Did FM became too elitist tactic-wise?

[kandersson]

33 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Respecting an opinion doesn't mean I have to agree with it in any way. And team shape actually came from real life tactical theories

Structured (or rigid) was actually based on how Alex Ferguson set up his sides with different levels of compactness

Fluid (originally 5x5) is directly based on Arrigo Sacchi 

Balanced (or role theory) is directly based on Wenger. 

Team shape still matters, because of compactness. This is something that still differs from side to side. Its something that can evolve. But the varying levels of compactness that comes with team shapes exist in real life. 

And hiring someone new in now way actually means that's codable. It's pointless hiring someone for that when they are already getting that advice, and getting that advice doesn't mean it's instantly translatable 

In fact I don't agree with yours either but never had any intention of convincing you or calling your opinion 'pointless'. I am shocked at how SI runs this forum tbh, moderators are ok for fansites but on SI offcial site they do represent SI. SI letting non-paid, non-trained personnel representing their company, handling paying customers and dismissing their feedback as 'pointless' really is impossible to understand for me. 

[Los_Culés]

4 hours ago, kandersson said:

Yo Svenc why do you hate the guy so much . @looping I have a lot of sympathy for you and think you do possess valuable football knowledge, though it seems to me your expectations are too high (especially from Belotti ), this is a video game thus has its limitations. In the end you have to find a balance between what 'works' in the game and what you find entertaining in real football. If you can't find the right 'compromise' then it's probably better for you not playing this game. Which btw is something I'm strongly considering myself despite massive success I have in every league I've played. I'm always amused with the bashing of the 'easy' FM12 and the infamous collision issue (if this is what makes FM13-18 'harder', I'm sorry but it didn't work). For me it's still the most entertaining ME because it offered the most variety of attacking play (through passes, crosses, dribbling in central areas, solo goals, beat offside, go round keeper, lob the keeper, diving headers- where are you gone diving header!?) and it felt like you really had control over your players, of course pace was overpowered (it still is) and there were many other issues, well today we simply have some new ones. Personally I find FM18 even 'easier' fwiw.

The game hasn't progressed like i hoped or expected. I see these type of threads and start to wonder. Too elitist... It's a matter of semantics maybe? Svenc you're one of those german masters of gegenpressing, honestly tell me what you think when you can choose to instruct your team to 'close down more/much more or less/much less' and then single players to 'close down more/less or SOMETIMES' (when? where? who?). Then there's so-called 'team shape' and I'm not going to say much about that except it needs to go away from the game. I'l take sliders plus trial and error any day thanks. As noted many times, the game still fails to tell the player what/why is happening and feedback is borderline trolling. Pre-game Assistant manager feedback: change formation to HIS favourite formation (ALWAYS). In-game AM feedback: we're seriously overrun in midfield (winning 4-0 with 60% possession); we're superior in the air let's cross more (EVEN MORE?) etc. These are just examples, for me the game needs to make lots of changes because personally I don't enjoy playing this series anymore and I've run out of good will (the state of regen faces/hair and SI's way of dealing with this, while very minor to other users and off topic here is also cause of great frustration for me). Hiring someone like @MBarbaric (an example of a guy with excellent football knowledge, experience with FM and specific ideas to implement) as a consultant would be a step in the right direction, though I don't see this happening. If I sound like I'm very frustrated with the game, it's because I am. Elitist, meh...

A great post kandersson, I agree with pretty much everything you said.

[Scf101]

Considering this forum tends to be an echo chamber for apologists ("don't speak out against SI, or otherwise the devs might not want to post here anymore", and "there can nothing be wrong with the game because Cleon and Rashidi understand how it works"), it is no surprise FM still leaves much to be desired (from a gamer's point of view at least). 

[Cap'nRad]

7 hours ago, kandersson said:

Yo Svenc why do you hate the guy so much . @looping I have a lot of sympathy for you and think you do possess valuable football knowledge, though it seems to me your expectations are too high (especially from Belotti ), this is a video game thus has its limitations. In the end you have to find a balance between what 'works' in the game and what you find entertaining in real football. If you can't find the right 'compromise' then it's probably better for you not playing this game. Which btw is something I'm strongly considering myself despite massive success I have in every league I've played. I'm always amused with the bashing of the 'easy' FM12 and the infamous collision issue (if this is what makes FM13-18 'harder', I'm sorry but it didn't work). For me it's still the most entertaining ME because it offered the most variety of attacking play (through passes, crosses, dribbling in central areas, solo goals, beat offside, go round keeper, lob the keeper, diving headers- where are you gone diving header!?) and it felt like you really had control over your players, of course pace was overpowered (it still is) and there were many other issues, well today we simply have some new ones. Personally I find FM18 even 'easier' fwiw.

The game hasn't progressed like i hoped or expected. I see these type of threads and start to wonder. Too elitist... It's a matter of semantics maybe? Svenc you're one of those german masters of gegenpressing, honestly tell me what you think when you can choose to instruct your team to 'close down more/much more or less/much less' and then single players to 'close down more/less or SOMETIMES' (when? where? who?). Then there's so-called 'team shape' and I'm not going to say much about that except it needs to go away from the game. I'l take sliders plus trial and error any day thanks. As noted many times, the game still fails to tell the player what/why is happening and feedback is borderline trolling. Pre-game Assistant manager feedback: change formation to HIS favourite formation (ALWAYS). In-game AM feedback: we're seriously overrun in midfield (winning 4-0 with 60% possession); we're superior in the air let's cross more (EVEN MORE?) etc. These are just examples, for me the game needs to make lots of changes because personally I don't enjoy playing this series anymore and I've run out of good will (the state of regen faces/hair and SI's way of dealing with this, while very minor to other users and off topic here is also cause of great frustration for me). Hiring someone like @MBarbaric (an example of a guy with excellent football knowledge, experience with FM and specific ideas to implement) as a consultant would be a step in the right direction, though I don't see this happening. If I sound like I'm very frustrated with the game, it's because I am. Elitist, meh...

Aye, it's weird how the game has seemingly regressed in a lot of areas from older titles. I don't fancy any of the fm's from 16 upward so I've been playing the older ones again, and the amount of good things simply gone from the more current editions is quite surprising.

[themadsheep2001]

3 hours ago, kandersson said:

In fact I don't agree with yours either but never had any intention of convincing you or calling your opinion 'pointless'. I am shocked at how SI runs this forum tbh, moderators are ok for fansites but on SI offcial site they do represent SI. SI letting non-paid, non-trained personnel representing their company, handling paying customers and dismissing their feedback as 'pointless' really is impossible to understand for me. 

At no point did I say your opinion was pointless. I said it was pointless hiring someone for a role that isn't really needed.

That's something very different. I'm not sure why you're shocked at something I very much didn't say.

This is exactly what I said "It's pointless hiring someone for that when they are already getting that advice, and getting that advice doesn't mean it's instantly translatable "

So I very much dispute the notion I called your opinion pointless, I think you (and the 3 people who liked your comment) need to go back and re-read what I actually said.

Shame not to hear your views on the origins of team shape

 

Thanks

[Cap'nRad]

1 hour ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Shame not to hear your views on the origins of team shape

Not @kandersson, but I think whatever the origins may have been, the implementation is poor, and has been from the beginning, which is quite a few iterations now. And in here lies the value of someone who can translate real world concepts to fm, which is what @kandersson was talking about.

[themadsheep2001]

5 minutes ago, Cap'nRad said:

Not @kandersson, but I think whatever the origins may have been, the implementation is poor, and has been from the beginning, which is quite a few iterations now. And in here lies the value of someone who can translate real world concepts to fm, which is what @kandersson was talking about.

Not sure you can say it was from the very beginning, as it very much worked from the beginning. The issue is that's deviated from what it was at the beginning, but with much less visual breakdown. However you still need compactness as an option. There are plenty of people who can translate real life concepts to FM. The issue is creating a workable face for the match engine, and for both the user, and crucially, the AI. None of this requires a hiring in, because the ideas are the easy parts. We've been discussing this kind of thing for years on this forums. Coding it is the real challenge

[Cap'nRad]

16 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Not sure you can say it was from the very beginning, as it very much worked from the beginning. The issue is that's deviated from what it was at the beginning, but with much less visual breakdown.

We're talking about the current representation of team shape, which has always been poor.

 

17 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

However you still need compactness as an option.

Then why not have only compactness as an option, and creativity as a separate set of options? Which btw, quite a few users have suggested before, some even taking the time to make visual representations of their ideas. Same thing with work ball into box, two instructions needlessly shoehorned into one. It doesn't take genius coding to separate them.

 

20 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

There are plenty of people who can translate real life concepts to FM. The issue is creating a workable face for the match engine, and for both the user, and crucially, the AI. None of this requires a hiring in, because the ideas are the easy parts. We've been discussing this kind of thing for years on this forums. Coding it is the real challenge

In this case it's not a massive challenge like I said earlier. Simpy separate compactness and creativity and change the names, and people (most likely the AI too) will be much less confused. If someone at SI hasn't thought of this already, then maybe someone new needs to be hired to do so. Or at least look at the forums once in a while and pick up a few things from there.

[kandersson]

1 hour ago, themadsheep2001 said:

At no point did I say your opinion was pointless. I said it was pointless hiring someone for a role that isn't really needed.

That's something very different. I'm not sure why you're shocked at something I very much didn't say.

This is exactly what I said "It's pointless hiring someone for that when they are already getting that advice, and getting that advice doesn't mean it's instantly translatable "

So I very much dispute the notion I called your opinion pointless, I think you (and the 3 people who liked your comment) need to go back and re-read what I actually said.

Shame not to hear your views on the origins of team shape

 

Thanks

'I strongly maintain my opinion that more people with ideas a la barbaric should be hired. I respect your opinion if you think otherwise, please respect mine.'

'It's pointless hiring someone for that when they are already getting that advice.'

My opinion (expressed with very much respect) is clearly that SI should hire someone like Mbarbaric. You said hiring someone for that is pointless. That's Aristotle for you.

Obviously you have every right to think that I speak non-sense, but I'd expect a moderator on SI official forum to address this in a very different manner because to me he represents whole SI. So yes I am shocked at how SI runs this forum, not because of you personally and certainly not because of a single word. The way you replied to my very polite, good-natured comment (that btw was a reply to my almost-friend Svenc) was already a red flag for me.

'Hi kandersson, interesting post there. SI games are always working to make ME better, I agree that some of mbarbaric ideas would be great additions to the game unfortunately it's not always possible to implement complicated new features straight away, rest assured the devs are working hard every day to make the best possible ME! Thanks for your feedback and hopefully you can go back to enjoy FM18 soon'. See this would be an example of basic communication from someone who represents a company. I think it's much better than the rhetorical question you decided to ask me, clearly with the goal of 'winning' an argument ('Who says SI don't already have consultants who would be far more knowledgeable than someone like MBarbaric?'). It's not rocket science either, in fact every SI staff member tends to reply with that very basic formula. I'm shocked that SI let moderators (non-paid personnel) treat users (paying customers or potential paying customers) this way, the shock comes mostly from a corporate/business point of view as dealing with happy or unhappy customers is a big part of my day job. As a user i'm mostly disappointed. By SI, not by you in particular.

 

[themadsheep2001]

On 01/01/2018 at 23:41, kandersson said:

'I strongly maintain my opinion that more people with ideas a la barbaric should be hired. I respect your opinion if you think otherwise, please respect mine.'

'It's pointless hiring someone for that when they are already getting that advice.'

My opinion (expressed with very much respect) is clearly that SI should hire someone like Mbarbaric. You said hiring someone for that is pointless. That's Aristotle for you.

Obviously you have every right to think that I speak non-sense, but I'd expect a moderator on SI official forum to address this in a very different manner because to me he represents whole SI. So yes I am shocked at how SI runs this forum, not because of you personally and certainly not because of a single word. The way you replied to my very polite, good-natured comment (that btw was a reply to my almost-friend Svenc) was already a red flag for me.

'Hi kandersson, interesting post there. SI games are always working to make ME better, I agree that some of mbarbaric ideas would be great additions to the game unfortunately it's not always possible to implement complicated new features straight away, rest assured the devs are working hard every day to make the best possible ME! Thanks for your feedback and hopefully you can go back to enjoy FM18 soon'. See this would be an example of basic communication from someone who represents a company. I think it's much better than the rhetorical question you decided to ask me, clearly with the goal of 'winning' an argument ('Who says SI don't already have consultants who would be far more knowledgeable than someone like MBarbaric?'). It's not rocket science either, in fact every SI staff member tends to reply with that very basic formula. I'm shocked that SI let moderators (non-paid personnel) treat users (paying customers or potential paying customers) this way, the shock comes mostly from a corporate/business point of view as dealing with happy or unhappy customers is a big part of my day job. As a user i'm mostly disappointed. By SI, not by you in particular.

 

I'll state it again. I didn't say your opinion was pointless. I'll save us both the trouble in future and avoid engaging with you now or in the future. 

[themadsheep2001]

22 minutes ago, Cap'nRad said:

We're talking about the current representation of team shape, which has always been poor.

 

Then why not have only compactness as an option, and creativity as a separate set of options? Which btw, quite a few users have suggested before, some even taking the time to make visual representations of their ideas. Same thing with work ball into box, two instructions needlessly shoehorned into one. It doesn't take genius coding to separate them.

 

In this case it's not a massive challenge like I said earlier. Simpy separate compactness and creativity and change the names, and people (most likely the AI too) will be much less confused. If someone at SI hasn't thought of this already, then maybe someone new needs to be hired to do so. Or at least look at the forums once in a while and pick up a few things from there.

I think too many options have become interlinked, and actually it's obscured things which should be clearly, but they are very much aware of its limitations, a few of us have had this conversation before.

But if you're writing a new ME, which SI are seemingly doing, you can kill two birds with one stone. There's far more to it than changing one section. You can fundamentally rewrite the Tactics creator along with a new match engine. Whether they do so is another story

Team shape isn't even the biggest issue here. The TC only shows 2 of the 4 phases of football, doesn't really deal with closing down in enough detail either, among other things.

I think people tunnel in on 1/2 parts of the TC, when arguably the whole thing is probably in need of a rewrite to make everything fit seamlessly rather than bit piece changes. It's good. but nowhere near how powerful it could really be in my opinion. Provided you could match it up with the ME, there are still game changing leaps to be made

[Cap'nRad]

29 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Because if you're writing a new ME, which SI are doing, you can kill two birds with one stone. There's far more to it than changing one section. You can fundamentally rewrite the Tactics creator along with a new match engine. Whether they do so is another story

In general I agree with you, however, some of the things I've seen suggested don't require waiting until a whole new ME is created in order to implement. For instance, look at this suggestion for team shape by @noikeee (which you recommended them for btw ):

This is something that with some tweaks could be added to the next fm, (or dare I say it, could have been added to fm18) without needing to wait for every single other part of the game to develop first without changing it. These are the sort of things the people at SI should be thinking of.

 

29 minutes ago, themadsheep2001 said:

Team shape isn't even the biggest issue here. The TC only shows 2 of the 4 phases of football, doesn't really deal with closing down in enough detail either, among other things

Aye, but this is because the ME isn't advanced enough to replicate modern pressing styles. The team shape ideas can be thought of immediately, implemented immediately, and have been suggested for quite a while now by different users, and yet team shape has remained in it's state for quite a while now.

[themadsheep2001]

5 minutes ago, Cap'nRad said:

In general I agree with you, however, some of the things I've seen suggested don't require waiting until a whole new ME is created in order to implement. For instance, look at this suggestion for team shape by @noikeee (which you recommended him for btw ):

This is something that with some tweaks could be added to the next fm, (or dare I say it, could have been added to fm18) without needing to wait for every single other part of the game to develop first without changing it. These are the sort of things the people at SI should be thinking of.

 

Aye, but this is because the ME isn't advanced enough to replicate modern pressing styles. The team shape ideas can be thought of immediately, implemented immediately, and have been suggested for quite a while now by different users, and yet team shape has remained in it's state for quite a while now.

They could have been added several iterations ago, as my reply to him suggests  I think there's a more than a handful of things that could have been added, but I'm at the point where they've left it so long, for whatever reasons, that you might as well do a total rewrite for a new ME. That's based on a completely unsupported view it'd arrive in a couple of years

[RBKalle]

5 ore fa, themadsheep2001 ha scritto:

And team shape actually came from real life tactical theories

Structured (or rigid) was actually based on how Alex Ferguson set up his sides with different levels of compactness

Fluid (originally 5x5) is directly based on Arrigo Sacchi 

Balanced (or role theory) is directly based on Wenger. 

Team shape still matters, because of compactness. This is something that still differs from side to side. Its something that can evolve. But the varying levels of compactness that comes with team shapes exist in real life. 

 

Well, "fluidity" is hardly the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about Sacchi's 4-4-2, considering how anal he was about players holding their positions and not going "off script" (there was an audio clip of him lambasting RB Benarrivo because he was out of position: "if I catch you out of position once more, you're not going to play a single minute for the rest of the World Cup... That'll wake you up!").

Then again, "fluid" in FMish is not what "fluid" means in real football terminology.

 

Quite frankly, Team Shape should be dictated automatically by: Formation, Defensive line (plus offside trap yes/no), Closing Down, Width and, eventually, by Specific Roles and Duties.

 

[themadsheep2001]

Just now, RBKalle said:

 

Well, "fluidity" is hardly the first thing that springs to mind when thinking about Sacchi's 4-4-2, considering how anal he was about players holding their positions and not going "off script" (there was an audio clip of him lambasting RB Benarrivo because he was out of position: "if I see catch you out of position once more, you're not going to play a single minute for the rest of the World Cup... That'll wake you up!").

Then again, "fluid" in FMish is not what "fluid" means in real football terminology.

 

Quite frankly, Team Shape should be dictated automatically by: Formation, Defensive line (plus offside trap yes/no), Closing Down, Width and, eventually, by Specific Roles and Duties.

 

He was 5x5. Which is what the "fluid" mentality is. But the more recent naming conventions (ie those after the original theory names) leave a lot to be desired. See mentality too

You'd still need Compactness in there too

[RBKalle]

30 minuti fa, themadsheep2001 ha scritto:

He was 5x5. Which is what the "fluid" mentality is.

What on earth is 5x5?!

Sacchi's 4-4-2 was based on extreme offside trap, zonal defense, pressing and quick transitions. But everything had to be RIGID, as any single player not being in the right position would have caused the system to collapse. Especially defensively.

If that's not "structured", I don't really know which tactic could deserve such label.

Quote

But the more recent naming conventions (ie those after the original theory names) leave a lot to be desired. See mentality too

You'd still need Compactness in there too

Why is it still needed?

Formation, roles, duties and TI are more than enough to convey how compact or "long" a team will play.

Even by renaming the confusing "fluid/rigid" option, there'd still be a huge misunderstanding. Like, if I field a 4-2-3-1 Wide (MC, MC, AMR, AMC, AML, CF) with those 5 players on Attacking roles and duties, and I instruct them to play Control, Direct and Through The Flanks, I should automatically get a rather disjointed team, basically cut in two between the defending players and those deployed up front, leaving a HUGE hole in the central midfield.

How could any Team Shape setting save me from a fractured formation?

A more balanced formation and choice of roles would be more or less compact depending on how high I want to push my defensive line and how hard I want to press/close down.

Unless Compactness is much more than it's suggested in here (and in the tooltip...), there's no reason for it to still be a thing.

[themadsheep2001]

31 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

What on earth is 5x5?!

Sacchi's 4-4-2 was based on extreme offside trap, zonal defense, pressing and quick transitions. But everything had to be RIGID, as any single player not being in the right position would have caused the system to collapse. Especially defensively.

If that's not "structured", I don't really know which tactic could deserve such label.

Why is it still needed?

Formation, roles, duties and TI are more than enough to convey how compact or "long" a team will play.

Even by renaming the confusing "fluid/rigid" option, there'd still be a huge misunderstanding. Like, if I field a 4-2-3-1 Wide (MC, MC, AMR, AMC, AML, CF) with those 5 players on Attacking roles and duties, and I instruct them to play Control, Direct and Through The Flanks, I should automatically get a rather disjointed team, basically cut in two between the defending players and those deployed up front, leaving a HUGE hole in the central midfield.

How could any Team Shape setting save me from a fractured formation?

A more balanced formation and choice of roles would be more or less compact depending on how high I want to push my defensive line and how hard I want to press/close down.

Unless Compactness is much more than it's suggested in here (and in the tooltip...), there's no reason for it to still be a thing.

It was also based on Lobanovksi's Universality, where the team was one unit (very fluid if we want to use the  Fm name). However he modified that to whenever the team had the ball, he wanted 5 men ahead of the ball, so Milan operated in two units: 5 ahead of the ball, 5 behind it, but everyone responsible for transition. Hence the term 5x5 and then fluid. Not structured.

It might not save you from a fractured team, but compactness matters in terms of the spacing between players. Again I can refer to Lobo above. He believed in players working as one unit. Now the players are obviously going to have different roles, but how do you replicate them working as one unit? By having the same mentality and "compacting" them into one unit. Now not every team plays the same way and are as compact as each other. So even with the same roles, two teams shapes might operate differently, that's where you still need the ability to change the gap between players and strata 

[RBKalle]

9 ore fa, themadsheep2001 ha scritto:

Hence the term 5x5 and then fluid. Not structured

I guess it's a matter of semantics, and of in-game lingo vs football terminology, so it's a bit besides the point, but IMO using "fluid" as the antonym to "structured" in this context is just plain wrong.

Sacchi's 4-4-2 was both fluid (in transition and in cooperation between players and line of players) and also so damn structured (you didn't have pairs of players switching sides or positions, nevermind anything even more adventurous).

 

9 ore fa, themadsheep2001 ha scritto:

So even with the same roles, two teams shapes might operate differently, that's where you still need the ability to change the gap between players and strata 

Why?

A Very High defensive line, with two CMs set as DLP (D) and BWM (D) and two WM (S) and a Target Man up front will be more compact than the same formation with Normal defensive line, APs (S), BBM and two IF on the flanks.

We'd FINALLY see concrete and easy-to-understand reasons for our team being a disjointed mess due to poor tactical choices that currently aren't so clear because there are way too many conflicting instructions.

"Shape" is currently such a nebulous concept in FM that you can easily pick the most wrong and nonsensical option because you think it's something else completely. Shouldn't the compactness and the "fluidity" of the team be left at how many D, S and A duties you pick?
That'd be so much more convenient and reasonable.

Something's gonna go out of the current set of TI, becuase as it is now, there's just too many buttons that do unclear and self-contradicting stuff.

[Svenc]

On 1.1.2018 at 15:22, kandersson said:

I'm always amused with the bashing of the 'easy' FM12 and the infamous collision issue (if this is what makes FM13-18 'harder', I'm sorry but it didn't work).

I think it's a misconception that this was introduced (it's still no proper collision btw.) to make the game much harder. Arguably there's  few things introduced in recent iterations that were intended to make the game harder, and they are all to be found outside of tactics (scouting overhauls, for instance). It was for the match play to play out  a bit more like football, as in football it's rather uncommon that forwards off the ball would run through their markers to pick up through balls every time. The evidence was in the feedback that came in thereafter, as loads of poorly thought out stuff then was easily defended (e.g. tactics keeping 7 players always behind the ball and hoofing the ball to isolated attackers). And SI had underestimated how many were playing like that. The only time I ever think I saw SI staff going on record as saying something was intended to "make the game harder" was when an AI bug was ironed out, which meant AI never to rarely had a player staying deeper in central midfield, not even in (overly) aggressive tactics. Which is one of the things AI has been doing again in more recent iterations... and it's also one of the things that make you play structurally superior football to it just by copying 1:1 what El Payaso has posted and simply running with it.

I don't hate anyone. However, I take an issue when falsehoods continue being spread, even after like years of some of the best tactical mods having given advice. As what's being posted is based on the core logics that have been rewarded by this game in like, a decade, even on FM12. Sticky threads are based on it. It can be that simple, mostly. All recent years could be filed under "how to make the game more accessible", if you ask me. Most prominently more recent in the colored zones on the pitch appearing. "More accessible" is naturally relative (team shapes..). As you say, the game's stayed much the same as outside of a few added roles, nothing's fundamentally changed as such.

[themadsheep2001]

22 minutes ago, Svenc said:

I think it's a misconception that this was introduced (it's still no proper collision btw.) to make the game much harder. Arguably there's  few things introduced in recent iterations that were intended to make the game harder, and they are all to be found outside of tactics (scouting overhauls, for instance). It was for the match play to play out  a bit more like football, as in football it's rather uncommon that forwards off the ball would run through their markers to pick up through balls every time. The evidence was in the feedback that came in thereafter, as loads of poorly thought out stuff then was easily defended (e.g. tactics keeping 7 players always behind the ball and hoofing the ball to isolated attackers). And SI had underestimated how many were playing like that. The only time I ever think I saw SI staff going on record as saying something was intended to "make the game harder" was when an AI bug was ironed out, which meant AI never to rarely had a player staying deeper in central midfield, not even in (overly) aggressive tactics. Which is one of the things AI has been doing again in more recent iterations... and it's also one of the things that make you play structurally superior football to it just by copying 1:1 what El Payaso has posted and simply running with it. He's also completely right in pointing out all the Tubers who don't even have a clue, never visit forums, and still doing decent. Sometimes despite their tactics, perhaps. Which is where the other areas of the game kick in, most notably players. If you'd be elitist, you'd still question how legit the game could be watching them.

I don't hate anyone. However, I take an issue when falsehoods continue being spread, even after like years of some of the best tactical mods having given advice. As what's being posted is based on the core logics that have been rewarded by this game in like, a decade, even on FM12. Sticky threads are based on it. It can be that simple, mostly. All recent years could be filed under "how to make the game more accessible", if you ask me. Most prominently more recent in the colored zones on the pitch appearing. "More accessible" is naturally relative (team shapes..). As you say, the game's stayed much the same as outside of a few added roles, nothing's fundamentally changed as such.

Well said. The physics has nothing to do with difficulty and everything to do with trying to add mass to players and real physics to ball strikes. Eventually we will get proper non tackling defending. 

[tacticsdude]

On 1/1/2018 at 06:19, looping said:

The game is very very difficult and finding out why things happen is almost imposible

and

On 1/1/2018 at 07:23, RBKalle said:

One week your tactic allows your midtable side to hold your own (and possibly take points) against a Top Club, only to get DOMINATED one week later by a relegation cadidate that played with the same exact formation...

 

I think that a big part of the game that a lot of people struggle with is the most important and what probably makes FM more like real life (in general, not just footy):

There’s a ton of stuff going on in the background that affects results, and has little or nothing to do with tactics.

A few patterns you may have noticed. You are more likely to have a tough game:
- if you are playing an easy league game right before a CL match later on the same week
- if you’re playing an easy cup tie
- if you’ve been on a winning streak and your players are too relaxed
- if your opponents have been on a winning or losing streak and have built momentum

Those are among the most obvious. There are also ups and downs happening with each player, and happening to the other team. Sometimes you run into a match you just can’t win. I know because at times I’ve played the same match 3 times trying to figure out why I’m getting pummeled by a mediocre team, and it turns out they came to the game playing like Germany in a world cup final. Something is triggered in the background that makes that team be inspired and play in great form, and if your team is on the other end of that momentum then there’s nothing your tactics can do about it.

So, for those struggling, it is 100% true that the game won’t give you any meaningful feedback about hundreds of invisible things that are happening, but that is true in real life, not just in the game but in every aspect of life.

For me, getting good at FM meant learning to see the invisible patterns and trying to have an answer to cope with a hundred situations. A few more examples:

- Top striker has 2 great years then performance dips for 6 months or more. I replace him and get 2 good years out of the next guy. Pattern: Don’t keep top strikers in their prime for more than 2 years, sell them at profit and hire a hungrier guy.

- Key striker can’t find the goal, is affecting his game. Team is on a losing streak. Pattern: set up a bunch of friendlies to give poor performers a chance to shine and clear their minds. Go into your team depth to play a deep rotation until the team gets out of the funk.

- Got hired to manage a team in transition. As you bring in young talent you struggle to keep the current senior players motivated. Pattern: get rid of the senior players quickly when you arrive at a club in transition. Bring in motivated younger players and you’ll get better performance and a happier dressing room.

I’m not saying that these are rules set in stone. Your approach to the game may be drastically different and still have great results. But these are the things that make successful FM players, having a list of 100 or so of those ideas that work for you, so that when you see these situations unfold you are ready to get ahead of them. If you don’t have 100 patterns of things you are ready to preempt, then a bunch of stuff is happening to you that you could have corrected but instead is costing you results.

The game can’t teach you these things with feedback any more than business school can teach you to be Bill Gates or Richard Branson. You have to go at it making a point to be in control of everything, be as clever as you can about even the tiniest of things, learn to see the invisible and develop your own philosophy. That’s the difference between Guardiola and your run of the mill  good coach teaching running drills at Newcastle. If you want to excel as a manager you have to come at it with a driven entrepreneurial hunger.

[looping]

On ‎02‎/‎01‎/‎2018 at 23:54, tacticsdude said:

- Top striker has 2 great years then performance dips for 6 months or more. I replace him and get 2 good years out of the next guy. Pattern: Don’t keep top strikers in their prime for more than 2 years, sell them at profit and hire a hungrier guy

I was almost banned and sure denigrated for saying and doing something similar... No, seriously, I can't believe this is true, there must be other reasons but I can certainly be mistaken.

The problem some users have with Fm is the inherent logic behind the game and particularly the ME. For instance, if my players don't tackle must likely is because my defensive line is too Deep. For some other reasons, if 2 cb go for the same header it's because defensive line is too high. There is cause-effect logic that I simply don't understand.

Following the analogy with the car, imagine if you accelerate, turn left and put on the radio at the same time, the left door opens. For some reason, it happens. Well, if the left door of my car opened suddenly I would never imagine the reason was I accelerated, turned left and put on the radio, I'd rather examinate the lock or my keys.

That's somewhat how I feel with FM: meticulously analyzing something that is perfectly right (lock) and not paying attention to what is actually wrong, not because I don't want, simply because I honestly can't figure out the link between the issue and its consequence.

It's perfectly plausible that I'm stupid, btw, but that would be a very specific stupidity, related only to fm. Not that I'm Albert Einsein, I'm an absolutely average person, and that's precisely the reason why I should understand the logic behind the ME at this point, after 2 years of failings.

Until this is sorted, I can't do better. However, I'm starting to suspect that, disregarding from a very few users, most of the people are examinating the lock too and doing tactical stuff they don't even understand. Problem here is they aren't aware of it (at least I am, and probably that's the problem!). I say that because, at least in my case, results don't change if I try to watch matches and fix things tactically or I just run matches without paying attention to it. Income is the same. So, I'm very suspicious people think they know what they are doing but they don't really. At the end, it doesn't matter, results are very much the same, except a very few who certainly mastered the ME.

Anyway, I've decided to take FM differently, in a way I think I can enjoy it. If I'm allowed, I'll show it soon. Hope it can help others struggling too.

 

@kandersson As for @Svenc I ignore if he hates me but I hope he doesn't. He is the one I've learnt something constructive about the game and I'm really thankful and honoured he dedicated some of his free time to answer my questions. 

[tacticsdude]

3 hours ago, looping said:

if my players don't tackle must likely is because my defensive line is too Deep

I get that you feel lost in FM, I understand that very well. As much as I can say I'm very good at it now on any version of FM, I remember vividly getting trampled over and over and sacked plenty during my first few careers.

I think you are too focused on tactics. I would say more than half of what makes me successful has to do with club management. I'm constantly working on maintaining player form, keeping my guys motivated, improving my overall team's CA, strengthening the club's financial position, etc.

 

And when it comes to tactics, for me it is all about space and advantage. How do you make sure you cover all the space, put your players where they'll have the right space when attacking, how do you set up your team so that you'll have an advantage going into every match.

For me, being good at tactics is about giving your players a small advantage at all times. If we are relegation favorites and I'm playing a top-half club then I try to set up tactics that give us a good chance at a tie. So I'll set up some negative tactics and I'll look to do something that hampers the opposition and gives us a chance at scoring on the break.

My point is that you can't teach yourself to tinker like a pro manager if you are feeling lost on what works and what doesn't. You MUST start with the simple and stay on simple until you feel you've gotten a handle of that. Work on:
- keep your players motivated and happy
- keep your players fit, and have a bit of a rotation so the players feel there's competition for places
- get them to gel, and to feel a sense of passion for the club
- constantly bring in youth that can challenge (improves competition, depth, and improves finances)
- AND:

Try to master a formation
Any formation, I would go with a single striker formation (if you are only going to master one formation) but even 442 is perfectly fine. Learn everything about it: strengths, weakness, where do you concede space, where can you control the game better, which players create your chances, how do you cross when the opposition defends deep, how do you get the ball to your striker when he is being marked closely, etc. You must understand it fully, attack and defense, and how it fares against all other styles and formations. Only then you'll start seeing the problems, the pockets of space, the threat of certain type of creative players, the use of speed for or against you, etc.

 

Thought Process
For me, tweaking tactics is mostly fairly easy. This is what my thought process looks like on any given league match, let's say against similar size opposition:
Formation: I usually start with a 433 variant that can go more like 451 if i want to start more defensive. I may also use a 442 narrow diamond if I feel the opposition will nullify my wingers with great defending. So even before the game I'm already anticipating the skills battle across the pitch between my players and the opposition. I'm making assumptions as to who will win the small battles (can my fullback overlap and get the crosses out, or will their fullback keep our crosses contained?)  Here is more detail to set the example:
- Do I need a strong CDM: Can I control the match? If so, I will be moving the ball around and maybe I play 2 creative players and a destroyer, or I play 3 well-rounded CMs without a destroyer because we won't have to deal with strong attacks. The choice of CDM will influence how my CBs play - a strong CDM takes the pressure off CBs and comes down to the back line if we are under attack. A variation on that is if I'm expecting to suffer fast counters, then playing a destroyer CDM lets me play the back line deep without leaving a pocket of space in front of the CBs.

... and so forth for key positions, depending on the formation. For instance, a 442 narrow diamond really requires that I control the game with my fullbacks. If that doesn't break my way then I'm going to suffer. Playing a wide 433 with speedy wingers will not help if the opposition has very strong fullbacks that will stay back, then my wingers will not get anything done in attack and would also be a liability in defense, so might as well use midfield-type wingers further back and aim for a more well-rounded battle.

By the time I get to the game, I'm just watching to see how all these things unfold. Are the fullbacks finding joy? Are we leaving too much space? Is their striker getting be ball to feet or in the air? How is my CDM choice handling the match? Are we creating more chances than the opposition? Who has most possession, passes and dangerous chances? Who's winning the "attrition battle" (exhaustion, injuries, cards, total subs, players having a bad day).

From here making decisions is pretty easy. For instance, if my fullback can't get his crosses out, I was already planning for such a situation and I know I have to ask him to try it less and I have to switch to plan B creating moves somewhere else. And so forth for all the other mini battles across the pitch that I had been preempting. So in FM 17, usually within the first 20 mins of the match I do my final tweaks and from there on the match pretty much goes my way. Doesn't mean I win them all, but from a tactical perspective I want my team to look a bit better and sharper, more dangerous and less likely to concede, and that's as much as a manager can do from the sidelines, the rest is up to the boys and how happy and motivated we were able to get them.

[looping]

I know what you mean... I'm doing the same, exactly, fact is I'm doing it wrong. All I see is constant missplaced passes, passing the ball the opposition, hoofing it, not tackling. It's like evertyhing is wrong at any level and my players are complete dummies. It's weird because they don't act like dummies for some matches and suddenly they do.

MY cb has the ball. He has, at every least 3 easy passing options. He hoofs it. Ok it happened once, so I'd better wait to see if it's a pattern or just an isolated event.

In 10 minutes has happened 4 times, so it seems a pattern. Both of my cb are hoofing the ball. I tell them to pass shorter. Still happens. I remove risky passes from them. Still happens. I use Play out the defense TI. Still happens. They are constantly hoofing the ball. I put a Deep lying playmaker in my midfield so fortunately my cb will look for him. Still hoofing the ball all the time. I try with a WP on one flank. Nothing.

Attributes check: passing, visión, composure, decisions, technique, first touch. All of them arround 13, which is more tan fine for my level, even provided I'm facing a very weak team and they are cb not playmakers.

Roles and duties around them check; fb(s) fb(a) cb(d) dlp/cm(de) dlp/cm/(su). These are the player who I want my cb to pass the ball. They keep hoofing the ball to nobody. I don't have a Tm which could make this happen (442 with False9-AF combo upfront). I'm not asking anything specifically demaning, just pass short to the free teammate. They don't.

This is just an example. I can waste 4, 5, 6 matches trying just to fix it. Not paying attention to anything else. I just want to fix this. I can't so I just draw a line and move on to something else I don't like. But the same will happen again and again.

It's obvious I didn't find the root cause so I was unable to fix it. Following the previous car analogy, I was checking the lock but I should have checked something else which I totally ignore.

Even when I can spot something I don't like (which is not very usual, I tend to see everything wrong, nothing in particular) I can't determine the cause. I see the effect, not the cause. And I can't get to the cause because I don't see the relation between the effect and the cause. I'm lost there.

The whole point is drawing a general principle and employ it to a variety of circumstances. I can't draw that general principle. I feel like driving a car with all kind of lights and alerts sounding without any idea of what to do. I turn left and the door opens. I accelerate and the radio turns on I brake and the car turns left. This leads to frustration, panic and sure I end up making things even worse. But who cares about it now, right?

[Deisler26]

2 hours ago, looping said:

MY cb has the ball. He has, at every least 3 easy passing options. He hoofs it. Ok it happened once, so I'd better wait to see if it's a pattern or just an isolated event.

In 10 minutes has happened 4 times, so it seems a pattern. Both of my cb are hoofing the ball. I tell them to pass shorter. Still happens. I remove risky passes from them. Still happens. I use Play out the defense TI. Still happens. They are constantly hoofing the ball. I put a Deep lying playmaker in my midfield so fortunately my cb will look for him. Still hoofing the ball all the time. I try with a WP on one flank. Nothing.

Attributes check: passing, visión, composure, decisions, technique, first touch. All of them arround 13, which is more tan fine for my level, even provided I'm facing a very weak team and they are cb not playmakers.

Roles and duties around them check; fb(s) fb(a) cb(d) dlp/cm(de) dlp/cm/(su). These are the player who I want my cb to pass the ball. They keep hoofing the ball to nobody. I don't have a Tm which could make this happen (442 with False9-AF combo upfront). I'm not asking anything specifically demaning, just pass short to the free teammate. They don't.

I have this problem as well

[TheresOnlyTwoFilipSebos]

Quote

11 hours ago, tacticsdude said:

I think you are too focused on tactics. I would say more than half of what makes me successful has to do with club management. I'm constantly working on maintaining player form, keeping my guys motivated, improving my overall team's CA, strengthening the club's financial position, etc.

 

This 

This is pretty much my take on the last 2 or 3 editions of the game. Tactics to me are less important than they used to be, and more important is every other aspect of squad management.

Tactically, simplicity is key in my eyes.

I have a base tactic that is so simply made, with no specialist roles and only one or two TI/PI's, it's easy to see when things aren't working. Nine times out of ten, if I'm not happy with what i see in the first 15 minutes of a game, a simple TI/PI addition usually cures it. As @tacticsdude said previously, it doesn't always result in a win, but I always end the game happier knowing my team has played how I expect them to play. Having such a simply made tactic also allows it to be changed very easily just by changing players. Having two very different players for each role is a huge benefit.

As for every other aspect, it's pretty much a balancing act. Making sure you have a happy squad, but keeping it competitive. Praising players, but not making them too big headed. Bollocking players, but not making them feel too down. Form and morale go hand in hand IMO. 

 

[Cougar2010]

I've only skimmed the page but there seems to be a massive misunderstanding of what team shape does.

At a very basic level the more structured the shape the more a player will focus on his own role/duty when it comes to his instructions.

The more fluid the shape the more he will focus on the team mentality/instructions.

Obviously there is some crossover between the two (Team mentality & role mentality).

[Los_Culés]

3 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

I've only skimmed the page but there seems to be a massive misunderstanding of what team shape does.

At a very basic level the more structured the shape the more a player will focus on his own role/duty when it comes to his instructions.

The more fluid the shape the more he will focus on the team mentality/instructions.

Obviously there is some crossover between the two (Team mentality & role mentality).

Compactness and individual freedom should be IMO totally separated from each other and therefore should not be combined in a team shape.

[Svenc]

9 hours ago, looping said:

The whole point is drawing a general principle and employ it to a variety of circumstances. I can't draw that general principle. I feel like driving a car with all kind of lights and alerts sounding without any idea of what to do. I turn left and the door opens. I accelerate and the radio turns on I brake and the car turns left. This leads to frustration, panic and sure I end up making things even worse.

Which doesn't surprise me, as prior to registering here, you were posting on another board. There is basically a huge thread I found later on documenting how it was obvious that you never put much thought into things even in basics terms, both when watching an actual match of football and an FM match of football. It also documents that you never much thought about things happening off the pitch as well, like  starting saves / seasons over and over, finishing different places in each and claiming that to be too "random". I had only found that thread later, and it fits in with everything I personally observe. I don't hate you, as I don't know you.  Suffice it to say, whoever that "influential figures" are you continue to quote that argue to you "buying better players would be useless" or you'd "at best forget about football" with tactics -- they're talking rubbish and shouldn't be quoted. There's a reason for some "common sense" decisions work, and others don't. They struggle with the common sense, which means, the game can't help them and never may. Doesn't have to do with "intelligence" at all, but largely how we perceive football in big parts. There's people playing this just nicely, perhaps because their brain isn't wired to obsess about things all over and accept them as part of the game.

It reeks of bad game design though that you could take "Catania to 5 CL wins in sequence" on whatever release before (which one exactly), keeping the ho-hum meh players, and learning absolutely nothing useful along that way. If you would, it would have translated over. If you did it despite your documented struggles in various early threads, it was a terrible simulation of football too. Your best bet is going back to that release, and taking a deep look at what you did on those may be also revealing. Your best bet was going back to a release that you enjoyed full-stop. Despite it all, a lot of the time you outperform AI by ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous margins -- despite it all (which naturally fits the trend that most players who claim this game "insanely difficult" mostly aren't actually doing horrible -- they simply want to do better, but there's a limit how far you can progress in any game in this world no matter how hard you try, I'd remain mediocre playing Call Of Duty too!). Which doesn't surprise me either, as your general grasp on the most important thing, which is how roles/duties translate into attackiing shapes, is sound (you even are able to visualize that nicely).

And if dafuge, similar to El Payaso's "Mc Donald's" recipe for tactics claims he's mainly only looking at star ratings when scouting for better players -- he's not lying either, that's how simple this game can be when scouting too, largely. It's just that, if you want to stay friends with me, don't ever send me anymore PMs showing a run of x matches without winning, asking me whether you should at all continue playing (yes, I would!). [Or a pkm where you claim to be outplayed, when it's obvious your opposition despite xxxxxx% possession doesn't even much get into your box for its shots]. --> This is also stuff you would only "learn" outside the game, as the game's "match reports" by the end of the match would claim that side booting nothing but 30 long shots was "playing fantastic football" and was unlucky to not score. I'd long gone back to the last release I enjoyed either way, and personally after all seen, I can't see you getting hugely much "enjoyment" anymore. It's been a severe uphill battle from the start, and not only because of the game. That's meant as a word of reason and advice (from my perspective), which I wouldn't give if I hated anyone.

[looping]

Spoiler

 

Fact is I feel very frustrated with the game and my performances.

It's true I never put much thought into things because I never needed to. I've played Fm since 01-02, I can tell you about Aghahowa and Todorov scoring +40goals every season. Not that I want that nowadays. Far from it.

All my previous experiences with FM were: Start a sabe, choose any team and struggle for a certain period of time. Struggle could mean 5 matches, 10 or a couple of seasons but if there was a clear pattern is thing getting progressively better. I remember perfectly one sabe with Napoli, Cavani was there. Well, Cavani didn't score a single goal until january. Once he started to score, game became as easy as usual and I started winning consecutive CL.

Another sabe with Bayern Múnich happened essentially the same. I signed Dzeko (Wolfsburg IIRC) and he didn't score for a long time until suddenly he started to score and you know the rest.

Clear pattern was things getting better. Not necesseraly that extreme, but an obvious growth in terms of results, according to the new players signed.

First time I saw the TC and I opened the TI screen I thought: "Wow, WTF is this. I don't give a ****, I won't use it". Excellent decisión seen with perspective. I kept playing the game the same way. I won uncountable trophies with almost any team. Never payed any attention to tactics. At most, mentality: I want to attack, switch to control. I want to defend, switch to counter. I had 2 tactics: 4123 and 442. Switching them according to players. Anything else.

That sabe with Catania. Well, I even remember the day I started it, where I was and what I was doing minutes before... Won't tell you, this is not the place. I started the sabe and said, ok, this team is overall rubbish but has a couple of decent players (Belluci and Alejandro Gomez), let's build from here.

I don't remember all the details, but first two seasons were somewhat difficult. IIRC, i ended up arround 8 and 6 position with excellent results according to the level of my team and terrible players I had. I remember an argentinian striker who has really infuriating. 

WHy I didn't frustrate and restart? Because there were clear signs of improvement. My team didn't have a good start and then crashed. Won here, lost there... But, certainly there was no WWDWWDDWWWWWDDLLLLDLLLD pattern. I had  good defense, as always in any save in FM history. Conceding less tan 1 goal per game always, no matter the team or players. My problem was always to score, not to concede.

I just kept playing until I signed a regen called Asanin, croatian striker TM type of player, perhaps the best player I've ever seen in FM. From that moment, I started winning more matches and finally completely dominating Serie A and CL, which is something I don't want to see. It's boring and anyone eventually loses interest.

Now, we arrive to fm16. I start a save. I do surprisingly well, better tan expected for arround 20 matches and saw the sack. Mmmm... something may have changed? 

I started a save with Milan. The same.

Provided the results, I googled a bit an saw that fórums you talk about and posted there. I asked and received the classic answer: it's your tactics. Something I've never been interested in, at least in FM. IRL, I have my own ideas about football, perhaps weird but they while controversial they are firm and sound. I know what I'm talking about, even if I'm wrong. Think about philosophical arguments in the history: who was right Heraclitus or Parménides? Sure you get the point.

I eventually started another save with Milan and more or less happened the same. Only difference a few lucky results which resulted on ending up 2, which is what you claim greeat success. It was not. That season was a great start and then crying for the season to end for 3 months. Perhaps I won 2 matches in those 3 months. ANy save I started during that process (before I started posting out from here and during the posting) followed the exact same pattern: excellent start until something crashes and cryfor the season to end. Next season, nothing changed and I was just sacked or resigned due to terrible results. This point is important. I restart/resign if I think I deserve to be sacked, even if the board doesn't sack me. If I don't see some progress, some light at the end of the túnel, there is no point on keep playing. If I can't recognize my team (solid at back) and I can't make no progress I just feel completely dissattached to the save. It's not that a problem of winning. Is more a problem of recognizing my hand on my team.

So I started reading about tactics because I was told that was my problem. I eventually posted here. And here we are now. My tactics are far better, I have an understanding of the game (in theoretical terms) much better tan any average user but the same keep happening: good start and then crash. Not that extreme, it's true. Not in every single save, sometimes my teams somehow manage to get out from the slump, but the pattern is basically the same. Good start and crash.  THings getting worse or, at best, without any substantial progress, even signing better players. Believe me or not, that's true.

That's why I say just using a tactic and signing better players doesn't provide me results. Just once it happened and probably was caused by my superb players or something very strange. I got eventually bored of that save and started a new one. I won everything with Milan, winning almost every game in Serie A. This is not what I want neither. I want to play a competitive game where I can win or lose. What I find now is something somewhat scripted (not strictly scripted, sure you get it) where I'll start very well and at some point will crash. The alternative is winning everything, which doesn't happen often, but is as frustrating as being sacked.

I honestly admit I've learnt a lot and I even sometimes find myself analyzing RL matches the same I would do in FM. Identifying roles played by RL players. Sure you know what I mean. Surprisingly, I can do it IRL much better tan in the game.

I know I understand the game theoretically. PRoblem comes once I watch a match and all kind of bells ring and alerts sound. Probably overreacting, it's true but I've been told so many times to watch matches and see what's wrong... That's what I do. People say here I don't take advice on board. I'd say the opposite. I highly respect you @Svenc among other users. If you say something, I firmly believe it, I trust on you. It's like "he said it, sure he is right and I'm wrong. I have to undestand why". I've strictly followed everything has been said and when I didn't (once, in my first thread) I realized how wrong I was and I apologized. That caused something in all honestly a couple of mods should explain because is the root cause of many things.  Or before it, go to my first thread in this fórums and read the first page. Tell me if you see anything noticeable.

I felt very very aggravated when people said I was ignoring advice. I was doing exactly the opposite, blindly following what I was told, and precisely that was the problem. On top of that, I'm terribly bad, in any paths of life, at taking sudden decisions and I experience some minor visual spatial problems (if average is 5, I'm 4, nothing particuarly important but doesn't help neither).

If I tell you I'm not having comfortable results with that El Payaso Mcdonalds thing is because I'm not. Reading you say that reminds me from people saying I was ignroing advice. I'm not, mate, I'm not. I'd like the say otherwise but I'm not. I was sacked twice! I showed you. And I didn't show you other saves which I deserved more the sack (the save I showed, I felt somewhat betrayed by the board.. I was close to European football and previous season ended up 4).

To sum up, if I don't see what's wrong in a match, I'm not doing it on purpose and I'm not lying. If I don't get comfortable results with that McDonald's thing, I'm not doing on purpose and I'm not lying. I even tried allowing my assman (previosly checking his stats) to do evertyhing except tactics, and the same happened. I'm doing the same I did on fm 9,10,11, 12, 13 or cm 01-02, using McDonald's tactic and my assman teamtalks and prss conferences. I only sign and sell players and press continue. I always sign better players, I'm not that dumb. I don't tweak anything, Mcdonalds tactics only.

I'm not asking for help anymore, basically because I don't know how anyone could help me here, even if someone still wanted, I'm trying now a different way to play the game which certainly matches with my experience. I hope I can explain that next week, if I have some time.

 

[Svenc]

We had this all before. In parts it exposed that you perceive teams in football to always "Progress" (or expect it to in-game), and seasons be like totally non-streaky. That's just far from being the case in any kind of way. I personally enjoy the difficult times, you sack yourself when you feel you should see the sack. Nothing at all you can do about THAT, either way. In fact, it's been one of my initial frustrations. You claimed you were sacked every time, when you simply throw in the towel on occasion simply because things aren't all roses anymore. There were threads at the start where guys even needed to point out how simplistic your perception was, as a specific bad run involved playing the league's best and far superior teams. Good luck on it. I think you're aiming for fantasy la-la land, when you will always have a limitation as how far you can progress (that aforementioned thread confirms it). That doesn't mean you can't have any success, certainly not on the current level of AI that wouldn't even worry about cbs "competing for the same header" or anything (I don't). It doesn't even react to when it's getting loled by through balls to a pacey player over its aggressive lines all match long, not even on that "Guardiola" level. Plus the game's strived for a balance between tactics and players either way. However, on occasion, you may sadly see the sack for real. However, if you found a way to enjoy this, I'm glad about it. I hope you will only announce it though if you're dead certain this time... and you always find a reason to stop. Always.

If I'm sounding brisk at times, it's because I'd want you to snap out of it and realize it. Otherwise those old releases won't go away. Though I'd be fascinated how those saves actually looked like back then, tactics included, in particular as the core systems rewarded have never changed in a decade. If they would, thath would be a bad sign too, as the game would be unlike football. If there was anything logically going on, it would have translated over to current editions for sure, and the AI was at least given some added "intelligence" by ca. about Fm 2010ish. Perhaps that is the only thing to salvage actually. Ensuring that future generations can't have such saves without knowing what they are doing even in simple terms. Making certain that players actually "learn" to play the game before they can progress anywhere. A game in which you can do well time and time again without even caring about half of it is bad game design. You may luck out for a season or two, but that's about it. That's like doing well on, I don't know, Team Fortress 2 even if you dont' care about aiming at stuff (but are in it purely for the neat explosions).

[FatRonaldo]

On 1/4/2018 at 08:07, tacticsdude said:

I get that you feel lost in FM, I understand that very well. As much as I can say I'm very good at it now on any version of FM, I remember vividly getting trampled over and over and sacked plenty during my first few careers.

I think you are too focused on tactics. I would say more than half of what makes me successful has to do with club management. I'm constantly working on maintaining player form, keeping my guys motivated, improving my overall team's CA, strengthening the club's financial position, etc.

 

And when it comes to tactics, for me it is all about space and advantage. How do you make sure you cover all the space, put your players where they'll have the right space when attacking, how do you set up your team so that you'll have an advantage going into every match.

For me, being good at tactics is about giving your players a small advantage at all times. If we are relegation favorites and I'm playing a top-half club then I try to set up tactics that give us a good chance at a tie. So I'll set up some negative tactics and I'll look to do something that hampers the opposition and gives us a chance at scoring on the break.

My point is that you can't teach yourself to tinker like a pro manager if you are feeling lost on what works and what doesn't. You MUST start with the simple and stay on simple until you feel you've gotten a handle of that. Work on:
- keep your players motivated and happy
- keep your players fit, and have a bit of a rotation so the players feel there's competition for places
- get them to gel, and to feel a sense of passion for the club
- constantly bring in youth that can challenge (improves competition, depth, and improves finances)
- AND:

Try to master a formation
Any formation, I would go with a single striker formation (if you are only going to master one formation) but even 442 is perfectly fine. Learn everything about it: strengths, weakness, where do you concede space, where can you control the game better, which players create your chances, how do you cross when the opposition defends deep, how do you get the ball to your striker when he is being marked closely, etc. You must understand it fully, attack and defense, and how it fares against all other styles and formations. Only then you'll start seeing the problems, the pockets of space, the threat of certain type of creative players, the use of speed for or against you, etc.

 

Thought Process
For me, tweaking tactics is mostly fairly easy. This is what my thought process looks like on any given league match, let's say against similar size opposition:
Formation: I usually start with a 433 variant that can go more like 451 if i want to start more defensive. I may also use a 442 narrow diamond if I feel the opposition will nullify my wingers with great defending. So even before the game I'm already anticipating the skills battle across the pitch between my players and the opposition. I'm making assumptions as to who will win the small battles (can my fullback overlap and get the crosses out, or will their fullback keep our crosses contained?)  Here is more detail to set the example:
- Do I need a strong CDM: Can I control the match? If so, I will be moving the ball around and maybe I play 2 creative players and a destroyer, or I play 3 well-rounded CMs without a destroyer because we won't have to deal with strong attacks. The choice of CDM will influence how my CBs play - a strong CDM takes the pressure off CBs and comes down to the back line if we are under attack. A variation on that is if I'm expecting to suffer fast counters, then playing a destroyer CDM lets me play the back line deep without leaving a pocket of space in front of the CBs.

... and so forth for key positions, depending on the formation. For instance, a 442 narrow diamond really requires that I control the game with my fullbacks. If that doesn't break my way then I'm going to suffer. Playing a wide 433 with speedy wingers will not help if the opposition has very strong fullbacks that will stay back, then my wingers will not get anything done in attack and would also be a liability in defense, so might as well use midfield-type wingers further back and aim for a more well-rounded battle.

By the time I get to the game, I'm just watching to see how all these things unfold. Are the fullbacks finding joy? Are we leaving too much space? Is their striker getting be ball to feet or in the air? How is my CDM choice handling the match? Are we creating more chances than the opposition? Who has most possession, passes and dangerous chances? Who's winning the "attrition battle" (exhaustion, injuries, cards, total subs, players having a bad day).

From here making decisions is pretty easy. For instance, if my fullback can't get his crosses out, I was already planning for such a situation and I know I have to ask him to try it less and I have to switch to plan B creating moves somewhere else. And so forth for all the other mini battles across the pitch that I had been preempting. So in FM 17, usually within the first 20 mins of the match I do my final tweaks and from there on the match pretty much goes my way. Doesn't mean I win them all, but from a tactical perspective I want my team to look a bit better and sharper, more dangerous and less likely to concede, and that's as much as a manager can do from the sidelines, the rest is up to the boys and how happy and motivated we were able to get them.

with all of this, yet i see people calling to simplify things and not to overthink.

how what you type is simplify things up?

Overthinking about who to cross how to cross, if the striker is lone striker how to cross, look for spaces to exploit, look to control areas (love this statement), look at your full back, look at space space to exploit and not to give to much space to the opposition, look at your CDM look at your husband, look at your wife, look at the assistant manager that he isn't giving you full of BS advices, look at your GK that he doesn't have a bad day in the office, but most importantly look at the opposite team so they won't have a good game.

all the advices you write here doesn't help in the process, you can all type what ever you want on what to look on or giving advices, but it's clearly that the game is so pathetically random and scripted in a way where if you set roles and duty "properly" you will get a good result for you (who said there is a proper way to set roles and duty IRL?, there is no one way to play football IRL, but if you set duty and duty in "unappropriate" way, the ME will get you screwed).

I already tested by myself how pathetic is the ME and saw that changing one duty can change the entire match, this is pathetic and undeservedly penalty for the casual user.

[tacticsdude]

2 hours ago, FatRonaldo said:

but if you set duty and duty in "unappropriate" way, the ME will get you screwed).

That's true. I find that the players in the ME are made to act stupid, incapable of adapting to the game and trying different things. So when you give them a 'role' you are putting them on rails (particularly with wide players) and if those rails don't fit you are shooting yourself in the foot. So you DO have to watch closely to see how your players are moving and what they are doing, and correct accordingly. This part has to be mastered as much as possible if you want to succeed in FM.

However, you don't have to set fancy roles. You can play 442 with default roles and the players will be fine for the most part. It is only when you start getting fancy with the formation and roles that things start falling apart if you don't know what you are doing tactically. Like if you want to play a 433 asymmetrical with a winger on one end (say a Neymar player) and an inside wide AM on the other end (say a David Silva), that formation will behave in a very particular way and you could be carving holes into your own team.

 

2 hours ago, FatRonaldo said:

who said there is a proper way to set roles and duty IRL?

I'm sorry but on this I'm not following you. What do you think pro managers do to set tactics? The roles system in FM is trying to give you a way to communicate to the player what their job is. I find it restrictive (I would like to give them more custom instructions) but overall the roles are trying to match definitions you would use to tell your players how to play.

Say you have Ronaldo, he has the skills to be anything you want in the final third. How do you tell him how to play? Mourinho wanted him as a winger or a trequartista, Zidane wants him as a SS CAM and then switches him to poacher late in the game. If you were running Real Madrid IRL, how do you figure you'd tell him how to play?

[jujigatame]

In my experience, tactics matter much less than people think they do.  I do all sorts of things that are probably big no-nos on the tactics forum (like constantly fiddling with roles, duties, and team mentality on a game-by-game basis depending on the players in my lineup) and my teams do just fine.

If you happen upon a tactic that lets your team massively overperform, I would characterize it as an "exploit" more than some piece of tactical genius.

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, jujigatame said:

In my experience, tactics matter much less than people think they do.  I do all sorts of things that are probably big no-nos on the tactics forum (like constantly fiddling with roles, duties, and team mentality on a game-by-game basis depending on the players in my lineup) and my teams do just fine.

Nails it for most of the time. As argued numerous amounts of times, the game isn't even tweaked for anybody majorly frequenting any tactics forums. One of the reasons I don't go there much anymore, as I have no interest in stuff the opposition cannot compete against, that's not football. Additionally, it tries to get the balance between player quality and tactics. Ideally, tactics in themselves alone will only do this much anyhow... as that's football from my end. It shifts a few probabilites. It never is a root cause of sides tonking superior teams over and over again. In-game, it can be, to an extent, as AI is not as creative as a human user. Plus -- and this is my opinion -- the match engine has always some holes in there that sometimes need to be watched, but would not exist in a real match of football. For instance the multiple forwards not tracking back, being immediately available for an easy counter attack for any side that it employs it -- and the players not "adapting" to that by common sense. But keep on getting countered over and over again.

There is better and worse players. However, to do well in this game you don't need to become a guru. No guru is your opponent, it's AI... a few common sense or alternatively getting a few assistants involved can do. There's oft a probolem of perception, in that for some if seems difficult to gauge whether they're doing well or worse. If anybody has a suggestion how to make the game more accessible, fire away. I have a few. I'm not sure if they'd be taken though, as I doubt they would "exploit" the game or guarantee dramatic overachievements  -- some of which include proper tactical assistant managers taking over and teaching you  a few things. Perhaps much improved match plans for them to carry out so that you don't need to deal with the micro details, but may encourage him to play for a draw in a difficult away match, and so on. The tactical UI can also only improve -- there is still no distinction between attack and defending shapes encouraged -- and imo bringing back the SI concept of "mentality" into the fold explicitly is a regression to where it was headed a few years ago. But yeah, there really is quite a lot of leeway. The game isn't purely about tactics too, anyway (unless you indeed exploit it, upon which nothing you do matters -- honestly, you could go into the editor then, it is the exact same effect). You can screw up elsewhere some. Or indeed, overachieve by different means. Not every manager is some tactical genius in real football. You'd expect that to be replicated in the game somehow. What is has punished though is stuff full of holes that wouldn't make sense on a football pitch, plus bad decisions.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

On 02/12/2017 at 13:06, Cougar2010 said:

 

The main issue IMO we see on the forums falls into a couple of categories:

A) Unrealistic expectations.  Either as a result of overachieving on previous versions or seeing other users overachieve.  If you finish mid table with a team thats expected to fight relegation thats a good season but many still see it as a failure.

B) Tactical ability - Here I'm not talking about basic tactics but the really terrible tactics we see from time to time that logically don't make any sense and I wonder if the person creating them has ever played football at any level.  Even if you can't build a basic tactic you can use one of the default setups and get reasonable results.

 

 

A - I completely agree on. But you see it IRL as well. There are a lot of people, in the media and in reality saying Manchester United are having a horrific season and sticking their heads in the sand over the fact that they're doing relatively well considering their past seasons, and the abnormality of Manchester City.  In fact, I'd say it feels like the average player/fan is not happy unless they're having Manchester City style seasonal successes in the game. I've been frequenting fan forums this season, and it is just staggering how people over-react over a loss or a draw, so much so, they expect to be winning every single match bar maybe one or two hard away games. 

That's just not feasible in reality or in the gaming world.

 

B - I can relate, but... I'd say that football logic doesn't come naturally to all players. I myself have been criticised for being too conservative in my role selection in the past, and 'logically' I'm supposed to improve on that. But to me, I can't see it very well. I suspect a lot of people will have similar issues as they approach tactics in a different way etc.

 

 

On 04/01/2018 at 12:53, looping said:

I know what you mean... I'm doing the same, exactly, fact is I'm doing it wrong. All I see is constant missplaced passes, passing the ball the opposition, hoofing it, not tackling. It's like evertyhing is wrong at any level and my players are complete dummies. It's weird because they don't act like dummies for some matches and suddenly they do.

MY cb has the ball. He has, at every least 3 easy passing options. He hoofs it. Ok it happened once, so I'd better wait to see if it's a pattern or just an isolated event.

In 10 minutes has happened 4 times, so it seems a pattern. Both of my cb are hoofing the ball. I tell them to pass shorter. Still happens. I remove risky passes from them. Still happens. I use Play out the defense TI. Still happens. They are constantly hoofing the ball. I put a Deep lying playmaker in my midfield so fortunately my cb will look for him. Still hoofing the ball all the time. I try with a WP on one flank. Nothing.

Attributes check: passing, visión, composure, decisions, technique, first touch. All of them arround 13, which is more tan fine for my level, even provided I'm facing a very weak team and they are cb not playmakers.

 

I can relate to this sometimes.

I'll see a midfield player run wide, he's being shadowed. he has a passing option  backwards, which is to the full back. The midfielder is facing side-on, so the full back is in full view of him. He'll dither and shadow the ball (under pressure) to the touchline, do his ballet dance tippy tappy, then get tackled. And I'm bursting a vein in fury that the wife immediately decides to hide out elsewhere for the day. 

It could be awful decision making - it probably is, but there are so many times I see the simple damn passing option, not being taken, it can be insufferable. One of the biggest issues I have is also with fullbacks and centrebacks playing it long. Sometimes, I want to see it happen - i..e the opposition is playing a high line, I have an advanced forward, let's go! But sometimes I don't, they're playing deep, my formation is 4-4-1-1, which is suitable for passing up the field, not necessarily hoofing it up the field, because no one is going to get there in time to help.

 

One of the things that makes identifying issues a problem for me, is I'm never sure if it is an tactical issue, or a game issue. I've been on the tactical forums sometimes, and when I identify a problem, usually the clever clogs identify something completely different and I feel like an idiot.  One issue I have at the moment for example; is that players don't move up in time, quick enough to keep up with play. That's a transition issue, but I have no idea how to fix it. In fact, it is one reason I've been playing the way I have so far, because the only way I know how to 'fix' the issue is to play with an attacking midfielder. Without one, no one moves quick enough and the play gets isolated and shut out or a long shot attempt happens. Having looked at the way I set things up over time, I'm uncertain of why this happens, but alas.

 

[masno]

On 05/12/2017 at 20:19, MBarbaric said:

Tactic creator should be a tool that lets the human player express himself in football terms. It should be clear and straight forward.

A set of questions should be posed to a manager.

DEFENSIVE PHASE:

What defensive shape do you want to use?
4-4-2, 4-1-4-1, 4-5-1, 5-3-2, 5-4-1, 6-3-1,---?

Do you want to set pressing traps?
If yes, where? 
Center? 
Flanks?

What will be the pressing triggers?
a back pass?
poor control?
opposition entering specific zone?

Where do you want to engage the opposition?

Attacking third (high press)?
Half way line? 
Middle third? 
Defensive third?

Do you want to use man oriented or space oriented marking?

How do you want to defend the flanks?
Bring men behind and force the play back?
Close down aggressively?

How do you want to defend the center of the pitch?
Cover the passing lanes?
Close down aggressively?

How do you want to defend the weak flank?
Leave the wide man to cover?
Let the wide man cover the center?

OFFENSIVE PHASE

Do you want to play from the back?
If yes, who should support the transition into the middle third?
A central midfielder dropping deep?
Two central midfielders dropping deep?
Wingers coming into halfspaces?

Do you want your full backs to support the attack?
If yes, cutting inside, overlapping or both?

Who should cover them?
One central midfielder, two?

How do you plan to penetrate the attacking third?
Overloads, Direct passes, crosses...?

If overloads:
Where? left, right, center?
Who? striker dropping deep, winger from weak flank coming towards the center of play? full back moves inside?...

If Direct passes:
From where? Deep, middle third?
From who?
To whome? to winger towards flank, to winger towards the channel, for winger on the weak side to wards the channel, wide... To striker, wide, channel, behind the back line...

This is just an example and what came off the top of my head. There might be various things that can't be done in the ME but it is just an example. These questions are the questions that every decent manager asks himself once he knows what kind of squad he has. plus a ton more. However, the point is, it should be clear and answer direct questions regarding how a player wants to see his team play. Then, the TC should move all the sliders, tick all the boxes and come up with a system that will or won't be good for the team.

I understand it might be completely off the mark regarding what actually could be done. However, in broad sense, it is how the game philosophy of a team is created. With tons of other factors missing, but it should be an aim ideally, i think.

Allow me to say that you idea is perfect and is exactly what I expect to FM reach one day.

As a person that always looked to the tactical aspect in RL football,this type of instruction would be the heaven for me,complete and detalied.
You definitevely should put this on the feature request.

[MBarbaric]

4 ore fa, masno ha scritto:

As a person that always looked to the tactical aspect in RL football,this type of instruction would be the heaven for me,complete and detalied.
You definitevely should put this on the feature request.

SI I is aware how defence and its implementation work in football as much as they know the pitch is rectangular so I don't see the need to point out obvious. It is on them to implement it in TC and ME. 

[Svenc]

Those are all football based questions to ask yourself. Ideally, an UI does that. You can argue about the specifics of course. However, that's what I mean with "regression" of the UI. Yes, there's underlying mechanics the ME needs to be fed, same as any game. However, contrary to where the UI was headed ten years ago, they've become this mandatory again that you absolutely need to refer to them to explain what the **** that "team shape" stuff is actually supposed to do. As argued though somewhere, to me it seems no coincidence that some of the original co-authors of the Tactics Creator back then aren't involved anymore after enquiring. It's more than that. The last of the two initial authors that suggested it all to SI despite some doubts has stopped being involved just by FM16, the version where the more recent changes were introduced. To me some overhauls in the past ca. 3 years are even contradicting / undermining what was attempted back then. Those overhauls may allow for some added micro control and tweaks. E.g. if my forward is on a higher mentality in a defensive/structured shape than on defensive/fluid, then... all good. Football it is, not always that much.

It's also worrying that the current tactical mods contradict/deny those intital authors. For instance, the specialist/generalist role dichotomy combated nowadays in the tactics forums was 100% directly taken from Arrigo Sacchi, and Jonathan Wilson. Ask those guys. Mail them. It may have not translated very well into the engine, may never have been fully embraced by SI, or wasn't meant as a rule for playing or anything. However, the point is, these guys had researched language and concepts used by football managers and analysts before sending their suggestions to SI. Both Sacchi and Wilson aren't the most obscure figures too, so it may have been something you may have heard about somewhere. Mentality, you won't see anybody talking about anywhere.... and the less said about the awful team shape on that front (at least from a football end), the better. I don't think Si are deliberately doing it though. Same as older tactical UIs weren't deliberately designed to be a bit opaque. From a coder's perspective, it made perfect sense, as it all was directly tied to the player behavior he coded into the engine.

[shirajzl]

2 hours ago, Svenc said:

Those are all football based questions to ask yourself. Ideally, an UI does that. You can argue about the specifics of course. However, that's what I mean with "regression" of the UI. Yes, there's underlying mechanics the ME needs to be fed, same as any game. However, contrary to where the UI was headed ten years ago, they've become this mandatory again that you absolutely need to refer to them to explain what the **** that "team shape" stuff is actually supposed to do. As argued though somewhere, to me it seems no coincidence that some of the original co-authors of the Tactics Creator back then aren't involved anymore after enquiring. It's more than that. The last of the two initial authors that suggested it all to SI despite some doubts has stopped being involved just by FM16, the version where the more recent changes were introduced. To me some overhauls in the past ca. 3 years are even contradicting / undermining what was attempted back then. Those overhauls may allow for some added micro control and tweaks. E.g. if my forward is on a higher mentality in a defensive/structured shape than on defensive/fluid, then... all good. Football it is, not always that much.

It's also worrying that the current tactical mods contradict/deny those intital authors. For instance, the specialist/generalist role dichotomy combated nowadays in the tactics forums was 100% directly taken from Arrigo Sacchi, and Jonathan Wilson. Ask those guys. Mail them. It may have not translated very well into the engine, may never have been fully embraced by SI, or wasn't meant as a rule for playing or anything. However, the point is, these guys had researched language and concepts used by football managers and analysts before sending their suggestions to SI. Both Sacchi and Wilson aren't the most obscure figures too, so it may have been something you may have heard about somewhere. Mentality, you won't see anybody talking about anywhere.... and the less said about the awful team shape on that front (at least from a football end), the better. I don't think Si are deliberately doing it though. Same as older tactical UIs weren't deliberately designed to be a bit opaque. From a coder's perspective, it made perfect sense, as it all was directly tied to the player behavior he coded into the engine.

In other words, in past FMs in order to understand tactics (sliders) you needed to understand specific FM language. Then we transitioned to the initial versions of TC which moved from FM language to football language. Recent changes, however, are going dangerously close towards full circle. It's becoming FM language all over again. I'd even argue it's already become that.

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, shirajzl said:

In other words, in past FMs in order to understand tactics (sliders) you needed to understand specific FM language. Then we transitioned to the initial versions of TC which moved from FM language to football language. Recent changes, however, are going dangerously close towards full circle. It's becoming FM language all over again. I'd even argue it's already become that.

My opinion exactly. It's not been pushed further -- rather, it's gone backwards to a degree. For a demonstration of that, just follow some of the articles SI have linked and actually recommended on their Twitter  (the article on team shape and mentality from February 11, for instance). You don't get a better demonstration for this. This is basically the tacitcal discussions you had on these forums ten+ years ago all over. For much of the article, there is very little actual football talk in there. Rather, the main focus is inherently game mechanics such as the "mentality". However, it seems a challenge, naturally. The engine obviously has limitations... same as its "under the hood" mechanics. The challenge here has three steps:

- actually researching football concepts proper
- checking whether they may work / at all translate well into the game
- making sure that those concepts are understood -- and can also be used "logically" by AI alike

[masno]

11 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

SI I is aware how defence and its implementation work in football as much as they know the pitch is rectangular so I don't see the need to point out obvious. It is on them to implement it in TC and ME. 

Well,maybe an idea can help them to a new TC,if we are very lucky, FM19 could be the FM of tactical and ME changes,and your idea been on a later FM.

[tacticsdude]

13 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

SI I is aware how defence and its implementation work in football as much as they know the pitch is rectangular

I don't think they do. It's been decades and the tactics UI doesn't support some basic concepts of modern tactics. No way to separate attack from defense formations, no way to give instructions for how to handle phase changes, no instructions for segments of the pitch, etc, and that's just at a team level without getting into player-level detail.

I honestly don't think SI does much to hire modern tacticians to figure out FM's tactics (they may have some consultants, but whoever those people are probably can't make sense of what's happening when they watch a Guardiola or Pochettino game). There's not much evidence that the game as a whole understands footy tactics beyond the level of a mildly involved armchair enthusiast.

[warlock]

5 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

I honestly don't think SI does much to hire modern tacticians to figure out FM's tactics (they may have some consultants, but whoever those people are probably can't make sense of what's happening when they watch a Guardiola or Pochettino game). There's not much evidence that the game as a whole understands footy tactics beyond the level of a mildly involved armchair enthusiast.

In the face of incredibly high competition, that might be the dumbest thing I've ever read on these forums.

[themadsheep2001]

10 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

I don't think they do. It's been decades and the tactics UI doesn't support some basic concepts of modern tactics. No way to separate attack from defense formations, no way to give instructions for how to handle phase changes, no instructions for segments of the pitch, etc, and that's just at a team level without getting into player-level detail.

I honestly don't think SI does much to hire modern tacticians to figure out FM's tactics (they may have some consultants, but whoever those people are probably can't make sense of what's happening when they watch a Guardiola or Pochettino game). There's not much evidence that the game as a whole understands footy tactics beyond the level of a mildly involved armchair enthusiast.

This probably couldn't be any more incorrect, or insulting of the people involved. Not the finest post in truth. 

Knowing the game and coding it into practice, for both user and more critically the AI, are world's apart. 

Much as 4 phases need to be obvious, if the AI can't use it, it defeats the point 

[masno]

2 hours ago, tacticsdude said:

I don't think they do. It's been decades and the tactics UI doesn't support some basic concepts of modern tactics. No way to separate attack from defense formations, no way to give instructions for how to handle phase changes, no instructions for segments of the pitch, etc, and that's just at a team level without getting into player-level detail.

I honestly don't think SI does much to hire modern tacticians to figure out FM's tactics (they may have some consultants, but whoever those people are probably can't make sense of what's happening when they watch a Guardiola or Pochettino game). There's not much evidence that the game as a whole understands footy tactics beyond the level of a mildly involved armchair enthusiast.

I think you are a bit too harsh with the guys that are involved in this part of the game,but yes, modern aspects of football are not in the game.

You don't have defensive formation,you can't have a gegenpressing correctly in this FM, and some roles/instructions/shape simply don't work as intended or the description are far from what it really is.

FM needs a big step in this part,because the man management part is very complete on the level of tecnology that we have nowadays.

There is no way to be a great manager in 2018 without some modern concepts in your tactics.

[MBarbaric]

3 ore fa, tacticsdude ha scritto:

I don't think they do. It's been decades and the tactics UI doesn't support some basic concepts of modern tactics. No way to separate attack from defense formations, no way to give instructions for how to handle phase changes, no instructions for segments of the pitch, etc, and that's just at a team level without getting into player-level detail.

I honestly don't think SI does much to hire modern tacticians to figure out FM's tactics (they may have some consultants, but whoever those people are probably can't make sense of what's happening when they watch a Guardiola or Pochettino game). There's not much evidence that the game as a whole understands footy tactics beyond the level of a mildly involved armchair enthusiast.

1

1. correct, not only tactics but movement, body orientation, ... Then again, a lot of footballers don't understand it either

I do match analysis as a daily job and I am not the only one to say that much of what happens in ME makes no sense. However, I sincerely doubt that has anything to do with lack of football knowledge within SI itself (or their reach). The difficult part, I guess, is translating a complex game of football into computer language. 

[Svenc]

9 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

The difficult part, I guess, is translating a complex game of football into computer language. 

And that large parts of it are a bit subjective too. Some of the above assessments long-term are a bit unfair I think too. Up to the turn of the decade, the engine for instance hadn't that overly rewarded/punished core logics inherent to sports that much. In a sense, up to FM2013 some space could be there on the pitch no matter what you did. Each major upgrade, long-term, has rewarded football / team sports logics more acutely. I think the introduction of both actually body contact / collision completely plus "proper" zonal defending would make for huge paradigm shifts alone. Also how team building and tactical choices are being rewarded. Whilst some of it is lovingly subjective, which is why you have so many different teams being successful, football, any sports, isn't a sandbox, after all. There are things that work and things that plain would never work.

I love the mentality calculator in the piece linked on the Twitter. This is 2006 all over. I have another beef with the tactical UI. And that is that options are getting reworked, and nothing in the game is telling you how and why when it happens. You can argue you don't need to know much of that except if you're a perfectionist and (arguably) want to "game the engine", rather than role-play a football manager (there is only this much micro control a manager has over the course of a match). But it's still something that bugs me ever since. Never at all do you get such info from the game directly, but at best from moderators. Reworks have happened in the past -- even the effect of the mentality mechanic again being hinted at explicitly [Tbh, I'm not sure you can or at all should compare the feedback in the individual player instruction screen to the old mentality slider at all -- I would have never set up a mentality structure as implied on structured shapes as that could cause problems in old MEs anyway, and I am not alone in this opinion].

These reworks of settings by SI could lead to some of the "mentality theorems" that took up a large chunk of the discussion in the tactical forums (see that 2006 link) being drawn obsolete from one release to the next. As they stopped performing, caused disconnects between the players, and/or opened huge holes all over the pitch. It's thus doubly unfortunate that this is brought on forefront again, explicitly. Why 1) agree on the "Creator" route of introducing football concepts 2) explicitly take out all the "sliderish" by FM2014/2015 only to 3) bring it all back  (in a sense)? I still maintain that, tactically, the game has never been "less elitist". That's relative. For all the UI's failings and pieces missing, there is also lot of flat out spoon feeding going on now that have never been a part of the game ever. However, this to me is all a rather worrying trend of the last couple years, also in terms how this may progress in the future. Football out, SI concepts again all in.

[tacticsdude]

I know this is touchy and many will find it insulting so I’m treading lightly but I’m not going to sugar coat it.

My point was: There's not much evidence that the game as a whole understands advanced footy tactics

Think about it. It presents itself as a simulator, which means it faces the super high standard of having to accurately reproduce the tactical approach of every manager in the real game (including some of the smartest most expert minds). So when you achieve in your FM career and get to the CL and you are faced with a team like Barcelona, FM has accepted the responsibility to match you against Barcelona and give you a representative simulation.

But when FM Barcelona plays a defensive 451 and lets you have 60%+ possession, how close did FM get? Actually it is so far from any standard it looks like it is not even trying.

 

It is not just that the tactics UI is lacking, that the teams don’t play like IRL. It is not just that the AI can’t counter you, and that pro managers have no hope of being accurately represented, thus you as a player never actually compete against the likes of Barcelona or Madrid (but instead a flat, uncharismatic, simpleton version).

The problem I’m pointing at is that FM/SI doesn’t seem to see any of this. Look at this forum and their official writing. If you ask SI or anyone involved, FM is a good sim and all the modules are fine (AI, ME, tactics). Look at all the mods and occasionally at developers that come here to defend the game. The overarching tone is that everything is well represented, maybe could be improved a bit or expanded but overall the game makes sense as a sim. To me it shows the level of skill of the people involved in making and supporting the game.

And I’m not being pedantic about these high standards. That’s the standard for a sim. If you want to make a football sim that can play Barcelona’s tactics, then you first must be able to understand Barcelona’s tactics, philosophy, way of life. And you will lose plenty in translation (converting into code, an ME engine) so the better you understand the game tactically and philosophically the closer you’ll get to a decent representation in your sim. So to raise the quality it is imperative that the staff making decisions on FM are constantly in a quest for excellence. In reality it looks like they are constantly dismissing criticism and explaining away FM flaws as simple disagreements on definitions. ( 'you don't need detailed defensive instructions because the roles take care of that', shows a deep lack of understanding for modern defensive instructions, etc)

 

For instance, one of my biggest questions here is who is parsing the suggestions forum. Because ideas are reviewed and added to a list or shut down upon first inspection, so it stands to reason that the suggestions should be reviewed by a senior member of the development staff with professional-level understanding of tactics and management. Otherwise what you have is a non manager, non tactician looking at the suggestions and dismissing them while unable to judge them at a high skill level.

We could be having great tacticians users spending hundreds of hours developing an understanding of FM to make a brilliant recommendation in the suggestions forum. Then a mid-level developer with amateur-level understanding of tactics looks at it quickly and thinks 'nope, I don't see it' and simply dismisses and closes the ticket.  How many hundreds of brilliant ideas are sitting dead collecting dust over years of suggestions being parsed by non-tacticians?

 

So it is not one thing, the tactics UI, the ME, limited AI, the people dismissing ideas. It is all of it looked at together. Right now as a whole FM doesn't seem interested in making a sim with pro-level understanding of the game.

 

[forameuss]

36 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

I know this is touchy and many will find it insulting so I’m treading lightly but I’m not going to sugar coat it.

My point was: There's not much evidence that the game as a whole understands advanced footy tactics

Think about it. It presents itself as a simulator, which means it faces the super high standard of having to accurately reproduce the tactical approach of every manager in the real game (including some of the smartest most expert minds). So when you achieve in your FM career and get to the CL and you are faced with a team like Barcelona, FM has accepted the responsibility to match you against Barcelona and give you a representative simulation.

But when FM Barcelona plays a defensive 451 and lets you have 60%+ possession, how close did FM get? Actually it is so far from any standard it looks like it is not even trying.

 

It is not just that the tactics UI is lacking, that the teams don’t play like IRL. It is not just that the AI can’t counter you, and that pro managers have no hope of being accurately represented, thus you as a player never actually compete against the likes of Barcelona or Madrid (but instead a flat, uncharismatic, simpleton version).

The problem I’m pointing at is that FM/SI doesn’t seem to see any of this. Look at this forum and their official writing. If you ask SI or anyone involved, FM is a good sim and all the modules are fine (AI, ME, tactics). Look at all the mods and occasionally at developers that come here to defend the game. The overarching tone is that everything is well represented, maybe could be improved a bit or expanded but overall the game makes sense as a sim. To me it shows the level of skill of the people involved in making and supporting the game.

And I’m not being pedantic about these high standards. That’s the standard for a sim. If you want to make a football sim that can play Barcelona’s tactics, then you first must be able to understand Barcelona’s tactics, philosophy, way of life. And you will lose plenty in translation (converting into code, an ME engine) so the better you understand the game tactically and philosophically the closer you’ll get to a decent representation in your sim. So to raise the quality it is imperative that the staff making decisions on FM are constantly in a quest for excellence. In reality it looks like they are constantly dismissing criticism and explaining away FM flaws as simple disagreements on definitions. ( 'you don't need detailed defensive instructions because the roles take care of that', shows a deep lack of understanding for modern defensive instructions, etc)

 

For instance, one of my biggest questions here is who is parsing the suggestions forum. Because ideas are reviewed and added to a list or shut down upon first inspection, so it stands to reason that the suggestions should be reviewed by a senior member of the development staff with professional-level understanding of tactics and management. Otherwise what you have is a non manager, non tactician looking at the suggestions and dismissing them while unable to judge them at a high skill level.

We could be having great tacticians users spending hundreds of hours developing an understanding of FM to make a brilliant recommendation in the suggestions forum. Then a mid-level developer with amateur-level understanding of tactics looks at it quickly and thinks 'nope, I don't see it' and simply dismisses and closes the ticket.  How many hundreds of brilliant ideas are sitting dead collecting dust over years of suggestions being parsed by non-tacticians?

 

So it is not one thing, the tactics UI, the ME, limited AI, the people dismissing ideas. It is all of it looked at together. Right now as a whole FM doesn't seem interested in making a sim with pro-level understanding of the game.

 

You keep holding the "simulation" part of it as a stick to beat the game with.  It's a Football Management simulator, granted, but it has never and likely will never properly model a real football match.  From a purely ME perspective, it isn't a particularly good simulation.  From others, it is.  

And to be honest, most of your posts come across as extremely condescending to anyone you don't believe comes up to your "lofty standards".  Ever think that maybe their understanding of tactics is fine, but that it's actually quite difficult to model them in-game?  Either in the current engine (which I assume they're working on the new one) or under something wider?

Only part I really agree with is your final sentence.  I don't imagine they are particularly interested in that.  The day they create an AI that can properly adapt and be as smart as a human player is the day the vast majority of their playerbase goes away and does something else.  But at least the chosen ones will be happy, eh?