Concerning tactical issue

[lemeuresnew]

im not a coder or anything like that, so i dont really understand why this would be so hard to do. i get that it is hard, but in my head i think if the game can show a players having a bad game with an ass man message saying so, the ai can see they too. in the simplest of ways even

[Guest]

Never trust the assman feedback.

Among my favourites is the suggestion of putting in more crosses due my team winning losts of headers, problem being they are all defensive headers.

[lemeuresnew]

18 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

you might do so but the AI can't. besides it isn't so simple otherwise all the teams would defend the same way against the same offensive formation. since there aren't two same offensive formations you can't really do that. you can adapt your general approach more or less but you are limited with player's abilities and how your "new" approach differs from what your players are familiar with. and if opposition changes their attacking approach during the game and start flooding the center having constantly 5v4 advantage there you'd surely need to move that winger more central to help them out. therefore there are some good practices and experience that tells you how you defend in general. and, in general, it isn't with your winger standing alone near the byline in acres of space.

of course, if they are out numbering you, you can outnumber them as well

i get what you mean, but in general the only way to stop being outnumbered in one area of the field is to move players to help. if a winger wont do that from his position unfortunately you have to move them off the wing inside. it kind of sucks i guess, but i cant remember the last time i had to worry about it in the game. isnt this one of the reasons 4-4-2 s have dwindled in popularity. it isnt just a fm thing is it, a lot of people find it easier to just move there real life players than make a winger actually work on the pitch like they used to do in the old days

[lemeuresnew]

i dont mean to sound like an old man or like im defending a flaw in the game if that is how it sounds lol

[Guest]

That's okay, there's never anything wrong with having an opinion. I'm full of them.

[lemeuresnew]

1 minute ago, Barside said:

Never trust the assman feedback.

Among my favourites is the suggestion of putting in more crosses due my team winning losts of headers, problem being they are all defensive headers.

have you ever tried following every instruction? you go from short to direct to getting crosses in in the first 10 minutes...

but the guy is obviously analysing something, even if its wrong. so give the ai manager the same thing, if it thinks it sees a weakness i should change do some thing to it if i ignore my ass man

[MBarbaric]

2 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

of course, if they are out numbering you, you can outnumber them as well

i get what you mean, but in general the only way to stop being outnumbered in one area of the field is to move players to help. if a winger wont do that from his position unfortunately you have to move them off the wing inside. it kind of sucks i guess, but i cant remember the last time i had to worry about it in the game. isnt this one of the reasons 4-4-2 s have dwindled in popularity. it isnt just a fm thing is it, a lot of people find it easier to just move there real life players than make a winger actually work on the pitch like they used to do in the old days

don't know why you think that, most teams today defend in 4-4-2/4.1.4.1/4-4-1-1 formations and much better than in old days just not in FM.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, lemeuresnew said:

have you ever tried following every instruction? you go from short to direct to getting crosses in in the first 10 minutes...

but the guy is obviously analysing something, even if its wrong. so give the ai manager the same thing, if it thinks it sees a weakness i should change do some thing to it if i ignore my ass man

If the assman advice function was ever improved to look beyond stats in isolation I do think AI managers with the right attributes could provide a more realistic challenge as they'd use that same analytical code to adapt in a more dynamic & less predictable manner.

An idea worthy of its own thread in the features section.

[lemeuresnew]

Just now, MBarbaric said:

don't know why you think that, most teams today defend in 4-4-2/4.1.4.1/4-4-1-1 formations and much better than in old days just not in FM.

i read an interview with Shearer saying his team at Blackburn often played more like a 4-4-1-1, they just never cared about how a formation was labelled at the time

i think now a days you see a lot more defensive midfielders that arent expected to move much, where as before they were expected to be more dynamic in there play.  and you get a lot more strikers that are physically able to press them where as smokers and drinkers never really tried that for very long. its a lot faster game now lol

[lemeuresnew]

2 minutes ago, Barside said:

An idea worthy of its own thread in the features section.

sure it is there every year along with being able to spend your wages. know which i would prefer

[Rashidi]

28 minutes ago, lemeuresnew said:

im not a coder or anything like that, so i dont really understand why this would be so hard to do. i get that it is hard, but in my head i think if the game can show a players having a bad game with an ass man message saying so, the ai can see they too. in the simplest of ways even

I raised it before it's a lot harder. What the AI now does is actually a big improvement on what it used to do which was go Overload only. And that was usually = to a win for the human manager. In the match I played against Arsenal to SIs credit it didn't go beyond Control from what I could tell and it did change roles and duties in the 442 logically to get more players into attack. To make it more annoying for me it went fluid, which I didn't spot till late. To be honest it was the 84th min and I had thought the game would have been sewn up. It scored the equaliser and then hit me for the winner. 

It did change shape twice before which I spotted. This thread highlights things which are undeniable. There is still some work to do in certain areas of the pitch when it comes to wide defending but this is a tough area to fix.  Say we want the Wingers to drop back and defend all the time how far do they drop before they look like WM on support? Is there a way to get width and be defensively solid. Possible but you would need to use WMs since they do that already.  Is this ideal? The way they defend could be improved. Each time I want to say they should get goalside when defending I think of United in real life and Chris Smalling who is the one central defender who seems to fail at this. The match against Spurs today comes to mind. 

I am of the firm opinion that more can be done to make the AI even smarter at handling human managers. I do believe it's improved, but I reckon more can be done. And when this happens more people will scream their tactics have failed because the AI might become the ultimate tinkerman.

[Svenc]

6 hours ago, themadsheep2001 said:

It will be interesting to see what FM18 brings, plenty to do either way,

Keep the faith. What got the game to where FM 17 is? It's hard to track it all back. On FM 2011/2012 or thereabouts depending on which the AMC strata didn't hugely track back (idn't hurt that much though due to different player decision making apparently -- by FM 2015+ standards you'd had loads of easy counter attacks, I was surprised when firing that up again). Then on FM 2016 wide areas became a problem (how did that come about, also tweaked player decision making for better usage of those areas?). And on FM 2013........ yes this is 4-4-2.



I've always had a technical interest in this all, which is why I loved old patch notes going into everything (i.e. tuned positioning of d-line to slightly reduce the amount of long shots taken etc.). However precisely in those patch notes it became apparent how much SI really "hard code" specific things, in particular naturally positioning. It's just to overall balance the thing of a rather complex code. It would be possible to have 4-4-2s etc. line up differently, but at this stage the flanks are probably more vulnerable as they were on FM 2013 as a knock-on brought about by better movement into that area and passing decisions likely. Also curious: back then the deeper forward typically always got behind the ball, and then there was this (bottom shot, for a brief amount of time -- only available in a select amount of iterations). And with that, I am to this day not sure whether that was fully intentional for you to tweak, as that was pretty problematic, also with AI. Just shouldn't rush it though.

48 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

 

I am of the firm opinion that more can be done to make the AI even smarter at handling human managers. I do believe it's improved, but I reckon more can be done. And when this happens more people will scream their tactics have failed because the AI might become the ultimate tinkerman.

 

@Rashidi"If the AI ever gets close to mimicking the tactical concepts that we take for granted, then all hell will break loose in GQ as user after user struggles to deal with a properly competitive AI manager. " Classic wwfan, ca. FM2013/2014ish in the tactics forums. However I think PaulC stated multiple times that he didn't want this to be that tough that only the tactical sub communities would be able to deal with it... there's also a case to be made that different managers excel in different areas, just so long as they do some. Building really great squads at bargains, for one. Having a motivational plan that the players would die for his. Increasing the budgets by good wheeling and dealing. A combination of being above average (by the game's standard) in a few of those. And then there's the question whether the respective AI managers should excel in all of those.... or indeed, neither. Last time I checked most managers are as in any profession fairly average in their job and if Soccernomics is anything to go by, quite a few did make few difference to their clubs whatsoever. I think that's something even Paul/Ov would like, considering FM's core philosophy of a "football world" inhabited by quite a few guys -- and then there's you. Pity they're not much around here anymore.

[Rashidi]

1 hour ago, Svenc said:

"If the AI ever gets close to mimicking the tactical concepts that we take for granted, then all hell will break loose in GQ as user after user struggles to deal with a properly competitive AI manager.

I totally agree with this, the game should have some difficulty level thats "acceptable" to the masses. I do. believe that incremental improvements happen, so I am not pessimistic.

[MBarbaric]

8 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Say we want the Wingers to drop back and defend all the time how far do they drop before they look like WM on support? 

in football winger/inside forward/whichever wide role in defensive phase isn't winger/inside forward anymore. They become defenders (as well as strikers do). It is only in FM's construct that wingers are wingers all the time and I'd really like to understand the reasoning behind this repeated argument "wingers are wingers and wingers stay wide". 

The second part of the question is really revealing how flawed FM logic is compared to football it wants to mimic. winger/wide midfielder/inside forward... they look the same in defensive phase. how far they drop and what they actually do depends on how you really want to defend wide areas and how opposition attacks those areas. Does the winger double up the opponent together with his full back? or does the full back tuck inside covering center while letting the winger drop even deeper becoming a full back effectively? these players in wide positions become wingers,wide midfielders, inside forwards only when you have the ball. 

I don't say this is always like this as there are numerous variations and in certain situations you might want an IF to stay wide while defending for various reasons but that is more of an exception than a norm. 

8 hours ago, Rashidi said:

Is there a way to get width and be defensively solid.

no there isn't. in real, you don't want width when you defend. if you wanted width while defending it would mean you leave too wide gaps between your players that are too easily exploited by the opposition (as it happens in FM). the pitch is simply too big to to be defended equally in all zones with only 11 players. therefore, you make calculated risk and concede the less dangerous space to opposition while looking to compress the dangerous space. If opposition is able to escape from compressed zone then your defensive unit shifts towards the ball again and the process is repeated.

[themadsheep2001]

16 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

in football winger/inside forward/whichever wide role in defensive phase isn't winger/inside forward anymore. They become defenders (as well as strikers do). It is only in FM's construct that wingers are wingers all the time and I'd really like to understand the reasoning behind this repeated argument "wingers are wingers and wingers stay wide". 

The second part of the question is really revealing how flawed FM logic is compared to football it wants to mimic. winger/wide midfielder/inside forward... they look the same in defensive phase. how far they drop and what they actually do depends on how you really want to defend wide areas and how opposition attacks those areas. Does the winger double up the opponent together with his full back? or does the full back tuck inside covering center while letting the winger drop even deeper becoming a full back effectively? these players in wide positions become wingers,wide midfielders, inside forwards only when you have the ball. 

I don't say this is always like this as there are numerous variations and in certain situations you might want an IF to stay wide while defending for various reasons but that is more of an exception than a norm. 

no there isn't. in real, you don't want width when you defend. if you wanted width while defending it would mean you leave too wide gaps between your players that are too easily exploited by the opposition (as it happens in FM). the pitch is simply too big to to be defended equally in all zones with only 11 players. therefore, you make calculated risk and concede the less dangerous space to opposition while looking to compress the dangerous space. If opposition is able to escape from compressed zone then your defensive unit shifts towards the ball again and the process is repeated.

Somewhat linked here is the fact we don't properly see all 4 phases of attack and defence in FM,

[Guest El Payaso]

Here are some screenshots from my game against Manchester City. Only had interest to watch it for like 20 minutes on comprehensive before I became bored. During that Nasri was single handedly ruining City's defensive shape like 4-5 times by positioning like this. I don't know why Yuri was tucking so actively inside even though he is on FB(A) duty but fair play from him: going where the space exists. Also by watching this comprehensive stuff I think I could have easily exploited the right side as Firmino (9) wouldn't have followed Corchia there. 

Well Nasri was not the only issue for them as the general organizing of the middle of the park was a mess. Merino here is closed down too late and well we know which passing movement we produced. Stones allows Willian Jose take couple of touches with the ball and Oyarzabal escapes through on goal without any reaction by De Bruyne. Again this move started because of Nasri's positioning. because Yuri was able to create overload down the left side and by that pull the City midfield to pieces.

Well, City were not the only team having problems. I have beautifully highlighted the thing that Merino should be blocking here: the connection between Gündogan and Agüero. He has fair amount of time to do so here as Gündogan needs to beat Canales first here. I can forgive Canales this soft play as he isn't really a defensive play expert, well he is quite equally pacey as Gündogan so of course I would hope that a player in possession wouldn't beat him with the ball but I guess that he did something there. 

 

But the thing that Merino does is not acceptable here as he doesn't do anything. He is just loafing around behind Canales doing nothing and again here Agüero beats the centre backs with ease. This is why I constantly keep saying that defensive minded midfielders are not good enough in the game. Okay Merino is not the best possible defensive midfielder but this is really basic defensive midfielder work: protecting the defensive line by blocking that dangerous connection. 

So why I bring these up? Well the basic thing here is that the defensive positioning of the wingers is dragging the defending midfielders out of position is a big problem but it's certainly not the only problem. And for me that is why for me defending in the middle of the park has been a problem for several versions. 

I am a bit busy at the moment and because of that I have to only settle for couple of screenshots from a short period of a game. Might upload some more in the afternoon after I have ran my errands. 

And as you may notice: yes I always view the FM match engine in a split screen and that's because I always like to get the impression that there isn't that much time and space on the ball as the pitch seems smaller while the dots on the pitch don't really get that much smaller.

[themadsheep2001]

Not sure thats always true about the wide players pulling them out. Another thing to look at is central mids often being too close to each other, essentially blocking off the same lanes, and leaving areas open.

I should add screenshots arent the best because you can only see specific frames, rather than the overalll build up

[Rashidi]

1 hour ago, MBarbaric said:

the pitch is simply too big to to be defended equally in all zones with only 11 players. therefore, you make calculated risk and concede the less dangerous space to opposition while looking to compress the dangerous space.

Cant you do that already? I do it all the time, whether I play wide or narrow systems. I am still trying to understand this thread...

a. Is the AI incapable of defending well when playing wide systems?

b. Is the Ai incapable of defending well when it plays narrow systems?

c. Is the user incapable of defending well when playing wide?

d. Is the user incapable of defending well when playing narrow?

I know it sounds simplistic, but I feel like I need clarity. And to reiterate this, apart from @El Payaso , @Svenc and @Barside I haven't; seen anyone pop pkms in that thread that was linked earlier. If it indeed is an issue then the more pkms get loaded with timecode of where this is happening then the easier it is for an issue to get logged and reviewed by SI. I can easily stick up screenshots too, that show that its the opposite, that I can get 442s to defend well, but that doesn't help but infuriate those who feel there is an honest issue. My point is simply this, I have little to no issues with defending, what I have issues with is the AI not being able to defend against me.

[Guest El Payaso]

6 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Not sure thats always true about the wide players pulling them out. Another thing to look at is central mids often being too close to each other, essentially blocking off the same lanes, and leaving areas open.

I should add screenshots arent the best because you can only see specific frames, rather than the overalll build up

That is a correct claim that midfielders are often too close to each other and that is also part of the bad midfield organizing. 

What I noticed during those 30 minutes that I watched that the left full back of mine was constantly pulling their midfield in pieces as Nasri spent so much time just having a chat with the touchline and when he finally stepped inside they often forced my team to revert back to the halfway line. 

[westy8chimp]

Can't believe this has come up again... like it's a brand new conversation. The same people are even taking part. Defending, IRL, is far too varied to simply say "they should do X"... (you even gave an example of Den vs Spain where the winger stays wide) ... I was able to replicate Mourinhos back 6 vs Liverpool in FM,... and Scotlands 640 strikerless defence.

As Rashidi eludes to, if you choose a winger role, why worry/moan when he stays wide? There are other roles and instructions, or positions to defend how you want to.

The AI are, at times, especially in an isolated screenshot, vulnerable to be attacked through the middle...but they will react during the game to tweak roles & duties and remove that advantage.

In fact when I play 442 myself with wingers... I don't mind them staying wide, I quite often use the shouts to clear to flanks and pass into space ... so that when we turnover the ball my attacking wingers are a huge threat. My back 4 and 2 cms converge in a deep line.

You concede a lot of possession, but if you are playing 442 then you shouldn't be concerned about the opposition having 60% poss. likewise if you pack the middle and play narrow, you should expect more possession. It's meaningless.

I have a strikerless 4 1 2 3 narrow in my save and can still lose to a 442 tactic ... I quite often switch back to 41221 wide to break teams down because narrow formations can get too bogged down.

 

 

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, westy8chimp said:

The AI are, at times, especially in an isolated screenshot, vulnerable to be attacked through the middle...but they will react during the game to tweak roles & duties and remove that advantage.

 

They don't really. There's no fully proper way to react to this outside of changing formation outright, as when transitioning is over, anything with a severe man disadvantage in the middle is easily overloadable, even against a severe disadvantage in class. It is a repeat but here's why: The forwards don't provide compactness as they eventually retreat to the half way line from up front, and wide, well that's been covered. As a result, initially the deepest guys are free to recycle at will, which pulls the undermanned central midfield out of shape, making the other guys available for the passes etcetc. Hence all this season's exploit tactics. Hence matches were lower league opposition (AI vs AI too) not merely plays keep ball, but draws superior defenses out of shape with relative ease, until the point the centre back steps up (d-line is exctinct). And also why exploits report back with 50 shots no goal matches on the occasion when that obviously weak area is plugged some... by chance as the AI opponent stuffs the middle with its formation of edited choice/s dropping deep, and manages to hang on in there so never is forced to push up as it never concedes. Still looking for a couple of more pkms of that, as that is the most curious kind! Bear in mind there are always weak areas and thus exploits. Same as different teams defend differently, and it isn't that clear cut. But that the AI would really "adapt" here isn't much the case.

I can understand your position westy, as I wasn't all that hugely sussed about the "wide area" issue off previous, or the old corner bugs, or what have you -- in the grander scheme of things. I mean you could focus on it if you wanted to and then give them hell for it, or be annoyed some that arguably the AI late match overload played directly into this, when it overloaded the flanks with bombing full backs then not getting fully tracked proper. But it seemed as if the engine were at the core completely broken, which in fairness isn't in this case and wasn't before. Just think this has a far deeper impact than many things before, so worth monitoring. Plus this has raised some interesting new points about AI in general, thanks to @Rashidi... there's still two questions to consider: Does the ME overall provide a balanced experience? Secondly, does it play out like a football match would? I think in the former, overall more often than not, it does. In the latter, that is debatable, depending on which.

There is also a very important third one, also in terms of overall robustness, and feedback for SI: Is there any current obvious weak area into this that leads to such highly effective exploits and (random) rage quits? Resulting off it, wide-spread user impressions that the difference between a simple switch to another tactic would make all the difference between Champions League and relegation fight. Serious doubts whether it would be at all worth wile to consider basic football/team sports logics, considering that "illogical" tactics prove to be precisely making that difference. Plus the inevitably impression that simple patches / version switches would destroy "Perfectly valid" tactics. From my experience, a high amount of frustration is connected to this in some way or other on any version, and the feedback they get can wildly differ depending on how anybody would approach the game, which must make this difficult to filter, address and take the next steps. With any such obvious flaw that can be targeted either deliberately or by chance, any user feedback/review on anything ME related is at first to be approached with massively caution.

[Guest El Payaso]

32 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

Can't believe this has come up again... like it's a brand new conversation. The same people are even taking part. Defending, IRL, is far too varied to simply say "they should do X"... (you even gave an example of Den vs Spain where the winger stays wide) ... 

With all due respect I doubt that you are not someone who has an almighty rights to tell people here what to discuss about. I feel that this is all good stuff for the Dev-team of SI. And if you don't enjoy then don't participate or read it. You really haven't provided anything to the conversation here. 

And if there isn't a clear problem here then why has it been acknowledged by the Dev team and they're aiming to improve it in the future?

[westy8chimp]

Just now, El Payaso said:

With all due respect I doubt that you are not someone who has an almighty rights to tell people here what to discuss about. I feel that this is all good stuff for the Dev-team of SI. And if you don't enjoy then don't participate or read it. You really haven't provided anything to the conversation here. 

And if there isn't a clear problem here then why has it been acknowledged by the Dev team and they're aiming to improve it in the future?

You are providing nothing new... it's been 'being looked at' since the first release. Had the same whole conversation as this with MBarb.

Could every goal in real life not be questioned defensively? He should have blocked that pass... put him on his weaker foot, showed him outside, thrown himself in front of the shot, stayed on feet, pressed more, stayed on feet ...

There's a whole industry called 'punditry' pretty much based on highlighting defensive mistakes. It would be a very unrealistic, boring game.. if in your screenshots and accompanying commentary the defenders did everything perfectly. What would be the outcome? Merino is pressed, everyone else is marked? We'd then be raising 'bug' that strikers don't run into space (because there wouldn't be any), playmakers can't pass (because every passing lane would be blocked)

We had a massive debate months ago... and that the only real solution is more flexibility (i.e. setting zonal tactic instructions). This was raised as a feature request.

 

[Guest El Payaso]

17 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

Could every goal in real life not be questioned defensively? He should have blocked that pass... put him on his weaker foot, showed him outside, thrown himself in front of the shot, stayed on feet, pressed more, stayed on feet ...

Yes but there is a clear difference in errors between 'trying to do the right thing' instead of doing something mindless. For example against strikers I'm more than willing to see my centre backs trying to engage for the first ball and the striker then beating him instead of allowing a free collect and from there either dribble past the defender or freely setting up the runner from midfield. 

For example in here Stones not letting Willian Jose take all the time he wants with the ball but instead staying tight and forcing Willian Jose to make a hasty decision and if that hasty decision that Willian Jose makes here is the right one that creates something then it's fine: at least Stones tried to defend. And also it's fine for Oyarzabal to score from here set by Willian Jose if De Bruyne tried to follow Oyarzabal but was simply beaten by the more pacy midfielder. 

But what here is not okay is that Stones is letting Willian Jose to perform with freedom and De Bruyne makes no effort to follow his man. And those two things make defending look unrealistically poor. And this is not the only area on the pitch where this applies. 

[westy8chimp]

Nasri looks out of place... but to me it looks like City aren't playing 442 ...but 4231 or 4123 ... in which case Nasri will be in AMR slot (not part of the defensive phase)

The main culprit in that screenshot seems to be De Bruyne... his positioning there is bad... and from the passing line and description you have given, he then compounded the issue by not tracking back.

Your playmaker has spotted the best opportunity and played a nice pass.

The striker holds up the ball (possibly a PI? Or role based preference? Or simply just the right attributes for it)

at this stage, the ME cannot display proper "pressing" or "jostling" so it may look like Stones is allowing him free time

The passing lane is open due to KDB not retreating so to me it's just a nice goal.

I'd like to see the highlight to know why the City LB doesn't get to the through ball before your attacker... does he try? Or stay marking your Wide Right? If he stays marking then that should be a bigger concern than anything Nasri has done in that phase.

Also on KDB ... he is the culprit, but I don't see it as a defective ME. My guess would be he has a fairly aggressive role, most likely either AP (s/a) combined with his poor defensive attributes... it's natural for him to be the weakness in this phase.

[Guest El Payaso]

@westy8chimp I made an awful quality video with some screen recording program that limited me to 5 minutes of recording. So it's basically extended highlights with awful quality and some of the highlights cut short. It's not showing all the mistakes that were shown in comprehensive but I will try to make a better one. Worst example about Nasri is around 2 minutes of time. 

 

[Guest]

TBH I do not have an issue with the way City's AML/AMR are not helping all that much, that should be the compromise when using a player in the advanced wide position.

The one at 2 minutes in makes perfect sense as the AMR starts a run for counter & is left in no-man's land when possession is lost on the edge of the area.

[westy8chimp]

I'm not seeing how this ties in to the OP or overall issue of wide defending.

1) Nasri is definitely playing in the AMR slot (not inclined to be part of the defensive phase)

2) I suspect ... City are playing an aggressive mentality (making Nasri take even more risk.. and he is possibly individually set to an Attack role too)

3) the majority of highlights are City attacking... so reading between the lines, they aren't massively struggling to retain/win back the ball

 

the highlight at 4.13 shows that when City lose the ball... he tracked back to about the half way line... when he stops ..the defense then press... win the ball and the City front 3 are in good positions to attack and win a corner.

The moment at 2 minutes is from a set piece... commonly terrible defending... by default he is thrown into the back line... all he is doing once the set piece is taken is running forward to his default attacking AMR slot (which is his defensive position based on the formation)

[Guest El Payaso]

31 minutes ago, Barside said:

The one at 2 minutes in makes perfect sense as the AMR starts a run for counter & is left in no-man's land when possession is lost on the edge of the area.

Come to think about you might be right about that. Although City never win the possession back and Yuri would be a real danger there if someone decided to play the ball to him. With the limitations I had with the recording I couldn't pick up a great example on that one but I can try to provide something. Not thinking of starting a career on YouTube though as my content would be really boring as I totally refuse to talk and explain things on those videos.

 

[MBarbaric]

this is an example from @El Payaso video above what is wrong with wide player's positioning. I just took first half minute and it happened to be AI in possession but the behaviour is largely the same for human or AI. The quality of video is really poor but you'll get the idea.

 

 

[HemHat]

7 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

this is an example from @El Payaso video above what is wrong with wide player's positioning. I just took first half minute and it happened to be AI in possession but the behaviour is largely the same for human or AI. The quality of video is really poor but you'll get the idea.

 

 

Left back doesn't cover himself in glory there though. In that situation, if the midfield haven't slid across, I would expect the winger to hold up the player with the ball, and if he plays it down the wing to the full back on the overlap, the lb should be in position to cover.

[MBarbaric]

32 minutes ago, HemHat said:

Left back doesn't cover himself in glory there though. In that situation, if the midfield haven't slid across, I would expect the winger to hold up the player with the ball, and if he plays it down the wing to the full back on the overlap, the lb should be in position to cover.

all you say is right, however, it all comes after the fact that the winger is left alone against two players and actually did very well to keep his position without pressing as that would immediately trigger 2v1 advantage (KUDOS to ME). This way he bought enough time for defence to readjust and get deeper as white team progresses down the flank.

[westy8chimp]

1 hour ago, MBarbaric said:

this is an example from @El Payaso video above what is wrong with wide player's positioning. I just took first half minute and it happened to be AI in possession but the behaviour is largely the same for human or AI. The quality of video is really poor but you'll get the idea.

 

 

the trouble is you are expecting them to have done it before the pass has happened ... if you look at the movement the split moment before you paused it, and the very moment after and there on... you will realise that the unit is shifting over.

Crude illustration below mapping the CM movement. At 7 seconds, 10 seconds, 45 seconds respectively.

The movement very quickly (barring the pause) takes him from in line with centre spot, to in line with semi-circle meeting halfway ... right over to in line with the penalty box vertical.

Edit - sorry just finished the vid and saw the second example... this look far worse. But as said above.. this will be directly related to his role and duty. The formation is your defence... if he is in AMR + Wing role + attack duty (or attacking TI mentality) then he has no business tracking back. That would be a WM support or defensive winger... or a wing support on very fluid etc

And we don't know any of the TI/PI applied to that player at that time

[MBarbaric]

22 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

 as said above.. this will be directly related to his role and duty. The formation is your defence... if he is in AMR + Wing role + attack duty (or attacking TI mentality) then he has no business tracking back. That would be a WM support or defensive winger... or a wing support on very fluid etc

And we don't know any of the TI/PI applied to that player at that time

only TI in real that would make him stand so wide would be to mark the full back/winger, otherwise by default he+d be inside together with the rest of the defensive unit. in FM that is the other way around.

the formation in fm might really be the defensive positioning but that makes the whole thing worse as there is no 4-2-3-1 defensive shape in defensive phase unless you are high up the pitch trying to press high. in own half nobody defends within 4-2-3-1 shape. some players might be excluded from defensive duties and occupy higher position but that is an exception. it is specific instruction that overrides  the default defensive behaviour and normally teams offset that with other players making up for it. otherwise you'd have constant overload in that area.

what i am trying to say is that defending concepts in the game are very vaguely represented to a point that they don't only look unnatural but hurt the gameplay as it allows varius exploits and unrealistic behaviour that should be aknowledged and worked on. you, or anyone else doesn't need to believe me and that is perfectly fine. but try to find some person who knows tactis from something more than just watching football. or google FA textbooks. i don't know where SI gets their advice on defensive positioning but this is plain wrong and it is random 30 seconds of a random match. it repeats over and over on AI and human side which suggests it is hard coded and intended, not a bug. lets make FM great again

 

[Guest]

I have to disagree about AML/R defensive behaviour, for me their first thought should always be to stay out of the way & look to exploit counter opportunities.

One of the worst ME decisions PaulC has made was to give in to community pressure & have players in those advanced wide areas be too honest in tracking back, imho that decision has had more negative knock-ons than any other bit of ME coding.

[MBarbaric]

2 hours ago, Barside said:

I have to disagree about AML/R defensive behaviour, for me their first thought should always be to stay out of the way & look to exploit counter opportunities.

that is always an option and it should be in the game. a team that is expected to win and faces all opponents that sit deep rarely arriving to positional attack game in game out . however, when two similar teams meet and opposition is regularly in middle/attacking third with seven players i don't think that would work long term and don't remember seeing a team playing that way by default certainly not for whole season or even match.

could you give an example where you've seen it, who did it? how does that setup mitigate for three players who "stay out of the way"?

[Guest El Payaso]

5 hours ago, Barside said:

I have to disagree about AML/R defensive behaviour, for me their first thought should always be to stay out of the way & look to exploit counter opportunities.

One of the worst ME decisions PaulC has made was to give in to community pressure & have players in those advanced wide areas be too honest in tracking back, imho that decision has had more negative knock-ons than any other bit of ME coding.

Well they certainly aren't doing too good of a backtracking and are switching off regularly. Also if they didn't track back then overlaps would be even more devastating than they currently are. Basically with the current system teams can freely wait with the ball down the flank or in the middle for the overlap and eventually play the ball there and get a free cross. 

In general I would hope that it would be possible to see more dynamic defensive movement where players actively shift to areas where they are needed and by that it would look like the attacking side is in a hurry to move the ball around to retain possession. 

[lemeuresnew]

4 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

that is always an option and it should be in the game. a team that is expected to win and faces all opponents that sit deep rarely arriving to positional attack game in game out . however, when two similar teams meet and opposition is regularly in middle/attacking third with seven players i don't think that would work long term and don't remember seeing a team playing that way by default certainly not for whole season or even match.

could you give an example where you've seen it, who did it? how does that setup mitigate for three players who "stay out of the way"?

messi suarez neymar lol

lots of teams dont defend any deeper than they have too. for instance, liverpool defend and press in the opposition half for hours at a time. they dont 'stay away', but i they dont get back in a traditional sense  either. west ham last week against spurs, there forwards only defended from the front for a lot of the game, stopping spurs playing rather than defending in the more traditional sense. any team that has a ballotelli or nasri pairing together. could go on for hours

[Guest]

WHS^

There are plenty of examples at the top level & the teams who can successfully cope with having less defensively active wide players do so on the back of being able to sustain defensive pressure higher up the pitch & have a central unit (CB/CM) who have high level football intelligence to anticipate & deal with counter attacks.

Teams that do not have the required abilities either fall short & become known for consistently dropping points in matches they statistically dominate, lose with a reputation of being entertaining or drop their wide players to the midfield line & to link it to the OP are more likely focus the defensive positioning more centrally & in extreme cases surrender the flanks entirely.

[MBarbaric]

defending from front, defending in the middle third and defensive third are all different and teams have different approaches to each of these zones. not liverpool nor barcelona defend without wingers dropping off when opposition is in attacking zone by default.

LIVERPOOL DEFENSIVE THIRD ORGANIZATION: plain zonal against Chelsea with medium block

how could liverpool cope with Chelsea attacking with 8 men without wingers dropping? they'd be overrun.

 

BARCELONA DEFENSIVE ORGANIZATION IN MIDDLE THIRD: zonal with high block

Same with Barcelona, how coul they cope with 8 opposition players if Suarez/Messi/Neymar simply shut off when Sevilla had the ball?

 

I really encourage you to take a look in the next game you watch. don't look at the ball but concentrate on what happens around the ball, how players withuot the ball move. distingusih between zones on the pitch and observe how different team works defensively in different zones.

liverpool employs counterpressing in offensive third but they don't always get the ball back. in fact, most of the time they don't. once the opposition is able to evade the press, they do come back in defensive shape with minimum 8 players to defend positional attacks. to say neymar or suarez don't come back is plain wrong. only messi in that team has some slack but even he is either coming back to cover the pasisng lanes or has someone else covering for him. neymar and suarez make great defensive work.

west ham did great against tottenham defending high up the pitch in order to disrupt ball distribution and impede tottenham from developing their game. but most of the time they defended deep with man oriented pressing and certainly in numbers. 

WEST HAM DEF ORG IN DEFENSIVE THIRD: Man oriented zonal marking, medium/deep block

there simply aren't teams that leave more than two players (more likely one if teams are equal) without defensive duty in top football as a continuous strategy. that might be so in lower leagues or 30,40 years ago and in football manager.

[Rashidi]

52 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

liverpool employs counterpressing in offensive third but they don't always get the ball back. in fact, most of the time they don't. once the opposition is able to evade the press, they do come back in defensive shape with minimum 8 players to defend positional attacks.

Erm, no. You make it sound like Liverpool always get back with a minimum of 8 behind the ball. This hardly happens, in fact the issue with Liverpool is where they fail to get back to In large part it is caused by Liverpools counter pressing style sees them play with a pushed up defensive line, and it nearly always doesn't work against teams that sit back. It is a risk they take.  When they played against Bournemouth, the weaknesses of the system were more than clearly shown when they conceded goals from 2 failed attacks, one was a deep counter launched over their left flank, when Milner was out of position, following a failed transition. And in another the ball was played quickly through the middle when Emre Can fell in a heap and took all of 3 minutes to get up. 

In some matches Liverpool opts not to play with a high line, and in these matches Milner checks his forward runs. Against Chelsea Liverpool played differently. In matches where Liverpool have been successful, they have employed a strategy of overloading the centre, with quick passing between the lines to break a sides defensive block, by doing so they force other sides into narrow configurations, leaving space for Clyne and Milner to bomb down the flanks. When they played United, Mourinho created the blueprint to beat sides like Liverpool which was to sit back narrow, and create a defensive block. Wingers dropped into their defensive line to produce horizontal coverage. This essentially created an elaborate man marking system. When this happens they stifle Liverpools strategy of overloading the centre.

After Liverpools vulnerabilities were shown, if I remember the game correctly, their strategy changed. 

Granted there are several issues with the current engine, we can't create blocks of players that defend in packs in certain areas of the pitch. We can however change the way we play within the same game to do a high press and a low block, that is possible to a certain extent.  To do that effectively managers need to be a able to create defensive line traps in the game using closing down and defensive lines creatively with shape and mentality. We don't have a specific button to press in the game that says...group 1 do this and group 2 do that. However creating specific zonal marking patterns isn't really possible nor are creating pre-designed wolf pack closing down patterns ie.by telling specific players on the pitch where they should close down hard and when they should release the press is also not possible. There have been suggestions in the past to create zonal area specific instructions.  

Personally I want to see the AI become hard to play against by making sure the zonal marking patterns in the game are improved, as far as getting back X number of players behind the defensive line, that is already possible. I just want to see the AI use more aggressive defensive strategies when it needs to, much like how Mourino stifled Klopp.

[westy8chimp]

16 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

the formation in fm might really be the defensive positioning but that makes the whole thing worse as there is no 4-2-3-1 defensive shape in defensive phase

exactly. and I think last time we had this discussion we had some common agreement from all parties that it shouldn't be a 'defensive shape' should either be dealt with in sections or attack/defence phase... or more TI/PI to have clearer instruction on defending. But where it may fall down is then a total rebuild on how AI is coded to learn new tactics.. so think it will be baby steps for a few years before we see that.

- furthermore on the defensive shape... it does beg the question why so many players preferred position is so high up the pitch, when most players do contribute to defence (except maybe the Hazards and Neymars of the world) ...it's very unclear from SI .. and if you picked up the game for the first time without coming on the forum... you would naturally end up with very aggressive tactics basing players in their best position and role. i.e. at Arsenal you would most likely have a 4231 wide ... Sanchez IF (a) Giroud TM (s) Walcott Wing (a) Ozil AM (AP s) ... rather than a 4510 for instance.

 

[westy8chimp]

56 minutes ago, Rashidi said:

Granted there are several issues with the current engine, we can't create blocks of players that defend in packs in certain areas of the pitch. We can however change the way we play within the same game to do a high press and a low block, that is possible to a certain extent

I'd absolutely love, as a small step forward, a TI much like width and dline... where you are able to set a pressing line.

Yes you can set various individuals to high, medium or low press to create block/hold/block/hold situation... but I'd love to be able to say to my players ... I want a high block from my attackers...but I want them to only engage when the ball reaches the half way line. Let them play out of defence all day long, second it reaches half way I want my 5 advanced players hounding the ball. Rodgers did it a lot for Liverpool against teams that play a passing game such as Arsenal.

To do that now I have to have 5 men in the midfield on high blocking... if I set a striker or AM on high press they chase the CBs and FBs.

A TI for pressing zone could simply be the pitch divided into X amount of areas (e.g. 5) with a high or low option in each section.

Once you set your pressing 'line/area/zone' you then use PI to select who your 'pressers' are

then going forward... the ability to have multi pressing zone with different players performing the press dependant on the zone.

[MBarbaric]

1 hour ago, Rashidi said:

Erm, no. You make it sound like Liverpool always get back with a minimum of 8 behind the ball. This hardly happens, in fact the issue with Liverpool is where they fail to get back to In large part it is caused by Liverpools counter pressing style sees them play with a pushed up defensive line, and it nearly always doesn't work against teams that sit back. It is a risk they take.

it would be interesting to see an analysis how many chances Liverpool created due to their counterpress and how many they conceded. However, we talk about two different phases in defense here. While some teams don't engage in it at all, liverpool defends from front and use counterpress in attacking third. this is risk they take as you say. However, on opposition positional attacks they, as everyone else in general, do get back.

i don't know which bournemouth match you were talking about as the first one (this season) in December Bou scored once on counter attack, penalty, free kick and scramble in the box after long shot. The second played in April Bou scored after backpass to GK was intercepted in the box and, again, after a scramble in the box following the long shot. I just picked random screenshot of Liverpool in their half when Bournemouth is in positional attack and again... 

it seems to me we speak about different phases of defence in different zones. positional attacks of opposition show defensive shape of defending team in their half, i.e. the above screenshot of liverpool against Bournemouth. Different principles apply for different zones (attacking, middle and defensive third). FM fails largely in all of them but the base for defending is defence inside own half. It has some strict rules that one can see in all screenshots i've pasted wheter it is within 4-1-4-1/4-4-2/or whichever defensive shape. in general it is short and narrow and then managers, as you rightly pointed out with Mourinho, adapt to opposition if they have the squad, time and ability to do. What bugs me about FM is that this basic principles aren't implemented and they create problems within ME for AI and human player although human can do much more.

I don't think I've even touched the defending from front (attacking third and high middle third) as that is whole new debate that is useless to talk about until the basics aren't sorted out.

I hate being pain in the arse but I have an impression whoever does the tactical side of the ME has either little clue how that works in real or has serious problems implementing it in the game. either way it is not good for a product that markets itself as most realistic football simulation. 

1 hour ago, Rashidi said:

as far as getting back X number of players behind the defensive line, that is already possible.

It is to an extent, but it involves deeper understanding of tactics from user and AI doesn't benefit while in real, it should be default in the ME so AI can benefit from it. Until then, user will be able to somewhat replicate that, but the AI will never be able to do it.

As westychimp says, the whole premisse od defensive formation - player natural positions, show this confusion that spills over into match engine with defensive organization being out of place as well.

[westy8chimp]

32 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

Until then, user will be able to somewhat replicate that, but the AI will never be able to do it.

yes... it would be worse if an over complex system is churned out (for users to exploit) without the AI intelligence being on the same 'learning curve' so to speak.

Example:

I want my left back to be able to not press (instead, cover runs or passing lanes) up till the point a winger breaks past the penalty area horizontal line... but then close down heavily to prevent the cross. Now this could be a pressing zone instruction... or even more granular as a "prevent crosses from byline/[or deep]" PI. This means the opponent can try a 'through needle pass' or run through the channel (between CB and FB) or cross from deep (into a more congested area because my FBs are narrow) ... but cant easily cross from the byline or just play an early one-two around my fullback (because he is pressing too early, too singularly).

But I don't want to be able to do that if the AI cant.

 

[MBarbaric]

4 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

yes... it would be worse if an over complex system is churned (for users to exploit) without the AI intelligence being on the same 'learning curve' so to speak.

Example I want my left back to be able to not press (instead, cover runs or passing lanes) up till the point a winger breaks past the penalty area horizontal line... but then close down heavily to prevent the cross. Now this could be a pressing zone instruction... or even more granular as a "prevent crosses" PI. But I don't want to be able to do that if the AI cant.

 

That's why i stopped playing with full backs on FM16

some things will always be on disposition to human player as I don't think anyone can take into account all the possibilities. however, it is important the ME is capable of replicating basic football behaviour as that alone would already prevent (or at least minimize) crossing exploit in FM 16 and central overload in FM17.

[Guest El Payaso]

E: probably not the right thread for this.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, MBarbaric said:

That's why i stopped playing with full backs on FM16

I stopped using players in full/wing back position towards the end of FM15 due to the lack of defensive engagement in the opposition half is a killer.

[Rashidi]

2 minutes ago, Barside said:

I stopped using players in full/wing back position towards the end of FM15 due to the lack of defensive engagement in the opposition half is a killer.

ditto

[sirgiorgio]

3 hours ago, westy8chimp said:

furthermore on the defensive shape... it does beg the question why so many players preferred position is so high up the pitch, when most players do contribute to defence (except maybe the Hazards and Neymars of the world) ...it's very unclear from SI .. and if you picked up the game for the first time without coming on the forum... you would naturally end up with very aggressive tactics basing players in their best position and role. i.e. at Arsenal you would most likely have a 4231 wide ... Sanchez IF (a) Giroud TM (s) Walcott Wing (a) Ozil AM (AP s) ... rather than a 4510 for instance.

Spot on. And it shows how "organic" FM is, and how wrong and misleading it is to try and analyze one aspect of the game as it was isolated from the others.

20 hours ago, Barside said:

One of the worst ME decisions PaulC has made was to give in to community pressure & have players in those advanced wide areas be too honest in tracking back, imho that decision has had more negative knock-ons than any other bit of ME coding.

I don't think he gave in to community pressure; I think he gave the chance to anyone (AI included!) to build decent tactics using "players in those advanced wide areas". There are thousands of them in the DB; there are hundreds of AI managers who have their preferred formation set as 4231 or 433. What other choice did they have? Rebuild the database and the tactical interface from scratch because it didn't fit the ME?

I'd say that, in theory, 4231 and 4411 are two ways to describe the same formation, it's the players in those advanced wide areas who can turn a 4411 into a 4231 and vice versa, depending on a number of factors: their manager's style of play, their own style of play, their opponents, and so on...

To say "no player in that position does that" or "every player in that position does that" means to ignore that every player is different, has his own strenghts and weaknesses and is asked to do different things by his manager (sometimes over the course of the same match). We may want to see more variety, but then again, the ME is only a part of the equation.