FM2011 Demo - Testing out basic formations

[mackemforever]

Inspired by this thread I have decided to test out the basic formation shapes on the FM2011 demo to see how they work with no tweaking.

I took over Sunderland and using the FMRTE demo set every player to have 15s for every attribute except for consistency (20), injury proneness (1), dirtiness (1) and controversy (1). I also made every player natural in every position.

I then set up a basic formation, using the default roles and team instructions, and went on holiday for the 6 months of the demo to see how they performed under perfect circumstances, i.e. no variation in player ability between positions.

Each tactic has been tested with exactly the same fixtures and I will upload the screenshots of the fixture lists later so you can see which games the tactic struggled with. I also intend to do at least 2 or 3 repeats with each tactic to hopefully get rid of some of the variation with the match engine and give an average of how it performs.

I will also update this thread every day with a few more formations. If there are any you would like me to try out then just let me know and I will run them for you.

About the tactics:

4-2-3-1 (wide) - 4 defenders, 2 central midfielders, 1 central attacking midfielder, 2 attacking midfielders, 1 striker.

4-2-3-1 (narrow) - same as above but with 3 central attacking midfielders instead of wingers.

4-1-2-2-1 (wide) - 4 defenders, 1 defensive midfielder, 2 central midfielders, 2 attacking wingers, 1 striker.

[Sergey S.]

4-3-3 wide and narrow would be nice.

[crazyscotsman]

3-4-3 as follows please;

st

AL - AMC-AR

MC-MC

DM

DC-DC

SW

[willmore2k1]

3-4-3 as follows please;

st

AL - AMC-AR

MC-MC

DM

DC-DC

SW

I've never had a sweeper formation succeed. Primarily since it's so damn hard to find a worthy sweeper, outside of training your youth players in it.

[Zigi]

Good idea muckemforever

Please If you have time, test this formation:

4-2(DMC's)-2(AML,AMR)-2

[mackemforever]

I'll hopefully get the requested formations done today, and I'll continue to update this for the next couple of weeks.

[mackemforever]

4-3-3 wide and narrow would be nice.

you mean 3 central midfielders, 2 attacking wingers and 1 striker for the wide version, and 3 central midfielders, 2 attacking midfielders and 1 striker for the narrow version?

[andysafc]

Why the need to change the attributes? Looking at the outcome so far the worst position is 4th which is pretty good for SAFC. However i would have been more interested to see how the tactics would perform with the attributes untouched. That would have provided a more realistic outcome and a much better idea as to how to judge that particular tactic.

[Mr Hough]

Why the need to change the attributes? Looking at the outcome so far the worst position is 4th which is pretty good for SAFC. However i would have been more interested to see how the tactics would perform with the attributes untouched. That would have provided a more realistic outcome and a much better idea as to how to judge that particular tactic.

Completly agree, Who in any game has 15 stat for everything, Nobody....

Although i do admire the idea, The way it has happened is not as good becuase of the above, i have been using a 4-1-2-1-2 with Everton and hardly moved any settings and still getting good results.

I haven't really bothered that much with FM11 yet as they will proberly release a patch with the new game, So i am waiting for that.

[mackemforever]

Why the need to change the attributes? Looking at the outcome so far the worst position is 4th which is pretty good for SAFC. However i would have been more interested to see how the tactics would perform with the attributes untouched. That would have provided a more realistic outcome and a much better idea as to how to judge that particular tactic.

Completly agree, Who in any game has 15 stat for everything, Nobody....

Although i do admire the idea, The way it has happened is not as good becuase of the above, i have been using a 4-1-2-1-2 with Everton and hardly moved any settings and still getting good results.

I haven't really bothered that much with FM11 yet as they will proberly release a patch with the new game, So i am waiting for that.

The reason I set the attributes to be 15 across the board was so that they would have the players for every position, no matter what tactic was being used. If I left it unchanged then certain positions would be a problem, for example any tactic that required a sweeper would fail as there wouldn't be a good sweeper available, likewise with tactics that use proper wing backs.

[mackemforever]

Ok, I've taken on board what you've said and I have done the following:

All players attributes have been left as they were except for the following:

Positions have been modified so that the team will have players for any position. For example, all central defenders are now natural sweepers, all full backs are now natural full backs & wing backs on both sides, central midfielders are now defensive midfielders too and wingers are now natural on either wing.

Injury proneness set to 1 and consistency set to 20, to try and get the team to perform to the same level in every match.

Players "frozen" so their attributes can't change during the season.

I will start off by redoing all the tactics done in the first post.

[Mr Hough]

Ok, I've taken on board what you've said and I have done the following:

All players attributes have been left as they were except for the following:

Positions have been modified so that the team will have players for any position. For example, all central defenders are now natural sweepers, all full backs are now natural full backs & wing backs on both sides, central midfielders are now defensive midfielders too and wingers are now natural on either wing.

Injury proneness set to 1 and consistency set to 20, to try and get the team to perform to the same level in every match.

Players "frozen" so their attributes can't change during the season.

I will start off by redoing all the tactics done in the first post.

This is defo the right way to do things, That way you get to see the tactics potential with there original Squad.

[crouchaldinho]

4-4-1-1 please.

[Fabio MVP]

4-4-2 with AMR & AML for me please.

[S!lver]

Nice idea there.

IMO, putting 15 everywhere is something good for this specific test.

If you try a winger-tactic with a team with no wingers, the results will be bad, and totally irrevelant of the tactic's potential. You should keep doing your tests like that.

This is not about "Y" tactic will perform well or bad in "X" team, but trying to find, with an equally armed team in every aspect, which one could get the more potential.

We don't care if "having 15 everywhere" is realistic or not, but where the match engine is bringing us in FM11.

[Diceman123]

Agree with S!lver. It's about the match engine. All 15's are good in this test!

[Sergey S.]

you mean 3 central midfielders, 2 attacking wingers and 1 striker for the wide version, and 3 central midfielders, 2 attacking midfielders and 1 striker for the narrow version?

No, 3 strikers for both. Just the 2 of the strikers are all the way out on the sides for the wide one.

XXX

XXX

XXXX

and

X X X

XXX

XXXX

The mids are correct, just a line of 3 Center mids.

[MyNameIsJohn]

Nice idea there.

IMO, putting 15 everywhere is something good for this specific test.

If you try a winger-tactic with a team with no wingers, the results will be bad, and totally irrevelant of the tactic's potential. You should keep doing your tests like that.

This is not about "Y" tactic will perform well or bad in "X" team, but trying to find, with an equally armed team in every aspect, which one could get the more potential.

We don't care if "having 15 everywhere" is realistic or not, but where the match engine is bringing us in FM11.

You are right at face value but unfortunately there is another angle. That is, that players with 15 in every attribute will play a game of football differently to players with a more normal distribution of attributes.

[andysafc]

Nice idea there.

IMO, putting 15 everywhere is something good for this specific test.

If you try a winger-tactic with a team with no wingers, the results will be bad, and totally irrevelant of the tactic's potential. You should keep doing your tests like that.

This is not about "Y" tactic will perform well or bad in "X" team, but trying to find, with an equally armed team in every aspect, which one could get the more potential.

We don't care if "having 15 everywhere" is realistic or not, but where the match engine is bringing us in FM11.

I disagree again. The reason i am interested in this thread is because being a SAFC fan myself i am looking for a tactic suitable to SAFC. If you look at the tactic outcome each one is exceeding expectations. What is the use in that? It only proves that to get similar results you must edit the attributes yourself accordingly.

[JJ919]

The point of this thread though is to see how different formations work in general, not how Sunderland perform under different formations.

With the same attributes for everything, you are in effect implementing a control variable so that you know the dependent variable (the results) are only influenced by the independent variable (the formation).

[andysafc]

The point of this thread though is to see how different formations work in general, not how Sunderland perform under different formations.

With the same attributes for everything, you are in effect implementing a control variable so that you know the dependent variable (the results) are only influenced by the independent variable (the formation).

Great so it uses Sunderland as a Guinnea Pig but in the end the successful tactic won't work with Sunderland anyway because they don't have the suitable attributes.

[JJ919]

Great so it uses Sunderland as a Guinnea Pig but in the end the successful tactic won't work with Sunderland anyway because they don't have the suitable attributes.

The fact that it is Sunderland is neither relevant nor important. It could be any other team in the league because it is not testing how Sunderland do, but how the tactics work on the new version. I believe in primary school they called it a "fair test".

[Sergey S.]

The fact that it is Sunderland is neither relevant nor important. It could be any other team in the league because it is not testing how Sunderland do, but how the tactics work on the new version. I believe in primary school they called it a "fair test".

It's still probably slightly relevant since Sunderland has a set Reputation value and so other teams treat Sunderland with different amounts of 'respect', i.e. nobody will probably try to close shop against them like they would if they came up against Chelsea or Man U.

But yeah, I think Macemforever is doing the best he can considering all the variables in place.

[Jesseh]

it's nice to see that people now have more interest on this kind of testing

keep up the good work =)

[mackemforever]

Ok guys, I'm going to solve the problem of attribute bias once and for all.

What I am going to do is pick a mid table premiership team (for example, Sunderland), and edit all of their players so that they have players who are pretty much average premiership standard in every position. For example, I will create 5 identical central defenders, who are all of decent premiership standard, so somewhere between 15 and 17 for attributes like tackling, heading and marking, but very low for attacking attributes like finishing & crossing.

I will create enough players so that for every position they have at least a couple of average premiership players available.

Doing it this way will hopefully provide me with the best possible test results, as every position will have a realistic player in it, rather than just having a player who is great across the board. Every player will only be made a natural in one position (but on both sides of the pitch), so for example, there will be a few decent premiership wingers who can only play on the wings, a few who can only play at attacking midfield, etc...

I will then holiday with various tactics for the duration of the demo. I will set up the team tomorrow and will hopefully have enough tactics done to post up the results by tomorrow evening.

[Sergey S.]

Ok guys, I'm going to solve the problem of attribute bias once and for all.

What I am going to do is pick a mid table premiership team (for example, Sunderland), and edit all of their players so that they have players who are pretty much average premiership standard in every position. For example, I will create 5 identical central defenders, who are all of decent premiership standard, so somewhere between 15 and 17 for attributes like tackling, heading and marking, but very low for attacking attributes like finishing & crossing.

I will create enough players so that for every position they have at least a couple of average premiership players available.

Doing it this way will hopefully provide me with the best possible test results, as every position will have a realistic player in it, rather than just having a player who is great across the board. Every player will only be made a natural in one position (but on both sides of the pitch), so for example, there will be a few decent premiership wingers who can only play on the wings, a few who can only play at attacking midfield, etc...

I will then holiday with various tactics for the duration of the demo. I will set up the team tomorrow and will hopefully have enough tactics done to post up the results by tomorrow evening.

Thanks! You're pretty awesome for doing what you're doing. I've been trying to do tactic testing with my Chelsea team and I know its a boring job as even with minimum match processing options and subscriptions the game takes like 40+ minutes to process half a season.

[TheMister]

The fact that it is Sunderland is neither relevant nor important. It could be any other team in the league because it is not testing how Sunderland do, but how the tactics work on the new version.

Spot on.

KUTGW Mackem.

[S!lver]

Seems good, what will be the selected attributes then ? Do you will use the highlithed ones in the description of the TC ?

GK

L/RB

DC

WB

Sweeper

DM

MC

ML/R

AMC

AML/R

ST

All of that depending on both the role (poacher =/= DLF) and the duty (Support / Defense / Attack / Auto)

If you do that, that will be a really hard work ^^

So good luck

[mackemforever]

Seems good, what will be the selected attributes then ? Do you will use the highlithed ones in the description of the TC ?

GK

L/RB

DC

WB

Sweeper

DM

MC

ML/R

AMC

AML/R

ST

All of that depending on both the role (poacher =/= DLF) and the duty (Support / Defense / Attack / Auto)

If you do that, that will be a really hard work ^^

So good luck

I've actually done it in a different way.

Rather than creating my own player models I've simply found players in the database who are of a mid/upper mid table standard, for each position, and copied their attributes onto players in my squad. So for example for the AMC position I chose Rafael Van Der Vaart, and created 3 clones of him in my squad.

For positions like the strikers, I have copied 2 players attributes, and made 2 clones of them in my team. Player 1 is a fast striker, good at running with the ball, and with the right attributes to play as a poacher. The second type of player is a big, strong player, better all round but not as clinical a finisher, more a sort of utility striker, able to play in a greater number of roles.

One last thing I've done is set every players CA, PA and Reputation to be the same so that hopefully players will be picked by my assistant manager purely based on their attributes and how they fit into the roles the tactic uses, rather than picking a player with a higher CA or reputation who is less suited to the role they are in than a player with a lower CA or reputation.

[el sid]

Would appreciate it if you could try this out for this formation:

	ST

AMC	        AMC

MC		MC

WB				WB

CB	CB	CB

	GK

Thanks!