Pre Match Tactical Advice Summary - Team Shape

[lam]

Hey.

I'm looking at my PMTAS and it is advising I switch from Fluid to Structured.

Can someone please tell me what this change is based on?

Is it my choice of players or the opposition setup?

This advice is effectively telling me to play with a little less creativity and to put some space between my lines and I'm curious as to why.

LAM

[westy8chimp]

In this case, without knowing your setup, it could well be correct, but generally speaking the advice is nonsense and best ignored.

13 minutes ago, lam said:

This advice is effectively telling me to play with a little less creativity and to put some space between my lines and I'm curious as to why.

Correct it will do these things to some extent, but it will also change the mentality of your players. That's more of a concern if your team mentality is not standard. If you play attacking/defensive and change to structured it will have quite a big impact on how your tactic plays.

[lam]

I'm taking a leaf out of Cleons (and Others) book and playing Standard mentality then reviewing things from there.

It would be interesting to understand why the recommendation is there because if it was based on my opposition then it may give an insight as to how they are setting up.

[Elitee]

9 minutes ago, lam said:

I'm taking a leaf out of Cleons (and Others) book and playing Standard mentality then reviewing things from there.

It would be interesting to understand why the recommendation is there because if it was based on my opposition then it may give an insight as to how they are setting up.

I think it's based on how your assistant manager would play, sometimes it comes up with formations/roles/team instructions ect. Just down to his own tactic rather than what is best. 

Could be wrong though. 

[herne79]

It's nonsense and best ignored.  We have no idea what the advice is based on and the game doesn't bother telling us the most important thing - why you should be changing from Fluid to Structured.  What's the game noticed about either my next opponent or my tactic that generates that recommendation?  Or is it nothing more than some flavour text to make us think the Ass. Man is actually doing something?  It may as well be because without reasons it's just nonsense.

The red/green lines on the Tactic screen linking together (or not) only some of your players is another great example.

This thread is a great demonstration of something I've been wanting SI to either bin or improve - spoon feeding us this type of information without any reasoning causes more confusion and raises more questions than it solves.  @Neil Brock

<Steps off soap box>.

[gauravsinghmd]

When you have a top team with lots of "Intelligent" and creative players then saying you are choosing a very fluid shape seems to make them happy. The opposite is true for structured (low creativity, under dogs, defensive minded team).

As a top team whenever we are expected to win I choose an attacking mentality and very fluid shape (and tell the team that we are doing so as we are favorites). This always gets a positive reaction from most players. Nothing else seems to. 

[Robson 07]

I venture the following information cautiously as I'm not certain about it.  Caveated I'll take a stab at it.

The AI or in this case your assistant appears to take mentality literally by the label.  Defend means underdog and expected lose.  Attack means favourite and expected to win.  In neither instance does it seem to me to be related to a style you're trying to achieve or some sort of detailed analysis gathered about upcoming opposition.  Then it seems that shape - again this is just my take on the AI - is similarly paired with mentality.  The structured end of the scale suggested with the defensive mentality and more fluid with attacking.  Its a simplistic view of FM.

The part where this seems to come undone is as you've note (very)structured stretches individual mentalities and the team isn't always a cohesive or collective unit at the structured end.  Do you want to defend in this manner?  That's the question for each of us to find an answer to.  I have my own view on how to compliment shape with mentality and roles but its just what I have found to work its not necessarily something I'd pin up as right or wrong.

[howard moon]

6 hours ago, westy8chimp said:

Correct it will do these things to some extent, but it will also change the mentality of your players. That's more of a concern if your team mentality is not standard. If you play attacking/defensive and change to structured it will have quite a big impact on how your tactic plays.

Can you explain this in a bit more detail please?

[westy8chimp]

10 minutes ago, howard moon said:

Can you explain this in a bit more detail please?

There's a lot of info out there on te shape... Granted quite a lot of rubbish to wade through... So i wont go too in depth. Anything on the subject by Herne, Cleon, Ozil can be taken as gospel. Especially as they explain it in tandem with their tactical choices when relevant. 

In brief... And this may not make sense as im not great at explaining...

A structured system will set each players individual mentality (think on a scale of 1-20) close to the duty you select. A fluid system will set each individiual a little bit closer to the team mentality. 

I.e a CB-D on an attacking structured system could have say 3/20 mentality... On attacking fluid that player might have 8/20 (im making the figure up, there is a chart from fm16 somewhere in the ether). 

Similarly a striker on attack in a defensive structured might have 18/20...change to fluid and it would be more like 13/20

By selecting fluid you the team all shift up or down, in mentality, based on the team mentality. 

[howard moon]

7 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

There's a lot of info out there on te shape... Granted quite a lot of rubbish to wade through... So i wont go too in depth. Anything on the subject by Herne, Cleon, Ozil can be taken as gospel. Especially as they explain it in tandem with their tactical choices when relevant. 

In brief... And this may not make sense as im not great at explaining...

A structured system will set each players individual mentality (think on a scale of 1-20) close to the duty you select. A fluid system will set each individiual a little bit closer to the team mentality. 

I.e a CB-D on an attacking structured system could have say 3/20 mentality... On attacking fluid that player might have 8/20 (im making the figure up, there is a chart from fm16 somewhere in the ether). 

Similarly a striker on attack in a defensive structured might have 18/20...change to fluid and it would be more like 13/20

By selecting fluid you the team all shift up or down, in mentality, based on the team mentality. 

That makes sense. 

So as well as being a modifier of vertical shape, it’s also a modifier of risk? 

A striker in a fluid set up may be slightly more risk averse than the same role and duty in a structured set up?

[westy8chimp]

1 minute ago, howard moon said:

well as being a modifier of vertical shape, it’s also a modifier of risk?

Yes

1 minute ago, howard moon said:

striker in a fluid set up may be slightly more risk averse than the same role and duty in a structured set up?

Depends ... Overload fluid the whole team is going on the stock market buying risky shares. Overload structured... Leaves your cbs a bit more cautious but your strikers all out attack.

[Snorks]

Individual players mentality will become more aggressive on structured - so an Attack duty will be more Attacking on structured than on Fluid.

Thinking of it as 'element of risk' is a good way to approach it - structured introduces a bit more risk as players will be further apart and more stretched vertically.

 

[Neil Brock]

16 hours ago, herne79 said:

It's nonsense and best ignored.  We have no idea what the advice is based on and the game doesn't bother telling us the most important thing - why you should be changing from Fluid to Structured.  What's the game noticed about either my next opponent or my tactic that generates that recommendation?  Or is it nothing more than some flavour text to make us think the Ass. Man is actually doing something?  It may as well be because without reasons it's just nonsense.

The red/green lines on the Tactic screen linking together (or not) only some of your players is another great example.

This thread is a great demonstration of something I've been wanting SI to either bin or improve - spoon feeding us this type of information without any reasoning causes more confusion and raises more questions than it solves.  @Neil Brock

<Steps off soap box>.

Some valid points absolutely - we definitely need to look at improving how information is provided and the context in which it is done so. There's also a part to play in regards to how good an assistant manager is which would then tie into the quality of advice which is given out. 

Obviously I'm not in a position to pre-announce anything for FM19 but issues like this which have been raised in the community are definitely not ignored. Thanks. 

[zemaniano85]

And I hope the 2D match will stay there and not removed 

[westy8chimp]

32 minutes ago, zemaniano85 said:

And I hope the 2D match will stay there and not removed 

yeah heads up SI... major rebellion if 2D is removed.

[Neil Brock]

We've not removed commentary only despite having added in both 2D and 3D years ago so why would we remove 2D?  

[zemaniano85]

This is a good one to hear... 

[herne79]

This topic has flagged something up and I thought I'd go into a little more detail as to why these reports can be a bit of a poisoned chalice, especially for new or inexperienced managers and should be treated with huge grains of salt, if not out right dismissed as being nonsense.

I have an away Champions League match coming in Milan against Inter.  For reference I'm playing as West Ham and we're one of the top sides in Europe now.  This is the tactical advice I've been given:

Going through this one by one:

1) Change my formation from 4231 wide to 4321DM narrow as it "would be suitable".  Not withstanding the fact that I've never played 4321DM narrow or even have the players capable of playing that formation, here's what my scout report for Inter also tells me:

Inter are vulnerable playing against the 4231 wide formation.  I play 4231 wide.  Why is it "more suitable" if I switch to 4321DM narrow?

2) Change mentality from Standard to Counter.  Several issues here in the game itself, not to do with tactics:

- I play Standard mentality.  Here's part of the in game definition of Standard mentality: "arguably the most important of all mentalities"..."it enables a manager to assess the match situation"..."it is an ideal starting mentality for all matches expected to be even in nature".  Pre-match odds are 13-8 Inter : 6-4 West Ham, which are pretty well even (we're very slight favourites).  Therefore if it's expected to be even and Standard mentality is the most important mentality, why tell me to switch to Counter?

- Looking at the Counter mentality, here's a snip: "best employed for matches in which you expect to lose the possession battle".  West Ham are leading the Premier League on average possession (60%).  Inter are 12th in Serie A on 49% possession.  I'm not expecting to lose the possession battle.

I could talk at length about the tactical issues here as well, but it's important to highlight just the information the game is giving us and how contradictory that information can be.

3) Increase support duties (use 6 or 7) and reduce attack duties (use 0 or 1).  My system uses 5 support duties and 2 attack duties.  I like how the system plays, it's nicely balanced, we're mean in defence and are not short of goals.  The only thing I can think of here as to why the game is giving me this suggestion if it's some sort of formulaic response: use x mentality therefore use y support/attack duties.  The AI isn't smart enough to recognise my successful tactical system and (best guess) simply reverts to this formula.

4) Add "Get Stuck In" Team Instruction which "would improve our chances of a result".  That's a really strong statement - no ifs, no buts, it would improve our chances.  OK, are Inter a particularly light weight team perhaps?  Would hard tackling scare them off perhaps?  Here's what the scouting report says about Inter again:

I seriously doubt hard tackling is going to upset Inter.  So why would adding the TI to Get Stuck In improve our chances?  I honestly don't know.

5) Remove my TI to Retain Possession which would (that word again) improve our chances of a result.  Perhaps this ties in with the suggestion above to switch to Counter because I expect to lose the possession battle (which I may lose if I remove this TI).  Or perhaps again this just is formulaic in that the AI doesn't understand my system and merely associates the Retain Possession TI with time wasting?  I don't know.

6) Reduce my pressing to reduce the risk of injury.  OK that kind of makes sense from a purely injury-related perspective, but if you follow that advice nobody would ever play a pressing game.  Plus I just rested all of my key players who I rotated out from my previous match, so they're all fit and healthy.  If I check the Medical Centre, only 3 of my players are above average for Injury Susceptibility - one of which won't feature in the Inter match at all and the other 2 will only be subs.  Plus this is the intensity of my tactic:

Not exactly Klopp intense.  So why is it such an injury risk?

 

Anyway, hopefully I've managed to demonstrate why such reports should at best be treated with scepticism and at worst be completely ignored.  I've purposely tried to avoid going into detailed explanations of my own tactical system and why this advice would be bad from that perspective (that's a whole different topic) but rather tried to focus instead on incomplete, misleading or even contradictory information which the game itself provides and which people might rely on.  So it's reassuring when people such as @Neil Brock mentions about needing to look at the information provided and the context of it.

(BTW, needless to say I completely ignored all the advice and won the match 5-0 ).

[westy8chimp]

@herne79 superb... thought it for ages, never gone to the effort of writing about it like that. Excellent detail. Glad to see Neil elude to some improvements (not quoting you Neil, just seemed to me that there was a hint). If not in FM19 this post cannot be ignored for FM20... the information is clearly false and really damaging to new players to the game who follow in game advice and/or don't know of this forums existence to get any further clarity.

[westy8chimp]

And I don't mean to be too doom and gloom, as you can see from my activity on this forum, I love tactics etc

but you've kind of opened Pandora's box... and this excellent example, scarily, probably covers 1% of the misleading advice (considering in game analysis, post match analysis...) and not really touched on all the contradictory descriptions within the TC, Roles ...

forum is a good platform for us to debate, provide ideas, clarity and in game evidence for what really happens... maybe it should be more actively touted within the game to drive more new users here.

[Robson 07]

Hahaha @herne79 such a good but fun post, nice balance.  Definitely hit one big nail right on the head.  Kudos. 

[howard moon]

Great post @herne79 

The in-game description for ‘counter’ is particularly baffling. It’s a mentality that encourages possession compared to more aggressive mentalities. Hence why teams who play defensively on FM often end up dominating possession (which is a whole other logical issue with the tactics creator!)

[Robson 07]

Maybe something else similar to throw in the pot.

What about the (new to FM18) tactical analysis screen.  The one in your tactical team selection area where you create a tactic, it shows you light green squares where you have bodies or reddish squares to highlight gaps in the formation.  When you hover over it call these reddish squares, major or significant issues in your formation.  What do you think about that feedback?  Can you build a very good tactic with red squares?  If so, is that more misinformation?

[zlatanera]

@Robson 07 r.e. red squares - I've found if you have bright red that generally is because the players near that square don't have green circles so take it with a pinch of salt. For example in my current 41230 narrow there's a red square in front of 2/3 of my AMs as the game doesn't think my Enganche or SS are perfectly suited to their roles. Never mind that in terms of their attributes that's their best role in the position, it tells me I have flaws. 

@herne79 good post, is 4321DM narrow your AM's preferred formation? Whenever I actually pay attention I notice my AM is just telling me to play how he would. 

[herne79]

1 hour ago, zlatanera said:

is 4321DM narrow your AM's preferred formation?

lol yes.  At least that's some explanation although seems to override more useful info such as Inter being vulnerable to the 4231 when I'm already playing that formation.

[Snorks]

I have always taken the pre-match advice as my AssMan's way of approaching the game.

At AC Milan, my AssMan has never recommended anything other than 4-2-3-1 DM , before EVERY match -  I have NEVER played with two DMs and only ever played 4-2-3-1 half a dozen times at best.

Sometimes,  I will make note of the suggestions, particularly around shape and mentality, IF I am not confident in my own selections and might use them if the match isn't going my way, but have never noticed any real benefit.

 

[khodder]

It's good to see this coming out here. Has anyone asked to "Never" receive tactical advice?

Pretty sure I get mine the least amount possible (Once a month??) and just ignore it.

[Snorks]

It would be nice if your AssMan 'learns' your style and tactic and offers advice in that context.

[Neil Brock]

A lot of the advice currently is based on what the assistant would do if they were running the team, so it's focused around their preferences/style etc. Given how it appears in game being more of a relevant advice/suggestion tool would be more useful for the user. It is absolutely something we've taken on board and appreciate the discussion around this. 

[Robson 07]

Here's something else about Team Shape that everyone may not realise.  Their is a 'flip' with how it works.

Okay hear me out. 

If you play on standard, the average of your team's mentality will be a little bit lower from (highly) structured up through flexible to fluid with very fluid being the most attacking overall setup on standard team mentality.  Now this pretty much applies from standard upwards into more aggressive team mentalities.  It's actually not perfect, but as a principle, on attacking team mentality for example, Very Fluid at one end down to Highly Structured at the other.  Same as I just said about Standard.

Now the flip.

Below standard team mentality it goes the other way.  Lets take Counter (team) mentality.  As an average of your player mentalities very fluid will be most defensive and high structured the most attacking.  This is a reverse of aggressive mentalities.  The principle, or flip as I've labelled it, applies on all cautious mentalities, not perfectly, but near enough.  This all means that very fluid is both the most defensive at the defensive end; and very fluid is the most attacking at the attacking end.

Now some of this stuff is marginal but I'm not saying anything different to what others have said about how it works.  I'm just explaining what the effect is.

If you are following me  there are a couple of weird things that happen, such as if you are on Standard-Highly Structured and you wanted to take down a fraction, just a couple of notches, you would go to Counter-Highly Structured.  If you are still with me and we're going the other way you would go from Standard-Very Fluid to Control-Highly Structured.

I hope this isn't more mind boggle or confusion to a problematic topic.  This is just maths.  The cumulative figure of your individual mentalities added together, 

[warlock]

2 hours ago, Robson 07 said:

I hope this isn't more mind boggle or confusion to a problematic topic.  This is just maths. 

I think I followed that. Now if you could just run through Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time...

[facman]

10 hours ago, Robson 07 said:

...Below standard team mentality it goes the other way.  Lets take Counter (team) mentality.  As an average of your player mentalities very fluid will be most defensive and high structured the most attacking.  This is a reverse of aggressive mentalities.  The principle, or flip as I've labelled it, applies on all cautious mentalities, not perfectly, but near enough.  This all means that very fluid is both the most defensive at the defensive end; and very fluid is the most attacking at the attacking end.

The way I think about it (to help my addled brain) is to think of Shape as being a throttle for how much the team listens to the Team Mentality I have set.

At the Structured end of the Shape list, the throttle is mostly closed, so even if I set the Mentality to Overload, my players with a Defend duty are still going to be mostly defensive, and if I set the Mentality to Contain my Attack duty players will still have an attacking bias. As I move the Shape up to the Fluid end of the scale I am opening the metaphorical throttle, allowing all of my players to listen to what the Team Mentality is telling them. So if I play Fluid or Very Fluid, setting the Mentality to Contain means "everyone defend", whilst setting it to Overload means "everyone attack". Its not a perfect analogy, but it helps me when I want to change things up during a game.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

On 17/07/2018 at 16:26, herne79 said:

but it's important to highlight just the information the game is giving us and how contradictory that information can be.

 

Since you mentioned it; One thing I've seen said a lot on this forum is (my paraphrased summary): 'Fitness training in pre-season is a popular myth, it trains your physical attributes and isn't a straight up 'get fit in time for the season' training session.'

Which is fine, makes sense.

Then I think, one of the AI staff advice in pre-season is actually to put team training as 'fitness' because it would get the squad fit in time for the season to start (or words to that effect), pretty much exactly what the forums discussions have said it isn't for... 

Now, if this was any other game, I would be dismissing the information on forums and going by the in-game advice unless I hear otherwise from someone in a position of knowledge. But with Football Manager, -and (not a diss but), this is really the developer's own fault here for taking so long with being clear on information over the years, - I'm liable to believe the information on these forums if it comes from certain people rather than anything the game tells me... 

 

But anyway, I agree that the whole thing is just bad fluff really. Along the lines of assistant manager advice in-match. These things being culled and/or made more reliable is way overdue. 

[herne79]

21 minutes ago, isignedupfornorealreason said:

Since you mentioned it; One thing I've seen said a lot on this forum is (my paraphrased summary): 'Fitness training in pre-season is a popular myth, it trains your physical attributes and isn't a straight up 'get fit in time for the season' training session.'

Which is fine, makes sense.

Then I think, one of the AI staff advice in pre-season is actually to put team training as 'fitness' because it would get the squad fit in time for the season to start (or words to that effect), pretty much exactly what the forums discussions have said it isn't for... 

Yeh I agree.

However, what I for one am guilty of is focussing on the technical aspect - what something actually does - rather than the other side of the same coin which is the immersion or "RPG" element of the game.

So yes, whilst technically speaking what setting Fitness under General Training does is focus player development on their Physical attributes, there's nothing wrong with immersing yourself into the game and saying "right lads, welcome back hope you all had a good break, we're going to be working in the gym and on your Fitness for a few weeks while we play some friendlies to get you all back into shape".  Followed by "good pre-season fellas, you look like you're raring to go, we're now going to refocus training to help with your ball control skills".

That's the intention of your staff telling you to put your team onto Fitness training, rather than them advising you to do it "to develop their attributes", which would break the immersion.

Whether I personally play in that manner or not doesn't matter - I'm all for that kind of thing (even though I often forget it exists) because this is after all "Football Manager", not "Attribute Manager".  For me, the game giving that sort of information is fine because of the RPG side of things.  People can always then visit forums such as this to discuss the technical elements - or just happily play along in their immersion. 

My issues stem from information the game gives which is either contradictory, misleading or without apparent reason, which is what I tried to highlight above.

[westy8chimp]

Good point RE immersion... and it's wider context on the forum that we sometimes focus too much on specific output.

I haven't done it justice, maybe in FM19 i'll do a similar series, but I wanted to approach the Leverkusen Chronicles almost as if "i'll play this save the way FM tells me to play, as if I've never been on the forum" be interesting to see if any success could be had that way!

[Uncle_Sam]

I would add to this discussion how your assistant views CD's on "Cover" duty. To me, this duty is even more defensive than "Defend". However, the assistant always advises you to add more Defend duties depending on the team mentality.