Is a re-think required with regard to Tactics & Player Roles?

[Mr U Rosler]

This has been bugging me for a while so I might as well get this off my chest.

I'm starting to have reservations about the whole direction the tactical system is going specifically how the players roles are being added and implemented.

I feel there are simply too many different roles for each position.

I also feel player roles should driven by the actual player rather than the tactic itself.

For example we can instruct any player to play any role at the moment. We can ask Jermaine Defoe to play as a target man. Sure, he wouldn't be very good at it but Jermaine Defoe is not a target man, he is what he is, which is probably a poacher.

I feel it would be better if a player came with a set role, maybe 2 and we could only utilise them in those roles.

If you want to play with a Target Man and a Poacher you have to make sure you have them in your squad or go and recruit them.

You want a box to box guy in midfield? Find one and buy one.

Sergio Aguero is what he is. Probably a Complete Forward. We shouldn't be able to influence his behaviour that much. I think the 'duties' are fine we can ask him to adjust his approach to the game to Attack, Support, Defend in his role, I think we should be able to make some input into his movement, move into channels, run wide etc but that's about it. You know what your getting when you buy him.

We shouldn't be able to ask David Silva to play as a ball winning midfielder.

This will make recruitment far more interesting, you will need to adjust your tactic each week according to whose fit, if you normally play with an advanced playmaker and they are all injured, your gonna have to come up with a new system to suit the players who are fit that week rather than simply 'shoe-horning' someone unsuitable into that role.

I think it would be more engaging, require more tactical flexibility, better planning and do away with the plug & play tactical approach where you use the same tactic, every game for years (of which i'm guilty of producing and releasing ).

I'm proposing you set up the formation and team instructions as you like, BUT THE PLAYER ROLES ARE DETERMINED BY THE PLAYERS YOU USE and NOT BY THE TACTIC.

Just adding new roles each year, like the Raumdeuter is a red herring, there's only one, and if you want him you have to go buy Muller.

Is there any support/thoughts on this?

[RTHerringbone]

I think people would go utterly, utterly crazy if this was implemented.

The furore surrounding the removal of sliders showed that there is a perception amongst some of the community that the game is becoming too restrictive. To layer on another thing which even I would consider restrictive, would be too much in my opinion.

EDIT - With the Raumdeuter / Muller example in mind - the creativity of the game is seeing how players x, y and z interpret a Role. It's absolutely right that we should be able to try Defoe as a Target Man or Silva as a BWM. Players in Roles determine matches. Players limited to certain Roles would, for me, drive the game purely down a squad building route and that would limit tactical flexibility.

[Mr U Rosler]

I think people would go utterly, utterly crazy if this was implemented.

The furore surrounding the removal of sliders showed that there is a perception amongst some of the community that the game is becoming too restrictive. To layer on another thing which even I would consider restrictive, would be too much in my opinion.

In a way it actually simplifies things. You no longer need to have set player roles in the tactic, they are determined by the team you pick, means you can concentrate on slowly building a squad until you arrive at one capable of delivering your desired style of play.

[Mr U Rosler]

I think people would go utterly, utterly crazy if this was implemented.

The furore surrounding the removal of sliders showed that there is a perception amongst some of the community that the game is becoming too restrictive. To layer on another thing which even I would consider restrictive, would be too much in my opinion.

EDIT - With the Raumdeuter / Muller example in mind - the creativity of the game is seeing how players x, y and z interpret a Role. It's absolutely right that we should be able to try Defoe as a Target Man or Silva as a BWM. Players in Roles determine matches. Players limited to certain Roles would, for me, drive the game purely down a squad building route and that would limit tactical flexibility.

Which approach is more realistic do you think?

[alinp]

I think that probably more to the point is that there should be a more obvious drop off in performance if you ask a player to be something he isn't, not that it should restrict your tactic design. By all means play Defoe as a TM and lump balls in to him, but the game should be able to recognize that he simply won't be very good at it.

[swansongs]

How would James Milner play? He does a different job every week. Ki Sung Yeung plays in a completely different way for South Korea (disciplined holding player) than he has for Swansea (or Sunderland last season), where he's encouraged to bring the ball out and support further up the field.

Why shouldn't we be able to ask Silva to play as a BWM? Ashley Young played as a left back for United in the first game of the season because that's what the team needed him to do. He was terrible but he didn't go wandering forward trying to take people on etc.

[michalgottwald]

I don't understand what removing the managers flexibility in dictating player behavior really achieves that can be considered an improvement. Of course you should be able to ask people to do things they're not good at.

Also recruiting the right type of players for the roles I want them to fill is arguably one of the biggest and most interesting aspect of the game already for me, and I don't really see that reducing options would enhance this experience.

[alinp]

H

Why shouldn't we be able to ask Silva to play as a BWM? Ashley Young played as a left back for United in the first game of the season because that's what the team needed him to do. He was terrible but he didn't go wandering forward trying to take people on etc.

Exactly my point - you should be able to play anyone anywhere in any role or duty (if you're daft enough), but them just not be that good if not being used appropriately.

[jozza800]

Dont like this idea at all. As RTHerringbone suggests they are continually removing layers of tactical creation. For me this would be one step too far.

Also real life managers are continually playing players in wrong positions. Square pegs and round holes.

Look at Rodgers at Liverpool, he's trying to get Balotelli to play like a lone target man, which isn't working.

[Ganja Santa]

I see and understand the point of this thread, and I wouldn't be utterly crazy if the tactics was made simpler. Right now there are many, many player roles for each position, and all of these combined with the defend/support/attack roles makes it a headache creating a decent tactic.

I haven't been playing FM for a couple of years, but decided to give it a go with FM15. I'm very happy and impressed with the game, but I struggle a lot with tactics. I have experimented with a few ones and observe them in 2D view (Extended highlights). Sometimes they make sense, sometimes they don't. In my first six matches with a top 4 team in the Danish Superliga I won two very difficult away games, however I lost two at home - both to the newly promoted teams...teams I should beat 9 out of 10 times. This is not a complaint or anything, I'm just telling that from my experience the tactics can be a struggle. Maybe it's because I have to play more and get better - I will find out!

[alinp]

Dont like this idea at all. As RTHerringbone suggests they are continually removing layers of tactical creation. For me this would be one step too far.

Also real life managers are continually playing players in wrong positions. Square pegs and round holes.

Look at Rodgers at Liverpool, he's trying to get Balotelli to play like a lone target man, which isn't working.

To be fair, I think most half decent tacticians on here could tell BR where he's going wrong this year.... lone TM(S) with very little (if any) vertical movement!

[RTHerringbone]

Which approach is more realistic do you think?

Imagine you have an injury crisis and your Raumdeuters are unavailable. What's the preference - use a non Raumdeuter capable player in that Role to see if he can interpret it and maintain the balance of the side, or do you use him in a Role he is suited for which risks unbalancing the system? Change everything to accommodate one player, or change nothing to see if the player can adapt.

It's much of a muchness, but I feel that the current implementation is better as users can go down either route. Some people already regard the coaches' assessment of a players' best Role to be gospel, so they possibly already play in this vein anyway.

[HamoudiLFC]

That would be really bad. I played a 4-3-3 with Leverkusen and Keissling up front but I wanted Drmic to be a starter, so I used him as a Raumdeuter. Everytime he found space from a brilliant ball from Calhanoglu/Castro he would be odds-on to finish it, because of the new role I implemented him in. I hated him being used from the centre at times, so I used Keissling as a DLFs or DFs to press the opp. defence and as soon as we win the ball Drmic is flying high and ready to go. I use Bellarabi as a CMa sometimes, when his stats are nothing like a central midfielders, but it worked. A runner from deep to add unpredictability and boom, goal.

[Cleon]

You have to remember that the role you choose doesn't determine how the player behave, it instructs him what you would like him to do. How well he can do the stuff you ask or how closely he follows the instructions set by the role and PI's all come down to the players attributes.

[El Presidente]

I think the OP is right in one way. There are some players that just wouldn't be able or want to play a certain role. Perhaps if a player clearly isn't suited to a role he could complain about it. For instance I'm quite sure if asked to be a target man with high balls coming at his head then Jermaine Defoe would complain about it.

[THOG]

I think people get too caught up in the role descriptions and labels when they're mostly just modifiers to player tendencies. Two different players in the same role will carry out that role in different ways, so there is a difference between the type of player you have generally and the role he is playing in a specific system. Playing Aguero as a target man won't turn him into Andy Carroll. It will just cause him to emphasise different principles and techniques in his individual decision making. The way this works is actually very flexible and opens up a lot of possibilities if you want to get creative. If you track down my World Cup thread from this summer, it has a lot of examples of how you can use roles in ways that may not seem obvious at first glance.

The Tactics Creator could do a much better job of explaining certain things, but I think roles strike the right balance of flexibility, abstraction and usability.

EDIT: And beyond that, you have PPMs representing, for better or worse, players who are less tactically flexible than others.

[kevin3]

I agree with the direction the OP is heading in, although I don't agree that the we, the user, should be restricted in the roles that we can give a player. Instead, I would suggest that certain players in real-life would have preferred roles (just like we have preferred moves) and non-preferred roles and this could be implemented in the game.

For example, Lionel Messi in real-life likes to be involved in build-up play a lot which is evidenced in the game by his "Comes deep to get ball" ppm. If he's playing as a striker, his preferred roles could be those that involve him dropping deep in the game such as "Deep-lying striker", "Trequartista," and "False nine". His non-preferred roles could be those that involve him leading the line and being a peripheral figure in the team's build-up play such as "Poacher", "Advanced Forward" or even "Target Man". If I play him in one of these roles, his morale might drop and he might come to me saying something like "I don't feel comfortable playing in the Target Man role. I feel my game is more suited as a false nine".

Another example could be Andrea Pirlo. Pirlo's preferred roles could be those that are based around him being the hub of the team such as "Deep-lying Playmaker" or "Regista". His non-preferred roles could be those that require high levels of stamina such as "Ball-winning midfielder" or "Box-to-box midfielder". If I was to play Pirlo as say a "Central Midfielder" or "Advanced Playmaker", it might not be one of his preferred roles, but he should be fine with it as long as it's not one of his non-preferred roles.

However, the biggest advantage of preferred roles could actually be to the AI tactics and transfers. In the game currently, every manager has preferred formations they like to use and also tactical attributes that relate to their style of play. This could be expanded upon to include preferred team instructions, as well as preferred and non-preferred roles, to replicate those managers that have a distinct tactical philosophy. For example, Tony Pulis likes to use team instructions such as "Go Route one", "Play Wider", "Get Stuck in" etc. In term of roles, he likes to use "Target-Man", "Wingers" and "Limited Defenders". He doesn't like use "Enganche", "Regista", "Trequartista" etc. This could be reflected in the types of players he would like to buy.

Another example could be Pep Guardiola. His preferred team instructions could be "Retain Possession", "Play out of defence", " Use Offside Trap", "Work Ball into Box" etc. His preferred roles could be "Ball-Playing Defender", "Inside Forward" and most of the play-making roles. His non-preferred roles could be "Ball-winning Midfielder", "Limited Defender", "Poacher", "Target-Man" etc.

I guess you could also add in a manager's preferred mentality and team-shape.

On a slightly different note, the game could also use triggers that change AI tactics based upon what tactics the opposition are using or the quality of team they are facing or whether they are playing home or away. Some of this may be already included in the game, but using Guardiola as an example again, he liked to use Busquets in the "Half-Back" role when facing 2-ST formations and in more of a "Defensive Midfielder" role when facing 1-striker formations. Also, some managers like to use 3-CB formations when facing 2-ST formations and 2-CB formations when facing 1-ST formations.

When the sliders were removed I missed the tactical customisation it allowed me, but I realise now that the massive benefit the removal of sliders has is for the development of AI tactics. It could allow AI mangers and players to have a more life-like tactical identity which could provide a greater variety of tactical match-ups and harder challenges for the user. It could also lead to the development of AI transfers with managers buying players that suit their own tactical philosophy.

[Dr. Hook]

Exactly my point - you should be able to play anyone anywhere in any role or duty (if you're daft enough), but them just not be that good if not being used appropriately.

Well that is exactly what happens with the current system, yeah? If the player doesn't have the attributes to pull of the instructions the role requires, he will not have a good day out there. I would argue that this is just how it works without needing to build in an extra penalty to playing a player outside his "preferred roles" or whatever we would call it.

[Scully11]

This has been bugging me for a while so I might as well get this off my chest.

I'm starting to have reservations about the whole direction the tactical system is going specifically how the players roles are being added and implemented.

I feel there are simply too many different roles for each position.

I also feel player roles should driven by the actual player rather than the tactic itself.

For example we can instruct any player to play any role at the moment. We can ask Jermaine Defoe to play as a target man. Sure, he wouldn't be very good at it but Jermaine Defoe is not a target man, he is what he is, which is probably a poacher.

I feel it would be better if a player came with a set role, maybe 2 and we could only utilise them in those roles.

If you want to play with a Target Man and a Poacher you have to make sure you have them in your squad or go and recruit them.

You want a box to box guy in midfield? Find one and buy one.

Sergio Aguero is what he is. Probably a Complete Forward. We shouldn't be able to influence his behaviour that much. I think the 'duties' are fine we can ask him to adjust his approach to the game to Attack, Support, Defend in his role, I think we should be able to make some input into his movement, move into channels, run wide etc but that's about it. You know what your getting when you buy him.

We shouldn't be able to ask David Silva to play as a ball winning midfielder.

This will make recruitment far more interesting, you will need to adjust your tactic each week according to whose fit, if you normally play with an advanced playmaker and they are all injured, your gonna have to come up with a new system to suit the players who are fit that week rather than simply 'shoe-horning' someone unsuitable into that role.

I think it would be more engaging, require more tactical flexibility, better planning and do away with the plug & play tactical approach where you use the same tactic, every game for years (of which i'm guilty of producing and releasing ).

I'm proposing you set up the formation and team instructions as you like, BUT THE PLAYER ROLES ARE DETERMINED BY THE PLAYERS YOU USE and NOT BY THE TACTIC.

Just adding new roles each year, like the Raumdeuter is a red herring, there's only one, and if you want him you have to go buy Muller.

Is there any support/thoughts on this?

Brilliantly said I would love this i already love the fact you have to scout nearly every player on the game now compared to the last game where you could see a lot of players attributes i know you could shroud them on other versions but i never did i played the game as it came. I love this idea and would love it to be implimented

[Mr U Rosler]

Brilliantly said I would love this i already love the fact you have to scout nearly every player on the game now compared to the last game where you could see a lot of players attributes i know you could shroud them on other versions but i never did i played the game as it came. I love this idea and would love it to be implimented

We're in a small minority

[shadowraiden90]

to me this essentially just screams i want the computer to do the tactics for me so i can just focus on buying players.

putting restrictions on those that play the game is a no no and a very quick way to essentially alienate your customers.

i can't say im 100% talking for everybody but i could imagine that if something like this was implemented it would hurt sales a huge amount as most would just boycott it.

people already went crazy over the amount of restrictions they have to put up with now due to removal of sliders and you're asking for even more restrictions.

also how would it then handle things like injuries etc for example in real life we see cb's become fullbacks or very versatile players who essentially could play any role if they wanted to like Lahm etc

also have you actually seen multiple players trying to play the same role they are never the same in how they play even with same role and PI's

when roles were first added many of us actually tried poachers as target men with the setting set to through balls instead of balls to their head etc and it worked even better then a poacher at times.

also it is more about the players around that should influence each role for example Hunterlaar many might consider him a targetman due to lack of pace but good arial ability but he can score a insane amount as a poacher even with no pace at all etc.

[Shakes]

I haven't made a transfer in since FM12 so I don't want to focus on buying players, and this sounds like the right direction to me. I want to focus on making the pieces fit with the players I have - at the moment players are just stat blocks, I want them to be more like real people.

As a manager I should get to set the general shape of the side - where I want players to be in attack, transition, defense. What happens from there should be on the players. If I want players to play a certain way I should have to find the shapes and the combinations of players to allow that to happen. Players should have far more personality - you should be able to put two different players in a AMLish position and despite asking them both to drop back defensively one will bust a gut getting back each and every time while another might laze around hoping to get on the end of a counter ball because that's just who he is, he wants to score because scorers get paid and doesn't give a rats how many you let in the other end.

Then you've got an interesting choice on your hands as a manager: do you play the guy who'll work hard but be largely just a work horse? Or do you risk the prima donna, knowing that some days you'll love him when he scores a hat track, and other days you'll hate him when his selfishness costs you the game? And when he does cost you the game, do the other players point the finger at him, creating a dressing room rift? They're the sorts of things that are the real magic of team sports to me and that FM doesn't currently capture at all well, and I think changing the tactic system to be a much more free form expression of the players, rather than a manager moving battle pieces in a war game, is a much needed step in this direction.

[Football Manager.]

I think you should have that right though to play in your example Jermaine Defoe as a target man if you so wish to do so there is nobody that can tell you you can't in real life so it shouldn't be the case here if you're referring to realism. How many times do we see managers have a set style and system and fit existing players into that system however square they are to the round hole?

Remember when Stuart Pearce threw David James upfront instead of Jon macken a few years back!? As I said no matter how ridiculous it is the player of the game in my opinion should be able to do what ever they want and I know people would say exactly this ^ if it was done.

Anyway hope you enjoy it more than you're seeming to rosler and hope to see some more of your hilarious tactics that defy all "logic" given to people in the tactics forum and storm through to success at all levels.

[Mr U Rosler]

I think you should have that right though to play in your example Jermaine Defoe as a target man if you so wish to do so there is nobody that can tell you you can't in real life so it shouldn't be the case here if you're referring to realism. How many times do we see managers have a set style and system and fit existing players into that system however square they are to the round hole?

Remember when Stuart Pearce threw David James upfront instead of Jon macken a few years back!? As I said no matter how ridiculous it is the player of the game in my opinion should be able to do what ever they want and I know people would say exactly this ^ if it was done.

Anyway hope you enjoy it more than you're seeming to rosler and hope to see some more of your hilarious tactics that defy all "logic" given to people in the tactics forum and storm through to success at all levels.

Hopefully the Tactics will be back, when the ME settles down

[Stackalee]

Not sure I understand the point of this, are you suggesting hard capping player roles based on what researchers decide the real life role of each individual player is? Seems like player roles are already basically soft capped by ppms and attributes really, also if this was implemented you can be sure you'd be able to train players to play in new roles, so it'd just be another hoop to jump through/6 months of hassle to get tactics working properly. I'd rather see the game go the other way and give control back to the manager personally, much prefered sliders to seeing a couple new roles added every season dressed up as content.

[LCpl]

The game already details a players best roles, the opportunity to use him in a different way to 'throw a spanner' into a game is an option that should b available.

I've certainly, in response to match situation, used roles that are not the obvious choice but are necessary for the players on the pitch to grind out a result.

[sporadicsmiles]

Although I appreciate where you are coming from, it is a plain terrible idea. I often purposely play players in a role that is not exactly what they are best at, but which will complement their PPMs to get what I want from them. I am likely sacrificing a small amount of performance from a player, but I am gaining a greater control over how I play. This flexibility is what makes the game interesting and why so many people can create such a wide variety of excellent tactics, the system you propose would take that away.

A further flaw would be what do you have to do when there are injuries to your team, meaning your first choice player is out. Imagine you lose the only person in your team who can play as a DLF, and have to play a more attacking forward despite knowing this is to the detriment of the team. You would literally have to change your entire style of play to accommodate a single player into a system, even if that player is a backup. This is not how it works in real life.

The biggest flaw, thought, is that there is no reason you should not be able to tell a player to attempt to play a role as you see fit. This has been mentioned many times above, but it is key. If I decide I want to play with a CM(A) or a regista in a particular game then I should be able to. In real life you would imagine taking a player aside, explaining what you need, and practising in training. This is even replicated somewhat in FM, where you can get a player to focus on a particular role. In FM, this means his stats that are involved in that role go up, in real life it just means he grows accustomed to what is expected of the new role.

I guess in conclusion, there is not much wrong with the current system in this regard. If you play a player in a role he will obviously suck at (Defoe as a TM, as you say), he will suck. That is already pretty realistic to me.

[RichS24]

i love Mr U Rosler tactical guides, and like the way he thinks through how the ME is influencing the game, and i had a certain amount of understanding of where he was coming from. but football is about the randomness that comes from the unpredicatability of the humans playing it. If two players with the exactly the same technical stats who were primarliy poachers pla the position in the same way? no, because their behavoural attributes would influence how they play. then if you ask them both to play as a defensive wingers, one might handle it the other might not. the closest i can come to that example in real life would be Suarez and Aguero (although Suarez is prob more than a poacher). pretty hot at what they do scoring goals, but their personality would restrict one more than the other in performing a more defensive role.

good thought provocation though Mr Rosler

[JD nawrat]

With all due respect, this is a pretty bad idea imo.

The whole point of a game like Football Manager is that you make the decisions; you decide the important things.

To use your example - Defoe is NOT a target man, so if you try to play him as a Target Man, he will likely fail miserably at the role. He hasn't got the attributes to play that role. Why do we need the game to restrict our choice of Defoe's role, when his attributes (or lack of certain attributes) more or less decide that for us anyway?

And what of regens? What if I get a striker through my youths who develops to Passing 20, Vision 20, Flair 20 and Dribbling 20 and the game decides, "Oh this guy is a Ball Winning Midfielder"? I can't play him as an AP/A despite being the manager because...?

Attributes and PPMs already influence players and how we play them, so why do we need a restriction on player roles on top of that? Not sure I see the sense here, I'm afraid. Silva isn't a BWM, you're absolutely right. If I play him as a BWM, he will do badly. He's restricted by his own abilities/attributes/PPMs.

e: also disagree with suggestions in this thread that SI have been 'simplifying the tactics system' for years. It's becoming better and better and the more roles the better, as it provides more variety and is truer to life. Sliders weren't realistic in any way, if anything the move away from a slider system is the opposite of simplification of the tactic system...

[Stackalee]

e: also disagree with suggestions in this thread that SI have been 'simplifying the tactics system' for years. It's becoming better and better and the more roles the better, as it provides more variety and is truer to life. Sliders weren't realistic in any way, if anything the move away from a slider system is the opposite of simplification of the tactic system...

Heard this a lot at the time, don't see it. There are many less roles available in FM tactics now, the few that still exist just have names; I'd be pretty suprised if the sliders aren't still around just the player can no longer see them and each pre defined role is a setup of those. The idea that telling a player he's going to be 20% more attacking today is somehow less realistic than telling him that today you expect him to play with an attack duty, or as a raumdeuter, seems odd to me. I'm sure there were plenty of good reasons to remove sliders (eg. preventing players from breaking match engines by limiting their control), but realism was more an excuse than a reason.