Confused around Philosophy

[Justin_Case]

Hi, I'm after some advice around the use of philosophy and creative freedom.

I've had a read of many of the threads on here, and as I get closer to finding the answer that I'm looking for I seem to get more confused, mainly with the lines being closer or further apart, and I'm hoping that there may be an answer ou there that makes the penny drop.

To ask in a simple manner, does fluid move the lines of my team closer together, meaning that the defenders then have a higher menatlity meaning that this is more attacking, and the other way around for rigid, meaning the defensive unit drops further away from the attacking line, but performs only a defensive role??

I'm currently in the second season of a journeyman career in Belarus, and I have found that my squad lacks both flair and creativity, so I have decided to be rigid, and play with a more disciplined approach. Does thius mean that I will then have more space in the lines between my team and increase the need to have a DM, rather than sticking to the flat 4-4-2 I've been using??

Alot of questions, but anyone that can help me to get my head around this, the help would be welcome. Many thanks!

[5uare2]

Alright, it's badly-photoshopped screenshot time!

Taking a standard flat 4-4-2, with what some might consider to be the 'classical' roles for it, and keeping strategy on standard, I ran through each of the philosophies to show how they affect mentality. After I discuss mentality, we'll talk creative freedom.

(Edit: That's annoying, the image is small. Right-click and open it in a new tab so you can see the mentalities clearer.)

(Also: I kept the goalkeeper's mentality "fixed" on what he would have on a balanced philosophy, so that we can use that as a reference point throughout; the goalkeeper on defend will have the same mentality as the central defenders on defend.)

Important note: A player's role will not affect mentality; a ball-winning midfielder on support has the same mentality as an advanced playmaker on support, even if the latter might seem a more "attacking" player. A player's duty (defend, support, attack) is what affects their mentality.

Balanced - a player's mentality is only influenced by their player duty, nothing else; all my players on defend duties (DCL/R, MCL) have the same mentality, as do all my players on support duty (DL/R, MCR), and obviously my wide midfielders. Strikers operate a bit differently; my STCL, (advanced forward attack) has a higher mentality than my ML/MR (wide midfielder attack), while my STCR (deep-lying forward support) has a mentality matching players on defend. This exaggerated mentality split in strikers is so that one of them does play off the last defender while the other drops deeper to support. But you get the point; on balanced, mentality is governed only by player duty.

Rigid - players' mentalities are adjusted to be closer to those in the same 'band' or 'line' of formation as them. So my DL/DR are operating a bit more defensively, despite being on a 'support' duty; this will reduce the "channel" between full-back and central defender for opposition strikers to move into. Similarly in midfield, my attacking wide midfielders' mentalities are now dropped to the same as my supporting CM; even my defensive CM's mentality has increased from what it was on 'balanced philosophy'. Similarly, the gap between the two strikers' mentalities has reduced as well.

Thus, in a rigid formation, opposing teams should not find space "within" a line or band (e.g. between a DL and a DCL, or between a CM on defend and a CM on support/attack). However, because we've pulled these mentalities closer together, the players are less able to cover space "between" the lines/bands; for example, the CM on defend won't deal with an opposing AMC as effectively under a rigid philosophy as he would under a balanced one, and the AMC would find space between defence and midfield.

Very rigid - the effect is further enhanced; the back four all have the same mentality, the midfield four are now within 1 click of one another, and even my attacking striker has had his mentality pulled back greatly from "balanced philosophy". However, you'll note that the DCR/DCL's mentalities has actually increased slightly (remember, the goalkeeper is set to his mentality from "balanced philosophy", which is the same as the DCL/DCR had); in the very rigid formation, we not only want everyone in the same 'band/line' to have very similar mentalities, but we want the bands/lines' mentalities to not be too far apart from each other; thus, using the example above, even if the opposing AMC wasn't as covered by the CM on defend, the DCL/DCR have pushed up just slightly so there is less space for him to operate in.

On the other side, fluid; here, it is interesting to compare with what happened on 'rigid' - again, players in the same 'line' or 'band' have their mentalities brought closer to one another, but overall, players' mentalities are higher on fluid than they are on rigid. So you can think of it as a rigid philosophy asking attacking players to curb their instincts to help the team keep shape and defend, while a fluid philosophy asks the defensive players to engage more in attack

Finally, very fluid; the entire team have the same mentality, except for that exaggerated split between the strikers. Here, the team are a complete unit - your central defenders will look for attacking passes as much as your wide midfielders, who themselves will play the simple and safe passes as often as their defensive counterparts. Everyone contributes to everything, making this a difficult philosophy to employ successfully.

Phew! That's the hard part: creative freedom is very simple Basically, the more rigid a philosophy, the less creative freedom it allows, and the more fluid, the more creative freedom. But, you can modify the amount of creative freedom given to each philosophy using team instructions for creative freedom; for example, a 'fluid' philosophy that asks its players to be 'more disciplined' will actually give players less creative freedom than a 'rigid' philosophy that's 'more expressive'.

So in your case, you have players who have low flair and creativity; fair enough, but that doesn't mean you should use a rigid philosophy. Think about where your team attacks from, and where its defensive players are, and also the types of formations you'll come up against. If most of the teams in your league use players 'between the lines' of a 4-4-2, you may want to try and reduce space there. If your team relies on attacking full-backs, then balanced is the only philosophy that won't restrict them from attacking. Choose the right philosophy first, then use "more expressive"/"more disciplined" to alter the creative freedom in line with your players' abilities.

Sorry for the wordy post - I hope this is actually helpful!

[Justin_Case]

Thanks that has helped! I'll need to read through it a couple more times to ensure that I'm on the right track, but it seems to make sence!

[5uare2]

No problem. Note that all you need to achieve what I did, is toy around in the tactics creator and see what's changed The view I've used - where the sliders for a certain category show up next to the player names instead of form, morale, condition, etc. - is a really useful tool to help see how different settings affect different parts of the team

EDIT: Of course, nothing beats actually watching the effects of your instructions in-game!

[szp]

A player's role will not affect mentality; a ball-winning midfielder on support has the same mentality as an advanced playmaker on support

I don't agree with that. Deep lying playmaker on support has lower mentality than f.e. central midfielder on support.

[Lord Dakier]

I don't agree with that. Deep lying playmaker on support has lower mentality than f.e. central midfielder on support.

And this is where the confusion begins... *sigh*

[däkkä]

Extra low mentalities:

Trequartista when played as FC

Advanced playmaker when played in AM row

Deep-lying playmaker when played as MC

Their duty doesn't matter here. The role + position combos above always drop mentality by 2 notches.

[TRC]

Nice post, although I'm slightly confused by the "If your team relies on attacking full-backs, then balanced is the only philosophy that won't restrict them from attacking" part. Does this not happen in a fluid and very fluid philosophy too?

[Coentrao]

With the balanced philosophy the full backs on attack duty will have a higher mentality, on the other philosophies their mentality won't change depending on the duty, i think that's what he means.

[5uare2]

I don't agree with that. Deep lying playmaker on support has lower mentality than f.e. central midfielder on support.

Yeah, I was aware there might have been one or two "exceptions to the rules", but they weren't relevant to the point I was making, and I intentionally avoided using any of them. thanks dakka for providing those by the way; the only one I'd add is putting a central/limited/ball-playing defender on stopper/cover; this changes their mentality and closing down slightly

With the balanced philosophy the full backs on attack duty will have a higher mentality, on the other philosophies their mentality won't change depending on the duty, i think that's what he means.

This. But ALSO, if you look at the screenshot in my first post, the balanced philosophy provides:

- The highest mentality for the fullbacks; in all the other philosophies, their mentality has been reduced at least a little bit

- The biggest gap between the centre-backs and the fullbacks.

And keep in mind that I only used fullbacks on support - this effect would be even more pronounced when using full/wing-backs on attack.

So, if attacking full-backs are a key part of your playing style, balanced might be the best philosophy.

Note - this doesn't mean you can't use other philosophies - remember, mentality is only part of what determines how attacking a player is, along with the likes of creative freedom as well as his actual instructions (run from deep, etc.). Equally, you'd probably be considering more than just your full-backs when choosing the philosophy of your entire team

[LlamaZA]

5uare2 - mind if I merge your post above into my 'Create your own tactic' thread, it explains what I said about philosophy better than I did.

[däkkä]

thanks dakka for providing those by the way; the only one I'd add is putting a central/limited/ball-playing defender on stopper/cover; this changes their mentality and closing down slightly

No problem. First I was gonna but then I thought they are irrelevant here. Although thinking about it again, they are not. Although the centre-back's mentality isn't affected by role but duty alone, it does make structural changes to philosophies where duty doesn't normally matter - as if cover/stopper are separate roles instead of duties.

[5uare2]

5uare2 - mind if I merge your post above into my 'Create your own tactic' thread, it explains what I said about philosophy better than I did.

Haha, really? Sure thing man. That create your own tactic thread is great, by the way - will be using it to kick start my next save (picking a decent-looking team I know nothing about in a league I've never played before, and building a tactic from scratch - something I'm still working on getting good at!)

[kevin3]

However, because we've pulled these mentalities closer together, the players are less able to cover space "between" the lines/bands; for example, the CM on defend won't deal with an opposing AMC as effectively under a rigid philosophy as he would under a balanced one, and the AMC would find space between defence and midfield.

That is a key point about the choice of philosophy, mentality directly affects the positioning of a player on the field, whilst philosophy acts as a team's mentality framework or structure. However, just because you use a balanced philosophy where the CM has a lower mentality than he would on a rigid one, that doesn't exactly mean the player will still deal with the opposing AMC. This is because the player's mentality still might be too high to deal with the AMC i.e. if you change your team mentality from attacking to control, his mentality still may be too high. I'll give you an example;

Currently, I'm playing as Man Utd and I want to replicate their style of football. I’m using a rigid philosophy and I have Michael Carrick playing as a deep-lying playmaker, who has his mentality set to 11 (on an attacking strategy). In real life, Michael Carrick job is to control the game from deep and protect the space in front of his centre-backs. However, with his mentality set to 11, his job won’t quite function as I what it to in-game. Ideally, I want his mentality to be set at 7. For that to happen, I could use a balanced philosophy, although that would alter the entire shape of my team and that is something I don’t want to do. Instead, I manually set his mentality to 7, whilst keeping a rigid philosophy, and lo and behold, Carrick plays more like Carrick, playing deeper and covering my centre-backs as I want him to. I did the same for Wayne Rooney. Under a rigid philosophy, his mentality was too high for a deep-lying forward and changing my team philosophy to balanced doesn’t suit my squad. Again, I changed his mentality to 7 and results where as I wanted. He played a lot deeper and picked up the opposition midfielders when the ball came into my half.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that mentality doesn’t always need to follow a philosophy. Just because you use a rigid philosophy doesn’t mean that every player has to follow that framework.

Through playing and experimenting I have come to see mentality not as an indicator of how attacking or conservative a player is relative to the team, but how attacking or conservative a player is within their role.

That was from the late Sfraser’s thread,http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/51866-A-Closer-Look-at-Mentality(I reckon you have a read, he explains mentality very well and inspired me to change Michael Carrick’s and Wayne Rooney’s mentalities.) What he goes on to say is that Wayne Rooney (when playing deep) should always have a lower mentality than Emile Heskey, no matter what the mentality strategy or philosophy is.

[James9]

That is a key point about the choice of philosophy, mentality directly affects the positioning of a player on the field, whilst philosophy acts as a team's mentality framework or structure. However, just because you use a balanced philosophy where the CM has a lower mentality than he would on a rigid one, that doesn't exactly mean the player will still deal with the opposing AMC. This is because the player's mentality still might be too high to deal with the AMC i.e. if you change your team mentality from attacking to control, his mentality still may be too high. I'll give you an example;

Currently, I'm playing as Man Utd and I want to replicate their style of football. I’m using a rigid philosophy and I have Michael Carrick playing as a deep-lying playmaker, who has his mentality set to 11 (on an attacking strategy). In real life, Michael Carrick job is to control the game from deep and protect the space in front of his centre-backs. However, with his mentality set to 11, his job won’t quite function as I what it to in-game. Ideally, I want his mentality to be set at 7. For that to happen, I could use a balanced philosophy, although that would alter the entire shape of my team and that is something I don’t want to do. Instead, I manually set his mentality to 7, whilst keeping a rigid philosophy, and lo and behold, Carrick plays more like Carrick, playing deeper and covering my centre-backs as I want him to. I did the same for Wayne Rooney. Under a rigid philosophy, his mentality was too high for a deep-lying forward and changing my team philosophy to balanced doesn’t suit my squad. Again, I changed his mentality to 7 and results where as I wanted. He played a lot deeper and picked up the opposition midfielders when the ball came into my half.

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that mentality doesn’t always need to follow a philosophy. Just because you use a rigid philosophy doesn’t mean that every player has to follow that framework.

That was from the late Sfraser’s thread,http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/51866-A-Closer-Look-at-Mentality(I reckon you have a read, he explains mentality very well and inspired me to change Michael Carrick’s and Wayne Rooney’s mentalities.) What he goes on to say is that Wayne Rooney (when playing deep) should always have a lower mentality than Emile Heskey, no matter what the mentality strategy or philosophy is.

Kevin could you give me some advice on setting up my 4231 in a rigid philosophy. I want my central midfielders to protect the back four and I want my full backs to bomb forward up the wings and sometimes overlapp the wingers. I would need my wingers and striker to stay high up the pitch along with my AMC to form a 4 man attack. So basically to sitting midfielders, full backs getting forward but not ignoring their defending duties and 4 man attack. What number would you suggest on the tactical slider to achieve this set up.

Also would you recommend having my central defenders mentalties set to 5 and the central midfielders set to 7 if so what mentality should i give to my full backs.

[5uare2]

Basically, what I’m trying to say is that mentality doesn’t always need to follow a philosophy. Just because you use a rigid philosophy doesn’t mean that every player has to follow that framework.

Good point. My personal preference is to not change the sliders from TC too much, hence my post not mentioning that aspect at all. But as you and the late SFraser have pointed out, every player plays a certain role/duty differently, and some might work better when you tweak the initial instructions