How Important Is It To Use Shouts?

[BeadyRoller]

I'm really struggling with tactics at the moment, everything I seem to do doesn't seem to be working, I think a big part of that is I don't really know when and when not to use the shouts. I use the tactic creator for my tactics, is it really

important to use shouts in the game or not so much? What would you suggest for a possession sort of tactic, I'm trying to implement a Barca sort of style.

Cheers.

[Shevchenko]

Shouts can be gamebreaking, really. You should try these shouts:

• Push higher up
  
• Stay on feet
  
• Pass into space
  
• Work ball into box
  
• Retain posession
  
• Hassle opponents
  

But it all depends on the players attributes. A Man Utd first team player will have a boost in the game with these shouts but if it is a player from a 3rd tier Sweden team - sorry, almost impossible.

[fdawsoniv]

If you want to see your team play a certain style, you should design your tactic to reflect that from the beginning. Shouts are a useful way to make adjustments based on what is happening in a given game. Taking advantage of an open space your opponent is leaving you or shoring up an area where your team isn't holding up, that sort of thing. Just taking one of Shevchenko's suggestions: Work ball into box. This shout turns down the individual instruction "long shots" for every player. If you want this to be in place all the time, then change your starting tactic so "long shots" are turned down and you won't ever have to bother with the shout. Shev's suggestions may be spot on, but if you want this style all the time, don't waste time re-submitting the shouts at the start of every game.

Find the thread "Sports Centre." In it, toward the end I beleive, Cleon lays out exactly what each shout does. And knowing that is step one to implementing them correctly. Step two is using your eyes. May I ask how you watch the games? Full match, highlights, commentary only? The more of the game you watch, the better positioned you will be to see what is going right and what is going wrong. Then it's a matter of connecting the dots from observation to implementing changes. The analysis tool is also very useful toward this end.

Your problem may not be your use of shouts, though. You mention that you're trying to implement a Barca style, but you don't mention what team you're using. Barcelona does what they do using world class players up and down the pitch, most of whom were bred to their specific style through years in La Masia. The players at your disposal are a major factor (I would say the deciding one), in how successful you will be in making your team play the way you want. You may need to spend years reshaping the makeup of the squad before you can do it right. See: Rodgers, Brendan or Villas-Boas, Andre.

[thomit]

It is important to know what shouts do. What shouts do, is to move some slider positions around, either in the team settings, or in individual player settings. That's all.

If, for example, you play with a couple of shouts "on" as default - then you could just as well implement these slider positions into your tactic, with the exact same result. Important to know also; your shouts will do nothing if the settings that the shout are supposed to adjust, are ones that allready have been set by you, ie they are "ticked" and set to a particular position - shouts can't do anything about them then.

[higgins]

The shouts are needed if you build your tactic with the wizard, without manually tweaking too much, otherwise if you're an old style tactician you don't need them.

It's your choice.

[lam]

I couldn't play without them now............

[sherica-]

i think having backup tactics is better than using shout. Supposingly shout is an easier way for us to do some quick changes to the current tactic but i still find swapping to another totally new tactic more effective and "easier" too. also the team can get more familiar with the backup tactic tempo/width etc etc through training but im not if the players can adjust accordingly to the sudden change of mentality while using shout. eg. from overload to contain in matter of minutes.

The shouts are needed if you build your tactic with the wizard, without manually tweaking too much, otherwise if you're an old style tactician you don't need them.

It's your choice.

and pretty much this.

[fdawsoniv]

I don't remember the context, so I can't put a link, but I asked several months ago about whether changing your tactic through shouts affects your team's familiarity. Cleon said it didn't. So you're team is not harmed in familiarity by putting shouts into effect.

[thomit]

Well, if you use a shout that does anything to -for example - the width slider, you will notice that the tactical familiarity bar for width decreases. And rightly so - if you shout to your players that they should play narrower, or wider, and they have not trained this formation with this new width - that's logical, their familiarity should decrease. But if you have a "spare" tactic where this new width is already incorporated, and the team has actually trained in this tactic so that familiarity bars are on max - then you will not see this decrease when you change width - either as a function of a shout, or if you simply switch to this spare tactic. Familiarity with this new width setting is trained, and therefore you will not see any decrease in familiarity. It's all very logical. What is not logical, is if you shout to your players "play wider!" - and they carry on with playing in this new width with exactly the same knowledge/familiarity as before, when they have not trained this new width.

[sherica-]

Well, if you use a shout that does anything to -for example - the width slider, you will notice that the tactical familiarity bar for width decreases. And rightly so - if you shout to your players that they should play narrower, or wider, and they have not trained this formation with this new width - that's logical, their familiarity should decrease. But if you have a "spare" tactic where this new width is already incorporated, and the team has actually trained in this tactic so that familiarity bars are on max - then you will not see this decrease when you change width - either as a function of a shout, or if you simply switch to this spare tactic. Familiarity with this new width setting is trained, and therefore you will not see any decrease in familiarity. It's all very logical. What is not logical, is if you shout to your players "play wider!" - and they carry on with playing in this new width with exactly the same knowledge/familiarity as before, when they have not trained this new width.

yea what you said make a lot of sense thus i still find swapping to a spare tactic more effective than using shout..

[fdawsoniv]

How are you looking at tactic familiarity during a match?

What you said makes sense, absolutely, I'm just relaying that I was told it doesn't actually work that way.

[thomit]

How are you looking at tactic familiarity during a match?

What you said makes sense, absolutely, I'm just relaying that I was told it doesn't actually work that way.

By clicking the tactic button during a match, simple. The main familiarity bar will sometimes have decreased if you're using a shout; clicking on the familiarity bar will bring out the 8 different areas and their bars, telling what areas have changed as a result of you using a shout. (Or switching to a tactic the team haven't trained in).

Yes, I know you have been told - and you and Cleon may very well be right; me, however, want to know how you know. Just being told is not enough I will go by logic unless there's clear evidence that logic does not apply.

[fdawsoniv]

Familiarity bar? Is this something added to FM12? I'm on 11.

No, I don't have anything more concrete than that. This may be another case of something that has changed over the different versions. If your familiarity bar is dropping, then that's pretty clear that shouts do change it. And that makes perfect sense. I shouldn't be able to train the team one way, then completely rearrange our approach and have them pull it off without a hitch.

[thomit]

Point is: All what shouts do, is to move sliders around. They are just a quicker way to change things, than having to go into the tactic settings and move team or player sliders individually. So, once you know exactly what a shout, or a combination of shouts do, it's easy to just make tactical variants that do exactly the same. I find this latter method better. In my case, I only ever need to change my tactic in one situation; when I need to "secure" a result towards the end of the match. I can do this with a particular combination of shouts, or I can do this with a tactical variant I have allready made, and that my team has actually trained. The latter method means I will not lose any tactical familiarity. Using shouts, you will - at least according to these aforementioned familarity bars. Yes, I'm talking FM 12, I didn't know they were not in FM 11 - I skipped that edition.

Another drawback to shouts, is that they actually will not have any effect if the sliders they are supposed to move, are the same ones that you have allready set manually in your tactic. IE they are "ticked" and locked. The only way you can be sure to get an effect out of shouts, is to not touch anything once you're finished with the Tactic Creator. Or at least don't do anything to the sliders that you know that the shouts you are going to use, are going to move.

Edit: Argh ... I see now that I have just repeated an earlier post of mine in this thread. Never mind, just ignore me.

[phd_angel]

Man, I guess I'm doing it all wrong then. I do both pre-match ticked Team instructions (Def Line, Width, Tempo, Time Wasting) *and* pre-programmed Shouts all throughout the match. I notice a desired difference depending on the Shout I'm using. I guess it works OK because my teams are often league champions.

[furiousuk]

Tactic familiarity is in FM11 but I don't believe the progress bars accurately reflect whats happening underneath. I also think theres an overflow error somewhere but thats a whole other discussion that is boring and full of geek.

If you're not sure when to use the shouts you need to be using the TC which means you need to be using the shout system.

Simple as that.

Be aware that the shouts are moving sliders around underneath everything and then forget that and use them qualitatively. If you want to play wider then use the shout play wider. If you want to play deeper then use the shout play deeper. Don't worry about the specifics (for now) and just accept that the play deeper shout will make your team play deeper - once you've seen that play out then it doesn't take a genius to understand that your defensive line has dropper, other players have moved in accordance with that and your team is playing deeper. You don't have to be interested in which slider position you're on, just that your team are now playing deeper.

If you're not sure what things are doing then don't fiddle. Leave it with what the TC gives you and make your tweaks using shouts or the preset dropdowns (changing roles, duties, philosophy, strategy etc). Don't touch the sliders. The ones you see on the basic screen move anyway. If you tick them you'll muck up how the shouts work, or, even worse, you'll probably render alot of them useless. DONT TOUCH THE SLIDERS.

Unless you want to go classic, or you're used to classic from previous additions, there is no need to even look at the sliders until you are comfortable with the TC and the shouts and want to know actually what is going on.

It's the same with anything. I can drive a car, I don't need to know how the engine works to drive just fine. If I want to top up my oil then I learn how to do that and ignore everything else. Only if I want to tinker with my engine do I bother to learn how to do that and understand exactly what happens. Whether this makes me a better driver or not is debatable.

Keep everything as the TC sets up and only fiddle with it when you understand the shouts more.

Just use the shouts as they are written and you'll be fine.

Then dive into the Sports Centre and look at what they actually do and it'll all fall into place.

Learning when to use them is a whole different topic and is more a discussion on real-life football than on FM (although that discussion is positively encouraged!)

[Rashidi]

I hope i can throw my two cents worth into this, the tactical creator was borne out of the growing trend of some hardcore players switching to tactical presets way back in FM2005 days..we build tactics and would upload them as sets, I even went into the games data and edited the default settings for players, in effect creating different systems, based on the sliders of old. Essentially some of us were doing a lot of technical muck to make the game easily playable via presets.

Essentially i'd set up a team with a certain "philosophy" based on a certain coach and then by choosing the right preset it would set a DM to say mentality 5, passing 1, CF 7..etc. After setting the side up we would then just play with sliders..,..in my case i would only use tempo and defensive line.

The tactical creator of today grew from those presets. The presets became the philosophy that most of u see today and then the shouts became a way of resetting the sliders. If you want to become good at this game I wouldnt suggest BLINDLY playing around with the shouts, thats because these shouts can have a drastic impact on the way you play. For instance lets assume you make a formation that has short passing and you decide to push the game and say decide to push out wide and pump the ball to flanks..you could inadvertently give up tonnes of space.

My recommendation is understand what the shouts do, but do it gradually. Do not mess with 4 shouts straightaway and keep messing about with shouts every 10 mins or so.

When i start any game i typically play a 4231. Its my favorite formation one i can play in 3 different ways. So i usually begin the game telling my players to pass the ball from defense.., because i dont want to give up possession too easily i tell my players to work the ball into the box. Now my formation isnt from the tactical creator in fact..its possible to make a formation with the wizard and then fine tune it yourself. But in order for you to be able to do that you need to KNOW what the shouts do.. So when i was first starting out after my 6 years away from the game, I used the wizard then i would hop over to the tactical screens to see what effect my shouts had.

Once i had all the shouts figured out..ie what is a passing length modifier shout, what is an aggression modifier shout etc i would then proceeed to isolate shouts that wouldnt work anymore. For instance I play a passing game of 1 at the back..using the push out wide shout is pointless.. it wont work.

So basically thats about it..are shouts important.. yes they are very much so if you dont know exactly HOW to create a custom tactic. If you are new to making tactics..use a shout at a time..before long you'll be using Dag & Red to beat Utd