Soo .. what the heck happened?

[Troels Jensen]

I haven't played for a couple of months and just got back after the 19.3.3 update. My tactics have worked very well pre patch and then this happens in my second game post patch (I'm Real Madrid). I know - 'it's my tactics' - but clearly the new patch(es) has changed something rather drastically. Not sure I can be bothered to keep playing .. /rant

 

[RandomGuy.]

What's your tactic?

[janrzm]

Anyone who watched both legs of the Ajax Champions League tie won't deem that to be wildly unrealistic....... 

[Troels Jensen]

1 minute ago, RandomGuy. said:

What's your tactic?

Started out with a somewhat unorthodox tactic that I've been fiddling around with - it's has been working out so far. When going three behind I switched to my usual tactics but that certainly didn't help. Ah well.

 

@janrzm Why you little!

[Troels Jensen]

I decided to reload (yes, I did) to see if I could figure out what went wrong. Again I started out with my custom formation, tweaked OI's a little and went from balanced to defensive mentality. And this happened (I forgot to pay attention to a change in formation and subs so they came back in the match - I  then set mentality as very attacking in the last 10 minutes and it paid off). But I find it .. well .. problematic that the difference can be so great when I've only tweaked the settings a little bit.

Edit: 21 fouls and only one booking .. ref on drugs.

 

[Troels Jensen]

Custom formation for those interested:

 

 

[Guest]

19.3 ME is different from 19.2
442 and 4141 working with some research and playing around with TI (Team Instructions) and PI (Player Instructions).
I don't know why SIGA have included strikerless formations which doesn't work (after 19.3 update).
AI knows the perfect counter attack, even with an amateur club.

[Svenc]

2 hours ago, Troels Jensen said:

Custom formation for those interested:

 

 

Do you watch football?

I'm not suggesting you don't. I'd just like to trigger a reaction/thought.  Part of this game's "Problem" on the tacitcal front has been that it allows for a lot of illogicals that no Team in real Football would ever pull off (certainly not for the 90 minutes). In the above, you visibly basically have no midfield whatsoever in Possession as the box to box as the sole man in the central of the pitch moves upfield. Plus all your advanced Players in tendency are encouraged to a nice Little meet and greet in the middle of the park as if they're Holding a picnic. To top it off, your backline is basically two defenders overrun at ease as they see no protection whatsoever.

That's not how football's being played anywhere.

It's what the game has Always allowed though. In a sense, FM is one of the world's more popular schoolboy classes in teamsport basics 101. (Unfortunately, that also goes on the AI's end).

Speaking off that AI, the other Problem is that the game's AI isn't actually "smart". If it were, it would punish this far more frequently, regardless of any patch. The most absurd stuff I've seen in recent Editions was somebody basically fielding a makeshift back three consisting of a LB-CB-RB. If you watched, this translates to two channels in between the three defenders as wide as the hips of K. Kardashian. As the AI isn't smart enough to "spot" this, Things mostly went fairly well. However, every time the AI fielded or mid-match switched to 3 narrowed Forward type of Players --- no hope of defending. Big mid-match switches to altogether different formations mostly occur if the AI is desperate to get back into a game -- so wholly depend on the run of Play, namely, the Goals. If you would take the lead, the switch may occur. If it's vice versa, it may not. 

Bottom line: With gibberish as the above (which the game allows), you'll Always randomise your results across the shop, no matter what release or patch. Even a simple database Change to AI Managers and their edited tacitcal preferences could cost you dearly. I'd personally prefer all of this to go; and Limit both user and AI to sensible, actual "Football decisions". The game's premise after all is that there's (semi)professional managers and players competing; plus it may allow for a tighter focus in terms of match engine development. At the Moment, not only can the game's AI on Occasion still do comparably "silly" stuff -- the devs may need to work out what reported "issue" may be "tactically" influenced first, and which not. Not my call though.

[optimusprimal82]

I think if you play formations like that - which I do sometimes - then you have to be careful that you don't occasionally get burned, and remember the old adage that 'goals change games'...!  

I rarely venture into discussions like these because perception & opinion play such a huge part so I tend to live and let live, but something I see all too frequently in football related chats is how much overemphasis people place on a sides formation and the seeming belief that they stick to it rigidly? Some teams obviously do and some managers demand absolute tactical discipline - it tends to be why guys like Jose don't get on so well with flair-y attacking players who want to play in one direction - but others (Pep) is a good example, will have the team change shape depending on the attacking phase/zone of the pitch.

That shape above may look odd from an FM & skysports point of view, but compared to a real life team attacking with the ball is it really all that strange? Someone has called it gibberish above, but it's not a million miles away from (sorry OP!) Barcelona in the final third (great piece about how they play here). Yes, if without the ball and defending it'd be an utter nonsense, but shape wise it's reminiscent of a lot of attacking teams?   I'd argue that the shape that the OP illustrates above is actually not that uncommon at all for an attacking side that has possession of the ball, just obviously not something you'd see in a defensive capacity?

The 'should we have wibble/wobble' debate has lurked in the background for years and i'm not about to bring it all up again - we've got what we've got (and the transition options now are a decent concession) - but with the absence of them & barrows/farrow, for people to try and replicate a modern, fluid system that changes between rigidly defined formations these are naturally the sorts of things people try - especially in this years edition when it's possible to turn the above mentioned 'FB x 2, CB x 1' into a solid back 3 with the way the defensive line automatically narrows? It's essentially asking a similar thing as setting up a 451 and having 4 of the middle 5 set to 'get further forward' among their PI's but in reverse? Given the way different roles in the game move and react, playing around with starting positions may look bizarre on the tactics screen, but can actually lead to more realistic performances in-game itself (and admittedly can be used to exploit the game if desired but isn't that up to each individual user)? 

This all reminds me of a great thread from a few years back that seemed to just die out discussing defensive shape and wibble/wobble (which always causes in-depth discussion); I understand why restrictions have been placed on the user from a tactical point of view, but I think we need to be careful when deciding whether we want more restrictions or not - restrictions may prevent exploitation but they can also stifle creativity? Maybe they're necessary until such time that the AI can competently fight back (and I've mentioned machine learning in several places recently - with the amount of people playing the game there's definitely scope there for exploration) & exploit ridiculous tactical decisions but me personally, I'd rather people were still free to make weird and wonderful creations as they please and in a perfect world (or a perfect ME) have my bottom served back to me by the AI when I do a stupid; it's hard to call it a proper simulation when I've got roles with specific instructions forced onto me - yes taking the shackles off for a human may lead to possible exploitation but you don't have to use them and I could care less what other people do for fun in their own game, if they want to play a strikerless formation and win every game 7-0 then more power to them!

[sporadicsmiles]

8 hours ago, Troels Jensen said:

Custom formation for those interested:

 

 

Goodness, are you shocked that this got utterly picked apart by the first decent side you played? This is a monstrosity of a tactic. It is the kind of thing I would reject for a last minute must win score. There is zero defensive cover, you do not have a midfield, etc. All a team needs to do to create a chance against this is to wait until you lose the ball in a transition and counter. Almost every counter should be a chance. If you want to play like this, okay, but you are going to get absolutely smashed by most decent sides, and some lesser sides.

4 hours ago, optimusprimal82 said:

how much overemphasis people place on a sides formation and the seeming belief that they stick to it rigidly?

Not so much the people who understand how FM works. In FM your formation is pretty much the defensive shape you fall back into when you do not have the ball. Which is why the tactic posted here is crazy. Although like you say, live and let live.

 

4 hours ago, optimusprimal82 said:

The 'should we have wibble/wobble' debate has lurked in the background for years and i'm not about to bring it all up again

Honestly, I cannot think of a single person who thinks wibble/wobble should be back, or that it was a good idea in the first place. It was a fun challenge for people to find the optimal slider positions to ensure you win. But it was about winning, not about playing football correctly. Your post seems to suggest wibble/wobble as a counterbalance to exploit tactics, when it was used as an exploit by most people. That is exactly how it would be used now. Someone would work out optimal slider settings to maximize chances to win, people who use exploit tactics now would switch. I guess there is no point to reopen this debate here, but realism-wise, well, there is not any. "OI! POGBA!! YOU ARE CLOSING DOWN 13/30, PLEASE MAKE THAT 17/20 YOU MUPPET". You see the point. 

[RandomGuy.]

9 hours ago, Troels Jensen said:

Custom formation for those interested:

 

 

Well then, if anything all you've proved is the ME is actually better now, if that formation was successful something was wildly wrong.

[LukasZ_VCF]

12 hours ago, Troels Jensen said:

I haven't played for a couple of months and just got back after the 19.3.3 update. My tactics have worked very well pre patch and then this happens in my second game post patch (I'm Real Madrid). I know - 'it's my tactics' - but clearly the new patch(es) has changed something rather drastically. Not sure I can be bothered to keep playing .. /rant

 

what year is it ?

[Troels Jensen]

To all of you commenting on the unrealistic tactic I've been playing around with: I KNOW it's not looking realistic. There's no need for anyone to play clever and tell me how football is played. I've been playing with a standard  4-2-3-1 tactic most of the time - it just gets boring after a while. I like to create tactics that on paper look totally ridiculous, but at the same time works in the game - playing the ME so to speak. I don't give a s*** if it's not realistic. My point was only that the update seemed to drastically have changed the way tactics are working.  

The custom tactic may look silly but let me tell you the thoughts behind it (if you experts even care): The defensive and attacking lines are as close together as possible, fluidity is flexible so support players are expected to take part in defending as well. When the lines are so close, the idea is that when defending there are at least 7 players doing defensive work and 8 players helping out when attacking.  The play looks rather nice when watching them in the 3d engine - a lot of different goals. The problem with this tactic after the update is that the wingbacks are too easily overrun. Going to a more defensive mentality seems to have rectified that. 

 

This tactic actually somewhat represents how Real Madrid have been trying to play lately ..

 

Btw: this is a 'money is not an issue' game, which is why I have the players I do. I think it's season 2024/25.

[Troels Jensen]

7 hours ago, sporadicsmiles said:

Not so much the people who understand how FM works. In FM your formation is pretty much the defensive shape you fall back into when you do not have the ball. Which is why the tactic posted here is crazy. Although like you say, live and let live.

Thanks for the kind words. I've watched football (Spanish in particular) for the past 30 years and while I'm not claiming to be an expert, I've been playing the game since the championship manager days, and the only game I've not played was FM18. I've never downloaded 'diablo tactics' or anything, but I've always tried to find ways to fool the AI. While the above tactic may seem like a crazy monstrosity to you, it's been created with a specific idea in mind. The limits to the tactical settings have resulted in the tactic looking like it does.

Like I mentioned in another post, I don't really care how it looks, but more how it works. In short, this is a tactic where everyone but the back and front two participates in both the defensive and the attacking play. The WB's, BBM, IF's, and AP is supposed to be a cohesive unit that operates forwards and backwards. 

And yes, it's vulnerable to counter attacks. I was aware of that when creating it.

[puffascruffowitz]

It's the classic "heart formation". Ever wonder why players do the silly heart gesture with their hands after a goal? No, it's not to show appreciation for the fans, it's actually in appreciation of this classic tactic!

 

 

[XaW]

3 hours ago, Troels Jensen said:

To all of you commenting on the unrealistic tactic I've been playing around with: I KNOW it's not looking realistic. There's no need for anyone to play clever and tell me how football is played. I've been playing with a standard  4-2-3-1 tactic most of the time - it just gets boring after a while. I like to create tactics that on paper look totally ridiculous, but at the same time works in the game - playing the ME so to speak. I don't give a s*** if it's not realistic. My point was only that the update seemed to drastically have changed the way tactics are working.  

Well, unrealistic input leads to unrealistic output. As someone who have frequented this board for a number of years, I've seen a lot of post of a similar type. And quite often tactics that suddenly stop working after a patch usually worked before the patch because it exploited something in the ME, either intentional or otherwise. I've used an (almost) identical tactic since FM17 and it still works well. Not the win CL with a Welsh side the first season, but well enough that I can slightly overachieve just about every season. If a tactic is amazing and then stops working at all after a patch it simply means SI have fixed the exploit the tactic used.

[iMan]

 

5 hours ago, Troels Jensen said:

Thanks for the kind words. I've watched football (Spanish in particular) for the past 30 years and while I'm not claiming to be an expert, I've been playing the game since the championship manager days, and the only game I've not played was FM18. I've never downloaded 'diablo tactics' or anything, but I've always tried to find ways to fool the AI. While the above tactic may seem like a crazy monstrosity to you, it's been created with a specific idea in mind. The limits to the tactical settings have resulted in the tactic looking like it does.

Like I mentioned in another post, I don't really care how it looks, but more how it works. In short, this is a tactic where everyone but the back and front two participates in both the defensive and the attacking play. The WB's, BBM, IF's, and AP is supposed to be a cohesive unit that operates forwards and backwards. 

And yes, it's vulnerable to counter attacks. I was aware of that when creating it.

Take no notice mate.

Im sure they also laughed at and ridiculed the first guy to suggest playing a 4-4-2 or 4-3-3.

It’s quite clear to me you are a visionary.

 

[sporadicsmiles]

7 hours ago, Troels Jensen said:

And yes, it's vulnerable to counter attacks. I was aware of that when creating it.

As long as you score more than you concede, you will be okay. It is probably wacky enough that the AI is not programmed to deal with it. I'd absolutely love to play against it though, all that space.

If you genuinely want to stick with it, I'd think about dropping the two central players back a level. At least that way they will be slightly more a defensive screen. Maybe DMC as a regista, to spray balls for those ahead of him. CM as a CM(A) or BBM as the guy getting into the centre. It definitely won't stop you losing 8-0, but if it is how you want to play, that is what I would do!

[Troels Jensen]

3 hours ago, XaW said:

If a tactic is amazing and then stops working at all after a patch it simply means SI have fixed the exploit the tactic used.

Or perhaps SI have messed something up. It wouldn't be the first time. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I find it a bit annoying that SI just about never release a game where the majority of the bugs has already been ironed out. It can be confusing if you create a solid tactic based on how you personally understand the game and it's tactical settings, thinking you're on the right track, only to have said tactic implode post patch because they've 'fixed' something. Then it's back to scratch which can be pretty frustrating. This game will probably never resemble real football, simply because the human factor doesn't exist in the players. Does that make sense? My point is that it's ok to criticize the tactic for being poorly created or crazy or whatever, just don't criticize it for not resembling real football, because FM never will.

[XaW]

13 minutes ago, Troels Jensen said:

Or perhaps SI have messed something up. It wouldn't be the first time. I'm not saying you're wrong, but I find it a bit annoying that SI just about never release a game where the majority of the bugs has already been ironed out. It can be confusing if you create a solid tactic based on how you personally understand the game and it's tactical settings, thinking you're on the right track, only to have said tactic implode post patch because they've 'fixed' something. Then it's back to scratch which can be pretty frustrating. This game will probably never resemble real football, simply because the human factor doesn't exist in the players. Does that make sense? My point is that it's ok to criticize the tactic for being poorly created or crazy or whatever, just don't criticize it for not resembling real football, because FM never will.

No, I don't criticise anyone trying to do something like that, but to be fair, the tactic you showed us is nowhere near a realistic one, Of course SI can mess up, but if you look at the downloads sections for tactics and have a look at the "best" tactics there, there are no doubts they are using and abusing faults or weaknesses in the match engine. The match engine is a fickle beasts, and even small changes to it can have widespread consequences. So things can get screwed up, like crosses being to good, or too poor, or long shots are overpowered or not working at all. But for my own experience, a solid fundamentally good tactic should be reasonable as a baseline, of course if you have players suitable for it.

The issue have with users complaining about tactics is that quite often, they are using tactics without knowing what their tactical choices does. And I know this because I used to do it! I've played FM since the early 90s, but I never learned quite how tactics worked until FM17. When I had played that for a while and had made a crazy tactic that worked, but got torn to pieces after a patch, I took a step back and tried again from scratch, this time ONLY doing things I knew what did. If I didn't know how a thing worked I played a bit with it to familiarise myself with it. And here I mean how to works IN-GAME, because, as you wrote, it's not necessarily the same as in real life. And I asked in the tactics forum and got some good answers, hints and suggestions.

Many people add "work ball into box" to stop too many long shots. But this can be counter intuitive and lead to MORE long shots if your other instructions doesn't suit it. Why? Because you are asking your players to play more through balls into the box, but if you are lacking runs between the lines, or into channels, or opposite movements to create space there won't be any possibilities of working the damn ball into the damn box, now will it? So since you have limited the options the player have, his "out" is to shot from range. And this is things I had no idea about, and also why I screwed up when trying to create a working tactic. And I still don't know all the possible instructions!

I ended up with a tactic that made me win pretty much every game, with few exceptions, and I got loaded with trophies. When FM18 came around I pulled up the same formation and it worked almost just as well. Some small tweaks in a couple of roles and I could win again. The tweaks were only to make it as efficient as FM17, it would have held up great being identical. I have also used it quite a bit in FM19, but I haven't played much with good teams, and the tactic is mostly for teams who are quite good, so I can't say for sure that it works perfectly without tweaking it a bit more yet.

Now, I know doing something like that isn't for everyone, BUT I also think that if you are struggling to do be better at something, it's more reasonable to try to understand what you are doing wrong, rather than complain that the game is scripted, biased or any other baseless accusation. Now, I'm not saying you have done any of those things, but using more time and energy to understand how the game try to mirror real life will most likely give you better results than pretty much anything else.

[Troels Jensen]

21 minutes ago, XaW said:

Now, I know doing something like that isn't for everyone, BUT I also think that if you are struggling to do be better at something, it's more reasonable to try to understand what you are doing wrong, rather than complain that the game is scripted, biased or any other baseless accusation.

I understand what you're saying and actually agree too The thing is - I've been playing with standard formations (created by myself) for a very long time. Been there done that. With this tactic I wanted to create something that wasn't your run-of-the-mill 4-3-3, 4-4-2 or what have we. I wanted to see if I could come up with something different. As I mentioned earlier, the tactic should work similarly to how Real Madrid is trying to play in real life. Their FB's are playing in very forward positions very often, the sole midfielder (Casemiro in real life) operates in front of the defence and behind the attacking players - BBM according to my understanding. The IF's support attack but also work defensively when needed (Vazquez and Vinicius/Asensio - not Bale, he doesn't do s***). Where this tactic differs from real world Real Madrid is that is has to forwards instead of only one, so in that regard there's a midfield player missing. I could change that easily, but wanted to try a formation with two forwards. Long story short - I've created it from how I perceive Real Madrid are playing, albeit with at few differences. I'm sure I don't understand all of the aspects of the tactical settings in FM, but I'd still like to think I'm not totally clueless

[XaW]

25 minutes ago, Troels Jensen said:

I understand what you're saying and actually agree too The thing is - I've been playing with standard formations (created by myself) for a very long time. Been there done that. With this tactic I wanted to create something that wasn't your run-of-the-mill 4-3-3, 4-4-2 or what have we. I wanted to see if I could come up with something different. As I mentioned earlier, the tactic should work similarly to how Real Madrid is trying to play in real life. Their FB's are playing in very forward positions very often, the sole midfielder (Casemiro in real life) operates in front of the defence and behind the attacking players - BBM according to my understanding. The IF's support attack but also work defensively when needed (Vazquez and Vinicius/Asensio - not Bale, he doesn't do s***). Where this tactic differs from real world Real Madrid is that is has to forwards instead of only one, so in that regard there's a midfield player missing. I could change that easily, but wanted to try a formation with two forwards. Long story short - I've created it from how I perceive Real Madrid are playing, albeit with at few differences. I'm sure I don't understand all of the aspects of the tactical settings in FM, but I'd still like to think I'm not totally clueless

Of course, you are totally free to do things like that, you just have to expect some rather strange results with inputs like that. 

For what it's worth, I have a very different view of how Real Madrid plays. Without the ball, this is how I view their formation:

While you have Casemiro as the sole midfielder, I think he is located further back than as a central midfielder. Even Kroos and Modric have a lot of defensive responsibilities. Then you have Vinicius on the left as a IF/W hybrid and Benzema up top. The number 7 in my screenshot is when someone like Isco or Asensio plays as a tucked in attacking midfielder. If Vazques or Bale plays the role is further out towards the wing. And while the wing backs have a lot of offensive freedom they have been a bit more cautious when Reguilon plays instead of Marcelo this season.

Mind, I haven't seen more than 10-15 Real Madrid matches this season, but this is still how I remember them playing.

[Gunnersmoke]

18 hours ago, RandomGuy. said:

 

I’m sorry but I’m absolutely not surprised you got beat 8-0 with that tactic it is an abomination and if you think it’s crazy that you get thrashed with that then you should maybe just listen to everything your assman says because he’s leagues above you 

[Troels Jensen]

6 hours ago, Gunnersmoke said:

I’m sorry but I’m absolutely not surprised you got beat 8-0 with that tactic it is an abomination and if you think it’s crazy that you get thrashed with that then you should maybe just listen to everything your assman says because he’s leagues above you 

Welcome to the forums ..

 

[Troels Jensen]

8 hours ago, XaW said:

Of course, you are totally free to do things like that, you just have to expect some rather strange results with inputs like that. 

For what it's worth, I have a very different view of how Real Madrid plays. Without the ball, this is how I view their formation:

While you have Casemiro as the sole midfielder, I think he is located further back than as a central midfielder. Even Kroos and Modric have a lot of defensive responsibilities. Then you have Vinicius on the left as a IF/W hybrid and Benzema up top. The number 7 in my screenshot is when someone like Isco or Asensio plays as a tucked in attacking midfielder. If Vazques or Bale plays the role is further out towards the wing. And while the wing backs have a lot of offensive freedom they have been a bit more cautious when Reguilon plays instead of Marcelo this season.

Mind, I haven't seen more than 10-15 Real Madrid matches this season, but this is still how I remember them playing.

Are they so different, though? If you push your midfield one step forward, you have my formation, more or less, except for the missing midfielder, as I've already talked about. As I mentioned earlier, I have 'compressed' the team, so that the defensive and offensive lines are very close to eachother. You often see Ramos in particular roam around the middle when Madrid are attacking.

Anyway, thanks for the constructive feedback. I'll play with this tactic exclusively for the next 10 matches or so and post the results.

[Svenc]

On ‎15‎/‎03‎/‎2019 at 03:12, optimusprimal82 said:

That shape above may look odd from an FM & skysports point of view, but compared to a real life team attacking with the ball is it really all that strange? Someone has called it gibberish above, but it's not a million miles away from (sorry OP!) Barcelona in the final third (great piece about how they play here). 

Not much, no less as centre backs as to FM behave differently (and oft have to, in particular if the opp Forwards don't drop back into their half much). The AI on FM 19 too still does similar "idiotic" Things on Occasion,... screenshot attached. that's just not how football's being played. And it hurts both the AI's capability to defend AND attack -- this isn't just a gaping hole in between the advancing midfielders and defenders you could drive a truck through. Due to everybody pushing up, the area the Team in White Needs to defend is just too small -- whoever receives the ball next here is immediately pushed and under pressure. Not once would it be forced to step up and open space between ist lines again, as Team Purple has Zero opportunity to stretch the pitch again via a backwards pass, etc.  As argued, I'd personally like to see a tactical paradigm shift away from that Long-term. 1) The game argues it's simulating a (semi)professional world of football Management. 2) Applying most basic "common sense" is also oft enough to outperform said (AI) opponents in the Long-term.  

[Etebaer]

Thats the difference that the defunct EA Manager has in comparison to the SI FM.

EA Football Manager was to be played with pretty much the offensive shape as tactic (not to mention that the last few EA FMs were made by People who had no longer the skill and understanding of the original programmers and were way dumbed down).

SI Football Manager has to be played with pretty much the defensive shape as tactic - if the new ME exploits that pretty extremistic  pre 19.3 tactical approach it is a sign of improved ME Quality to me.

[Troels Jensen]

So, here's an overview and a more detailed look at the last ten matches played with the horrible, crazy and abominable tactic .. And no - the ass man didn't take the lead on any of these

Stat wise it looks fairly good, I'd say. From the Girona match and onwards I played without the WBIB instruction.

Edit: I should probably mention that these matches are played with a cautious or defensive mentality. Make of it what you will.

 

[Svenc]

17 minutes ago, Troels Jensen said:

So, here's an overview and a more detailed look at the last ten matches played with the horrible, crazy and abominable tactic ..

Those are Real Madrid results. What triggered you to open this thread was the result in the opening post. Go crazy, expect crazy on the Occasion.

For the time being, anyway.

[Preveza]

Damn Valencia's stadium looks so poor. Also the lighting looks sooooo bad in the ME.

[Troels Jensen]

49 minutes ago, Svenc said:

Those are Real Madrid results. What triggered you to open this thread was the result in the opening post. Go crazy, expect crazy on the Occasion.

For the time being, anyway.

Ehm. What? Of course those are Real Madrid results, what's your point? Those matches are played with the 'go crazy' tactic - nowhere near the 8-0 defeat in the OP. Not sure if you are missing the point - what triggered me to post in the first place was that a tactic that used to work suddenly imploded.

I wonder what you would have said had I posted it as a succesful tactic in the tactics section pre patch? As shown above, its performance is pretty consistent now that I've made a few tweaks (as in two or three minor changes). What's a little funny is that you seem to judge a tactic only by the way it looks. You have no idea about play style or any of the tactical settings, do you - apart from the obvious player roles already displayed?

But in truth, I shouldn't really care since it works for me and provides we with some lovely matches. Nothing like the never ending ridiculous long shot goals from the previous matches.

[Svenc]

1 hour ago, Troels Jensen said:

Ehm. What? Of course those are Real Madrid results, what's your point? 

It is the same point as in my first post. What happened? This happened: Be prepared for some bonkers results ever few and far between. It's within the whole formation/role/Duty framework of your tactic -- which is has holes from the ground up. Plus the way the AI works: hitting upon the cans of space by chance on the odd occasion. That's not what I'd prefer the game to be like both from the Player as well as the AI experience. But it is what it is. 

[Troels Jensen]

21 minutes ago, Svenc said:

It's within the whole formation/role/Duty framework of your tactic -- which is has holes from the ground up.

Which you can tell from looking only at the formation? Seeing a formation isn't the same thing as seeing it in action. But it's your opinion and that's totally fine.

[Troels Jensen]

Here are some images of how the team positions itself defensively and when attacking. To me it looks fairly sensible. As stated earlier, the forwards and central defenders stick to their own (more or less) while the rest of the bunch participates in both defense and offense.

Attacking shapes and build-up:

 

Defensive positioning:

[enigmatic]

It obviously doesn't look quite so sensible when the opposition score 8 goals...

[Troels Jensen]

6 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

It obviously doesn't look quite so sensible when the opposition score 8 goals...

@enigmatic Thanks for your contribution. Did you read anything in the thread or did you just drop by to make random smart ass comments? The 8-0 result was with the tactical setting pre patch, while the rest of the matches are after tweaking it to the new patch. I can explain it to you but unfortunately not understand it for you.

[enigmatic]

Just now, Troels Jensen said:

@enigmatic Thanks for your contribution. Did you read anything in the thread or did you just drop by to make random smart ass comments? The 8-0 result was with the tactical setting pre patch, while the rest of the matches are after tweaking it to the new patch. I can explain it for you but unfortunately not understand it for you.

Mate, you can post ad infinitum about how your two-defensive player formation is fundamentally sound because you managed to beat up some smaller teams post-tweaks, possibly without reloads this time, but the start of the thread suggests otherwise.

People here who haven't achieved the remarkable feat of losing 8-0 as Real Madrid are explaining why your formation is vulnerable against the right kind of counter attacking approach, but we can't understand it for you...

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

against the right kind of counter attacking approach

Sorry mate, but counter attacks in FM19 is overpowered.
You can easily see an amateur club produce a masterclass counter attack.

[enigmatic]

Just now, Cadoni said:

Sorry mate, but counter attacks in FM19 is overpowered.
You can easily see an amateur club produce a masterclass counter attack.

tbh sides don't need to be overpowered in counter attacking ability to have a decent chance of scoring when every time they hit a long ball it's 2 on 2...

[Troels Jensen]

1 minute ago, enigmatic said:

Mate, you can post ad infinitum about how your two-defensive player formation is fundamentally sound because you managed to beat up some smaller teams post-tweaks, possibly without reloads this time, but the start of the thread suggests otherwise.

People here who haven't achieved the remarkable feat of losing 8-0 as Real Madrid are explaining why your formation is vulnerable against the right kind of counter attacking approach, but we can't understand it for you...

Cool. You obviously lack basic comprehension skills, so let me suggest you stay out of threads you don't really know the point of. You talk about stuff you very clearly are clueless about so do yourself a favour a go post useless one liners in someone elses threads. You're pretty good at it, I'll give you that. You have to be I guess, with the amount of posts you have to make to keep the numbers up ..

I'm just curious - do the defensive formation in the above images look like it's only a two-defensive player setup? What do your eyes tell you? I already acknowledged that this particular tactic is vulnerable to counter attacks - I'm actually pretty certain I wrote it in one of my posts, so there's no real surprise there. The point, which you have apparently missed, was only that the tactics worked pre patch and they didn't post patch. Lo and behold - after a bit of tweaks they work again. Then I'm told from left and right that this particular tactic is stupid and doesn't work and whatnot. Why the need to bash something you could easily just pass by?

On 15/03/2019 at 15:37, Troels Jensen said:

And yes, it's vulnerable to counter attacks. I was aware of that when creating it.

Get it?

[enigmatic]

Just now, Troels Jensen said:

Cool. You obviously lack basic comprehension skills, so let me suggest you stay out of threads you don't really know the point of. You talk about stuff you very clearly are clueless about so do yourself a favour a go post useless one liners in someone elses threads. You're pretty good at it, I'll give you that. You have to be I guess, with the amount of posts you have to make to keep the numbers up ..

I'm just curious - do the defensive formation in the above images look like it's only a two-defensive player setup? What do your eyes tell you? I already acknowledged that this particular tactic is vulnerable to counter attacks - I'm actually pretty certain I wrote it in one of my posts, so there's no real surprise there. The point, which you have apparently missed, was only that the tactics worked pre patch and they didn't post patch. Lo and behold - after a bit of tweaks they work again. Then I'm told from left and right that this particular tactic is stupid and doesn't work and whatnot. Why the need to bash something you could easily just pass by?

Get it?

Wow, so angry 

To satisfy your curiosity, it's only got two defensive players in transition, and most of them are supposed to be ahead of the ball in a prolonged attack. Which is why you lost 8-0. As Real Madrid.

Pro-tip: If your reaction to losing 8-0 as Real Madrid is to post a rant about you're not sure you can be bothered any more and you then post a daft formation we'd all love to play against, people are going to point out the daft formation might have been a factor...

There's a time and a place for suggesting that it's everybody else who is clueless and you have a better grasp of tactics than them, and it's not in a thread you started because you can't accept responsibility for losing 8-0 as Real Madrid

 

Glad your tweaks are working until the next counter attack, and wish you luck 

[Troels Jensen]

50 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Wow, so angry 

To satisfy your curiosity, it's only got two defensive players in transition, and most of them are supposed to be ahead of the ball in a prolonged attack. Which is why you lost 8-0. As Real Madrid.

Pro-tip: If your reaction to losing 8-0 as Real Madrid is to post a rant about you're not sure you can be bothered any more and you then post a daft formation we'd all love to play against, people are going to point out the daft formation might have been a factor...

There's a time and a place for suggesting that it's everybody else who is clueless and you have a better grasp of tactics than them, and it's not in a thread you started because you can't accept responsibility for losing 8-0 as Real Madrid

 

Glad your tweaks are working until the next counter attack, and wish you luck 

Ok. You're right, I'm wrong. My apologies. The tactic is horrible and it's only luck that that I'm winning. I will repeatedly lose 8-0 if I encounter teams trying to hit me on the counter attack I understand that now.

Have a nice evening.

Below are the results from using this daft formation. Only lousy opponents, I know, sorry.

[enigmatic]

No, you're right. You lose 8-0 and SI are idiots, you win some games with the best players in the world and you're a genius 

[Troels Jensen]

9 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

No, you're right. You lose 8-0 and SI are idiots, you win some games with the best players in the world and you're a genius 

I don't think I've ever claimed that, now have I? No need to put words in my mouth. You just fail to to understand what the OP was about.

- I made a tactic that worked in 19.2.3

- In 19.3.3, when I returned to the game, it didn't work.

- I wrote that I thought that was a little annoying.

Are you with me so far?

- Some people started getting all clever and made certain to tell me how flawed the tactic was

- Of course it won't work, they said

- It's a stupid tactic with no defense, they said

- Then I *tweaked* the tactic

- when presented with a bit of proof that it actually does work it's being written off as luck (typical go-to excuse when logic fails)

 

So, if you had read it all, you would know that I've made a lot of standard (and working, can you believe it?) tactics. I created this in an attempt to make something unorthodox - not knowing if it would work. It appears it did. 'But, but, but .. you lost 8-0 to Valencia lulz'. Yeah, I did - because SI changed how some of the various settings worked. Do you understand what I'm saying? The tactic worked, then SI tweaked the mechanics, which in turn changed the way the tactic worked. Is it so hard to understand that a change in mechanics will affect certain aspects of a tactic?

 

Anyway, I've wasted enough time on your trolling. If someone has something constructive to share, I'm all ears.

 

[enigmatic]

It's lovely that you say you're all ears, but you spent the entire thread insisting "maybe SI messed up" and "don't criticize it for not resembling real football" and telling people they don't know what they're talking about any time somebody suggests lack of defensive cover might have been more of an issue than the patch, and then having a hilarious meltdown when somebody reminds you why you started the thread. 

Oh, and nobody's writing off your wins as luck. Overly top heavy formations with star studded lineups win a lot, in FM as in life. But sometimes they're really vulnerable. Ask Solari, who didn't get to save and reload...

[Troels Jensen]

Why do I even bother?

11 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

but you spent the entire thread insisting "maybe SI messed up" and "don't criticize it for not resembling real football"

Nope. I think I contained those arguments to one or perhaps to replies. And if you think it's hard to believe that SI have messed something up, you haven't been following FM. Just look at the bugs section.

 

12 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

and telling people they don't know what they're talking about any time somebody suggests lack of defensive cover might have been more of an issue than the patch

Nope. My argument was focused on the fact that it USED to work consistently pre patch and post patch it didn't. The team didn't suffer from lack of defensive cover before the patch, and now that I've adjusted the tactics to the new patch, the defensive cover is adequate. Why is that so hard for you to understand? Part of the reason I made the OP was that I have never before tried losing by that much, so I was kinda perplexed. If you look closely, you'll see that I've upvoted comments from those you had constructive criticism - that's not telling people they don't know what they're talking about.

 

16 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

and then having a hilarious meltdown when somebody reminds you why you started the thread. 

The fact that you: 1. Think I'm emotionally affected by your repeated attempts at trolling and 2. that you find it hilarious only shows that your intention all along was to troll. I also know that against trolls it's useless to argue that you're not angry, since they'll keep claiming the opposite to provoke a reaction. So believe what you will.

 

25 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Oh, and nobody's writing off your wins as luck. Overly top heavy formations with star studded lineups win a lot, in FM as in life. But sometimes they're really vulnerable. Ask Solari, who didn't get to save and reload...

But you kind of are. You're saying that it's only because I haven't played against any counter attacking teams that I can get positive results. Yeah, I reloaded. Once. Do you want to know why? I always play a test game/season when a new FM comes out, so I can figure out how the ME works before starting a 'serious' game. If something doesn't work, I keep playing the same match over and over until I figure out where I've made a mistake. This is what I did with the Valencia match - I tried to figure out what the problem was. Turns out the mentality was too attacking and that I had to make the WB's mark tighter. That's all. Oh, and as mentioned earlier when I removed the WBIB instruction, the team started scoring more. That's all I did to get this tactic working again.

It's fine if you think the tactic is stupid. And when you say the Valencia result was because of a lack of defensive cover you are very much correct. It's been fixed, though, so what more can I say? You've obviously settled on an opinion that won't change no matter what I say, so I guess there's no point in trying to convince you otherwise.

 

[enigmatic]

I'll let you have the last word and continue to believe your relentless series of personal attacks because I opined there was some evidence your formation wasn't that defensively solid is normal behaviour.  

[Preveza]

Are you sure you are not Troelling us?

[Overmars]

I like variations in outcomes because it tells me that in-game happenings can and do overcome any pre-match form and morale effects. At times, I think FM has been guilty of being too form-dependent and not as reliant upon talent and the inherent randomness of only one match to determine outcomes.

[Nacaw]

Results mean absolutely nothing when you've already proven you'll reload games. Anyone can get those results with Real Madrid in that scenario, posting them as "proof" something works is quite hilarious.

 

Play FM the way you want  But don't come here saying you'll quit because you had one bad result with a broken tactic, then spend every post defending the abomination.