Results of experiment with 4-2-3-1 formation

[GoodControl]

I decide to make a research of popular formation 4-2-3-1.

I will play with this formation one season with the goal to get important statistics at the end, that will help understand better what attributes is important for each position at chosen formation.

After finish, you'll get following results here:

1.Which position had a lot of shot attempt an it's success ratio. The same for passing, tackling, heading, dribbling, and other actions. That will help to understand what attributes is important for each position.

2.Many tactical questions, like: is it is better to play with classic winger or with "opposite side footer" like Messi? To find this out, I will play several times with changing in most interesting instructions to understand how it affecting statistics.

To be more objective, I will play for Blackpool from English PL cause many strong team in that league. In order to be absolutely more objective, all my players will has average attributes, will be generated, and cloned by FMRTE tool.

Here is the picture of every player:

• CA&PA - 1500
  

• Each attributes (excl Injury Proneness) - 15
  

• Injury Proneness: 1
  

• Years old - 25
  

• Team status: First team
  

• Left foot(Right foot for DL and AML) - 10
  

• No preferred moves
  

• Other attributes:
  

Reputation: 1500

Goalkeeper rating - 1

Height and weight - 180 and 80

Happiness: Happy to stay at the club (75)

Condition: 79%

Morale: Good (15)

Fitness: Needs match practice...(6300)

AND!, each player will have similar instructions. All individual instruction stetted on "normal". For example, I will not asking some players to run more or less, etc. The goal is to see on what position players will run(tackle, pass, etc) more or less regardless to instructions.

Now I am starting.... Results will be ready soon. While experiment in process, you welcomed to suggest what additional info you wan't to get from experiment

[Cleon]

I'm not been funny or anything but your whole post just shows how little you know about how tactic's work on FM. Your test is flawed on so many different level's that I wouldn't even know where to start explaining to you. Good luck an everything but your test won't prove anything or give any kind of indication of what is 'best'. It won't show anything useful whatsoever. To be frank with you, it'll be a waste of your time.

[GoodControl]

Hi Moderator Cleon,

Please tell me were is flawed on so many different level's?))) Please, be objective, even you don't like this kind of posts as it is gives people almost cheating info.

[Cleon]

Hi Moderator Cleon,

Please tell me were is flawed on so many different level's?))) Please, be objective, even you don't like this kind of posts as it is gives people almost cheating info.

Erm what? It gives no cheating info at all. Nothing you do will give any results that are close to cheating at all.

I decide to make a research of popular formation 4-2-3-1.

I will play with this formation one season with the goal to get important statistics at the end, that will help understand better what attributes is important for each position at chosen formation.

People can already see what stats are needed for each position in game already. What are these so called important statistics are you talking about that you will provide?

After finish, you'll get following results here:

1.Which position had a lot of shot attempt an it's success ratio. The same for passing, tackling, heading, dribbling, and other actions. That will help to understand what attributes is important for each position.

Again the attributes important are already in the game, so you're offering nothing new at all.

The statistics you will provide from this test will only be applicable and have any kind of relevance to your own game. The ratio's of tackling, passing, shots, dribbling etc all vary differently across everyones games. There are so many variable factors that make it inconsistent, therefore and so called 'evidence' you provide will be flawed due to no two game son FM been the same.

2.Many tactical questions, like: is it is better to play with classic winger or with "opposite side footer" like Messi? To find this out, I will play several times with changing in most interesting instructions to understand how it affecting statistics.

Don't understand this bit whatsoever.

To be more objective, I will play for Blackpool from English PL cause many strong team in that league. In order to be absolutely more objective, all my players will has average attributes, will be generated, and cloned by FMRTE tool.

Here is the picture of every player:

So to be objective you are going to use FMRTE and change stats? How is that been objective and how will that prove a fair reflection on what really happens? It won't.

Seriously the test is badly flawed as you don't actually seem to understand how tactics work yourself. So how do you expect to be able to teach someone else?

Now if you wanted to be really clever and give a more accurate way of doing things you'd set the tactic up to get the best out of Blackpool and then explain how the attributes affect each player's position and what he does in a game. The key thing here is the attributes. Once you understand what each single attribute does and what other attributes they work in conjunction with then you can get a better understanding of the match engine. Once you've done this it'll also become clearer why someone might have a good passing or tackling ratio. Then you could explain every single aspect and go into detail about why you choose a particular tactic option based on what someone's attributes are.

But what you are offering above just doesn't work and will be a waste of your time. It has nothing to do with me now wanting so called 'cheat' info on the forums. I'm all for making people aware of the ME and showing them why something works and explaining why. But the way you've set about testing will be very inaccurate and not teach anyone anything.

But as I said yesterday goodluck.

[GoodControl]

I playing FM starting form 2000 year and understand many basic facts that you provide, so I replying only on part of your argument, that need explanation form my point of view.

.....People can already see what stats are needed for each position in game already. What are these so called important statistics are you talking about that you will provide?.....

....Again the attributes important are already in the game, so you're offering nothing new at all.....

Yes, you right, you can see "important attributes" from the game. It comes form many factors, from player position, role, instructions, etc. And you know if you setting you striker to be Target Man than he should be strong, good header, first toucher, etc.

But the goal of my experiment is to define which attributes are important if you will not increase or decrease some instructions. Why you need to know that? Lats say, if your LM making much more long shots attempts then LD with normal instruction. In this case you'll understand that it is not efficient to buy next Roberto Carlos(LD) to your team, even if you instruct him to long shoot, as number of his shoot attempts will be much lower than the same player with the same instruction but on LM position.

Yes, you can make such conclusions using your intuition, and in many cases you will be right as FM is modeled from real life football. But it different sometimes. For example: Ukraine has a good CD - Rakitski, which is usual make several dribbling attempt throw the center per game in real life. You can try to make the same in FM, but it not works, ever, even if he has good dribbling, has preference to use it often, and has instruction to do that, or to be more attacking and free to play, but..... hi will not do that! So, in many places your intuition will sucks. And my too. FM game engine is different from real life football. That is why if I'll find couple of hard facts with my experiment, it will be helpful.

.....There are so many variable factors that make it inconsistent, therefore and so called 'evidence' you provide will be flawed due to no two game son FM been the same.....

"No two game son FM been the same..." - You what to tell that each game is unique, I understand you correctly? Yes I agree, thats why I will not play only one game, I will play more then 40. This is representative amount that can be trusted.

If Rakitski was not dribbled in 40 games in a row, than it is fair to assume that hi will not start to do that often in next 40, right? Than it is pointless to have dribbler DC in your FM's team, even if in real football it works.

[Cleon]

Never mind you don't get my point, so I'll just leave this topic.

Good luck with your research

[GoodControl]

No no, just make it more clear. I am amenable.

[Ronnie78]

I must agree with Cleon, because I really don't understand how your experiment is going to say anything about which attributes and tactical instructions are important for each position. I guess this is what you want your experiment to show?

It seems logical to think that a player with good dribbling abilities will be successful at dribbling.

A player with average dribbling abilities will be average at dribbling.

It also seems logical that the player's abilities is matched against the opponents abilities. E.g. A good dribbler will be more successful against and poor defender than a good defender.

It also seems logical that a player's ability depend on the player's morale, consistency, form and motivation.

So, there is many variables that can't be controlled which depends on randomness of a match and development of the season.

How will you control all the randomness, so it's only the player's ability that reflects the outcome of a match? Is a poor finishing a result of poor abilities, tactical instructions, morale, opposing defendes, the goalkeeper etc.?

Just my 2 cents

[Frank327]

And another thing, changing all attributes to 15 greatly skews the results for which role is best, which duty is best, which philosophy is best etc. For example, a poacher is a good role because there are players out there with brilliant goalscoring attributes, but who lack dribbling, passing, teamwork, workrate etc. It's a role made for specialized players. If you only have generalist players, complete forwards will always be the best option. Just like ball playing defenders and perhaps box to box midfielders. You'll never think of having limited defenders, or trequartista's, or even anchormen.

Another thing is that fluid philosophy is always the best, because defenders can now actually attack. Rigid philosophy is mainly viable because in lots of teams defenders can only defend and attackers can only attack. So in the game, rigid will be far, far more viable than in your test.

Besides that, lets take your question of wether an opposite foot left winger is more/less useful than a classic winger. This question is not an isolated question from the rest of the game. If you've got a targetman and another attacker strong in the air, you'll want to get to the byline and get crosses in, as those will be very successful. On the other hand, if your strikers aren't good in the air you might as well let an inverted winger try long shots. It's also dependent on the opponent. The opponent could go with a formation that packs the middle of the pitch, which means inverted wingers will be running into a crowd of opponents. Or the opponent could be defending the flanks more, like a 4-4-2, which allows inverted wingers to have lots of space when cutting inside. So in england with the predominance of the 4-4-2 you'll be more successful with inverted wingers than in Italy, where the 4-3-1-2 is gaining a lot of popularity.

Just to summarize, your tests won't give any useful information. Of course your defenders will make more tackles, your wingers will do lots of dribbling and strikers need to be good at shooting. But that's really basic information, and it's all in the game already. Any information that is more precise than this will be utterly useless because you've fielded a completely unrealistic team which lacks proper instructions. It's so far separated from what people would be experiencing when properly playing the game that the information you get is useless.

[MartinGregory84]

Just experienced this formation in reality.. Bradford have appointed Peter Jackson in real life and he stated in an interview he uses FM tonight against Rotherham he played this exact formation and we won.

[GoodControl]

I have posted the results here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/258004-Tactical-proofs?p=6580101#post6580101

Please, tell what you think now. On that post, not here.