Time Wasting - Is it more than simply wasting time?

[miguelalves]

I believe philosophy / style has also something to do with this subject. The strange thing is that with a very fluid style all players should be able to defend and attack but what I have noticed is my wingers do not come deep and defend as they should... only if I set the style / philosophy to a more rigid one. But if this is set to more rigid, the full backs do not attack as much as they would with a more fluid one. All this always with the same tempo and time wasting.

[miguelalves]

So, considering that with HT / HTW the players will not look for creating chances wil they still play more risky passes because of the high tempo ????

[Svenc]

Firstly, as demonstrated by many thread similar to this, the TC is a really good thing to have.

Secondly, personally I think that TW is a bit like creative freedom. Increasing it can result in various things, but it isn't specifically micromanaging specific movement or behavior. It is thus easy to overcomplicate and worry too much. An attacking and risky side might look to rush it less (sometimes to beneficial effect), as was observed by some. In that sense, it may be MORE than out and about time wasting, as attacking teams don't suddenly start to stop attacking altogether just because of a single setting. But let's not beat around the bush. Whilst SI's official documentation has always been a bit lacking, there must be reason why TW is and has always been describted at its core as a negative tactical option still. There must be reason why the TC links TW to team strategies – the more "negative" or "defensive" the strategy, the more time wasting is applied. It is something that when increased is meant to stop play, wind the clock down, increasingly frustrate the opposition. It is, in essence, negativity.

Just taking a look at the events.cfg gives you plenty idea what a wealth of events are actually triggered (and thus simulated by the ME):

INGAME ENGLISH_AMERICAN: <p1> holds up the ball|He's in no hurry

REPORT ENGLISH_AMERICAN: <p1> held up the ball to waste time

INGAME ENGLISH: <p1> tries to run the clock down|He holds onto the ball

REPORT ENGLISH: <p1> held up the ball to run down the clock

INGAME ENGLISH: <p1> is in no hurry here|He heads for the corner to buy some time

INGAME ENGLISH: <t1> have been caught out after wasting time! | They'll regret not putting the game away when they had the chance

INGAME ENGLISH_AMERICAN: <p1> puts his foot on the ball|He wants to keep it away from danger

REPORT ENGLISH_AMERICAN: <p1> put his foot on the ball and held it near the corner flag

INGAME ENGLISH_AMERICAN: <p1> keeps hold of the ball|He is trying to run down the clock

REPORT ENGLISH_AMERICAN: <p1> tried to hold up the play to waste time

The events.cfg contains in essence what you get to read in the text commentary displayed at the bottom of the match day screen. It is the text linked to the play that unfolds. As it is hard to visibly recreate every nuance of football management in abstract 3d visuals, popular tool-tips used to prompt you out on watching the text commentary for clues. I.e.: There are lines pointing you out on half time talks that appeared to have really hit it home, etc. Kind of hard to tell otherwise when all you have to go by is a finite number of 3d animations, tiny polygon models of players or 2d dots; and earlier iterations of FM didn't have the detailed assistant feedback updated on the fly you get to see now during the course of a match. The text still contains clues on many things to this day that are hard to spot otherwise (player motivation/composure) etc.

The German comm have likely taken some influence of parts of this thread and went way ahead of everyone. There is no "time wasting" in their fan translation of the game, but rather a slider that essentially reads "Time spent on the ball", which is quite a different kind of specific thing, completely free of the negative connotations of the original term, and implying a level of very specific and tactically completely neutral micromanagement that arguably hardly is at play here.