[Suggestion] With Ball and Without Ball tactical interfaces and VAR

[LuísdeAlmeida]

For me there are two things of absolute importance, even thought the 2nd one is a big/major change to the current tactical interface:

1. The introduction of VAR (Video Assistant Referee) in the game, and as much as it sounds indifferent, I really think that it's an upgrade to the current status of the game, since even in my current save in FM17 I had some offsides, penaltys and fouls that were badly judged on or not even given (and it's also a reality in some leagues now, e.g. the Portuguese League);
2. The reintroduction of the With Ball and Without Ball formations and strategies in the tactical interface (this was something that, at least, both Championship Manager 01/02 and 03/04 had). [image below]

I know it's not going to happen, but I think it would add a more realistic feeling when playing the game.

[Spedding]

With the var they'll still have to code in mistakes as currently there's been instances the var getting things wrong as well

[LuísdeAlmeida]

34 minutes ago, Spedding said:

With the var they'll still have to code in mistakes as currently there's been instances the var getting things wrong as well

Yeah, you're right :/

But still, it could give the players a tiny bit of a more realistic view in terms of the technology in football as we're already seeing nowadays...

 

Also, what do you think about the 2nd wish (With Ball and Without Ball tactical interface)?

[V.K.]

I agree with the 2d wish.

[forameuss]

There's little doubt in my mind that the ME behind the scenes in 01/02 wasn't taking everything into account with the with and without ball.  Funnily enough, all that stuff was pared back as soon as you were allowed to visualise what was going on on the pitch.  I'm not saying it was a placebo with no effect, but I find it very hard to believe you had that fine-grained control.

With and without ball is already covered as far as I know.  Your base formation is without the ball and your instructions modify to what you're going to do with the ball.  Make that a bit clearer and there's no need to have two phases like suggested.

[MBarbaric]

with and without ball instructions area vital for game to progress in tactical sense. it is the way coaches coach their players in real (rather than giving them roles  ). how could ME cope with that is another question.

[Cougar2010]

1 hour ago, MBarbaric said:

with and without ball instructions area vital for game to progress in tactical sense. it is the way coaches coach their players in real (rather than giving them roles  ). how could ME cope with that is another question.

A lot of with/without ball instructions are already there and never left, they just don't have a big flashing neon sign at the top of them.

You of all people should know this already.

[LuísdeAlmeida]

2 hours ago, forameuss said:

There's little doubt in my mind that the ME behind the scenes in 01/02 wasn't taking everything into account with the with and without ball.  Funnily enough, all that stuff was pared back as soon as you were allowed to visualise what was going on on the pitch.  I'm not saying it was a placebo with no effect, but I find it very hard to believe you had that fine-grained control.

With and without ball is already covered as far as I know.  Your base formation is without the ball and your instructions modify to what you're going to do with the ball.  Make that a bit clearer and there's no need to have two phases like suggested.

Ok,  I accept that the current tactics already let you employ some control over the player's positioning (even though it's really difficult to create something like a precise Gegenpress or other real-life tactics that work a lot over the positioning of the players when off-the-ball) but like Mbarbaric says:

2 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

with and without ball instructions area vital for game to progress in tactical sense. it is the way coaches coach their players in real (rather than giving them roles  ). how could ME cope with that is another question.

It's definitely this that made me want this change, 'cause nowadays managers work on positioning much more than just saying "you're going to cut left as a inside forward" or "you're going to play on the center of the field as a playmaker" or whatever, they coach their players into going to specific regions of the field when with or without ball possession. You have a lot of coaches that find this to be vital: Jorge Jesus, Julian Nagelsmann, David Wagner and so on.

[LuísdeAlmeida]

1 hour ago, Cougar2010 said:

A lot of with/without ball instructions are already there and never left, they just don't have a big flashing neon sign at the top of them.

You of all people should know this already.

They're still a bit limited.

[Cougar2010]

1 minute ago, LuísdeAlmeida said:

Still, they're a bit limited.

They are pretty much the same as when the With/Without separate options were in the game several years ago.

The bottom line is players never have & never will play two positions during a match.  They play one position and follow offensive & defensive instructions.

Too many people get fixated on position when in practice the positions on the pitch in FM are more areas for the players to work in.

[LuísdeAlmeida]

1 hour ago, Cougar2010 said:

They are pretty much the same as when the With/Without separate options were in the game several years ago.

The bottom line is players never have & never will play two positions during a match.  They play one position and follow offensive & defensive instructions.

Too many people get fixated on position when in practice the positions on the pitch in FM are more areas for the players to work in.

You're saying that in FM it's different. But that's the thing, the main purpose of the game it's to be the closest thing to reality.

I totally understand your view, but, at least for me, this would bring a bit more to the game from a tactical perspective. If, and only if, it could effect the game (not like in CM 01/02, which can be debatable).

[Cougar2010]

10 minutes ago, LuísdeAlmeida said:

You're saying that in FM it's different.

NO, I'm saying that FM is exactly the same as RL in that regard.

Players don't play two positions because that would be impossible.  They are given a general area of the field to work in and then given tactical instructions by the manager for how he/she wants them to play.

[herne79]

I agree that certain tactical instructions could be clearer. 

Take the chalkboard formation for example - that's the team's defensive formation, but it isn't clear.  In fact it could even be interpreted as the attacking formation because the 11 positions displayed cover the entire pitch.  Set up a 4231 and your striker is positioned around the top penalty box, AMC/L/R not much further back and the 2 central midfielders on the half way line.  That doesn't sound like very "defensive positioning" to me.  But a simple change could fix that: instead of displaying the entire pitch, just display half the pitch.  If we see that, suddenly your striker is on the half way line and everyone else in formation inside their own half.  Much better when trying to show defensive positioning.  And label it accordingly.

In terms of having the actual ability to set attacking strategies?  I don't know, it all sounds a bit complicated to me.  I never played these older versions of the game so have grown up (if you will) using the tactics creator and playing with roles / duties.  From what I see of the screenshots above, to me the Match Engine is perfectly capable of doing that sort of thing all by itself, especially if tactical settings are used to their full effect.  Why draw strategies to focus play down one wing (which those screenshots seem to be doing?) when you can just give a team instruction to focus play down a flank and/or set appropriate player roles / duties (eg., a wide playmaker) to encourage that behaviour?

So for me, improving the clarity of in game descriptions would certainly be welcome but I remain unconvinced about having to spend time drawing up attacking strategies when I can do it in 2 clicks with the TC.

[LuísdeAlmeida]

33 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

NO, I'm saying that FM is exactly the same as RL in that regard.

Oh, I get it. You're saying position as "AMC" or "MC", I though that you were talking about "positioning", that people get too much fixated on positioning. So, in that regard, i do agree with you, position is really not important, it's the movements you ask your players to do.

 

39 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Players don't play two positions because that would be impossible.  They are given a general area of the field to work in and then given tactical instructions by the manager for how he/she wants them to play.

Even so, I would much prefer to work with a more graphical interface. And with this, I'm not saying that individual instructions should desappear, they totally shouldn't, but in terms of movements you ask your players to do, it would be much more precise to coach them, almost, by small areas on the field (like real-life managers do in training).

[enigmatic]

It would make some of sense for SI to resurrect WIBL/WOBL as a view, even if in practice it's just showing the standard behaviour of players in a tactical system and modified only by role/formation/mentality changes. (At the very least, there should be arrows on the formation layout to indicate general direction of player movement implied by the formation/role/instructions)

But the other issue with WIBL/WOBL beyond the ability to create exploit-y behaviour is that it'll generate a lot of complaints from users furious that their players aren't positioning themselves where the screens say they are (because IRL as well as in a simulation, players instructed to generally hug the touchline will sometimes make off the ball runs inside, and defenders instructed to cover near posts will sometimes follow their marker)

[LuísdeAlmeida]

2 hours ago, enigmatic said:

It would make some of sense for SI to resurrect WIBL/WOBL as a view, even if in practice it's just showing the standard behaviour of players in a tactical system and modified only by role/formation/mentality changes. (At the very least, there should be arrows on the formation layout to indicate general direction of player movement implied by the formation/role/instructions)

Ok, that's also an interesting idea! We could see the effects of our personalizations.

 

2 hours ago, enigmatic said:

But the other issue with WIBL/WOBL beyond the ability to create exploit-y behaviour is that it'll generate a lot of complaints from users furious that their players aren't positioning themselves where the screens say they are (because IRL as well as in a simulation, players instructed to generally hug the touchline will sometimes make off the ball runs inside, and defenders instructed to cover near posts will sometimes follow their marker)

I truly think that's not a relevant problem, because it's like you've said, IRL that's what happens (there's always a percentage of randomness or wildness in a player movement but most of the times, the more intelligent a player is, the more he can strickly follow what the manager asks, and, in that regard, you have lots and lots of examples from IRL players, which are known for being very loyal to the manager's requests).

Let's not forget that the randomness/wildness of a player's movement still happens with the current way of exploiting the positioning in the game, BUT you don't have a really closed and detailed approach, which I'm proposing. 

[enigmatic]

3 hours ago, LuísdeAlmeida said:

I truly think that's not a relevant problem, because it's like you've said, IRL that's what happens (there's always a percentage of randomness or wildness in a player movement but most of the times, the more intelligent a player is, the more he can strickly follow what the manager asks, and, in that regard, you have lots and lots of examples from IRL players, which are known for being very loyal to the manager's requests).

Let's not forget that the randomness/wildness of a player's movement still happens with the current way of exploiting the positioning in the game, BUT you don't have a really closed and detailed approach, which I'm proposing. 

The trouble is that a closed and detailed approach is the exact opposite of random wildness.

Either a player usually moves to the spot you pick out on a pitch when the ball is in a certain area of the field or they make a variety of decisions based on the situation around them and a general idea their role means they get forward often or run wide with the ball or man mark.

Most of the time the optimum behaviour for a particular player isn't to move to a particular position on the pitch based on a general idea of where the ball is, and because there usually isn't a particular spot a player should mostly run to, it's not sensible for the UI to ask game-players to choose which spot they should mostly run to.

And even if it's completely realistic, people playing FM find it frustrating if the interface gives them the option to ask players to do something and they very rarely do it. This is an issue even with minor things like goalkeepers often not following their distribution instructions; just imagine how annoyed players are going to be when their fullback usually fails to make the miraculous covering run they've asked for, or when they notice their goal-shy striker is too busy trying to be onside to stand at the neat little space at the back post that was picked out for them.

[LuísdeAlmeida]

On ‎08‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 21:29, enigmatic said:

The trouble is that a closed and detailed approach is the exact opposite of random wildness.

Either a player usually moves to the spot you pick out on a pitch when the ball is in a certain area of the field or they make a variety of decisions based on the situation around them and a general idea their role means they get forward often or run wide with the ball or man mark.

In this case, you cannot say that it's the exact opposite. The only thing I'm trying to say is that, IRL as managers coach their players to go into specific areas of the field when the other team has the ball, you'll always have players that can keep up with it during 80/90 minutes or those who just fail more than a reasonable amount of times, and that's how you know how much a player is good in terms of tactical awareness. That's the only thing I'm trying to say (player's wildness or unawareness on the field can always be a problema in a detailed approach but that's actually natural).

 

On ‎08‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 21:29, enigmatic said:

Most of the time the optimum behaviour for a particular player isn't to move to a particular position on the pitch based on a general idea of where the ball is, and because there usually isn't a particular spot a player should mostly run to, it's not sensible for the UI to ask game-players to choose which spot they should mostly run to.

Yes there is. For example, managers ask things like "when the MRC pressures the opponent's MC to win the ball, the RM needs to be more close to the midfielders and to the center, while the LM can be a little bit farer and more closed to the sideline, to make a run as soon as the ball is won" and so. This is how managers coach their players in terms of defense-attack transitions, not like "you're a Wide Playmaker" so he's always have to be in a fixed position.

 

On ‎08‎/‎09‎/‎2017 at 21:29, enigmatic said:

And even if it's completely realistic, people playing FM find it frustrating if the interface gives them the option to ask players to do something and they very rarely do it. This is an issue even with minor things like goalkeepers often not following their distribution instructions; just imagine how annoyed players are going to be when their fullback usually fails to make the miraculous covering run they've asked for, or when they notice their goal-shy striker is too busy trying to be onside to stand at the neat little space at the back post that was picked out for them.

The goalkeepers thing, I would say, it's a Football Manager flaw, IRL this is more accurate. There are so many examples of GKs that put the ball exactly how and where the managers want to (Manchester City's Ederson is a good example of it).

The fullback thing, I would say, it's just a matter of us managers understand the limitations of each player. My idea of the With Ball and Without Ball tactical interfaces wouldn't make this different, you always have to understand how possible/impossible an instruction is based on the player who is going to execute it.

[enigmatic]

15 minutes ago, LuísdeAlmeida said:

In this case, you cannot say that it's the exact opposite. The only thing I'm trying to say is that, IRL as managers coach their players to go into specific areas of the field when the other team has the ball, you'll always have players that can keep up with it during 80/90 minutes or those who just fail more than a reasonable amount of times, and that's how you know how much a player is good in terms of tactical awareness. That's the only thing I'm trying to say (player's wildness or unawareness on the field can always be a problema in a detailed approach but that's actually natural).

The point is that for many if not most players the random wildness is because of their tactical awareness and nothing to do with losing concentration. A striker that makes different runs at different times to confuse defenders and take advantage of spaces is a much better striker than one who almost always heads for the penalty spot when the ball is in the final third. A defensive midfielder that fills in gaps, marks playmakers and presses intensively is much better than one who focuses on marking a space which may or may not be useful to the opponent depending on what formation they're playing, or one who tires himself out trying to be in the same square as the ball all the time.

Which means that (i) any realistic simulation of football should have most players not following precise positional instructions most of the time (ii) the only situation where FMers are likely to benefit from players respecting their instruction to predictably position themselves in a particular small area is if it exploits a glaring weakness in the match engine (iii) if your formation does involve an exploit it's going to be really annoying if only the hardworking fairly unintelligent footballers actually follow it every time. 

 

8 minutes ago, LuísdeAlmeida said:

Yes there is. For example, managers ask things like "when the MRC pressures the opponent's MC to win the ball, the RM needs to be more close to the midfielders and to the center, while the LM can be a little bit farer and more closed to the sideline, to make a run as soon as the ball is won" and so. This is how managers coach their players in terms of defense-attack transitions, not like "you're a Wide Playmaker" so he's always have to be in a fixed position.

But WIBL/WOBL in its CM-form wasn't a set of contextual instructions and didn't cover transitions at all, it was if team X have the ball somewhere in Area Y, players AB&C should run to specific points QP&R (unless they have a very good reason not to). Indeed transitions are exactly where it's going to look worst, because the implied instruction is that all the players should disregard everything else around them to immediately run into a (sometimes very) different team shape.

"You're a wide playmaker" is obviously far too simplistic for other reasons, but the implied set of instructions (drop back when the ball is in the final third unless you can win it, zonally mark the left hand side of the pitch unless the opponent is playing narrow, don't tire yourself out pressing for the ball, whenever your side win the ball back prioritise making yourself available for the pass over holding position, be prepared to move a long way from your wide station to lose your marker but only occasionally make runs in behind an opponent) is far less fixed and far more like real life than here is exactly where you should stand when the ball is in this area in front of you`, and here is exactly where you should run to when somebody passes or dribbles into the next quadrangle on the pitch, even if RL managers do sometimes get chalkboards out to show what they mean by narrow.

 

 

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.