Context aware instructions?

[yields]

There seems to be something missing from instructions, context:

 

1. How do i tell a striker to sit deep when defending?

 

I don't want to set a striker's role to defensive forward, nor i want to look for a striker that fits that role.

I want to be able to tell him, sit closer to your midfielders, so you can protect them from the opposition midfielders:

 

If the strikers are unable to do so, my rm and lm will not be able to protect their flanks and will have to tuck inside to help.

In some cases, the opposition strikers will be free to run at the defence since the strikers are not helping the midfielders can't protect the back four:

 

 

Here we see pedro free to run at the defence, I've told my dm's to mark chelsea central midfielders, but because they don''t have context on when to mark them, they mark them 24/7.

 

2. I want to be able to tell my players, when to mark and when not to mark opposition players.

 

Suppose i want to mark opposition midfielders only when they're closer to goal, when they're not a goal threat, leave them alone so you can concentrate on protecting the back four.

 

 

Here we see RM vs Wolfsburg, Kroos is about to pass to modric, notice how Wolfsburg's CM doesn't care about modric yet, he's just concentrated on protecting the back four

 

3. Team doesn't move as a unit

 

Most good teams when defending will move to the flank and stay narrow, like this:

 

 

Notice how the whole team, shifts to the right and stays narrow, notice how Neymar can't move the ball to Dani Alves, because he has 3 players around him, his only choice is to pass backwards or run into this wall, If he decides to pass backwards, Atleti will move with the ball, Torres and Griezman will close Barca's CM's and they'll have to start over.

 

Now i had the same situation in FM recently:

 

 

Chelsea's LB had the ball, and my RB closed him down, the problem was that the team didn't shift with him, literally the whole team stayed in the middle of the pitch.

 

My feature requests:

 

1. Ability to tell strikers to stay closer to their teammates (maybe team instruction "compactness" like PES)

2. Ability to tell the team to stay compact and move with the ball, narrow doesn't help here, see above pitcure (like Atleti)

3. Ability to tell players when to mark or close down, see above picture where my CM's are marking chelsea's CMs at the halfway line!!

[HUNT3R]

1  -  The formation screen is the defensive shape. If you want strikers that far back, move them back a strata or two.

2  -  The more defensive/safe Mentalities will do this for you.

3  -  Fairly sure you can do this too? Tight marking on either your midfielders' instructions or on OIs. And lower closing down, something you'd find with the more defensive/safe Mentalities.

 

FM could maybe make the interface a bit easier, but I feel you can already do all of this.

[yields]

1. I want them to be strikers, Griezman and Torres are strikers, look how deep they're when the team is defending.

 

I don't want to tell my strikers to "mark" opposition CM's either, i just want them to sit deep so that the opposition can't find any space.

 

2. I don't think they do, what i'm trying to do is impossible in FM, i've been playing around in the last month, it's impossible, however i'll be happy if someone here disproves this.

 

What i'm trying to do here is get the team to be more dynamic when moving defensively, just follow the ball, this clearly doesn't happen, when an opposition RB has the ball, only my LB will press him and all my players will stay central, leaving huge gaps.

 

Moreover, what if i want to attack? and not defend, but when defending i want the team to stay closer together, so strikers will sit deep, protect the CMs and the whole team will shift and stay closer together when the opposition is attacking through the flanks.

 

3. Nope, impossible again, at least from the last month of trying things, you can clearly see how free is pedro, moreover i have close down much less on my CMs.

 

[HUNT3R]

 

3 minutes ago, yields said:

1. I want them to be strikers, Griezman and Torres are strikers, look how deep they're when the team is defending.

Which in FM terms isn't a striker, as I said.

 

Just look in the tactics forum. There were at least 2 or 3 threads discussing Atletico and all of this already.

[HUNT3R]

4 minutes ago, yields said:

3. Nope, impossible again, at least from the last month of trying things, you can clearly see how free is pedro, moreover i have close down much less on my CMs.

 

Did you actually try this with the lower Mentalities? I'm not talking about PIs.

[yields]

2 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

 

Which in FM terms isn't a striker, as I said.

 

Just look in the tactics forum. There were at least 2 or 3 threads discussing Atletico and all of this already.

- Why, why do i have to teach a striker to play in AM, just in order to get him to play closer to his teammates?

- yep, i've seen them, they're not close enough since strikers won't sit deep, so on the flanks i get owned.

 

2 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Did you actually try this with the lower Mentalities? I'm not talking about PIs.

 

Yep, in the screenshot above, the mentality is defensive, see how my CMs leave my back four exposed

I think this happened because chelsea countered my counter attack (again team mentality is defensive).

 

--

 

Just curios, is my feature request unreasonable? because i tried getting this to work properly, keep the strikers closer when defending is impossible, but it should be possible IMHO, if we want to simulate real-world football

[herne79]

Yeh I've seen that picture of Athletico vs Barcelona before, it's pretty extreme and not really how Athletico played for the entire match.  It's also very similar to how Roma played against Barcelona in last year's Champion's League when they drew 1-1 in Rome (remember Florenzi's fluke goal from the half way line?), however Roma did play like that for 90 mins - all 11 players camped deep in their own half.

To get to such extremes, you're really looking at positioning players in the defensive, defensive midfield and midfield stratas only.  You won't have much (if anything) in terms of being able to attack, but that's precisely what Roma did for 90 mins in that match - all 11 players deep inside their own half with almost zero effort to attack.  So yes, you can set things up like that now, but the flip side is you'll hardly be able to get out of your own half.

[HUNT3R]

1 minute ago, yields said:

- Why, why do i have to teach a striker to play in AM, just in order to get him to play closer to his teammates?

You're missing the point though. The only screenshots of Atletico that deep that are ever posted, is of that match against Barcelona. So it was a specific plan against a specific opponent. You don't  NEED to teach them anything, just pull them back at least a strata? It was an extreme plan, of course, but if you need them deeper, put them deeper.

It's not that your request is unreasonable, I'm just pointing out that it is already possible.

Have a look, as I said around the forum. Rashidi, who knows football and the ME very well, had a very different 'normal' setup for Atletico: 

And so did others (matching Rashidi almost): 

 

[yields]

1 minute ago, HUNT3R said:

You're missing the point though. The only screenshots of Atletico that deep that are ever posted, is of that match against Barcelona. So it was a specific plan against a specific opponent. You don't  NEED to teach them anything, just pull them back at least a strata? It was an extreme plan, of course, but if you need them deeper, put them deeper.

It's not that your request is unreasonable, I'm just pointing out that it is already possible.

 

I don't think i'm missing the point here, what you describe above is exactly my point, fair enough if we don't need a sit deeper when defending instruction for strikers, although WMs have get further forward in possession instruction.

 

Thanks for pointing out what's possible, but i really just want to convince someone that the feature i'm describing is reasonable to add.

 

10 minutes ago, herne79 said:

it's pretty extreme and not really how Athletico played for the entire match

 

This is my point exactly  -- it's as if Simeone told his players how to position themselves without the ball and with the ball, fair enough if i have to play my strikers as AMs to get this behavior.

 

But the context is still missing here, the way i see it there are two formations for each tactic in the real world, one is applied in possession and one without possession, maybe this is what FM needs? (PES already have this with "fluid formations" feature).

 

I think more context with pressing is missing too, for example, atletico will press harder when the chances of success are high, think a midfielder with his back to goal, Liverpool will press harder only when they lose the ball, Man city will press in the opposition half, but will press much less when the opposition is controlling the ball.

 

FM already has get further forward in possession for midfielders/defenders etc.. I think sit deeper when defending is a fair thing to add, otherwise emulating Atletico will be impossible, however i agree that it's an extreme tactic.

 

 

[HUNT3R]

Just now, yields said:

 

But the context is still missing here, the way i see it there are two formations for each tactic in the real world, one is applied in possession and one without possession, maybe this is what FM needs? (PES already have this with "fluid formations" feature).

 

This is there also.

The formation you select is the defensive shape, so without possession.

With possession is determined by your roles and duties. You don't actually get to see the shape, but it'll be difficult to show anyway, since you can heavily alter how players move forward with Moves Into Channels or Roaming instructions.

[yields]

4 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

This is there also.

The formation you select is the defensive shape, so without possession.

With possession is determined by your roles and duties. You don't actually get to see the shape, but it'll be difficult to show anyway, since you can heavily alter how players move forward with Moves Into Channels or Roaming instructions.

Agreed on this, i noticed it, it helps, but it's unclear / "hack",  i still insist on my feature requests though:

 

1. Ability to tell strikers to sit deep, when defending, i don't think it's possible, and even if it is possible, it is currently unclear / hack?

2. Ability to make the team stay compact and the whole team should shift to the flank when the ball is there.

3. Ability to press in numbers when "certain things happen" / "in parts of the pitch".

 

Again, thanks for the help, but i believe it's impossible to do those 3 things currently.

[HUNT3R]

56 minutes ago, yields said:

Agreed on this, i noticed it, it helps, but it's unclear / "hack",  i still insist on my feature requests though:

 

1. Ability to tell strikers to sit deep, when defending, i don't think it's possible, and even if it is possible, it is currently unclear / hack?

2. Ability to make the team stay compact and the whole team should shift to the flank when the ball is there.

3. Ability to press in numbers when "certain things happen" / "in parts of the pitch".

 

Again, thanks for the help, but i believe it's impossible to do those 3 things currently.

 

And good lord, don't let us counter attack.

 

 

[yields]

Sorry but are those pictures supposed to prove those feature requests are invalid, because you pulled the strikers back?

Not trying to be a troll, really curios what they're supposed to prove, if anything they prove those features are necessary IMHO.

[HUNT3R]

Just now, yields said:

Sorry but are those pictures supposed to prove those feature requests are invalid, because you pulled the strikers back?

Not trying to be a troll, really curios what they're supposed to prove, if anything they prove those features are necessary IMHO.

You wanted the front players dropping deep as in the pic. I showed that it can be done already so there's nothing to add.

You wanted players playing really close. I show that it can be done already, so there's nothing to add.

You've suggested 2 things that can easily be done, so whatever you're requesting should be a lot clearer.

[yields]

1 minute ago, HUNT3R said:

You wanted the front players dropping deep as in the pic. I showed that it can be done already so there's nothing to add.

Not really, you didn't show that at all, you just pulled the strikers back. 

I want the forwards to sit deep when defending, all you did is turn them into midfielders.

 

1 minute ago, HUNT3R said:

You wanted players playing really close. I show that it can be done already, so there's nothing to add.

 

The first picture disproves that, the ball is on the left, why is your left fullback is on his own to mark ~30m of the pitch, no one is near him.

Leaving a fullback vs the winger 1v1, isn't really what i meant, is it?

 

Look at neymar vs a wall of atleti players and you'll see the difference, and he's close to the position of the winger in your first picture.

So the team didn't shift to the left, amirite?

3 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

You've suggested 2 things that can easily be done, so whatever you're requesting should be a lot clearer.

What's unclear? you just spent some time creating a tactic that will disprove my claims, so you clearly understand what i want, my replies above should help, if not let me know and i'll explain.

 

Feel free to ask questions, if there's anything in the request that's unclear.

 

 

[yields]

FWIW, i'm not trying to be a dick, just trying to improve the game i love.

[HUNT3R]

And for SI to be able to use an idea, it needs fleshing out and clarification. You haven't said why it's needed at all or why it's realistic. No strikers drop that deep apart from in exceptionally rare cases (only 2 mentioned) so why should it be a norm? Should all strikers drop that deep? What if I don't want them to drop deep? Why can't I use a whole team of strikers then? I mean, they drop just as deep as midfielders!

Even though I'm showing you can do EXACTLY what you want to do, why is that not clear? What is different, why and why is it needed?

There's a simple concept to understand here - the formation screen is the defensive shape. 

[yields]

22 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

drop that deep apart from in exceptionally rare cases (only 2 mentioned)

Atleti reached the CL final twice based on this approach, not sure how this is "rare".

22 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Should all strikers drop that deep?

As i said before, no, by default they should stay up there and do nothing but watch, but you can give them an instruction to drop deeper when defending.

 

22 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Even though I'm showing you can do EXACTLY what you want to do

You didn't, again, you turned them into AMs, they're not strikers now.

 

22 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Why can't I use a whole team of strikers then? I mean, they drop just as deep as midfielders!

This is a strawman argument, i haven't once suggested we do that.

Why is it possible to tell a midfielder to go further forward, and i'm not able to tell a striker to drop deep?

 

22 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

There's a simple concept to understand here - the formation screen is the defensive shape. 

Yep, you're right, but you're still missing the point, i don't want to play Griezman as an AM.

22 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

You haven't said why it's needed at all or why it's realistic

OK, It's realistic because AM did this, Leicester won the PL based on this approach too, it's really simple:

 

1. Tell the strikers to drop deep and press CMs

2. When the ball on the flank, the team must stay compact and press on the flank.

3. Don't let the opponent play through the middle by pushing them to the flank

4. When opponents are on the flank, the whole team shifts to the flank will press and try to win the ball

 

I don't see how the above is "unrealistic" or is "not needed".

-------

 

Just to re-iterate:

 

1. It's impossible to tell strikers to drop deep, by strikers i mean strikers, not AMs.

2. It's impossible to tell a team to press opponents in certain situations. (when the ball is lost, in their half etc..)

3. It's impossible to tell a team to shift to the flank and stay compact in there (like your first picture proves)

[HUNT3R]

Just now, yields said:

Why is it possible to tell a midfielder to go further forward, and i'm not able to tell a striker to drop deep?

Because you are missing the point of the formation screen. It's the defensive shape! Roles and duties affect forward movement, so that's why you can alter forward movement that way.

 

I replicated Leicester too. Did you see the counter attack pic?

[yields]

7 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

Because you are missing the point of the formation screen. It's the defensive shape! Roles and duties affect forward movement, so that's why you can alter forward movement that way.

Ok, give me a chance to explain, exactly what i mean:

 

I want to be able to tell STs and not AMs to drop deep when defending, i don't want to play them as AMs, i just don't want to do that, i know i can, but don't want to, because it's a hack.

I will consider doing that when everyone agrees that atletico plays in a 4-6-0 formation, but no one will, because when they attack, they have 2 strikers, not AMs.

They move as strikers and behave like strikers, their roles are different, but they're both strikers, am i wrong?

 

So here's what's missing for me, i want to us to consider the concept of context, for example, you can tell your team to press in certain situation, you can tell the team what the formation should be when they defend, for example, atletico plays 4-4-2-0 when they defend, right?

 

7 minutes ago, HUNT3R said:

I replicated Leicester too. Did you see the counter attack pic?

 

It looks good, but does it disprove anything that i said? IIRC i haven't mentioned counter attacking at all here.

[herne79]

4 minutes ago, yields said:

It's impossible to tell strikers to drop deep, by strikers i mean strikers, not AMs.

Just to chip in here, don't get too caught up in names and positions.  A "striker" is simply your most advanced player and thus your most direct goal threat.  From that point of view, you can position them anywhere in the tactic creator.  There are plenty of so-called "strikerless" systems that have your "striker(s)" sitting deeper than might be considered the historic norm.  A strikerless system isn't actually strikerless - they just have strikers positioned deeper than normal.

If you also want your "striker" to drop deep and hassle the midfield, the best place to do this from is a deeper starting position than the more "traditional" striker starting point.  If you have someone positioned high up in the STC position, it's going to take an awful lot of effort by the player (assuming the game code allowed it) to get your striker dropping that deep.  In the Atleti picture, there is no way that Greizemann and Torres could be considered traditional strikers based on their defensive positioning.

So, given the movement that you want - ie., defensively dropping deep whilst still being a significant goal threat - your striker positioning is therefore best served from the AMC position.  That won't make them any less of a striker, or stop them being called a "striker" - they'll still be a potent goal threat but will also drop deep defensively.

This isn't a hack by the way.  It's just simple positioning - forget "ST and "AM" and just focus on the role.  It just so happens that the role you are after exists in what the game terms the "AM" position, which in all honesty is nothing more than a name on a chalk board.  He'll still be a striker.

[HUNT3R]

7 minutes ago, yields said:

I want to be able to tell STs and not AMs to drop deep when defending, i don't want to play them as AMs, i just don't want to do that, i know i can, but don't want to, because it's a hack.

I will consider doing that when everyone agrees that atletico plays in a 4-6-0 formation, but no one will, because when they attack, they have 2 strikers, not AMs.

They move as strikers and behave like strikers, their roles are different, but they're both strikers, am i wrong?

So here's what's missing for me, i want to us to consider the concept of context, for example, you can tell your team to press in certain situation, you can tell the team what the formation should be when they defend, for example, atletico plays 4-4-2-0 when they defend, right?

It's not a hack. It's the defensive shape. If you want players to defend in a deeper strata, drop them deeper. It's been the case since the early CMs or maybe even ever.

You don't want to discuss the idea, I get that, so we're left with a half-baked request. You were given solutions. You don't want it.

So what if they're being played as AMs? So what if they're being played as CMs? It is extreme. I can't believe that Leicester defended that deep.

My 'strikers' still harassed the defenders. So what if they were played in a different strata? Really? They are the most advanced players, which strikers are. Open your mind a little.

I did exactly what Atletico did IN THAT EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCE. I defended EXTREMELY deep, like no one else does, not even Atletico apart from a rare case or two. I counter attacked quickly.

And yes, you can tell the team what formation they need to be in when they defend. That's the formation screen, which I did and showed. The solutions were given, try it.

I'll bow out now.

[yields]

1 minute ago, HUNT3R said:

I did exactly what Atletico did IN THAT EXTREME CIRCUMSTANCE. I defended EXTREMELY deep, like no one else does, not even Atletico apart from a rare case or two. I counter attacked quickly.

The winger was 1v1 vs your fullback, so clearly isn't "exactly". Anyone can pull back the strikers, can you make your team shift to the right to close down the space though?

 

1. Asking strikers to drop back is realistic, dropping them as AMs isn't with roles like "attacking midfielder" isn't.

2. Team shifting to the wing where the opposition attacks, isn't possible.

3. Pressing in certain situations isn't possible.

 

This is my first suggestion, and i'm shocked at the aggressive "against" / "you can do that" / "shutup" / "i did this" here.

I thought what i'm asking for is reasonable, apparently not.

 

FWIW, PES has this concept already, kinda sad that it does and FM doesn't, because FM is supposed to be focused on realism and tactics.

 

Thanks HUNT3R for giving me a warm welcome to the community /s

[HUNT3R]

6 minutes ago, yields said:

This is my first suggestion, and i'm shocked at the aggressive "against" / "you can do that" / "shutup" / "i did this" here.

I thought what i'm asking for is reasonable, apparently not.

 

FWIW, PES has this concept already, kinda sad that it does and FM doesn't, because FM is supposed to be focused on realism and tactics.

 

Thanks HUNT3R for giving me a warm welcome to the community /s

Don't twist things. You wanted something already in FM. Take Herne's advice, it's good advice. The last post especially.

 

And FWIW, I didn't say much about pressing because that's an area that can and should be expanded at some point.

[yields]

@herne79 

 

Fair enough, i already have a tactic that is similar to what atleti does, however there are still 2 points that no one has addressed, and i want to know if they're reasonable feature requests:

 

1. I'm not able to tell players when to press (when losing the ball, when chances of winning it are high), is this possible somehow? I think it will be cool addition, PES has gegenpressing setting for example, which is insanely cool.

2. My team doesn't shift to the flank properly like all teams do, you can see teams playing really narrow and shifting to the flank when defending in most games i think, i want them to stay narrow and shift with the ball.

 

In one of @HUNT3R pictures it's clear to see that the LB is left 1v1 vs the winger i think? this clearly doesn't happen in most games.

[herne79]

2 hours ago, yields said:

1. I'm not able to tell players when to press (when losing the ball, when chances of winning it are high), is this possible somehow? I think it will be cool addition, PES has gegenpressing setting for example, which is insanely cool.

Not really no and as @HUNT3R says, pressing is an area that can be improved.  Gegenpressing for example (as you mention it) isn't really possible at present in FM (just an approximation), although I wouldn't put too much emphasis on how other games show it - they can be more flash than substance rather than dynamically unfolding as FM's match engine does.

2 hours ago, yields said:

2. My team doesn't shift to the flank properly like all teams do, you can see teams playing really narrow and shifting to the flank when defending in most games i think, i want them to stay narrow and shift with the ball.

Not really sure what you're suggesting here.  If you want the entire defending team to move towards one flank, wouldn't that leave you exposed to a quick cross field pass to a runner on the opposite flank?  Or as you have mentioned Athletico are you thinking more along the lines of their "gutter ball", where they try to funnel attackers down the flanks and into dead ends?

[yields]

9 hours ago, herne79 said:

"gutter ball", where they try to funnel attackers down the flanks and into dead ends?

Exactly.

Since i'm playing really narrow, it is super easy to exploit the formation on the flank, especially with attacking wingbacks.

 

 

This video shows this behavior well, atleti is initially in the center, keeping narrow and compact, when barca tries to exploit atletico's right flank, atletico is already there, because they shift to the left as a unit

notice how barca cannot move the ball to the "free" right flank, since their players are pressurized and they can't even cross if they wanted to.

 

9 hours ago, herne79 said:

Not really no and as @HUNT3R says, pressing is an area that can be improved.  Gegenpressing for example (as you mention it) isn't really possible at present in FM (just an approximation), although I wouldn't put too much emphasis on how other games show it - they can be more flash than substance rather than dynamically unfolding as FM's match engine does.

 

Gotcha this makes sense, is SI transparent about features they're working on? wonder if they are working on it  

[herne79]

ok I understand thanks.  Yeh you're not going to get a perfect copy of gutter ball at the moment, although as @HUNT3R demonstrated you can have a fairly decent stab at it.  Not perfect and room for improvement, although the ME can be pretty flexible in allowing all sorts of extreme set ups if you delve deep enough and get creative.

We don't know exactly what SI are working on at any given time, but we do know they are constantly working on improving and enhancing the match engine.  Lets see what FM17 has in store for us.

I'll also mention one other point in that video you linked.  It also shows the problem Atleti face that we discussed above (and also seen in that Roma match I mentioned) - by having all theirs players so deep in their own half, when they clear the ball there is nobody in an advanced position, so possession is instantly lost again.  You can see this about half way through the video - Athletico clear the ball long and Barcelona simply regain possession.

[Fosse]

I think strikers (even if you fabt want them that deep in the defensive phase) should apply more pressure on players that have gone past them, it's like they give up once their line has been broken

[yields]

On 9/22/2016 at 12:39, herne79 said:

t also shows the problem Atleti face that we discussed above (and also seen in that Roma match I mentioned) - by having all theirs players so deep in their own half, when they clear the ball there is nobody in an advanced position, so possession is instantly lost again

I think it's because atletico were leading 1-0, so they didn't actually wanted to counter, basically just frustrate barcelona.

If you watched the game yesterday, you would have noticed how atletico tries to counter, quick short passing, which i managed to emulate to some extent.

Since the players are really close, it's easy to pass quickly and counter.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.