Converting my strikerless tactic to FM18

[craigd84]

Hi all, im having issues with my strikerless formation from 17 working on 18.

 

Dont get me wrong i know i shouldn't just expect it to convert and work fine on the newer engine BUT what i did expect is to still see the Raumdueters cutting in to act as wide strikers.

 

I am at work currently so will try my best to get down the tactic on FM17.

 

GK (d)

WB(S) 

CB(D)

CB(C)

WB(A) I had Alberto Moreno in here so had him more advanced than Clyne on the right.

CM(S)

DLP/CM(D)

CM(S)

RD(A)

AP(S)

RD(A)

 

Standard

Fluid

Overlap

Pass into space rotate through the game on and off.

 I had very basic instructions as i found on FM17 simplicity was best for my team.

 

Fast forward to 18 and its the same but i noticed the RD's not cutting in off the ball as much so i tried structured so that the specialist roles would be the priority but I cannot see it plus the AP doesnt seem as good on this one. Both games it has been Coutinho or Ozil both are not putting the killer ball through because my RD's dont seem interested.

 

So i am stumped I even toyed with having the right CM drop to Segunda V. on (A)  but it doesnt seem to look right.

 

Any ideas? I ALWAYS check for stats like Key passes and to be honest Coutinho rarely has any.. i think he has only had more than 1 once in this tactic.  The key passes come from WBs but thats because they cross the ball.

[Atarin]

The "Specialist" + "Structured" theory doesn't apply any more.

[herne79]

Raumdeuters need space to work.  They'll play the channels and need great off the ball movement, preferably with a healthy dose of anticipation.  Take a look at Thomas Muller's attributes (but I think you already know this).

But Raumdeuters also need to be fed properly, so who is feeding them if your AP is marked out of the match or if he has a bad game?  Your attacking wingback?  All he's doing is bombing down the wing trying to cross, but to who?  The RMD on the other side of the pitch?  The AP?

I also have a feeling your Look for Overlap TI is at best pointless and at worst actively causing problems.  I can never remember which way round it is but either Look for Overlap only works for players in the ML/R positions (in which case as you don't use ML/R it's pointless) or it does work for AML/R and so you are asking your attacking Raumdeuters to hold up the ball to wait for an overlapping fullback (in which case that will cause you problems).  @Cleon sorry for the poke, do you remember if Look for Overlap works on AML/R as well as ML/R players?  Got a feeling it's just ML/R but it's a TI I never use so tend to ignore.

[Cleon]

3 hours ago, herne79 said:

Raumdeuters need space to work.  They'll play the channels and need great off the ball movement, preferably with a healthy dose of anticipation.  Take a look at Thomas Muller's attributes (but I think you already know this).

But Raumdeuters also need to be fed properly, so who is feeding them if your AP is marked out of the match or if he has a bad game?  Your attacking wingback?  All he's doing is bombing down the wing trying to cross, but to who?  The RMD on the other side of the pitch?  The AP?

I also have a feeling your Look for Overlap TI is at best pointless and at worst actively causing problems.  I can never remember which way round it is but either Look for Overlap only works for players in the ML/R positions (in which case as you don't use ML/R it's pointless) or it does work for AML/R and so you are asking your attacking Raumdeuters to hold up the ball to wait for an overlapping fullback (in which case that will cause you problems).  @Cleon sorry for the poke, do you remember if Look for Overlap works on AML/R as well as ML/R players?  Got a feeling it's just ML/R but it's a TI I never use so tend to ignore.

I don't think its changed, it used to only be ML/R positions. Which makes sense as you can't really overlap AML/R due to the high starting position.

[herne79]

29 minutes ago, Cleon said:

I don't think its changed, it used to only be ML/R positions. Which makes sense as you can't really overlap AML/R due to the high starting position.

Thanks @Cleon, that's what I thought as well.

[craigd84]

@herne79 Cheers fella,

My WB's were told to target the back posts yeah.. so i had this idea that when the full backs were up they would swing a ball in and on the back post from the angled run would be the RD.

so the changes i made were:

 

FB(S) instead of WB(s)

 

REGISTA instead of DLP (d) in the cm strata, so now i have a DM. 

AP(S) is still the same but without the hold ball up PI and dribble less. IIRC.

 

Both Messi and Firmino were cutting in off there wings lovely. Just need to train them not to shoot from distance.

 

I will check when im home to see if when i click off look for overlap it actually does anything. I left it selected so that my DLP at the time would look to switch it out to them occasionally to force my RD's inside...

[Cedrik]

22 hours ago, Atarin said:

The "Specialist" + "Structured" theory doesn't apply any more.

This goes in general also for having 'too much' specialist roles or 'too little' (in combination with a certain mentality) ? 

[Cleon]

2 minutes ago, Cedrik said:

This goes in general also for having 'too much' specialist roles or 'too little' (in combination with a certain mentality) ? 

They've never existed in the sense that people believe they did. Wwfan just coined the phrases and split the roles up into two different bands to simplify the game for those struggling. It was just his choice of wording not a hard set fast rule or something that actually existed in physical form.

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, Cleon said:

They've never existed in the sense that people believe they did. Wwfan just coined the phrases and split the roles up into two different bands to simplify the game for those struggling. It was just his choice of wording not a hard set fast rule or something that actually existed in physical form.

It did insofar as the entire distinction made in the TC (generally position on the pitch, e.g. central midfielder vs specific job -- ball winning midfielder) was based on such a distinction made by managers / analysts (Jonathan Wilson / Arrigo Sacchi). For Sacchi, every player ideally had to have the ability to do everything (general roles, all instructions mixed without tweaking, so no midfielder discouraged from playing risky balls a la Anchor Man -- but no designated risky balls often players e.g. playmakers either). This was argued to be the main source of inspiration long before any "guide" was put up, as long before any guide, wwfan was heavily involved with the TC on a conceptual level. Mechnaically it still manifests some too -- the more general roles you can tweak to this day (previously any instruction on "mixed" rather than "often" / "never"), those catered to specific jobs not as much. You still see guys raging why their winger is supposed to do this and that according to the game's "definition/ locked instructions", as that was a role meant to imply a specific job from day one. Without them realizing they could  tune the  general wide midfielder role to their needs. At least on that front, this is vital to understand for future developments, as nothing in the UI encourages such "thinking", imo.

There's a few more to it, also relating to creative freedom levels, and what a few higher levels of freedom gifted could mean if paired with players given very specific instructions/jobs in general (an anchor mean by definition discouraged from playing risky balls) ----- but before somebody dumps the big no-no hammer on me, I'll stop.   Interestingly, I don't think wwfan's "guides" made the game easier as such. Conversely, they aimed not do, as typically guides that make the game "easier" get you into a level of specific micro control that no AI can cope with, and oft are this specific they lock you into a specific style of playing (only buy players with high determination stats) when managing, and ideally the game, can reward a multitude of things . His area of excellence was that he was perhaps the best at translating the options the game has into actually "football/manager think", rather than dabbling into engine stuff on a mechanical level. Something that SI staff obviously too sturggled with their sliders, perhaps to not much surprise. I think he's sorely missed around the scene for that reason. I'd be curious as to what he would make about the more recent "team shape" overhauls, for instance.

[Cleon]

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It did insofar as the entire distinction made in the TC (generally position on the pitch, e.g. central midfielder vs specific job -- ball winning midfielder) was based on such a distinction made by managers / analysts (Jonathan Wilson / Arrigo Sacchi).

It didn't really though, to a certain extent but every role is a specific role that does a specific job no matter how generic the PI's or how customisable the role is. They all still do a specific job.

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This was argued to be the main source of inspiration long before any "guide" was put up, as long before any guide, wwfan was heavily involved with the TC on a conceptual level

So was myself, millie, @Rashidi and a few others. Rashidi probably had the biggest influence on the TC though as it's his fault we have the awful team shape 

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Mechnaically it still manifests some too -- the more general roles you can tweak to this day (previously any instruction on "mixed" rather than "often" / "never"), those catered to specific jobs not as much. You still see guys raging why their winger is supposed to do this and that according to the game's "definition/ locked instructions", as that was a role meant to imply a specific job from day one. Without them realizing they could  tune the  general wide midfielder role to their needs. This is vital to understand for future developments, as nothing in the UI encourages such "thinking", imo.

The fault with this though is its a very simplistic view and not actually how the game works. As this suggest that the roles are the same when in reality even if a role is customisable it's still programmed to act differently under the hood. Not all settings have the same weightings for every position. This is based on what SI want the role do to and how its programmed. When people customise the WM to act like a IF for example, you can replicate it by settings but those settings have different weights and the roles are different with how it functions even though you might have the exact same settings. You cannot replicate/customise one role to act like another one with settings as every role has a different set of weightings behind the settings.

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Btw, I don't think wwfan's "guides" made the game easier as such

I actually agree. However he simplified it and broke it down for users to understand. However in doing so he also over complicated things with his phrasing and how he spoke about real life football because the real life concepts he spoke about worked differently in FM.

But every single role on FM is a specialist role really, hence why the specialist/generalist wording doesn't help. Also the game has moved on these days and is anther reason why people who go back and compare the slider settings are misinformed and incorrect because the settings are not the same. Sure they still exist on some level under the match engine but they don't behave the same for every single role, they are different and some roles are more unrestricted like the Segundo Volante for example yet has similar settings to a Box to box midfielder. But because of the weights that SI use, even with exact same settings they'd behave drastically different.

Some people are still stuck in the past with how things work and haven't actually updated their thinking or they keep referring back to older games when the game is vastly different now even though its still the same.

[Svenc]

13 minutes ago, Cleon said:

But every single role on FM is a specialist role really, hence why the specialist/generalist wording doesn't help. Also the game has moved on these days and is anther reason why people who go back and compare the slider settings are misinformed and incorrect because the settings are not the same.

Thanks, that's vital naturally. I didn't know that for instance customizing the wide midfielder to a "winger" by making him encourage to dribble often/hug the line etc.  isn't the same "under the hood", but then I was never really interested in it all on a mechanical level. Typically you only need insight into mechanics if you want to game the engine / decisively outperform the AI, which I find boring (the AI seems to do shockingly stupid stuff on 2018 on occasion all itself, sadly... playing 4-2-4s with wing backs and two box 2 box / 2 BWM/s type -- going 4-3-3 narrow when chasing leads with all players pushed up, is this being acknowledged???). But the overhauls / things naturally having changed were also the reason why I reported to SI guys linking the "mentality" feedback that is now in-game explicitly to the old sliders. There were a few graphics going around. Paul only asked where I got them from, I supplied the link, never heard a thing from then on. No less as in particular the more structured ends are this disjointed, on some prior releases you would have no team coherence whatsoever if that was actually slider settings on those (cbs on ultra low would have never played the release pass, forwards on go smash em). Bit OT, but thanks for the insight. Makes more sense now.