. Back to the video linked above - look at the Player Instructions available to the Complete Wingback relative to those for the Defensive Winger. They are different. The DW has Roam From Position and Swap Position available, but the CWB does not. The CWB has defensive options that the DW does not.

Now that video is pretty old now, so may not represent what the end product is, but it suggests that certain instructions are unavailable for certain Roles. It also appears to hint at what default settings are. The CWB has Dribble Less, but not Dribble More. To me, that means he must already be set at the top end of Dribbling. His Defending options include Close Down More and Close Down Less, which must mean that his default is currently neutral.

There's a lot of assumptions from me there, but are these Player Instructions indirectly telling us what a Role's default settings are?

As far as Shouts go, the game has never had comprehensive in-game documentation of what different "things" do. It is part of the job of this forum to self-document facets of the game, and Shouts have been well catered for.

This thread was started by higgins http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/334698-Tactical-Conundrums-the-chronicles-of-an-old-FM-player-thinkering-with-shouts?highlight=Shouts whose own opinions have been voiced clearly here in this very thread. It documents a users experiences when experimenting with Shouts.

Here is an excellent breakdown of shouts by some guy / girl called Cleon: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/305067-The-Full-90-Minutes-What-I-Do?p=7762150&viewfull=1#post7762150

Team Instructions in FM14 haven't (correct me if I'm wrong?) been revealed yet. What I hope for is an interface along the lines of what we've seen for Player Instructions. What I feel both of these screens would benefit from is some sort of tool tip description to tell the user what each change of Player or Team Instruction will do. I wouldn't personally want it to state exactly "all wide midfielders and wide attacking midfielders players on support will push higher and press more", but at least some sort of tangible detail.

[TOUGHGUY]

It got me thinking - will we be running blind? Again, my rose-tinted view was (and is) "watch the matches, you'll soon see what the Wide Play of a Winger is", and again, I know this isn't a view everyone agrees with. Back to the video linked above - look at the Player Instructions available to the Complete Wingback relativeto those for the Defensive Winger. They are different. The DW has Roam From Position and Swap Position available, but the CWB does not. The CWB has defensive options that the DW does not.

The thing about roles is that individually the descriptions are fine. That, say, a deep lying playmaker on defend will 'play deeper' and 'look for ambitious passes' but 'not venture forward and help screen the defence' is in and of itself clear enough and absolutely fine. However I feel that as soon as you introduce other roles then you have a problem. Just how different will a defensive midfielder on support be to the above? Will he be more adventurous going forward? Probably, but only slightly, or a lot? What about when compared to a playmaker on support? This is not even a question of sliders anymore, any indicator of the relations between roles would be enough.

The proposed solution to watch the games is flawed, and goes against what the current changes to tactics aim to do. Which is move the game towards a more realistic setup – but at the same time without the a priori knowledge of what that setup actually does! It approaches the issue backwards, find out 'what do the words mean' whereas in real life you already know that before you say them, so to speak

As far as Shouts go, the game has never had comprehensive in-game documentation of what different "things" do. It is part of the job of this forum to self-document facets of the game, and Shouts have been well catered for.

To me, this is just unacceptable. This line of thinking has manifested itself elsewhere, a good example being staff attributes, and it will take over tactics as well. To this day players simply do not know what particular attributes do. As in actually do, an official explanation. That Miles himself said they prefer to keeps things vague is just... that's like brain exploding inexplicability that only suggests that parts of the game are smoke and mirrors without any actual effect on the gameplay mechanisms. Again the real world example applies, as personal determination does matter in professional life. But does it and if so, how, matter in the game? At its core it is the same problem. Except with tactics the issue is not as severe because the new interface is merely a cover for the old framework which we know has an impact. In the end it all boils down to a single thing, that in a game you have to know 'what does this button do'. Except often we don't.

[yonko]

Do we know that SI's descriptions will be vague then?

So that I am not misunderstood, yonko - I too would like to be able to visually "see" what the roles description actually mean - not to mention what each and every individual shout does to change the "settings" for each position, role, duty, mentality, as well as the team settings. For example; my winger's description tells me that this particular role and duty makes him run with the ball a lot. I generally don't want my team to run with the ball, so I use the "play through defense" shout. Now, will I be alerted to what has changed in each and every role's settings/descriptions? Will I be told, in some way, that this and this player does no longer run with the ball a lot, only sometimes? That this and this player now rarely runs with the ball, as opposed to sometimes? But that the winger still does rwb often; he's not affected by that particular shout (which is exactly what I want, btw) ... and so on. I don't need to see the sliders has shifted, though - a simple change in descriptions, or some other device to tell me what has changed, would do. In short; we need to be told - not only what each role does and does not do initially, but also what changes are being made to their role description when we alter something, either by team strategy, role, duty, or by shouts. If not, there will be a lot of never ending guesswork, I'm afraid. So I'm with you guys who are afraid that the absence of sliders as a visual reference will be gone - but I don't think that this visual reference necessarily need to be sliders. I'm all for getting rid of them. But then we need some other method of visual reference - maybe a simple text displaying changes to the initial role/duty description would suffice.

I don't really have any clues as to how SI are going to go about this, yet. The interactions between initial role descriptions and these "personal shouts", for example. But if there's no longer to be a easy access visual reference as to what each position/role/duty actually does or doesn't, at any particular time, all deployed shouts and tactical settings taken into consideration - I'm just as worried as you are.

Since I've been playing FM/CM for a very long time, my experience is that SI have not been very good at explanations and descriptions within the game. Reading the descriptions for the roles (current ones and new ones) gives some idea of what the instructions might be, but not all of the instructions and not as good as sliders showed.

I would've been OK if SI replaced the sliders with something else to show what the default instructions are. I can't think of what that something else could be, so I would've preferred if they kept the sliders but instead prevented people from making manual adjustments to them. Changes could be made only with individual or team shouts.

I watched the video blog that was issued quite some time ago now, and noticed something:

One thing the removal of sliders definitely means is that we don't know straight away what a Role's settings are for running, passing, tackling etc. I'm of the opinion that the tool tip descriptions of Role and Duty do give you enough of an idea to know how conceptually a Role may perform, but I know this isn't an opinion everyone shares.

I'll confess that the lack of a reference point had me mildly concerned, but I have no intention of having FM13 open so I can look at sliders there to see what a Role settings are while I use FM14 - this would be particularly silly if any of the existing Roles get tweaked, and I am sure they must get appraised and tweaked from time to time.

It got me thinking - will we be running blind? Again, my rose-tinted view was (and is) "watch the matches, you'll soon see what the Wide Play of a Winger is", and again, I know this isn't a view everyone agrees with. Back to the video linked above - look at the Player Instructions available to the Complete Wingback relative to those for the Defensive Winger. They are different. The DW has Roam From Position and Swap Position available, but the CWB does not. The CWB has defensive options that the DW does not.

Now that video is pretty old now, so may not represent what the end product is, but it suggests that certain instructions are unavailable for certain Roles. It also appears to hint at what default settings are. The CWB has Dribble Less, but not Dribble More. To me, that means he must already be set at the top end of Dribbling. His Defending options include Close Down More and Close Down Less, which must mean that his default is currently neutral.

There's a lot of assumptions from me there, but are these Player Instructions indirectly telling us what a Role's default settings are?

As far as Shouts go, the game has never had comprehensive in-game documentation of what different "things" do. It is part of the job of this forum to self-document facets of the game, and Shouts have been well catered for.

This thread was started by higgins http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/334698-Tactical-Conundrums-the-chronicles-of-an-old-FM-player-thinkering-with-shouts?highlight=Shouts whose own opinions have been voiced clearly here in this very thread. It documents a users experiences when experimenting with Shouts.

Here is an excellent breakdown of shouts by some guy / girl called Cleon: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/305067-The-Full-90-Minutes-What-I-Do?p=7762150&viewfull=1#post7762150

Team Instructions in FM14 haven't (correct me if I'm wrong?) been revealed yet. What I hope for is an interface along the lines of what we've seen for Player Instructions. What I feel both of these screens would benefit from is some sort of tool tip description to tell the user what each change of Player or Team Instruction will do. I wouldn't personally want it to state exactly "all wide midfielders and wide attacking midfielders players on support will push higher and press more", but at least some sort of tangible detail.

Playing the game through assumptions is not something I want. Watching the matches to guess what the players' default instructions are could be misleading because players have PPMs which may affect the way they behave on the field. I've seen players with Winger (A) role cut in from their AMR/L positions because they have "cuts inside" PPM, for example.

Tell me, what would be the difference in instructions between a DLP (both duties) and a Regista? How will I know which one to choose? To me, a Regista is a DLP and vice versa. So what is the difference between the two according to SI? The same goes for Trequartista, False Nine and CF (S) or DLF (S). Another example is AM (A) and Shadow Striker.

Bottom line, how can we change instructions for the roles without know what they are to begin with? That's my frustration.......I don't want to assume and I don't want to spend countless hours figuring out, when SI could've simply kept some sort of visual representation be it sliders or something else. That's not "realism"!

[RTHerringbone]

Tell me, what would be the difference in instructions between a DLP (both duties) and a Regista? How will I know which one to choose? To me, a Regista is a DLP and vice versa. So what is the difference between the two according to SI? The same goes for Trequartista, False Nine and CF (S) or DLF (S). Another example is AM (A) and Shadow Striker.

Bottom line, how can we change instructions for the roles without know what they are to begin with? That's my frustration.......I don't want to assume and I don't want to spend countless hours figuring out, when SI could've simply kept some sort of visual representation be it sliders or something else. That's not "realism"!

The description of a Regista that someone copied down from the Roles video blog was "The Regista is a more aggressive version of the deep lying playmaker. Suitable for possession orientated systems that press high up the pitch. Given complete freedom to dictate play from deep positions, the Regista offers a dynamic and unpredictable creative outlet from behind the attack who seeks to maintain intense pressure by constantly looking for new chances as his more advanced teammates get into goal scoring positions"

Now I don't know about you, but that sounds like a far more expansive playmaking Role than either of the DLP offerings.

With a DLP (D) you could use him as the sole DM, or even from MC without a DM and know that you had a fairly static shield.

That Regista description implies than he is far more mobile, and so would be a bad choice as a lone DM.

We can change instructions for Roles by using the Team Instructions, which, as I pointed out earlier, already appear to hint at what the Role defaults are.

[dsch]

To me, this is just unacceptable. This line of thinking has manifested itself elsewhere, a good example being staff attributes, and it will take over tactics as well. To this day players simply do not know what particular attributes do. As in actually do, an official explanation. That Miles himself said they prefer to keeps things vague is just... that's like brain exploding inexplicability that only suggests that parts of the game are smoke and mirrors without any actual effect on the gameplay mechanisms. Again the real world example applies, as personal determination does matter in professional life. But does it and if so, how, matter in the game? At its core it is the same problem. Except with tactics the issue is not as severe because the new interface is merely a cover for the old framework which we know has an impact. In the end it all boils down to a single thing, that in a game you have to know 'what does this button do'. Except often we don't.

This! I'd be happy with the vagueness if, in some alternate universe, SI were implementing some kind of natural-language/fuzzy-logic system where each player parses your verbal instructions individually (this would probably also mean the game can only run on a super-computer), but if all it is is going to be the exact same slider values underneath, it's a step backward.

[yonko]

The description of a Regista that someone copied down from the Roles video blog was "The Regista is a more aggressive version of the deep lying playmaker. Suitable for possession orientated systems that press high up the pitch. Given complete freedom to dictate play from deep positions, the Regista offers a dynamic and unpredictable creative outlet from behind the attack who seeks to maintain intense pressure by constantly looking for new chances as his more advanced teammates get into goal scoring positions"

Now I don't know about you, but that sounds like a far more expansive playmaking Role than either of the DLP offerings.

With a DLP (D) you could use him as the sole DM, or even from MC without a DM and know that you had a fairly static shield.

That Regista description implies than he is far more mobile, and so would be a bad choice as a lone DM.

We can change instructions for Roles by using the Team Instructions, which, as I pointed out earlier, already appear to hint at what the Role defaults are.

You may be a psychic but I'm not. This description of the Regista doesn't tell me what his instructions are and how they differ from the DLP. The role is more aggressive version......ok, what is his mentality, what is his creative freedom, what is his passing, closing down, tackling....how about his RFD, RWB, roaming? Why is the role only available at the DM position? And isn't a Regista simply the Italian word for DLP?

Team Instructions or Individual shouts change the instructions for the role?

[Fond Foat]

Bottom line, how can we change instructions for the roles without know what they are to begin with? That's my frustration.......I don't want to assume and I don't want to spend countless hours figuring out, when SI could've simply kept some sort of visual representation be it sliders or something else. That's not "realism"!

I am happy to see the sliders have gone, but as Yonko says, it does now place far more responsibility on SI to explain the roles in far more detail. They need to be in depth and use footballing terms to explain what the default settings of each role are.

If they fail to do this, it will be a bit of a mess and very time consuming to establish what is going on. If they do explain exactly how they have set up each role, using a lengthy paragraph using concise footballing terms, it will be excellent.

[etcetera]

Why? What's the point?

FM is incredibly complicated, it's probably taken the designers and developers 5-10 years of working professionally to learn how to structure and build a system like FM. You could probably be taught the basic in 6-12 mths but you wouldn't really understand all that was happening. Why would you want to learn all that, in your spare time, just so that you can work out how to get a midfielder to sit a little deeper? Just tell him to sit deeper and then look if he is or not. Takes 2 minutes (plus, I guess, an additional few minutes to find the buttons to actually 'communicate' with that virtual player).

It doesn't matter what is happening 'under the hood'.

Not to you as a gamer.

Makes no difference at all.

Think of it a different way. Go into a pub and find a football fan who does not know FM (I know this is pretty darned hard). Try telling him (or her) that you moved the width slider from 12 to 20 and your team found more space and you won. Chances are they only understood the second half of your sentence. So if you want them to understand you have to explain what a slider is and how this one relates to width, then explain what 12 is, then explain what 20 is, probably explain a little about what the perceived difference is (not the actual, you dont know that unless you've coded the game) between 12 notches and 20 notches and then they may understand your whole sentence (although they still have no grounding because they haven't played FM so are only connecting the sliders to the theory through a proxy, you, and therefore second hand). Now try telling them that your asked your team to play wider, and they did, and you found space and won the game—while the other guy is stuck explaining sliders you're already on your 3rd pint.

Moving the sliders is NOT telling your team to play wider, not to you as a gamer anyway. It's moving some sliders in order to get your team to play wider. As an end-user (FMer), hitting a button that says play wider IS telling your team to play wider. No intermediate step, no complex procedure. It's almost just the same as you'd do in real life.

Hopefully I've managed to explain that whatever is going on under the hood is, infact, incredibly difficult for FM to explain to us. Infact, it's impossible. Most of us could not write FM in a million years, but most of us could become very good at playing it. You don't need to be able to do the former to be able to do the latter. Infact, often game devs make terrible players in any sort of non-trivial game.

I'm not from the UK so I think it'll be pretty easy to find a football fan that doesn't know FM .

More to the point. When you move the width from 12 to 20 you've mathematically increased your original width by 60-70%. Then if you define what width 12 means then you easily find out what width 20 means. Obviously FM doesn't interpret width this way otherwise my fullbacks will be playing on the stands, but it's a way to interpret things. Now if someone tells me they told their team to play wider, my first question is how much wider? How wide were you to start off with? My career outside of FM is science based so I'm used to seeing things defined by numbers and calculations. Simply saying 'play wider' could mean play 1cm wider than what you're doing now, or 10cm etc.

Again, I use shouts, i don't fiddle with the sliders, but i like to have the option of seeing how much of a width increase does the shout do. If 'play wider' increases width from 10 to 15, then what happens if i manually change it to 20? I'm sure i'm not the only person who has those thoughts.

[RTHerringbone]

You may be a psychic but I'm not. This description of the Regista doesn't tell me what his instructions are and how they differ from the DLP. The role is more aggressive version......ok, what is his mentality, what is his creative freedom, what is his passing, closing down, tackling....how about his RFD, RWB, roaming? Why is the role only available at the DM position? And isn't a Regista simply the Italian word for DLP?

Team Instructions or Individual shouts change the instructions for the role?

I'm sorry, but this remains the wrong mindset to allow you to adapt to the new Instructions system.

You need to move on from clutching at the comfort blanket that sliders provided if you're going to be able to make the most of the new system.

As stated a several times, sliders will not be in FM14 so there is just no point in fretting about all facets of a Role; it is a waste of energy and won't change the product.

If David Moyes looks at Wayne Rooney, does he have a tattooed list of instructions on his chest? No.

"Here's where you are playing, this is the broad remit of your Role, and these are the refinements I'd like you to make".

[RTHerringbone]

To me, this is just unacceptable. This line of thinking has manifested itself elsewhere, a good example being staff attributes, and it will take over tactics as well. To this day players simply do not know what particular attributes do. As in actually do, an official explanation. That Miles himself said they prefer to keeps things vague is just... that's like brain exploding inexplicability that only suggests that parts of the game are smoke and mirrors without any actual effect on the gameplay mechanisms. Again the real world example applies, as personal determination does matter in professional life. But does it and if so, how, matter in the game? At its core it is the same problem. Except with tactics the issue is not as severe because the new interface is merely a cover for the old framework which we know has an impact. In the end it all boils down to a single thing, that in a game you have to know 'what does this button do'. Except often we don't.

I get the argument behind the need for instructions, and agree 100% that they would be a useful reference point.

One caveat is that the game is built upon a series of overlapping factors, so nothing is black and white.

As a crude example, in a world with perfect documentation, I would know:

i) What each of my DC Stopper's attributes actually mean

ii) What the precise settings of each Role are

iii) What the impact of my Player Instructions are

iv) What the impact of my Team Instructions are

v) What the impacts of morale are

vi) What the impact of weather is

However, if that DC Stopper failed to make a winnable challenge, and the AI score or create a chance, I won't know why this is.

Was his attribute of 12 for Aggression too low, or was his mentality too low?

Was my decision to get him to Stay On Feet bad, or was it a consequence of the Team Instruction to Press More?

Was the fact we had lost 3 games in a row a factor, or did the rain that made the ball zip about give the striker an advantage?

Were all of these elements interlinked? If so, did the attribute contribute 10% of the reason not to tackle, the mentality 20%.....

What I'm trying to say is that all the information in the world doesn't always allow you to draw the right conclusions, nor does it mean that your up front decision making will materially change.

If I select a Shout to Push Higher Up, and one of my players doesn't do it - is the Shout wrong? Does that player have a PPM to preclude that?

Black and White is great, but it isn't always gospel. In the absence of finite detail we debate things, but even in a world with finite definitions, we would still debate why things have / haven't happened.

[TOUGHGUY]

Just to be clear I was referring strictly to staff attributes as player attributes are rather self explanatory and straightforward, either showing a tendency or proficiency at something that can be fairly directly seen in a match, or at the very least the game does a good job of making it seem that way, and even in my never ending pessimism I am actually hopeful in this case and leaning towards the former. With staff there is no such feedback, we have no match engine confirmation nor official documentation or a response, basically othing more than a hint of whether they actually do something and what that might be. That is, something that will also slightly affect tactics now – although with a very significant caveat that with those at least some meaningful common footballing sense can be applied and there is some degree of feedback (though only afterwards).

And yes, I do agree that even perfect knowledge beforehand would not lead to perfect results or correct decisions. But surely that can by no means be an argument of any relevance for not giving the player this information? It is not perfection we are talking about here, but having the player understand the framework in which the game operates. Which does not mean understanding every line of code, obviously, but rather the relationships and effects of various options given to the player and their details as opposed to unclear and vague labels.

The more a player knows about the game, the better he is equipped to handle a particular situation. To also use the crude example, right now we are at a point where the player, out of the six points you outlined, will be reasonably sure of what, two? Three? Any more details presently unavailable (i.e. "under the hood" information as discussed in this thread, whether it is seeing slider values [which would of course still require further explanation] or simply good descriptions of game mechanics [which will take into account that this still is a game with a clearly outlined set of possibilities, i.e. "forward runs"]) would help to extend the player's knowledge to the other factors, in turn granting him a much greater potential to understand and play the game better.

It is all about reconciling real life football with its interpretation in the game. About making sure that the preconception of a particular option has the same effect in the game, and if it doesn't – which, given the sheer number of football fans and FM players, is likely – then the player is made aware of this difference and the actual impact of that decision.

Sure we would still debate things. But we would be debating 'I did this because I wanted to achieve that, why didn't it work' rather than 'what does that mean and how do I even make it work in the first place?'

[Madminister]

It seems to me the key issue here is the lack of documentation. The sliders offered a tangible reference to what actually happened during the match. I've never fully understood the sliders and as such will probably find the new system preferable to the slider system.

To me many of the sliders and individual instruction make very little sense. That is, if I change one what will that actually do? I wouldn't have a clue. However, seing as roles, at least as far as FM2013 is concerned, are very vaguely defined in terms of their in-game documentation I can see why losing the sliders will be a problem for some. I don't know the real difference between a DLF(S) and a DLF(A) and the in-game documentation doesn't help me much. It is far too vague. As far as this issue is concerned the online manual is a bit of a joke. Or at least pretty useless.

My hope would be that some of the brightest tacticians on here would create a thread that would explain the different roles and duties and the differences between them. I'm pretty sure some of you have, but not in one place. At least not in one place I have found and not in a way that makes it easy to find. The thing is, it shouldn't be necessary to rely on other users on an Internet forum for this information. It should be a part of the game itself. As in-game documentation or in a manual.

I can see how the sliders help some people. Those who seem to understand them. For people like me who don't understand the sliders or the roles and duties playing FM can be a bit of a challenge. Now, some of it I could probably figure out if I invested enough time in it (I consider myself to be a fairly smart guy ), but that would turn FM into an extra job and I'm not really interested in that

Having said all that I can't wait for the Beta and I'm sure I'll clock at least as many hours on this version as I have on previous versions.

[RTHerringbone]

I do agree that even perfect knowledge beforehand would not lead to perfect results or correct decisions. But surely that can by no means be an argument of any relevance for not giving the player this information? It is not perfection we are talking about here, but having the player understand the framework in which the game operates. Which does not mean understanding every line of code, obviously, but rather the relationships and effects of various options given to the player and their details as opposed to unclear and vague labels.

The more a player knows about the game, the better he is equipped to handle a particular situation.

I agree with you. Whether right or wrong, depth of documentation never seems to have been a priority.

The online manual is better than people realise, but there's certainly a strong case to increase the level of detail:

http://www.footballmanager.com/manual/

Fortunately, this section of the forum is well supported by people who have a strong understanding of the mechanics of the games, by people who are trying to learn the game, and by people who have spent hours experimenting with the game.

In the absence of detailed documentation, this forum will continue to be a really valuable resource.

[Madminister]

I mean no offense, but the only way the online manual is better than people realise is if they don't know it exists. I've skimmed through it before, but to make sure I didn't make too much of a fool of myself by claiming it sucked I just had a look through it again. The tactical section and the player section in particular. The manual, at best, tells you where you can find the specific UI items, not what utilizing said UI items accomplishes. That's fine if that's what you want it to accomplish. FM, however, has become so complex and the in-game documentation is so bad that people like me don't have a clue what they're doing.

This forum is great for helping people like me, and as much as I love browsing through threads here when I should be working , it shouldn't be necessary.

Once again let me just say that I am actually looking forward to FM2014, this is just one area I think needs improvement.

[Fond Foat]

An excel spreadsheet may not be what football is yet, but it's getting there. I think you want FM to evolve in the exact opposite way that all sports are evolving. Sports are becoming much more numbers based, sports analytics is a booming field as clubs start to realise number crunching is better than the unreliable nature of human judgement.

Fortunately, the randomness of humans and the environment that affects them means that football will never be an excel spreadsheet, and I have seen no evidence that players have evolved as number based entities.

[higgins]

I mean no offense, but the only way the online manual is better than people realise is if they don't know it exists. I've skimmed through it before, but to make sure I didn't make too much of a fool of myself by claiming it sucked I just had a look through it again. The tactical section and the player section in particular. The manual, at best, tells you where you can find the specific UI items, not what utilizing said UI items accomplishes. That's fine if that's what you want it to accomplish. FM, however, has become so complex and the in-game documentation is so bad that people like me don't have a clue what they're doing.

This forum is great for helping people like me, and as much as I love browsing through threads here when I should be working , it shouldn't be necessary.

Once again let me just say that I am actually looking forward to FM2014, this is just one area I think needs improvement.

The online manual is vague, poorly implemented and rarely updated.

[Madminister]

The online manual is vague, poorly implemented and rarely updated.

In a nutshell.

[yonko]

I am happy to see the sliders have gone, but as Yonko says, it does now place far more responsibility on SI to explain the roles in far more detail. They need to be in depth and use footballing terms to explain what the default settings of each role are.

If they fail to do this, it will be a bit of a mess and very time consuming to establish what is going on. If they do explain exactly how they have set up each role, using a lengthy paragraph using concise footballing terms, it will be excellent.

To be honest, if they removed all the descriptions and explanations but left the sliders purely as visual aid, then I would be happier.

I'm sorry, but this remains the wrong mindset to allow you to adapt to the new Instructions system.

You need to move on from clutching at the comfort blanket that sliders provided if you're going to be able to make the most of the new system.

As stated a several times, sliders will not be in FM14 so there is just no point in fretting about all facets of a Role; it is a waste of energy and won't change the product.

If David Moyes looks at Wayne Rooney, does he have a tattooed list of instructions on his chest? No.

"Here's where you are playing, this is the broad remit of your Role, and these are the refinements I'd like you to make".

Who said I want to adapt? I think I've made it clear that I'm unhappy and why I'm unhappy. I think you need to stop defending and making excuses for an obvious mistake by SI with the new system. They've kept the mechanism the same (I suspect), but have removed the visual for the instructions.....in the name of "realism"? That's not realism at all.....

You use a metaphor with Moyes and Rooney....btw, they are both looking at each other and wondering why Moyes took the Man United job...LOL. Any manager who gives instructions to his player IRL knows what these instructions are. We wont know that in FM14! It's like here are a few new roles to choose from, some of them are similar to existing ones, some of them are the same in a different language, but guess what their instructions are. Oh, and you can change these instructions but keep guessing what they are to begin with.

[RTHerringbone]

I think you need to stop defending and making excuses for an obvious mistake by SI with the new system.

In your opinion; an opinion formed without having even used the new system.

You keep saying that we won't know what instructions we give players; remind me what the Player Instruction panel is?

Oh yes, that's right, the panel where we select how the pertinent instructions for the Role should be carried out.

Your Role assumptions are also rather constrictive.

Some of the Roles may appear similar to existing ones, but isn't a Deep Lying Playmaker similar to an Advanced Playmaker in many ways? Similar is a very subjective word.

Regista in FM14 will not be just the same as DLP. As has already been explained, the Role description clearly implies that it is a far more mobile Playmaking Role.

[yonko]

In your opinion; an opinion formed without having even used the new system.

You keep saying that we won't know what instructions we give players; remind me what the Player Instruction panel is?

Oh yes, that's right, the panel where we select how the pertinent instructions for the Role should be carried out.

Your Role assumptions are also rather constrictive.

Some of the Roles may appear similar to existing ones, but isn't a Deep Lying Playmaker similar to an Advanced Playmaker in many ways? Similar is a very subjective word.

Regista in FM14 will not be just the same as DLP. As has already been explained, the Role description clearly implies that it is a far more mobile Playmaking Role.

And how did you form your opinion? By playing FM14 already?! We both have formed our opinions based on the video Miles posted a few weeks ago.

The Player Instructions panel tells us what we can change but not what the default instructions are for the role. And this panel doesn't tell us what the role's mentality is, creative freedom, etc. We have to guess and assume. IRL a manager knows the default instructions and knows the changes he can make to them before the game.

A DLP is clearly not similar to AP, not in FM nor IRL. The difference is obvious in the names - one is Deep, the other Advanced. Plus, in FM so far I can see the difference between the two in the instructions - different mentality, different creative freedom, RFD. When I said "similar" I meant DLP and Regista or False Nine and DLF (S) or CF (S)....even Trequartista to some extent. Another one is Shadow Striker and Attacking Midfielder with Attack duty. If you don't know, Regista is the Italian word for DLP....someone (I assume an Italian poster) even said it in one of the previous posts. So my question is how is a Regista in FM different than DLP with either or both duties? How is a False Nine different than other similar roles? How is a Shadow Striker different? How is the Halfback different than other DM roles? I wouldn't know because I wouldn't be able to see the default instructions for the roles. The descriptions don't tell me enough.....In FM13 and earlier versions I can see the differences in instructions.

[Fond Foat]

To be honest, if they removed all the descriptions and explanations but left the sliders purely as visual aid, then I would be happier.

The game needs to do away with sliders eventually. Perhaps, as you seem tobelieve, they are not ready to do it just yet. I think if the explain their roles it will not be that difficult to make the change.

I think you need to stop defending and making excuses for an obvious mistake by SI with the new system.[/Quote]

Really stretching it there. Obvious mistake? The game has come a long way since the early days, and I imagine there were a lot of "obvious mistakes" made, but somehow the game improves every year.

[Fond Foat]

And how did you form your opinion? By playing FM14 already?! We both have formed our opinions based on the video Miles posted a few weeks ago.

One side of the argument is stating guilty before having a chance to defend themselves, while the other is saying innocent until proven guilty. Sure, I base the fact that SI have generally gotten it right that this new implementation will probably work out fine. Yes, I have reservations about the system, but I am willing to give SI the benefit of the doubt until I have seen all the evidence.

In FM13 and earlier versions I can see the differences in instructions.

Again, you and I are not sure exactly what we will see on release day. As I said, you keep stating that are guilty of a flawed system that we haven't really seen yet. It is one thing to have reservations about a change, but another to continually say a change is bad without fully understanding that change as yet.

If the changes made by SI are really an obvious mistake, they will hear about it loud and clear after release.

[ceefax the cat]

A little note for those who believe that football managers do not tinker on a precise level with things like team shape / width without the ball. First, go on a certain popular video tube site and look up the training video Arrigo Sacchi's Italy made when they were preparing for USA '94 (very easy to find). This is the man who brought about the last major global change in football tactics, the introduction of pressing by maintaining compactness as a team. In the video you'll see him drilling his team very precisely to stay in a certain shape, having them jog endlessly around the pitch shifting their shape in response to the movements of an imaginary ball, getting used to timing their closing down so that a gap will never appear. This is the approach that inspired Benitez to do exactly the same at Valencia and Liverpool, and countless other coaches too.

Next, read anything any of Roy Hodgson's players ever has to say about his training sessions. Team shape without the ball is his number one priority - getting the gaps just right. Next, watch Benitez on the touchline in practically any game as he constantly shouts at his players to move just a tad this way and that, trying to optimise compactness while responding to the opposition. Gaps between defenders and the exact timing of closing down are things that many top sides work on constantly, and it's this area where I think sliders and incremental tweaking are actually fairly realistic, though really it should be even more detailed. If I want my right back's starting position to be 5 yards further forward and a bit wider, I should be able to tell him.

As for the argument about Barcelona, it's well known that Chelsea's strategy was very deliberately to allow them possession out wide and maintain compactness in the centre. It wasn't simply a natural token of Barca's shape - indeed, the whole point of Barca's shape is to keep the pitch wide so they can play through the middle of you. Chelsea's response was to forget normal defensive positioning and make a special allowance, playing extraordinarily narrow in recognition of the fact that, unlike with most teams, a Barcelona attack that culminated in a cross from out wide was probably preferable to a period of probing possession in the middle.

If you take micromanaging out of the game you make it worse for anyone who likes to go into detail on this stuff. That doesn't necessarily mean that the death of sliders is a bad thing, but there must then be more tools we can use instead, and more explanation of what our instructions mean. As far as positioning and team shape are concerned, no level of detail is too great. In a perfect world, I'd pretty much like to be able to draw my team shape onto the screen.

[Fabian Jonsson]

A little note for those who believe that football managers do not tinker on a precise level with things like team shape / width without the ball. First, go on a certain popular video tube site and look up the training video Arrigo Sacchi's Italy made when they were preparing for USA '94 (very easy to find). This is the man who brought about the last major global change in football tactics, the introduction of pressing by maintaining compactness as a team. In the video you'll see him drilling his team very precisely to stay in a certain shape, having them jog endlessly around the pitch shifting their shape in response to the movements of an imaginary ball, getting used to timing their closing down so that a gap will never appear. This is the approach that inspired Benitez to do exactly the same at Valencia and Liverpool, and countless other coaches too.

Next, read anything any of Roy Hodgson's players ever has to say about his training sessions. Team shape without the ball is his number one priority - getting the gaps just right. Next, watch Benitez on the touchline in practically any game as he constantly shouts at his players to move just a tad this way and that, trying to optimise compactness while responding to the opposition. Gaps between defenders and the exact timing of closing down are things that many top sides work on constantly, and it's this area where I think sliders and incremental tweaking are actually fairly realistic, though really it should be even more detailed. If I want my right back's starting position to be 5 yards further forward and a bit wider, I should be able to tell him.

As for the argument about Barcelona, it's well known that Chelsea's strategy was very deliberately to allow them possession out wide and maintain compactness in the centre. It wasn't simply a natural token of Barca's shape - indeed, the whole point of Barca's shape is to keep the pitch wide so they can play through the middle of you. Chelsea's response was to forget normal defensive positioning and make a special allowance, playing extraordinarily narrow in recognition of the fact that, unlike with most teams, a Barcelona attack that culminated in a cross from out wide was probably preferable to a period of probing possession in the middle.

If you take micromanaging out of the game you make it worse for anyone who likes to go into detail on this stuff. That doesn't necessarily mean that the death of sliders is a bad thing, but there must then be more tools we can use instead, and more explanation of what our instructions mean. As far as positioning and team shape are concerned, no level of detail is too great. In a perfect world, I'd pretty much like to be able to draw my team shape onto the screen.

Nicely put, although one might argue that you don't actually have that level of control at present either. As I have understood it, the width slider (for example) doesn't actually translate to a specific width that the team will hold in defensive phases (which is what you're talking about), but actually, the width slider is just one of the things influencing the width your team has in attack. Instead, the width your team has in defense is governed by things like the opposition's width, the mentality of your players, the formation, the closing down settings, the marking settings and such. Some of those things you can control, others are difficult.

That said, I agree it can be seen as a step in the "wrong direction" when it comes to amount of tactical instruction options. I imagine that it will be difficult to recreate tactical roles that are not yet implemented in the game, for example.

I agree with what many others here have said, though, that it is a step in the right direction when it comes to moving away from FM-specific concepts (sliders that you don't really know they do) and towards more general football terminology.

[ceefax the cat]

Exactly. It offers the hope that we'll end up controlling games in an intuitive way, but for the time being it falls short. Even if the previous system was horribly flawed, there were aspects of it that were useful once you figured out its crazy mathematical language. Closing down in combination with mentality was handy for tweaking compactness (getting centre mids and fullbacks to close down together in a diamond for example), ditto passing, tempo and mentality, for tweaking the buildup. The flaw was that you had to faff with these things in very delicate combination when the parameters should've been simpler. I always thought the mentality slider should never have existed, for one.

[wereldbol]

Sports analytics are, of course, heavily numeric.

However, I don't believe that the day to day interactions of football - tactical, scouting, training are communicated in a numeric way.

There has to be some sort of numeric data under the hood to allow the game to function, I just don't think that the interface needs to show those numbers.

you are contradicting yourself. you state that you want the module of the game to evolve, a module is a structural component of something. then you state that you simply want the aesthetics to hide the numerical nature of the game. i also can't shake the feeling you are thinking very contra intuitive to modern football, or at least to where modern football is heading. you want to go back to harry redknapp, while the game is rapidly going down the andre villas-boas route.

[RTHerringbone]

you are contradicting yourself. you state that you want the module of the game to evolve, a module is a structural component of something. then you state that you simply want the aesthetics to hide the numerical nature of the game. i also can't shake the feeling you are thinking very contra intuitive to modern football, or at least to where modern football is heading. you want to go back to harry redknapp, while the game is rapidly going down the andre villas-boas route.

I think you are extrapolating your interpretation of my stance a bit...

What I mean is that a numerical interface in a football game is not that intuitive.

Of course a computer game is built on a world of incredibly complex algorithms - I don't expect it to be running on fairy dust.

Evolution does not have to equate to increased complexity, and streamlining does not have to equate to dumbing down.

What specifically that I say is "very contra intuitive to modern football, or at least to where modern football is heading." I bloody hate Harry Redknapp

[RTHerringbone]

The Player Instructions panel tells us what we can change but not what the default instructions are for the role. And this panel doesn't tell us what the role's mentality is, creative freedom, etc. We have to guess and assume. IRL a manager knows the default instructions and knows the changes he can make to them before the game.

yonko - I'm as tired of responding to you, as you presumably are of responding to me, and as the rest of the thread readers no doubt are of reading both our views.

Our views are diametrically opposite at the moment. You probably perceive me to have blind faith. I perceive you to have blind fear.

The pre-release Beta will be out some time before the 31st, so once the dust has settled and the system has been given a fair crack of the whip (and due consideration that it is a Beta), let's see how my blind faith and your blind fear perceive things.

[ceefax the cat]

It looks a bit like you're arguing at cross purposes. Or maybe just arguing badly

[ceefax the cat]

"About two weeks" before the 31st if they don't want to break a promise to their customers straight from the off... I was thinking about that earlier. How much progress is it really possible to make on the match engine in "about two weeks"?

[RTHerringbone]

"About two weeks" before the 31st if they don't want to break a promise to their customers straight from the off... I was thinking about that earlier. How much progress is it really possible to make on the match engine in "about two weeks"?

The pre-Release Beta will be some way behind SI's own internal build of the game, so whilst we'll see a two week window between pre-Release and the 31st, they are likely to effectively have had more time than that to try to fix any major errors.

[ceefax the cat]

Fair 'nuff.

[jep]

BETA out now so really looking forward to seeing this new tactical setup. I think Sliders had their time, and it was easy for people to get transfixed on moving a slider one notch up or down, convinced it would turn their tactic into a worldbeater. Reality is, as long as the instructions you give your players are sensible and don't clash then you should be fine.

Will give it a go tonight and see if I can replicate my successful fluid, attacking, diamond shaped system from FM13.

[yonko]

The game needs to do away with sliders eventually. Perhaps, as you seem tobelieve, they are not ready to do it just yet. I think if the explain their roles it will not be that difficult to make the change.

Really stretching it there. Obvious mistake? The game has come a long way since the early days, and I imagine there were a lot of "obvious mistakes" made, but somehow the game improves every year.

Why did sliders needed to go away, eventually? They were a visual aid of the game's mechanism. SI could've kept them and allowed them to be changed simply through individual and team shouts.

Yes, to me, it's a mistake to remove the visual aid from the game.

One side of the argument is stating guilty before having a chance to defend themselves, while the other is saying innocent until proven guilty. Sure, I base the fact that SI have generally gotten it right that this new implementation will probably work out fine. Yes, I have reservations about the system, but I am willing to give SI the benefit of the doubt until I have seen all the evidence.

Again, you and I are not sure exactly what we will see on release day. As I said, you keep stating that are guilty of a flawed system that we haven't really seen yet. It is one thing to have reservations about a change, but another to continually say a change is bad without fully understanding that change as yet.

If the changes made by SI are really an obvious mistake, they will hear about it loud and clear after release.

I've never hidden the fact that my opinion is based on the video from Miles. If the game is released and there is a panel that shows the default instructions (not the changes we can make to them) for the roles, then I will admit I was wrong. But that wasn't shown in the video and I assume that the video was made to show the new tactical model.

And I totally acknowledge the fact that there may be (and will be) plenty of people who would be happy with the new model.

yonko - I'm as tired of responding to you, as you presumably are of responding to me, and as the rest of the thread readers no doubt are of reading both our views.

Our views are diametrically opposite at the moment. You probably perceive me to have blind faith. I perceive you to have blind fear.

The pre-release Beta will be out some time before the 31st, so once the dust has settled and the system has been given a fair crack of the whip (and due consideration that it is a Beta), let's see how my blind faith and your blind fear perceive things.

I'm not tired of responding to you. I have no fear, I'm just unhappy with a certain part of the new tactical system. I'm so unhappy that I'm not sure I will even try the game. I haven't pre-ordered, I wont get to play the Beta and most likely wont play the Demo. So I will wait and see how others, like you, respond to the new system.

I assume that you will keep this thread going after the game is released (Beta, Demo, full game) and will post interesting screenshots from the tactical model. If you post a shot of a panel that shows the default instructions for each role, I will eat my words, admit I was wrong to be unhappy based on Miles' video and I will try the Demo.

And just to make another point. I stuck with the game last year through all the problems with the new ME, because I understood and accepted it. I had pre-ordered the game, played the Beta and upgraded with the full release and the subsequent patches. I gave SI the benefit of the doubt last year, so to speak, and I've done it in the past when long time ago they removed the Wibble Wobble.

[guspjmh]

First impression: Can't find sliders and hate vague team instructions - the uniqueness of the sliders was that you could tweak exactly how you wanted things done (by almost applying a numerical value to each thing). This is no longer possible; thus the game is poorer for it imo.

[higgins]

Not being able to visualize on the tactics screen where you set your defensive line is a huge loss for the game, I can see people starting to act very randomly regarding that.

[tomtuck01]

First impression: Can't find sliders

You can't find the sliders because they have been removed. It's basically what the vast majority of the thread discussion has been about.

[higgins]

You can't find the sliders because they have been removed. It's basically what the vast majority of the thread discussion has been about.

It was ironic, wasn't it?

[RTHerringbone]

Not being able to visualize on the tactics screen where you set your defensive line is a huge loss for the game, I can see people starting to act very randomly regarding that.

Imagine you set your Defensive Line to say notch 6, 10 or 14 on FM13, but you face a side that plays Defensive, Standard or Overload - does your Defensive Line not need to dynamically adjust to those alternate Strategies?

Does setting a Defensive Line of 10 with a Slider do so irrespective of the intent of the opposition? Surely it can't be the case? If it was, you'd have an inherent advantage.