Some complaints about the philosophy and direction of Football Manager

[HUNT3R]

That's not the point. If I don't know specifically why all this happens, I am being restrained from learning more. Then you don't really ever learn how to make good tactics in FM - you just learn what boxes to tick and what buttons to push in order to win most matches (hopefully). This is deeply unsatisfactory to us that want to learn something. You could just as well say "you win matches, it works, why does it matter how and why you win?" If you don't see how deeply unsatisfactory such an outlook is to many of us, we're clearly not on the same page, Hunter. And you have also then reduced FM from being a game that tests your skill and knowhow, (at least somewhat) to a game where it's just a matter of hitting the right buttons and ticking the right boxes. I don't play games that's like that.

Okay, now I don't agree with you, but you're also completely wrong. This has nothing to do with any of what you just said. Retain Possession just prioritises the retention of possession over other priorities. That's it. It doesn't tell me anything more about winning matches. It doesn't matter how it works. You're not learning the mechanics under the hood, you're supposed to learn about tactical ideas and how that works. If we're going to delve under the hood again, we might as well just bring sliders back.

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If you said to me you had a problem with knowing how much you're closing down, I'd agree. A lot of tactical problems stem from the fact that people use Hassle Opponents, not realising that it maxes out Closing Down, which is quite extreme. I don't think they realise that by employing the Control/Attacking mentality they have, they already close down a lot by default because of the mentality. There's currently no way to know that you're closing down more in Attacking than Control and more in Control than Standard. I know, but the average FM player who won't even visit forums won't. That is an issue.

[thomit]

I repeat: I would know all about what happens, and why, if I was a real manager. This game currently don't let me know. That is frustrating, and it's not very realistic.

That's why I want to know. That's not peeking under the hood; that is information I should have. You don't agree, that's fine. You obviously think this is info that a manager wouldn't have detailed knowledge of.

All I can say is that I disagree profoundly.

[themadsheep2001]

Your feedback so far has been good and overall I agree that instructions should be clearer, but now you're wanting to peek under the hood again. Retain Possession could benefit from a more detailed description like what I gave earlier, but beyond that, we don't need more. Logic would tell you that passing will be shorter, tempo lowered and (I'd think) even through balls curbed. What I guess doesn't matter.

You could pick a different instruction and I may agree with you, but Retain Possession is a simple instruction and one I was able to notice in-game in my first match after implementing it. I also saw noticeably less sideways passes and slightly more urgency in getting the ball forward with it removed.

Retain possession is a simple but open instruction, because it's quite dependent on the intelligence and ability of your players to execute it, and I think that's what throws people.

Didn't see your bit on closing down. See that's actually an instruction that needs far more info than currently given. In fact if any instruction needed a visual reference it would be that one.

[HUNT3R]

Retain possession is a simple but open instruction, because it's quite dependent on the intelligence and ability of your players to execute it, and I think that's what throws people.

Oh, I agree. You need composed players, for one thing.

Didn't see your bit on closing down. See that's actually an instruction that needs far more info than currently given. In fact if any instruction needed a visual reference it would be that one.

Exactly. There are far bigger problems than Retain Possession, which isn't even a problem IMO.

[HUNT3R]

I repeat: I would know all about what happens, and why, if I was a real manager. This game currently don't let me know. That is frustrating, and it's not very realistic.

That's why I want to know. That's not peeking under the hood; that is information I should have. You don't agree, that's fine. You obviously think this is info that a manager wouldn't have detailed knowledge of.

All I can say is that I disagree profoundly.

The bolded part. You would know how it happens, because you're telling your players "Retain Possession" coupled with the description for it. You're not going to every player and telling him "Okay, your passes in general should be slightly shorter and safer" and telling the team "to pass more sideways" etc etc. This is automatic and pretty obvious for keeping possession.

Where people fall flat with this instruction, is that they don't realise what the implications of the instruction are. When the defence and midfield are playing sideways passes, keeping the ball and slowly edging forward, it doesn't help that the lone striker (Poacher) and the two Wingers/Inside Forwards Attack are on top of the opposition D-Line, making it impossible to find them with a safe pass. Eventually, the team will lose the ball when they inevitably try and work it forward.

I also often see this instruction given to a team using a 4-4-2 when most of the teams you face these days have 3 in midfield. How exactly will the 2 in the middle cope against 3? Makes it worse when the two wingers are given an attack duty too.

That's tactical errors that would have been made regardless of how much you can see under the hood. We're moving away (or trying to) from the slider way of thinking and more thinking about concepts. Retain Possession is a remarkably simple instruction to understand, but not simple to use in practice because you do need to give it some thought. More than most are currently giving it.

[Dagenham_Dave]

I repeat: I would know all about what happens, and why, if I was a real manager. This game currently don't let me know. That is frustrating, and it's not very realistic.

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What on earth is frustrating about a simple team instruction that does exactly what it says?

I'll put the ball in your court. The retain posession instruction. How, exactly, would you have it implemented in-game?

[Loki679]

So you don't know what it specifically does then?

[mattcanary]

Of course you are not likely to execute possession football very well if you play 4-4-2 with wingers, and the opposition are playing 5 in the centre of midfield.

Stands to reason.

In that situation playing more direct football and getting the ball out wide quickly is likely to be more effective.

Just as it's not a ridiculous idea that a team with say 30% possession can win the game. Happened several times in real life over the last few months.

How about Netherlands vs Spain in the World Cup

or Everton against Man utd towards the end of last season?

[thomit]

Now, come on guys. We're just in disagreement here, that's all. You think keeping info about what "shouts" or instructions actually do, it's fine that the details about that should be hidden from the manager. I disagree with that. That's why I slightly mentioned in my first post in this thread that I would like the sliders back, as a visual aid to help me understand exactly what is going on. With the sliders, I could immediately see what changes to the settings, both team and individuals, actually took place when one added a shout, or took it away. And one could see the total impact of all settings and instructions easily. Now, SI obviously don't want the manager to know about these things in detail anymore. And some of you obviously agree with that decision. I disagree. I would like to know these things, I think as a manager, I should know. Some thinks such knowledge is "peeking under the hood", I think it's not. There's the disagreement. And being in disagreement is perfectly fine, as you know.

What I do agree with, is SI's decision to take away managers ability to change tempo [put in any tactical instruction you like] from 16 to 17 on the 1-20 scale. That was a wise decision, because that level of micro managing is ridiculous, and not realistic.

However, that they also took away our ability to know what happened with tactical settings when we made changes or added or took away instructions, like we could see because of the shifting sliders, that I don't agree with. It has been replaced with text and descriptions, which in my opinion is not good enough. They're far from detailed enough, and even if these descriptions told me everything, they would still be inferior to a visually based system.

How I would like "retain posession" [put in any instruction you like] to work, or my guesswork/understanding of how it works, is totally irrelevant and besides the point. I have my own qualified guess, sure - but the only thing I can be relatively certain of, is that it changes passing style. It gets shorter. I'm not sure about any of the other things mentioned in the last few posts. It's guesswork, sometimes good guesswork, but still guesswork. My objection to that is that as a manager, I shouldn't have to guess. There's the disagreement. Some of you obviously think it's fine that a manger should be guessing what his own instructions are.

Edit: Oh and btw; let's just agree to disagree on this point, ok? We obviously won't be on the same page on this subject, ever.

[Svenc]

How I would like retain posession to work, or my guesswork/understanding of how it works, is totally irrelevant and besides the point. I have my own qualified guess, sure - but the only thing I can be relatively certain of, is that it changes passing style. It gets shorter. I'm not sure about any of the other things mentioned in the last few posts. It's guesswork, sometimes good guesswork, but still guesswork. My objection to that is that as a manager, I shouldn't have to guess.

I can relate to that, I think everybody can. The logical counter argument is that whatever is fiddled with "under the hood", if it still works exactly the same* is not an instruction anymore, you don't have that degree of control, and as such you aren't meant to worry or bother with that. It would be interesting to see how total newcomers to FM have actually coped, I guess they're mostly far better off than any of the old timers. As argued, there 100% was no easier time to get into FM than with this version, in particular regarding the interface, and how FMC is an optional light mode that can lure you in without overwhelming completely. And if you were new, you certainly wouldn't worry about any "hidden settings" under the hood either. You had never known them. Maybe you would demand more clarity about some options and player roles, but certainly not to the nth degree, as you wouldn't know to what extent that nth degree existed, and wouldn't bother about it. It's kind of like the old folks that still longed for wibble-wobble, whilst personally I first wondered what the heck they were even talking about.

* from some roles we know that things don't 100% work the same as roles and concepts can be isolated and given specific attributes, rather than all be a combination of the instructions of seasons past. Reportedly even if a player is given the exact same instructions of old, the role picked can make a player encourage to behave differently, as roles are defined in the code as such and given their own attributes. Likewise, a "central midfielder" encouraged to "play through balls often" can behave differently than an "advanced playmaker" that is encouraged the same. Most immediately obvious is the positional behavior of the half-back that wasn't doable previously, and isn't implemented by any instruction you previously had. In terms of coding Paul Collyer of SI explained that quite well here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/343040-Tactics-Creator-vs.-Classic-Tactics?p=8451720&viewfull=1#post8451720 That was before FM 2014, naturally, and now he can adress an "advanced playmaker" as such, and attribute behavior solely to him.

Which means looking at any tick boxes of yore won't provide any much useful information somewhere down the years, and could rather confuse you. Any additional information needs to be dealt with and presented differently. This can't be about bringing sliders and tick boxes back. As FM in terms of tactics is now facing a different direction, it shouldn't be about bringing them back. It will confuse newcomers. And somewhere down the line it will confuse old-timers too, whilst additionally keeping them from getting to grips with the current thinking behind the game as they're clinging onto an idea that likely won't come back. It's a bit like the arrows of old, if somebody remembers. They let players essentially take and inhabit two positions on the pitch at once without the player utilizing his intelligence to assess space to run into as such, one in defence, and one in attack. A left back would immediately ignore everything and assume to be a central attacking midfielder as soon as the ball was won, if you wanted. User tactics would occasionally look like this: http://www.centrumfm.org/image/taktyki/3/taktyka_4.jpg You could transform a player with very average attributes and positional decision making into Thomas Müller. That was gone. And so was the paradigm which forced players to re-think and firstly caused them to mourn.

Not arguing against better clarity though, which is clearly needed.

[thomit]

Taking an instruction like retain posession and isolating it, is one thing. But what about when you combine it with other instructions? Like; what if "retain posession" instructs all players to stop trying through balls. We don't know, but lets just say if. What if you put such an instruction into a tactic for Barcelona, where through balls is the bread and butter. "Retain posession" sounds fine in a tactic for Barca, doesn't it? That's what they do; they keep the ball well, win it back quickly - but they also rely on a lot of through balls when they have the ball. If "retain posession" includes a [hidden] instruction to stop trying through balls, it doesn't sound so fine any more, does it? So my point would be - shouldn't I know, as a manager, everything the instruction "retain posession" does? Should I really have to watch match after match, (here's the scenario) untill I came to a conclusion that ... something, somewhere in my instructions there obviously must be an order to not try throughballs, because I can clearly see in the matches that allmost no through balls are being made. But where? What instruction? I don't know, because SI won't let me know. I'll have to try taking off one by one, watch matches untill I find the culprit.

Really? To me, this is bonkers.

@Svenc. What you say about instructions "outside" of the general tactical settings, is interresting. And watching the HB playing, it seems likely that it is so. I do think I'm entitled to know about these "special" cases too. Not the technical intricacies of how it's done in the ME, but I would want a clear, concise and complete list of all such "special" instructions for some roles, and when and where they come into action. I have the right, and the need to know these things, as a manager.

[Cleon]

SI helped me with the list of what the shouts did for FM13 and posted in the tactics forum. In it I explained what actually was changed when you add the shouts. Everything posted then is still the exact same now. I've just not updated it to add the shouts that are missing that was added in FM14 iirc.

[Svenc]

T "Retain posession" sounds fine in a tactic for Barca, doesn't it? That's what they do; they keep the ball well, win it back quickly - but they also rely on a lot of through balls when they have the ball. If "retain posession" includes a [hidden] instruction to stop trying through balls, it doesn't sound so fine any more, does it?

Fair point, as argued, clarity is needed in some cases.

@Svenc. What you say about instructions "outside" of the general tactical settings, is interresting. And watching the HB playing, it seems likely that it is so. I do think I'm entitled to know about these "special" cases too. Not the technical intricacies of how it's done in the ME, but I would want a clear, concise and complete list of all such "special" instructions for some roles, and when and where they come into action. I have the right, and the need to know these things, as a manager.

In regards to the half-back however, this isn't a special instruction. It is only a special instruction because you deem it such, i.e. you approach this from an outmoded angle that shouldn't be encouraged. You don't need to see any "under the hood mechanics"/ instructions for the half-back and its rather special positioning behavior that previously wasn't doable. It explicitly says in-game how he behaves via the text, and in this case that's all you need to know, really.

[thomit]

Fair point, as argued, clarity is needed in some cases.

In regards to the half-back however, this isn't a special instruction. It is only a special instruction because you deem it such, i.e. you approach this from an outmoded angle that shouldn't be encouraged. You don't need to see any "under the hood mechanics"/ instructions for the half-back and its rather special positioning behavior that previously wasn't doable. It explicitly says in-game how he behaves via the text, and in this case that's all you need to know, really.

Yes, if it's clear in the descriptions what the roles do, I'm fine with that. CLEAR. And complete. And to what extent they're not affected by certain instructions, or affected differently. If I am given all such information, I'm fine with that. I wouldn't want to be kept guessing about roles behaviour either. The ambiguity should remain exclusively in the player's ability (or lack of) to carry out roles description, not in the roles descriptions themselves.

[Pangaea]

I'd just like to pipe in that I mostly agree with thomit. In a previous version (probably FM10 as that's the last game I played prior to FM14), the players on the pitch (e: the tactics board) would change slightly depending on instructions you put forth, like mentality. This was thus a visual representation of how width for example would change. I don't know why this was removed, but it's now gone (I just tried).

Think it was a good idea to remove the sliders and the unrealistic tinkering they lead to, and I was using the TC back then too, as opposed to slightly changing a slider from this to that. But at times I did check them out just to see what certain instructions changed. That was a good feedback system. I don't remember any specifics of it now, but it was certainly useful information to have, information that is now completely hidden.

It's frustrating to try to get a tactic working. Everything seems so incredibly sensitive now; get a little thing wrong and your team falls apart. This is probably different for the tactics people that know how everything works and are able to spot what the AI does and know how to counter it, but for most of us, me included, that is difficult. Then there is the problem with tactical fluidity. I change one little thing, and often their fluidity goes down the floor. If that tactic is not working right, is that due to low(er) fluidity? PPMs? Poor/good attributes? Poor combination of player roles and duties? To be a little more sure, I'd need to play until the team was fully fluent in that tactical setup. Is it still crap? Oh well, back to the drawing board again, and then play that tactic for 3 months until they're fluent again. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

This really shouldn't be how it works. We need more information about what the various roles do, preferrably some kind of visual representation, a bit like what existed before. It feels like we're between a rock and a hard place now, until SI figure out how to deal with the blowback of removing the sliders.

[Dagenham_Dave]

I repeat: I would know all about what happens, and why, if I was a real manager. This game currently don't let me know. That is frustrating, and it's not very realistic.

That's why I slightly mentioned in my first post in this thread that I would like the sliders back, as a visual aid to help me understand exactly what is going on. With the sliders, I could immediately see what changes to the settings, both team and individuals, actually took place when one added a shout, or took it away.

This is my main beef with your points. You harp on about being 'realistic', and then say you want a return to 'sliders'. Do managers have sliders in real life? No. They'll give their team instructions and they'll expect the players to follow them. You want to visually know what 'retain posession' does? Do what a real life manager does and visualise it in your head how you'd expect that instruction to be played, then experiment with it in pre-season friendlies. That's a more fluid, realistic way to implement a tactic/instruction. Sure, there's a few 'shouts' that can be explained better, and the attacking/defensive mentality really does need more of a proper explanation. But most of the team instructions are just simple common sense. You have all the visual aids you need in the match display and the match analysis. There is ZERO need for completely unrealistic sliders.

[thomit]

You are completely missing the point again, Dave. I never used the sliders to tweak my tactics after the TC came. I used the TC and player roles to make my tactics. But I often had a look at the sliders when I made a change, to see exactly what was changed. If that's a "beef" with you, or the fact that I would prefer having the sliders back to look at when I'm in doubt what my instructions actually do, then so be it. I can't help you with your beef. If you disagree with me, that's fine. No need for any beef.

I have already stated that I thought the use of sliders - specifically the level of microminute changes they allowed - was unrealistic. You missed that too. But apart from that, ticking boxes and pushing buttons isn't that realistic either, is it? But we need some kind of interface in a game, wouldn't you agree? What's been made a tad more realistic about ticking boxes and pushing buttons, is that the ridiculous level of micromanagement has been toned down. I said I agree with that. You missed that too. You're just throwing up non-existent disagreements. (Edited away a sentence I regreted).

[Dagenham_Dave]

But we need some kind of interface in a game, wouldn't you agree?

Just as well we have one then.