Are green/red circles for roles and duties meaningless?

[RBKalle]

It turns out a player can be Accomplished at a specific position, and still be Awkward, Unconvincing or Ineffectual in ALL the roles/duties for that position...

So a RB/CB will be Awkward or worse as a central defender, no matter the role you choose. Which doesn't make a lick of sense, as we're not dealing with a retrained position or a desperation move, but with what is supposed to be a position where the player is almost natural.

How is it possible? Is it because a players has too low attributes to be seen by the game as a "good fit" for the position? As it happens for both original players and newgens, I find it odd for the latter, because the player-generating algorithm should sort of take care of that (no point in a slow and technically inept winger...). And even for real-life players who are barely adequate for their natural role, why are they "Green" for that, even though the key stats are in the low 10s or in single-digits?

It's just confusing...

But most worryingly is that, apparently, you can easily ignore the colour of the role "pie" because at worst the misplaced player's Decision attribute will take a slight hit and that's about that.

If it's true (and I do remember another topic where a member still got decent results with the whole Arsenal Starting XI playing out of position), what's the point of having those circles?

Instinctively we're going to look for an All-Bright-Green formation, where, on paper, every player has his ideal position-role-duty, often with terrible results because some combinations don't work well together... Insted we can just ignore all those visual cues? And how is it even possible that the key attributes for a specific role are there, but the circle is still Moss Green or Orange? How are those "ratings" even assigned?

Edited February 9, 2018 by RBKalle

[kingjericho]

I believe the 'pie' takes into consideration all the player's attributes and estimates what is the role that fits him the most. Even if all the attributes of the player are in the low 10s, there will still be a role which is the most appropriate for him. For example, a winger in the English non-leagues may have 9 for dribbling, crossing, and pace, and the rest of the attributes at 4 or 5. So he'll stive have a full green pie as a winger.

There seems to be an issue with 'pie' ratings for secondary positions, even if a player is natural at two positions he will only get decent 'pies' for one, and sometimes that is somewhat inaccurate.

[Rashidi]

Role Suitability is based on attributes, basically how well  a players attributes fit the role, its not the same as positional ability.  A players suitability for a role is also a function of the squad/league he is in, as some roles are affected by the Current Ability of the role, which is why you may seen a less than green circle.

Personally I tend to give players time to adjust to their roles, I watch things like how good the partnerships are and how I fit them into an overall system. Yes their decision making can take a hit, but its entirely up to you as a manager how you fit that into the challenge that you face. I've played players out of position countless times, but I make sure they are surrounded by players so any poor decisions they make are minimised. I have used  a defender as a target man successfully, even though he was awkward in that position and I am notorious for using Defensive Midfielders as IWBs. The absence of a green circle simply tells me to be very careful how I use him. He can play the role because he has the attributes, he may also make some mistakes. So during team talks I encourage him...so my approach is affected by whether he has a green circle or not. 

 

[Robioto]

I ignore the role ability circle to a fairly large extent now.

[RBKalle]

46 minuti fa, Rashidi ha scritto:

Role Suitability is based on attributes, basically how well  a players attributes fit the role, its not the same as positional ability.

But, at least with newgens, shouldn't the Positional Ability be more or less directly linked with the Attributes?

I mean, in real life we got plenty of adapted/retrained players who may not possess ALL the key attributes for the secondary position (which, often, used to be their original one...) but are still good enough to play in at least ONE role of the secondary position... Otherwise they wouldn't be used there, or not on a regular basis.

In FM terms, if a player has the attributes for a role in a position he's accomplished, why is he Awkward anyway? Is there something wrong with the attributes' weighting while calculating the compatibility %?
Biggest offender is IMO, DM and CM, or MR-L/AMR-L... There isn't a world of difference between some of the roles, so if a guy is good at both, shouldn't he be as effective as a DLP in both positions?

 

47 minuti fa, Rashidi ha scritto:

The absence of a green circle simply tells me to be very careful how I use him

I've also played a CF/AMR as a plain MR (Winger) with half-empty circle, but that was indeed an impromptu solution and a tertiary position....

The thing is: if I have 4 or 5 Yellowish or Orange circles, doesn't that affect stuff like familiarity, morale etc? There MUST be a downside for playing half of your players in awkward positions... and a bonus for having all in their ideal position.

Unless, of course, the system that calculates those ratings is broken...

[michaeltmurrayuk]

7 hours ago, kingjericho said:

There seems to be an issue with 'pie' ratings for secondary positions, even if a player is natural at two positions he will only get decent 'pies' for one, and sometimes that is somewhat inaccurate.

As far as I am aware the system has changed in FM18 - in previous versions the game would rank the roles for each position independently so if you had an AMR/STC player they could get two full circles one for say Poacher and another for Winger, but in FM18 only one of these would get the full circle. So the game is now telling you what their best role overall is instead of their best role in each position.

FM18 also seems to take into account the players positional rating so the same role in a different position would get a different rating depending on the players positional rating (i.e. a DM DLP rating might be lower than the MC DLP rating if the player was only a Natural MC).

For the most part the role suitability is just a quick guide, there is nothing wrong with playing players in lower rated roles if it suits your tactic provided they have the attributes to play the role you want which is the most important thing.

[kingjericho]

1 hour ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

As far as I am aware the system has changed in FM18 - in previous versions the game would rank the roles for each position independently so if you had an AMR/STC player they could get two full circles one for say Poacher and another for Winger, but in FM18 only one of these would get the full circle. So the game is now telling you what their best role overall is instead of their best role in each position.

I didn't know about this. It makes sense, but at the same time it shouldn't be so limiting. Many players perform well in numerous positions (quick examples: Messi AMR/C, De Bruyne M/AMC, Coutinho AML/C, and so on). So for players who in the editor have rating 19-20 for more than one position, I think the 'pie' should be more generous in two different positions.

[Sunstrikuuu]

This topic touches tangentially on one of my pet peeves going back several versions now: there's not enough overlap between players who play AM wing positions and players who play midfield wing positions.  A manager whose interpretation of 4-2-3-1 has 2 DMs, a CM, and MR/MLs is going to have to play players "out of position", even though the only real difference is the depth at which they defend.  Looking at FM17, in a game with 57,000 players loaded, roughly 4000 players are Natural at AMR and approximately 1000 have a rating of Cannot Play in Midfield (Right).   On the left side, it's 3800 and 1000 respectively.  The number of players natural at both an attacking wide position and a wide position is roughly a thousand.  There are just as many players who are natural on both wings.  That seems bizarre. 

If you're looking for players, especially at the top level, you're more likely to find players who are Natural and have promising visual indicators (full green circles, big bright green dots) in attacking wide positions than midfield wide positions and that might constrain your tactical choices. 

[RBKalle]

2 ore fa, michaeltmurrayuk ha scritto:

there is nothing wrong with playing players in lower rated roles if it suits your tactic provided they have the attributes to play the role you want which is the most important thing.

So why bothering with all the visual cues?!

Not to mention it's not stated, nor suggested, ANYWHERE in the game that those are "guidelines" and that you can more or less disregard them if you need to.

And what about the impact of such misunderstanding in the TC? Ironically I get FEWER red areas around the pitch if I choose the "wrong" role, as the "ideal" role+duty combo will leave gaping holes in some areas of the pitch. Oh and BTW, it doesn't even fit my player that great either...

2 ore fa, michaeltmurrayuk ha scritto:

but in FM18 only one of these would get the full circle. So the game is now telling you what their best role overall is instead of their best role in each position.

Which is even worse, not to mention the criteria for "best role" seem rather inconsequential, as many roles, especially in the "overrepresented" positions differ so little it's hard to differentiate the roles, moreso at a lower level, where the gap in quality is less noticeable.

Why is this guy "best" as plain CM while his Dec and Det are subpar and DLP is less demanding?

[mimland]

I still got plenty of players whos best position doesn't even  fit their overall position, like a player with DC as his only position that has best postion as DRL. It has been like that at least since last version so I have stopped caring whatsover what those things say and so far I have been rather successful. Think I had my best season ever in 20+ years of playing this game in this version and I don't think I have a single green circle on the field in every match. 

[isignedupfornorealreason]

1 hour ago, RBKalle said:

And what about the impact of such misunderstanding in the TC? Ironically I get FEWER red areas around the pitch if I choose the "wrong" role, as the "ideal" role+duty combo will leave gaping holes in some areas of the pitch. Oh and BTW, it doesn't even fit my player that great either...

The way I understand it, you're supposed to think about how the roles all interact with each other. Just blindly going by the player's "best" role could have very lopsided or illogical tactical set ups, hence why you end up with gaping holes in some areas of the pitch. 

 

That said, the pitch red/green thing is also just a guide, you absolutely can set up with full on red areas if you account for those weaknesses. 

[warlock]

The RDS indicator is just that - an indicator. It's a quick way of telling you whether a player is going to be good at any given position and role. I could live without it myself, but I don't see how this is a major issue.

[RBKalle]

7 ore fa, warlock ha scritto:

I could live without it myself, but I don't see how this is a major issue.

Well... It's useless at best and misleading at worst...

If you can happily ignore all the red circles and zones, with a bit of luck and a few tweaks, what's the point of having such "guides"? And while a FM veteran can just think "yeah, I'll do things my way", a newcomer or a less experienced user may simply be thrown off by the inconsistencies and logically think Green=Best, Red=Terrible and end up with a completely screwed up formation, DESPITE his setup being, on paper, the best possible.

To me it IS a major issue because it underlines once more how arbitrary and counterintuitive many features have become in this game.

Imagine something similar in another genre of games... Say in a RPG your character has low stats for Archery, you'd logically wouldn't spend money on bows and arrows and would try to avoid using them... Ony to find out (by word of mouth, no less) that your hero is almost as good of a marksman as a Wood Elf because "skills stats are merely indicators"...

Again, it may not be gamebreaking, but if you add it to the list of all the other "minor" quirks, issues, bugs and flaws, the big picture isn't looking that bright...

[Rashidi]

To tell you the truth over time, as I start working on unbeaten streaks I do worry about the green circles..and focus on players who can play there. I work hard on making sure players are trained there who can perform the roles. My Ajax side is on another massive undefeated streak which is only possible if I am playing at the very best of my ability, with Kingstonian, its a different story, its one of survival. Here I use these to warn me where to look in case there are issues during transitions. Personally I can see the value. It has a small value but it depends on how you use it. I am not being a defender of the feature, cos I can see it being a lot better, but I do know of players who use this feature exclusively when playing and they swear by it.

[mimland]

I spend a lot more time trying to build a team and a tactic that perform as I want it and that play well together, most  my training go into team work and team cohesion when they don't need to train the tactic. With this way of thinking I have manage to stay away from those huge losses in form that I previously got at least once a season where one loss seemed to destroy the entire teams morale. I have found that much more important than the players personal preferences but who knows maybe I could get even better results if I took both into consideration, but after brexit I'm extremly limited in my choice of players and the competition for players of all ability and potential with a brittish passport is almost silly. playing league 2 and now league 1 I more often than not have to compete with both championship teams and PL teams to find players suitable for my level so I pretty much stick what I can get where I need them to be and usually they perform okay once they get a chance to gel with the team. 

[masno]

I really miss the FM08 system,were we could give instruction to players without having roles. In my opinion,this is more realistic.

And team shape is also one thing that bothers me,I dont apreciate that if my team play as unit,players will be more creative, I loved that back ago we could tell if a player would be creative or not. I would love to see this system back,it doesn't have to have slider, just the instructions that it had.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

20 hours ago, kingjericho said:

I didn't know about this. It makes sense, but at the same time it shouldn't be so limiting. Many players perform well in numerous positions (quick examples: Messi AMR/C, De Bruyne M/AMC, Coutinho AML/C, and so on). So for players who in the editor have rating 19-20 for more than one position, I think the 'pie' should be more generous in two different positions.

Checking my Man Utd game it looks like it's been tweaked in one of the patches, as several players have more than one full role - Matic for example is full for the DLP role in both the DM and MC positions when he wasn't around release. De Bruyne for example is full for AP in both the MC and AMC positions.

[kingjericho]

12 minutes ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

Checking my Man Utd game it looks like it's been tweaked in one of the patches, as several players have more than one full role - Matic for example is full for the DLP role in both the DM and MC positions when he wasn't around release. De Bruyne for example is full for AP in both the MC and AMC positions.

If that was changed, it was a good change, as I think it reflects better what happens in some players.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

19 hours ago, RBKalle said:

So why bothering with all the visual cues?!

Not to mention it's not stated, nor suggested, ANYWHERE in the game that those are "guidelines" and that you can more or less disregard them if you need to.

And what about the impact of such misunderstanding in the TC? Ironically I get FEWER red areas around the pitch if I choose the "wrong" role, as the "ideal" role+duty combo will leave gaping holes in some areas of the pitch. Oh and BTW, it doesn't even fit my player that great either...

Which is even worse, not to mention the criteria for "best role" seem rather inconsequential, as many roles, especially in the "overrepresented" positions differ so little it's hard to differentiate the roles, moreso at a lower level, where the gap in quality is less noticeable.

Why is this guy "best" as plain CM while his Dec and Det are subpar and DLP is less demanding?

It's their to give a quick glance overview - you have a quick look at the player and the game is just showing you what his best position and role is.

The rating is calculated on the average of the attributes needed for the role, with it being weighted against their positional rating and I think there is also some weighting towards key attributes and some other stuff to stop the basic roles (such as Defensive CB and FB) from always topping the rating.

For your player his CMd average attributes are higher than his DLPd average attributes with his key CMd attributes being higher which might be why his DLPd rating is only 8/10 instead of 9/10 - what's his CMs rating as his overall is slightly below the DLP average but he has better CMs key attributes.

Though that's not to say that he cannot play as a DLPd or CMs the game is just saying his best role is CMd and whether you play him as a CMd or DLPd will depend on your tactic.

For example if you had four midfielders who's best roles were WGa-CMa-CMa-WGa that would work worse than a midfield with a mixture of role ratings playing WGs-CMd-CMs-WGs which is just common sense and it then comes down to the question of do you play one of the CMa players in the CMd role or do you drop him for a proper CMd.

It's the same thing with the red/green in the TC it's just letting you know where the weak parts of your formation are, you don't need to make it all green as long as you understand where the weaknesses in your tactic are, and was likely brought in to give people a quick graphical overview of how the various roles and positions affect their tactic aswell as giving them some more information as to why you are weak in those areas - if you hover over the areas in the TC the tooltip explains why it's red/green. And with all tactics it's a balancing act - yes playing without a DM gives a red area behind your midfield but does your team/tactic need a DM or is it better with another forward - if there was a perfect formation then every team would be using the same formation.

[MBarbaric]

1 ora fa, michaeltmurrayuk ha scritto:

yes playing without a DM gives a red area behind your midfield but does your team/tactic need a DM or is it better with another forward - if there was a perfect formation then every team would be using the same formation.

what if you could tell your CM to drop into DM slot while the opposition attacks? 

[Wavelberry]

2 hours ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

It's their to give a quick glance overview - you have a quick look at the player and the game is just showing you what his best position and role is.

The rating is calculated on the average of the attributes needed for the role, with it being weighted against their positional rating and I think there is also some weighting towards key attributes and some other stuff to stop the basic roles (such as Defensive CB and FB) from always topping the rating.

For your player his CMd average attributes are higher than his DLPd average attributes with his key CMd attributes being higher which might be why his DLPd rating is only 8/10 instead of 9/10 - what's his CMs rating as his overall is slightly below the DLP average but he has better CMs key attributes.

Though that's not to say that he cannot play as a DLPd or CMs the game is just saying his best role is CMd and whether you play him as a CMd or DLPd will depend on your tactic.

For example if you had four midfielders who's best roles were WGa-CMa-CMa-WGa that would work worse than a midfield with a mixture of role ratings playing WGs-CMd-CMs-WGs which is just common sense and it then comes down to the question of do you play one of the CMa players in the CMd role or do you drop him for a proper CMd.

It's the same thing with the red/green in the TC it's just letting you know where the weak parts of your formation are, you don't need to make it all green as long as you understand where the weaknesses in your tactic are, and was likely brought in to give people a quick graphical overview of how the various roles and positions affect their tactic aswell as giving them some more information as to why you are weak in those areas - if you hover over the areas in the TC the tooltip explains why it's red/green. And with all tactics it's a balancing act - yes playing without a DM gives a red area behind your midfield but does your team/tactic need a DM or is it better with another forward - if there was a perfect formation then every team would be using the same formation.

This is all very fair but, as I think is partly the OP's point, if you pick up and play without those thoughts you are encouraged by the system (which by using greens and reds is exacerbated) to make tactically stupid decisions. You pick a generic 4-4-2 and then look at the feedback on the tactics screen and you'll see reds. You'll tweak roles and stuff until you get mostly greens but that could give you an absolutely ***** tactic and then you lose because you're playing some kind of totally illogical role system and then wonder why. Add to that player roles are tactic relevant anyway so someone who is full green on one role in a tactic averages under 6.5 but in a role that complements the tactic averages 7+ with a role that is the smallest slither of red you've got a completely unintuitive system. A system that even FM tactic veterans are reaching to excuse. At the end of the day you have a situation with this where:

Beginners: completely misled by the red/green role/tactics screen so will create stupidness even with defaults.

Middling players: have an understanding of football and systems but because of ME issues, interface issues etc are given conflicting information that confuses and adds frustration

Experts: Who can play the game in spite of these flaws and retrospectively start to excuse those flaws because of confirmation bias.

This leads me to one conclusion. The way tactics and the tactic creator works and is displayed and communicated in FM needs to change.

[LCpl]

It's broken tbf.  I've got Divock Origi playing as a CF with perfect role rating, he's positionally natural now at LW too as an inside forward and has the same attributes for IF as my other IF's at LW or RW yet he's less than 

On ‎09‎/‎02‎/‎2018 at 20:05, michaeltmurrayuk said:

As far as I am aware the system has changed in FM18 - in previous versions the game would rank the roles for each position independently so if you had an AMR/STC player they could get two full circles one for say Poacher and another for Winger, but in FM18 only one of these would get the full circle. So the game is now telling you what their best role overall is instead of their best role in each position

Herein lies the crux of the shambles.  I've got players with perfect stats for BWM and SV who are natural at DM, SV rating is spot on, BWM rating is half, but other players with same BWM stats are perfect BWM's. Almost as if to be a BWM you need non-BWM stats to be ****. If you've got attributes that suit two roles one role is deemed unsuitable. Annoying as hell. Wish t god there was a skin without role ratings, or duty ratings at all. Attributes at 16 and above in all key area's should suit all roles covered, not just one of them.

[Hovis Dexter]

On 2/10/2018 at 09:13, RBKalle said:

Well... It's useless at best and misleading at worst...

.... Imagine something similar in another genre of games... Say in a RPG your character has low stats for Archery, you'd logically wouldn't spend money on bows and arrows and would try to avoid using them... Ony to find out (by word of mouth, no less) that your hero is almost as good of a marksman as a Wood Elf because "skills stats are merely indicators"...

This is the crux of the matter. It's all very well for the veteran players to say something to the effect of "yes well, the colours are only a guide and if you were as good as me you wouldn't need them." In the real world we're not all veteran players and we want the in-game help system to actually help us and not to be confusing or misleading .

Edited February 11, 2018 by Hovis Dexter
missed out "be"

[RBKalle]

2 ore fa, Wavelberry ha scritto:

This leads me to one conclusion. The way tactics and the tactic creator works and is displayed and communicated in FM needs to change.

Pretty much this!

The more I think about it, the more mindblowingly surreal (to put it very very mildly...) this whole mess feels...

I don't mean any disrespect to the members and mods who replied, but for heaven's sake, take a step backwards and look at the picture you painted:

1) Since FM18 there is only ONE 100% Green Role, even for players who are Natural in two or more positions

2) Role and Duty Suitability is a "guideline", weighed on primary and secondary attributes for position/role (and possibly stars alignment and Nostradamus' prophecies)

3) Average or even poor suitability for a specific role only affects Decision and can easily be countered via other tactical tweaks (ie. good partnerships, tactical familiarity and coherent formation)

4) NONE OF THAT IS EXPLAINED ANYWHERE, so naturally most casual or new players will simply assume Green=Great, thus making wrong tactical choices or even selling/signing players based on completely wrong assumptions, suggested by the game's "peculiar" way to handle such an important feature.

 

All those addition were supposed to make things easier and more relatable to the Average Joe C. Gamer (C. is for Casual), but SI managed to overcomplicate an already cumbersome interface.
So now it's: confusing, exclusive and, in some areas, almost completely inconsequencial and ineffectual...

Edited February 11, 2018 by RBKalle

[michaeltmurrayuk]

19 hours ago, Wavelberry said:

This is all very fair but, as I think is partly the OP's point, if you pick up and play without those thoughts you are encouraged by the system (which by using greens and reds is exacerbated) to make tactically stupid decisions. You pick a generic 4-4-2 and then look at the feedback on the tactics screen and you'll see reds. You'll tweak roles and stuff until you get mostly greens but that could give you an absolutely ***** tactic and then you lose because you're playing some kind of totally illogical role system and then wonder why. Add to that player roles are tactic relevant anyway so someone who is full green on one role in a tactic averages under 6.5 but in a role that complements the tactic averages 7+ with a role that is the smallest slither of red you've got a completely unintuitive system. A system that even FM tactic veterans are reaching to excuse. At the end of the day you have a situation with this where:

Beginners: completely misled by the red/green role/tactics screen so will create stupidness even with defaults.

Middling players: have an understanding of football and systems but because of ME issues, interface issues etc are given conflicting information that confuses and adds frustration

Experts: Who can play the game in spite of these flaws and retrospectively start to excuse those flaws because of confirmation bias.

This leads me to one conclusion. The way tactics and the tactic creator works and is displayed and communicated in FM needs to change.

It's a football management simulation game at some point the user like real managers has to make the decision to either fit players to their tactic or change their tactic to fit their players, there is no perfect solution and it is a balancing act between being attacking or defensive like real football.

Take the 4-4-2 there is a red area in the DM position because you don't have anyone in that position and the game is just telling you this is a weak point of your formation, which is common sense and is a known weakness of 4-4-2 hence the popularity of the 4-2-3-1 formations that can expose it. Whether this is a problem depends on your circumstances - if you are a strong team or hardly anyone uses AM's against you then the weakness isn't likely to get exposed but if everyone else plays 4-2-3-1 or you pick a load of attacking roles then you may find yourself getting exposed. You as a manager then need to decide whether the strengths of the 4-4-2 outweigh it's weakness.

[themadsheep2001]

Gonna change the question here slightly: how would you want it done? If you don't like the answers given, then what do you actually want to see?

[michaeltmurrayuk]

17 hours ago, RBKalle said:

Pretty much this!

The more I think about it, the more mindblowingly surreal (to put it very very mildly...) this whole mess feels...

I don't mean any disrespect to the members and mods who replied, but for heaven's sake, take a step backwards and look at the picture you painted:

1) Since FM18 there is only ONE 100% Green Role, even for players who are Natural in two or more positions

2) Role and Duty Suitability is a "guideline", weighed on primary and secondary attributes for position/role (and possibly stars alignment and Nostradamus' prophecies)

3) Average or even poor suitability for a specific role only affects Decision and can easily be countered via other tactical tweaks (ie. good partnerships, tactical familiarity and coherent formation)

4) NONE OF THAT IS EXPLAINED ANYWHERE, so naturally most casual or new players will simply assume Green=Great, thus making wrong tactical choices or even selling/signing players based on completely wrong assumptions, suggested by the game's "peculiar" way to handle such an important feature.

 

All those addition were supposed to make things easier and more relatable to the Average Joe C. Gamer (C. is for Casual), but SI managed to overcomplicate an already cumbersome interface.
So now it's: confusing, exclusive and, in some areas, almost completely inconsequencial and ineffectual...

1. This was changed in one of the patches so players can have multiple 100% role ratings.

2. Not really sure what is confusing about this - the game is adding up the attributes for the role and ranking the players best roles so you can see what his best role is, it is no different from what users have had to do in their heads or in a spreadsheet in the past. In your example above the game is telling you his best role is as a CMd followed by a DLPd (though as the DLPd is only rated at 80% I'd assume he has another role somewhere rated at 90% as the differences aren't that much) based on his attributes saving you the need to manually compare the roles. Nothing is stopping you playing him in the CMa role but he'd have a lower rating because of his attributes (poor finishing and long shots) which would be why he'd underperform in that role not because the game gave him a lower role rating.

Again you as the manager have to make the decision as to either play your best xi in their best roles or instead do you fit players into your tactic which may mean dropping players or playing them in roles they are not perfect for - if your four best players are all Poachers are you going to play four Poachers or drop a couple of them or move a couple to the wings to give you a balanced formation?

3. Not sure where you are getting this from - the role rating is a summary of a players attributes and is just a graphical representation of the attributes like the analyser polygon. Playing a player in a lower rated role just means his attributes aren't a perfect match for that role the game doesn't penalize you extra for it.

I assume you are getting confused with the positional rating system which is a separate thing. There is a slight link where the role ratings are lower for positions the player isn't familiar with - in your example the Wing Back position roles would get a lower rating than the same Full-Back position roles as he has a lower positional rating at WingBack, but as he is natural at both DM and MC the DLP role would be rated the same for both positions.

Going back to your RPG example your guy might be rated 8/10 in Archery and 10/10 Wood Elf - So yes he is best at being a Wood Elf, but what happens if the rest of your party are only rated 2/10 in Archery and 8/10 in Wood Elf - do you use 4 Wood Elf's or do you use three 8/10 Wood Elf's and one 8/10 Archer or your 10/10 WE with two 8/10 and one 2/10 Archer - What you use depends on how important an Archer is to your party.

[mrbrownsays]

Would this be improved if rather than it be red, orange and green it was all shades of a green?

Would it be better if more roles were seen as pretty good? 

I think that the main issue is when it makes players look like complete lemons (red dots and barely touched circles) in a position they are sort of ok for stats wise. Perhaps the default option should be a half filled in circle for all players in all positions but then if a player is particularly poor at specific attributed then a position indicator can be lowered.

[The Enforcer]

6 hours ago, mrbrownsays said:

I think that the main issue is when it makes players look like complete lemons (red dots and barely touched circles) in a position they are sort of ok for stats wise.

Exactly. I have a midfielder whom is ranked "ineffectual" as a wide playmaker, even though his average of the key/desirable attributes is double figures at conference south level. I played him in that role anyway and in his first match he got 3 assists. How rookie players are supposed to figure this out is beyond me.

[RBKalle]

Quote

2. Not really sure what is confusing about this - the game is adding up the attributes for the role and ranking the players best roles so you can see what his best role is, it is no different from what users have had to do in their heads or in a spreadsheet in the past. In your example above the game is telling you his best role is as a CMd followed by a DLPd (though as the DLPd is only rated at 80% I'd assume he has another role somewhere rated at 90% as the differences aren't that much) based on his attributes saving you the need to manually compare the roles. Nothing is stopping you playing him in the CMa role but he'd have a lower rating because of his attributes (poor finishing and long shots) which would be why he'd underperform in that role not because the game gave him a lower role rating.

Again you as the manager have to make the decision as to either play your best xi in their best roles or instead do you fit players into your tactic which may mean dropping players or playing them in roles they are not perfect for - if your four best players are all Poachers are you going to play four Poachers or drop a couple of them or move a couple to the wings to give you a balanced formation?

Yeah, but if the role indicators are a bit iffy AND I'm not told anywhere what the actual consequences of playing a 100% BWM as an 70% CM(auto) are, how am I supposed to choose?

Visually, the impact of the reddish circles and pitch zones is quite noticeable, so many human players will be tempted to rework a perfectly fine tactic to accomodate a player's "best role", only to unintentionally creating an unbalanced and inherently WORSE tactic. All that, while thinking it'll be an improvement because hey, 11 green circles!

It's at least questionable that a feature that is supposed to make things easier to the human manager (ie. a visual cue to replace a handmade spreadsheet, or a note about a player's best role according to key attributes) is creating a communication short-circuit of sorts, where what you see is "worse" than what you may end up getting in the ME.

 

Quote

3. Not sure where you are getting this from - the role rating is a summary of a players attributes and is just a graphical representation of the attributes like the analyser polygon. Playing a player in a lower rated role just means his attributes aren't a perfect match for that role the game doesn't penalize you extra for it.

I assume you are getting confused with the positional rating system which is a separate thing. There is a slight link where the role ratings are lower for positions the player isn't familiar with - in your example the Wing Back position roles would get a lower rating than the same Full-Back position roles as he has a lower positional rating at WingBack, but as he is natural at both DM and MC the DLP role would be rated the same for both positions.

So hypothetically I'll have less negative consequences for playing Pirlo as a B2B (same position, completely unsuitable role due to lack of mobility and stamina) than for playing Robben as LM (less familiar role, but more overlapping attributes with his Natural position)?

It's another problem with too many cooks spoiling the broth.

If Attributes > Position (as it should be in the game and is, largely, in real life), Roles' colours should be weighed with more attention to the attributes. Hence, a Natural AMR Winger should be Accomplished as MR Winger (assuming he's decent at the defensive part of the game).

If Position > Attributes (as it is currently in FM, apparently) there's no reason for  a player Natural in 2 or more positions to have at least 2 Natural roles, likely one per position... Otherwise, what is he Natural at exactly?

 

Quote

Going back to your RPG example your guy might be rated 8/10 in Archery and 10/10 Wood Elf - So yes he is best at being a Wood Elf, but what happens if the rest of your party are only rated 2/10 in Archery and 8/10 in Wood Elf - do you use 4 Wood Elf's or do you use three 8/10 Wood Elf's and one 8/10 Archer or your 10/10 WE with two 8/10 and one 2/10 Archer - What you use depends on how important an Archer is to your party.

 

No, what I mean is that if my character's stats/skills are low in Archery, there should be NO WAY I could be almost as effective as another character whose best skill is Archery.

If I choose to build my avatar as a sword-wielding badass, I shouldn't be able to pick up bow and arrows and happily Wilhelm Tell my way through a dungeon... Regardless of what the rest of my party is best at.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

21 hours ago, RBKalle said:

Yeah, but if the role indicators are a bit iffy AND I'm not told anywhere what the actual consequences of playing a 100% BWM as an 70% CM(auto) are, how am I supposed to choose?

How were you choosing without the suitability rating? All that does is sum up the attributes for the role, so without it you'd look at the players attributes and see he was a perfect BWM and a good CM so how were you picking what role to use then - were you putting players into their best roles or the one to suit your tactic.

All the role suitability rating does is add up the attributes for the roles and then rank them so at a quick glance you can see what roles his attributes are best suited for - it is no different from what people have had to do in their heads in the past.

If the BWM attributes were 15 and the CM ones were 12 what role would you put the player in? Or would you pick the role based on what suits your tactics and then field the best player you had for that role?

The consequences of playing the player as a CM is that his attributes are worse for that role than the BWM role, which is the reason why he is only rated 70% as the rating is based on the attributes - look at the attributes instead of the role rating and you have exactly the same decision to make, again how were you making decisions with just the attributes as the decision and consequences now are exactly the same as they were in older versions you now just have an extra visual representation to help you out instead of you having to manually do it.

As for which role to use this depends on what you are wanting the player to do as the purpose of the roles are fairly different, also depends on what role you are using alongside them. Again this is a decision you as the manager need to make, there is no right or wrong decision as it depends on the circumstances and context. (Look at Man Utd - Mourinho wants to play 4-2-3-1 so Pogba is forced to play as a two when he's better in a three, and with the arrival of Sanchez Martial has been pushed out to the Right when he's better on the Left, with the likes of Valencia and Young playing Full-Back - all players forced to fit the tactics rather than play in their best role).

I really don't understand how you are failing to understand this.

21 hours ago, RBKalle said:

So hypothetically I'll have less negative consequences for playing Pirlo as a B2B (same position, completely unsuitable role due to lack of mobility and stamina) than for playing Robben as LM (less familiar role, but more overlapping attributes with his Natural position)?

It's another problem with too many cooks spoiling the broth.

If Attributes > Position (as it should be in the game and is, largely, in real life), Roles' colours should be weighed with more attention to the attributes. Hence, a Natural AMR Winger should be Accomplished as MR Winger (assuming he's decent at the defensive part of the game).

If Position > Attributes (as it is currently in FM, apparently) there's no reason for  a player Natural in 2 or more positions to have at least 2 Natural roles, likely one per position... Otherwise, what is he Natural at exactly?

For performance of Pirlo v Robben this will likely depend on various factors, though I'd say playing Pirlo as B2B would likely be worse than playing Robben as a LM largely due to the fact that the B2B tends to be the heartbeat of most peoples formations. Though you cannot really compare the consequences as they depend on the circumstances and the rest of your tactic - if your tactic depends on a B2B then playing Pirlo there might be better than playing him as a DLP which breaks your tactic, and whilst Pirlo might not excel as a B2B what happens if he is your best B2B? Alternatively with Robben if your tactic relies on your LM getting to the byline and crossing whilst tracking back it might fall apart if he fails to trackback and wants to cut inside, on the other hand you are Bayern so having a slight ineffective Robben may make no difference as the rest of your side makes up the slack.

Though position rating is an entirely different topic one that has been discussed at length over the years, and largely comes down to what I remember the position rating being the game trying to show a players experience at a certain position as performance in a position isn't just related to your attributes but your knowledge of the position - RB and LB have same attribute requirements but someone who has played only at RB won't necessarily perform the same at LB. So playing a RB at LB if they have low positional rating at LB will take a hit to their attributes until they have developed in that position. (As to whether players should be free to develop as many positions as they like is also an entirely different discussion).

There has also been plenty of discussions over the years about the differences between MR and AMR players (for example Giggs who was a M/AML compared to Martial, Henry or Rooney who are AML,ST players). As for which one is right I doubt you'd ever get a system that everyone agreed upon.

For the last bit only having one or two natural roles this is how it was on release before it was changed I guess due to feedback, also weren't you against this method earlier in the thread?

[Hovis Dexter]

1 hour ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

..... the position rating being the game trying to show a players experience at a certain position .....

Thank you for that. I didn’t realise that was the case. I thought the positional rating indicated how the player performed in a particular position and not simply his experience there. So, a player who is described as natural in one position and accomplished in another implies that although he has played most of his games in the first position he has also played a fair amount in the second. I suppose there is also a certain amount of chicken and egg about the positional rating.

[macca72]

I’ve posted about this a few times, it makes no sense whatsoever for me, so ignoring it is all I can do.

I have players who have no “full circle” roles in their natural position, which for me means it’s not working as intended.

[alanschu14]

On 2/11/2018 at 11:08, themadsheep2001 said:

Gonna change the question here slightly: how would you want it done? If you don't like the answers given, then what do you actually want to see?

I would prefer the game to estimate how good your player would be at that role relative to the rest of the team, factoring in the positional familiarity of course.

The way it is now, someone could be an excellent BWM, even the *best* BWM based on the recommended stats, but if they have better RPM stats, the BWM is not a solid green because the game figures that that role is a better fit for the player than BWM.

I'd like this so that I can, at a glance, so which players are best suited for my tactical make up.

I don't mind the positional gaps being red. I created a 4-2-3-1 with some red between my right DM and my forwards, but am mostly okay with conceding that small space of the field as it's not overly threatening.  It's helpful for knowing where my potential gaps in defense might be and I can decide if I am okay with it.

[themadsheep2001]

23 minutes ago, alanschu14 said:

I would prefer the game to estimate how good your player would be at that role relative to the rest of the team, factoring in the positional familiarity of course.

The way it is now, someone could be an excellent BWM, even the *best* BWM based on the recommended stats, but if they have better RPM stats, the BWM is not a solid green because the game figures that that role is a better fit for the player than BWM.

I'd like this so that I can, at a glance, so which players are best suited for my tactical make up.

I don't mind the positional gaps being red. I created a 4-2-3-1 with some red between my right DM and my forwards, but am mostly okay with conceding that small space of the field as it's not overly threatening.  It's helpful for knowing where my potential gaps in defense might be and I can decide if I am okay with it.

Cheers for the insightful reply, much appreciated 

[Sunstrikuuu]

16 hours ago, alanschu14 said:

I would prefer the game to estimate how good your player would be at that role relative to the rest of the team, factoring in the positional familiarity of course.

The way it is now, someone could be an excellent BWM, even the *best* BWM based on the recommended stats, but if they have better RPM stats, the BWM is not a solid green because the game figures that that role is a better fit for the player than BWM.

I'd like this so that I can, at a glance, so which players are best suited for my tactical make up.

I'd like to echo this post.  What I'd like out of the circles is a two-factor system reflecting both the player's position within your team's depth chart and his familiarity in that position.  The more complete the circle, the better the player's attributes relative to his potential competition.  The color of the circle might represent the player's familiarity with that position.  For example, a particularly quick centerback with good decision-making and technical attributes might have a complete, red circle at the defensive midfield position with a Halfback role.  I'm interested in seeing the player's proficiency relative to the other options in that position and to the team rather than to the player's ability in other positions.

 

[michaeltmurrayuk]

21 hours ago, macca72 said:

I’ve posted about this a few times, it makes no sense whatsoever for me, so ignoring it is all I can do.

I have players who have no “full circle” roles in their natural position, which for me means it’s not working as intended.

If the player only has one position then that is likely a bug with the game and worth raising in the bugs forum.

If the player has more than one natural position it just means whilst he can play that position, his attributes are better suited in the roles for the other position(s) he can play - for example Daley Blind is a Natural DL, DC and DM. However none of his DC roles get a 100% rating unlike his DL and DM roles and this is because whilst he can play at DC his attributes aren't best suited for any of the DC roles.

19 hours ago, alanschu14 said:

I would prefer the game to estimate how good your player would be at that role relative to the rest of the team, factoring in the positional familiarity of course.

The way it is now, someone could be an excellent BWM, even the *best* BWM based on the recommended stats, but if they have better RPM stats, the BWM is not a solid green because the game figures that that role is a better fit for the player than BWM.

The Role Ability star rating column  shows this information, though this one is based on your staff members opinion rather than an absolute ranking. For example at Man Utd as Pogba is by far Utd's best Midfielder he is pretty still the best player in each of the MC roles regardless of his role rating for the various roles.

[macca72]

@michaeltmurrayuk In my example he has only 1 natural position.

In your example you could argue that if anyone is “natural” in a position they should have at least one full circle role, that would seem to me to be more logical?

If someone has multiple positions it seems to me that only 1 should start natural and training would be required to achieve a 2nd natural position.  That fits with the notion of training a role and position together rather than just a position?

[michaeltmurrayuk]

5 minutes ago, macca72 said:

@michaeltmurrayuk In my example he has only 1 natural position.

In your example you could argue that if anyone is “natural” in a position they should have at least one full circle role, that would seem to me to be more logical?

If someone has multiple positions it seems to me that only 1 should start natural and training would be required to achieve a 2nd natural position.  That fits with the notion of training a role and position together rather than just a position?

If he only has one position then it's likely a bug or research issue (if real player) and worth raising in the bugs forum.

For the issue of should players have a full role in each natural position it's not something with an easy answer - for regens then I'd say yes they should have a full role in each natural position as the game has full control over how they are generated, but only on generation of the player as retraining and development will affect the ratings going forward - turning a ST into a DC shouldn't give them a full DCd role rating upon gaining a natural rating as a DC unless the attributes have shifted with the retraining.

And as far as I am aware the game for regens anyway has largely limited players to being generated with just the one natural position, which limits the issue with regens at least.

For real players it's more complicated as the game is trying to replicate the real world positions of players and the game is limited by the fact that it is a game which needs to rely on numbers and maths which real life doesn't.

Take Blind for example he's a Natural DC because that is where Utd have mainly used him IRL but he is fairly poor in the air and at tackling and marking which are key attributes for the various DC roles and thus lower his ratings in the DC roles - so you have three options either reduce his DC position rating to reflect his poorer attributes for those roles but that would then upset the people who say he is a DC. Boost one of the role ratings at DC to 100% even though his attributes don't fit the role, but this would then be confusing as the game would now be saying he's just as good at Centre Back as he is as a DLP. Or option three which we have now the rating is based on the attributes which means how many 100% role ratings they get in natural positions is based purely on the attributes.

Again how many Natural positions a real player should have has been debated over the years and like with many things in football isn't something with a perfect solution.

 

Also this (and my other posts in the thread) is all based on the game at the start as remember the role ratings aren't static and will change over time as you train, mould, and develop the player - so if you have a youngish player with room to develop playing and training him in the weaker role you want him to use should increase his role rating as he develops and his attributes get more moulded to that role instead of his initial best role (depending on the attribute overlap and his general development - say you tutor someone and his determination jumps 10 points that will boost all of the roles that use that attribute).

[macca72]

Makes sense, I just think the current way (as it’s calculated in a way, and uses numbers that the users can’t see) is complex and confusing.

Personally I would say Blind is an accomplished DC and can’t ever have a natural DC role unless he’s trained in a role in that position and his attributes shift to allow it.  I would argue that unless he can properly play a role in a position that he can’t be natural.

I understand it’s subjective to a point and will be debated either way, what I’m really suggested is something that is easier to understand as an end user.

Edit: And yes in my example it’s a real player, who does have a full circle in an accomplished position - which for me just adds to the confusion.

Edited February 16, 2018 by macca72

[alanschu14]

7 hours ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

The Role Ability star rating column  shows this information, though this one is based on your staff members opinion rather than an absolute ranking. For example at Man Utd as Pogba is by far Utd's best Midfielder he is pretty still the best player in each of the MC roles regardless of his role rating for the various roles.

Sure, it's just an easier visualization that doesn't require me to click on drop downs to compare.

It also doesn't require me to actively change roles on the tactic and then click on the drop down to see if the player is still the best on my team.  As you say, the ranking is there (and I'm perfectly fine with it not being perfect, but based on the star rating already provided).

TBH as you point it out, it really seems like the circles should already do this even for the player.  I have a winger who's biggest green circle is as a winger (accomplished too, not even natural) which is rated as 3* for that role. But his 2.5 star rating for the DLF I play him in is a half filled circle which obfuscates the issue IMO.

[TheJock83]

I'd class myself as a veteran player and have pretty much dismissed the pies to a large extent.

I always preferred my tactics to have symmetry - both FBs & CBs having the same setting, one CM set to defend the other to support etc.

But in my most recent save with Everton, I had 9/11 players playing at full green pie, so for 1 match I changed Coleman from FB(A) to WB(D) and Barkley from AP(s) to AP(A) to give me full green pie and gosh darn if I didn't get my best performance from the team and especially Barkley. 

This led me to stick with going for full green within my 442 formation and led to my most successful save of FM18 so far. Individual and team performance was much improved, and it also changed my transfer dealings as instead of trying to sign 2 DCBs I felt I could mix and match a BPD(S) with a CD(D) and so on.

So for me anyway, full green pie certainly had an immediate and lasting effect on my team/players form and success.

[Primez]

Since I felt people are still reading this thread:

3 cases :

1. TACTICS FIRST OF ALL THEN ADAPT PLAYERS TO IT
   The indicator you need is the one which permits you to choose one player among all the others playing that role.
   This indicator is "ROLE ABILITY". It's a star rating that you can add to views, in the "Abilities" group.
   ROLE ABILITY is so good that:
   ** Already considers how well the player performs in that area of the field (Position Ability)
   ** Also includes feet quality
   It's so damn good that you can gladly accept its limitations:
   ** It appears only if you assign a role to a player (of course, how else would FM be able to know which role ability you want?)
   ** As all other ability star ratings, it requires an assistant manager with a decent  Judging Player skill
2. PLAYERS FIRST OF ALL THEN ADAPT TACTICS TO IT
   The indicator you need is the one which permits you to choose one role among all the others played by that player. 
   This indicator is "ROLE DUTY SUITABILITY (RDS)". It's a colored moon rating statically provided by FM in all "Tactics" views and in the "Roles and Duties" panel in the Squad/General page.
   [TECHNICAL STUFF] :: From what I've experimented, attributes important for a role are put in an average so that there's no final dependency from the varying number of attributes involved, then, all the averages are sorted from the highest value and clustered in ranges. At this point, each range is associated to a % so that they are displayed as moons.
3. TACTICS FIRST BUT HEY...NOT SO RIGID! THEN ADAPT PLAYERS TO IT
   This indicator doesn't exist. It'd permit you to choose one player among all the others playing in that position.
   This indicator would be "ROLES ABILITY". It'd be a star rating to be added in views
   It'd tell you which is the overall player ability in the various roles related to that position (including feet and position familiarity). A sort of role versatility in a given position.

Edited July 26, 2020 by Primez

[nully29]

The feature makes perfect sense.

 

1.If you play a footballer out of position, he will not run slower or pass worse because of it. The only thing that will go down is his decision-making ability. 

2.Green light in role & duty means that given player is most suited for this role and duty, relative to other roles he could perform. It is entirely possible, that another player, who is best suited for different duty may nonetheless be better at given duty, than first player. For example, I may have a bad player, whose best role is winger-attack. I also have another player, who is very good, and whose best role is AMC-AP-support. Yet, he still can be better as winger-attack, than the first player. Like, Ronaldo is not central defender at all, yet he is better central defender than me (CB is my best, bright green role). 

3. Playing your first 11 in their best positions does not necessarily result in the best possible tactic for your squad. Again, it is perfectly realistic. Playing a guy in his best position vs playing him in such position that would fit the overall tactic best - is one of the most fundamental decisions real coaches have to make about tactics. If new players can't tell the difference between playing guys in their best position and designing the best tactics, they probably need to educate themselves about football in general, rather than this particular game. 

Edited August 3, 2020 by nully29

[Artin]

On 17/02/2018 at 06:05, TheJock83 said:

I'd class myself as a veteran player and have pretty much dismissed the pies to a large extent.

I always preferred my tactics to have symmetry - both FBs & CBs having the same setting, one CM set to defend the other to support etc.

But in my most recent save with Everton, I had 9/11 players playing at full green pie, so for 1 match I changed Coleman from FB(A) to WB(D) and Barkley from AP(s) to AP(A) to give me full green pie and gosh darn if I didn't get my best performance from the team and especially Barkley. 

This led me to stick with going for full green within my 442 formation and led to my most successful save of FM18 so far. Individual and team performance was much improved, and it also changed my transfer dealings as instead of trying to sign 2 DCBs I felt I could mix and match a BPD(S) with a CD(D) and so on.

So for me anyway, full green pie certainly had an immediate and lasting effect on my team/players form and success.

this post has inspired me to try a full save going full green (or almost full green aka "accomplished" because otherwise all my MCs will be BWMs lol) circles!

[petertr]

Yet I still get reports to say a player has now perfected playing in a role.

The circle has gone full green, but NO attributes have changed.

So I really don't understand this one!

[MBarbaric]

3 ore fa, petertr ha scritto:

Yet I still get reports to say a player has now perfected playing in a role.

The circle has gone full green, but NO attributes have changed.

So I really don't understand this one!

when a player plays out of position, some of his attributes are lowered (i.e. positioning, decisions and possibly, others). Once he learns the position, he doesn't have this penalty anymore. 

i don't know why would you think attributes would change. they can however, if he already has a lot of positions, attributes can be rearranged to reflect added position to his PA/CA.

[Rashidi]

On 22/08/2020 at 02:02, Artin said:

this post has inspired me to try a full save going full green (or almost full green aka "accomplished" because otherwise all my MCs will be BWMs lol) circles!

Ultimately a player can play a variety of different roles and sometimes even positions. As a manager its your job to know what kind of system you want to play, then when you evaluate your own players you are the one who needs to determine who plays where. For the beginner player they already have a tactical creator with preset tactics there. They come with their own roles and duties, so the easiest way for a beginner to play would be to trust the evaluations of the coaches.  The tactic may call for a Mezzala in the position but the game says that a specific player's attributes indicate that he is well suited to playing as an Attacking Playmaker. It's at this point where the game enters its first difficulty level of sorts.  For the beginner you have a player who can multiple roles, which one do you think is best?  

 

[Peter Morgan]

On 21/08/2020 at 19:02, Artin said:

this post has inspired me to try a full save going full green (or almost full green aka "accomplished" because otherwise all my MCs will be BWMs lol) circles!

All my roles and duties for players in my FM19 and FM20 careers are based on the green circles (I've not got the time these days to go in depth on analysing attributes) and I win way more games than I draw or lose. Maybe my team and player instructions are spot on that it just works? Who knows, but no need for me to change it!

Be good to see how you get on!

[petertr]

17 hours ago, MBarbaric said:

when a player plays out of position, some of his attributes are lowered (i.e. positioning, decisions and possibly, others). Once he learns the position, he doesn't have this penalty anymore. 

i don't know why would you think attributes would change. they can however, if he already has a lot of positions, attributes can be rearranged to reflect added position to his PA/CA.

Yep, this is what I thought it must be.  I had thought "natural" meant 20, but it must not. And that's what the change is that I've been seeing.

 

As for the second point, I wonder if you get the same message when the attribute spread changes in such as way that the circles change to full green.  Hard to check that one without an editor, and comparing to an old save.