Open letter to SI: The Realism or Without Arrows

[shevelevee]

Would man-marking their CM or AM help?

If my opponent will have three AMC it will help only him)))

[fuego]

Hallo,

I am also worried about the removal of the arrows. After reading this thread I’m convinced of the validity of Wwfm’s argumentations. I also agree with him when he writes that a width/drift slider would be now (very very) appreciated.

Anyhow my impression is that the attacking phase can be successfully managed without arrows while I’m more sceptic about the defensive situations. In this case back/lateral arrows were very useful and realistic: a coach can perfectly ask to a midfielder for instance to move to a REASONABLY different position in non-possession situations. And even more when the team is playing with 10 against 11.

Sounds this reasonable?

Then plying the demo I had a surprise: “vertical arrows” are still there only the lateral ones are missing.

If I have well understood these arrows have anyway no influence on the tactic only team and players instructions are valid. Correct?

bye.

[Dukesh]

I hope SI have realized, that wwfan is tactical zero. Dear wwfan, i wish you best in your communication company, but please don't be a "tactical expert" for SI. I cancelled my pre-order FM09. I will not run this game, even somebody could pay me for that. The main reason "more realistic" © me. Bye bye

[Dukesh]

P.S.

Thank you for burying the game I play since 1997

RIP

[stonini90]

bring back the arrows.

[Black Spider]

Ugh, what a topic. Reading all the way through this sucker was actually quite a challenge, and not just because of the length. Anyway, I don't mean to portray myself as a tactical genius and I'm not a massive FM expert either. I've played the crap out of CM 2001/02 but anything after that never really caught my fancy for various reasons.

Having said this about myself, I feel the need to comment. Mainly, OH NOES, DA ARROWZ R GONZ!!!!!11 Yeah, it sounds bad, but if the SI staff as well as the recident beta test geeks (no offense) around here are right in what the old arrows did, then the old arrows had to die. Everybody seems to be able to agree about this, even the Russians. Buggy positioning serves nobody all that well.

What does seems to be the issue is lateral movement. That's sideways movement or "from flank to center" and "from center to flank" movement, for those who dislike the word lateral. This issue has been recognised by pretty much everybody. WWfan has acknowledged it, that other tactics tester (sorry, I suck badly at recalling names ) has argued in favor of lateral control, even the SI staffers seem to acknowledge it.

Allow me to summarise:

There is no disagreement that there is a need for improved sideways control.

Pardon the shouting, but given recent comments, it seemed like something that had to be said. Now, since we all know and agree about this need for improvement, why isn't it in FM09? I'll go out on a limb and venture the guess that they simply couldn't put something functional in before hitting the deadline. It's the old issue between fancy features that don't really work and mess a lot of things up by merely being there vs researched and tested features that mostly work.

Instead of complaining about how what little lateral (sideways) control we do have is a fair bit lacking and decidedly unintuitive, let's look at what we can do. We can tell people to move up and down the pitch and support either the offense and the defense. That's half the functionality of the old arrows right there. You want a midfielder to become a forward-in-the-hole? That's possible? You want to tell Bosingwa to support the attack? That's possible. You want to make Joe Cole work as a link up attacking player rather than an out and out winger? That's possible. You can do such things.

What can't we do? Well, we can't really tell players to move sideways, though we can sort of trick them into doing it. PPMs can do something and crossing can apparently do something as well. Unintuitive, as I said, but we'll have to make due with what we get, won't we?

The obviously conclusion at this point would be that functionality has been lost. When we lose some sort of tactical command and get "nothing" in return, something generally is lost, right? Then again, what did we really lose? Effectively, we lost the ability to say "you there, run like a headless chicken to that position, disregarding *everything* around you, and then start playing that position for as long as we have possession, then the moment we lose possession you sprint right back to where you were!"

Let's consider how often that command should be used? How often do we want to tell players to do that? Not really that often. Generally, we don't at all want to tell players to ignore the world around them. God knows they're already prone enough to do that without us telling them.

What did we get in return? Nothing on the surface, but I'm guessing there's been a whole lot of internal tweaking and it would seem the result is actually Footie Sims who go about their jobs of playing football rather than robot chickens who simply run about in strange patterns. The engine is now able to actually simulate players making decisions and positioning themselves "intelligently". That's a plus, is it not? It's a positive thing when instead of detailing how eleven players move under all circumstances, you simply tell people to attack and the players translate to the best of their abilities? That's like real life, isn't it?

You tell Lampard and Gerrard to play in the same midfield and they cancel each other out by getting in each others way all the time and not building up for one another. You'd think even Svennie could have wibble/wobbled that issue away, no? Sadly, for English people at least, reality doens't quite work like that. Managers instruct, but they don't outright control. Believe me, as a Dane I'd have liked them to do so, because then Poulsen wouldn't have knocked Rosenberg in the chest and we'd have drawn with those damn Swedish buggers instead of losing.

This far, I'm actually reasonably sure that most of the pro-arrow crowd largely agrees with me. The argument hasin fact been that SI should have reworked arrows instead of removing them. I'm sure we'd all have liked to see that, as visual interfaces are indeed very lovely, especially for those of us who aren't able to mentally form equations over some 120 different sliders (10 for each of the 11 players + the team sliders) as well as a good number of checkbox or drop-down box options.

The answer to this complaint, I'm guessing, is that simply reworking arrows isn't remotely as simple as it sounds and unless we want FM 09 to become FM 09½ or FM10, that rework simply has to wait. Of couse, the only real additional functionality you'd get from this visual interface would presumably be increased control over sideways player movement, which leads us right back to the shouted summary above.

Let's do some non-financial cost/benefit thinking, just for the heck of it. Does this "loss of control" hurt tactical options? To some extent, yes. There are situations where it's genuinely useful to have a player change position, even if it means moving to the new position with his head up his backside. On the other hand, most of that can be replicated, and what little that can't be replicated is traded for an engine where one setting isn't systematically abused and where that abuse is causing a number of features to work poorly or not at all.

Without this particular feature, the positional arrows, the abuse of the feature is obviously gone. Other forms of abuse may well remain. We don't know yet. What we do know is that without the arrows around to force players to shove their heads up their backsides, the players are acting a whole lot more like players. Save for sideways movement. Am I the only one sensing a recurring theme somewhere?

Oh yes, sideways movement. It's a problem. It's been said so repeatedly from both sides of the fence. Everything else works better, since the match engine now has less instruction conflicts to deal with. Note the word. "Less", not "none", but fewer than it had with the arrows. That is where the improvement comes from, Russians. It may be a suboptimal solution in a perfect world to cut the bugged feature, but in our current imperfect world with massive deadline issues it seems more and more like a very rational decision to cut out a feature that is being horribly misunderstood and abused by just about everybody, does it not?

Now, I'd like to apologise if I'm out of line. I'm a total rookie around here and I don't know the actual tone I'm supposed to be using. I tend to be a bit of a hillbilly in my choice of words and so the odd bit of blunt language typically ends up where more eloquent and formal wording might have been preferable. I don't mean to flame, offend, troll, **** on, suck reproductional organs on, or in any way bother any individual users. I merely felt like making a few comments in a topic that is alread much too long.

In closing, if I may make a suggestion to the Russians, it would be to dig up someone who actually speaks both Russian and English and have him be a focused point of communication. Your cause really isn't helped any by having a handful of you guys getting stupidly frustrated, possibly resulting in crybaby nonsense like that stuff Dukesh just posted. There's nothing wrong with passion, but it won't bring you anywhere in debates. You can't "passion" your way through without pressenting rational arguments. It just doesn't work like that. Stay calm, focus on the issues and possible solutions, and do try not to make obvious insults of anyone.

[wwfan]

Arguably the best opening post by any poster, ever

Welcome to the forums.

[ianmforbes]

Now I see why they have dropped the arrows. No one understands them.

The arrows let you change the shape of your team, which is a good thing. With arrows, you could play a 4-5-1 when defending, and 4-3-3 when attacking. I'm disappointed that they took this away. Chelsea, under Scolari, play a 4-1-4-1 while defending, and switch to a 2-1-4-3 when attacking. (that would be farrows on the WBs, AND forward runs often as they try to overlap all the time).

Althaz

Rafa: "Ok, Steve, I need you to play central midfield when we are defending. But, when we have the ball I want you to sit behind the forwards, in-between the other team's midfield and defence (Forward arrow, mixed forward runs) don't try to get behind the defenders in to the box looking for a through ball, I need you to make yourself available so you can feed the ball in to the forwards, and make plays from an AM role"

Steve: "You mean play 2 positions like what Joe Cole does for Chelsea? You know, how he plays as a RM when defending, and a Right Winger when in possession?"

Rafa: "That's right"

To give someone farrows, but set forward runs to rarely or mixed, is to tell them to move in to position "B" when in attack, but not try to make runs beyond the defender, looking for the through ball. Ie. Move here, but make yourself available for a pass.

At least, that's how I understood the tactics in 08. I haven't stated 09 yet.

Is this not how the arrows worked?

As for the fatigue issue. Yes, I played a formation where both of my CM tried to make forward runs often (look to get behind the defence, great for when the ball is out on the wing) but had barrows to DM positions. They were both knackered by the end of the match because I had them running up and down. I would then susbtitute them, or have them stop making forward runs when I had the lead. what's wrong with that?

[Sp3aker]

I'm an avid Fm fan and i have followed the series for years. I followed FM because it put it's game play first and foremost.

In FM09, with the 3d match engine (which is terrible) and it's terribly sllow loading speeds and lack of tactical deoth, i am very dissapointed.

The tactics on FM09 are the most dissappointing aspect (although there ar emany others), but to be honest, i played the game for 3 hours fater i've bough it and i was so dissapointed i haven't touched it since.

[jayahr]

Arguably the best opening post by any poster, ever

Welcome to the forums.

Seconded

*impressed*

edit: For the lack of sarrows I really would like to see more expansive width options. Playing a narrow defense while still telling the offense to have a wide play is something I would like to be able to give as an instruction

[PhroX]

Now I see why they have dropped the arrows. No one understands them.

Not everyone, but most people, including....

Rafa: "Ok, Steve, I need you to play central midfield when we are defending. But, when we have the ball I want you to sit behind the forwards, in-between the other team's midfield and defence (Forward arrow, mixed forward runs) don't try to get behind the defenders in to the box looking for a through ball, I need you to make yourself available so you can feed the ball in to the forwards, and make plays from an AM role"

Steve: "You mean play 2 positions like what Joe Cole does for Chelsea? You know, how he plays as a RM when defending, and a Right Winger when in possession?"

Rafa: "That's right"

To give someone farrows, but set forward runs to rarely or mixed, is to tell them to move in to position "B" when in attack, but not try to make runs beyond the defender, looking for the through ball. Ie. Move here, but make yourself available for a pass.

At least, that's how I understood the tactics in 08. I haven't stated 09 yet.

Is this not how the arrows worked?

Nope, that's not how the arrows worked. It's more like this:

Rafa: "Ok, Steve, I need you to play central midfield when we are defending. But, when we have the ball I want you to run forward to the attacking midfield position every time, regardless of the situation, and while you're running forwards, I want you to completely ignore the rest of the game. Don't pay attention to where the ball is, don't pay attention to where the rest of our team is, don't pay attention to the opposition, just get yourself into the AM position. And then, when we lose the ball, I want you to totally ignore the game until you're back in the center of the pitch."

Steve: "But what happens if we lose the ball and the opposition player with it is right next to me, shall I tackle him?"

Rafa: "No! Even if the opposition player with the ball is standing right next to you, I want you to ignore him until you're back in your starting position. WHen you're changing position, NOTHING ELSE MATTERS!"

Sounds stupid? It was.

The arrows let you change the shape of your team, which is a good thing. With arrows, you could play a 4-5-1 when defending, and 4-3-3 when attacking. I'm disappointed that they took this away. Chelsea, under Scolari, play a 4-1-4-1 while defending, and switch to a 2-1-4-3 when attacking. (that would be farrows on the WBs, AND forward runs often as they try to overlap all the time).

The arrows let you change your shape in an unrealistic forced manner which was a bad thing. Chelsea, under Scolari, do indeed usually switch to a 2-1-4-3ish formation when attacking, but they don't blindly run into those positions irregardless of the situation.

I'm using a 4.2.3.1 formation, with 3 tactics at the present: Defense, Balanced and Attack. The fullbacks are set up with low mentality & rare FWR, medium mentality & mixed FWR, high mentality & often FWD respectively. On the defensive formation, they stay back level with the DCs *nearly* all the time, occasionally drifting forwards if the situation requires. On the balanced formation, when we have possesion, they play further up the pitch, roughly level with my central midfield. On the attacking one, they play almost like wide forwards at times, getting right up the pitch, and when the ball is on one flank, the other FB is often attacking the back post for the cross. No problems at all setting up a system similar to what arrows did, except it's far more realistic and flexible - players don't mindlessly change position.

I'm not syaing the current solution is perfect. In terms of individual player width, more options would be nice, but it terms of forward/backwards movement, it's lightyears beyond the old system. Play around with it, try things out. There might be less options, but you can do far more with the options you have.

[stonini90]

bring back the with or without ball setup

[shevelevee]

Oh yes, sideways movement. It's a problem. It's been said so repeatedly from both sides of the fence. Everything else works better, since the match engine now has less instruction conflicts to deal with. Note the word. "Less", not "none", but fewer than it had with the arrows.

M8, if I say, that

a) "training shedules" is mystification and don't work

b) "individual creative freedom" is mystification and don't work

c) "Give Player a Rest option" is mystification and don't work

d) "Coaching attributes" is mystification and don't work

Can you believe me? Is this "less control" or "none control"? When you saw the point, I saw the direction, and that's the main problem

I can translate and post here tests about a), c), and d) points, but I can't prove b) point, because SI will ban me for usin illegal methods, which were used, when we test some sliders effectivity using .pkm file.

[Barkermush]

I miss the old arrows, Getting players forward when we have the ball and getting certian players back when we do not have the ball. Plus when ever i got sent down to 10 men i made it 3 tight at the back with side arrows on the 2 full backs to spread out. But now i can not do that anymore i have to play with just 3 tight because 2 open if i play with the 2 full backs where the side arrow used to go

I used to feel reasured with those arrows but not anymore.

[TriAn]

There is still some life here. )

One post really costs to be answered.

Ugh, what a topic. Reading all the way through this sucker was actually quite a challenge, and not just because of the length. Anyway, I don't mean to portray myself as a tactical genius and I'm not a massive FM expert either. I've played the crap out of CM 2001/02 but anything after that never really caught my fancy for various reasons.

Having said this about myself, I feel the need to comment. Mainly, OH NOES, DA ARROWZ R GONZ!!!!!11 Yeah, it sounds bad, but if the SI staff as well as the recident beta test geeks (no offense) around here are right in what the old arrows did, then the old arrows had to die. Everybody seems to be able to agree about this, even the Russians. Buggy positioning serves nobody all that well.

If they right in what the old arrows did, then the old arrows had to die before they were born. )

What does seems to be the issue is lateral movement. That's sideways movement or "from flank to center" and "from center to flank" movement, for those who dislike the word lateral. This issue has been recognised by pretty much everybody. WWfan has acknowledged it, that other tactics tester (sorry, I suck badly at recalling names ) has argued in favor of lateral control, even the SI staffers seem to acknowledge it.

Despite a seeming loss of lateral control, which, as with most arrow-related moves, was largely illusory, the new system ensures dynamic player movement, fluid football and realistic transitions from defence to attack.

TT&F'09

All I see here is “which was largery illusory” instead of some serious concern about it.

Allow me to summarise:

There is no disagreement that there is a need for improved sideways control.

The problem is that this is not all.

It was called unreallistic to have two different formations for attack and defence phases. I don’t know, may be TVs have been taken away from them. But this was said. )

And these nice little side arrows. What was wrong with them? Is there any reason of their absence in the game?

There were times when I thought that one day the next step closer to reality should be done and it will be possible to use two fully separated formations for attack and defence without any arrows. (For those who hasn’t understood: as example to play completely symmetric 442 and 343 in defence and attack, respectively). Step was made but in another direction.

Pardon the shouting, but given recent comments, it seemed like something that had to be said. Now, since we all know and agree about this need for improvement, why isn't it in FM09? I'll go out on a limb and venture the guess that they simply couldn't put something functional in before hitting the deadline. It's the old issue between fancy features that don't really work and mess a lot of things up by merely being there vs researched and tested features that mostly work.

From what times users should guess and assume, what developers meant? )

Instead of complaining about how what little lateral (sideways) control we do have is a fair bit lacking and decidedly unintuitive, let's look at what we can do. We can tell people to move up and down the pitch and support either the offense and the defense. That's half the functionality of the old arrows right there.

Even my rather thoroughly forgotten knowledge in the mathematics speaks to me that it’s only ¼ or less. )

You want a midfielder to become a forward-in-the-hole? That's possible? You want to tell Bosingwa to support the attack? That's possible. You want to make Joe Cole work as a link up attacking player rather than an out and out winger? That's possible. You can do such things.

Now I should write here my row of what I can not and there will be only your words against my words and nothing more.

What can't we do? Well, we can't really tell players to move sideways, though we can sort of trick them into doing it. PPMs can do something and crossing can apparently do something as well. Unintuitive, as I said, but we'll have to make due with what we get, won't we?

PPMs is not tactical tool. I cann’t play this match with certain PPM and the next one without it.

Crossing? Ok. I want player to go wide and don’t cross. Dilemma. )

The obviously conclusion at this point would be that functionality has been lost. When we lose some sort of tactical command and get "nothing" in return, something generally is lost, right? Then again, what did we really lose? Effectively, we lost the ability to say "you there, run like a headless chicken to that position, disregarding *everything* around you, and then start playing that position for as long as we have possession, then the moment we lose possession you sprint right back to where you were!"

Let's consider how often that command should be used? How often do we want to tell players to do that? Not really that often. Generally, we don't at all want to tell players to ignore the world around them. God knows they're already prone enough to do that without us telling them.

Unstoppable performance of multiarrowed tactics tells me that “headless chickens” won the battle and proved to be more effective than “headed ones”. )))

You are confusing idea and realization. Not the best realization of corners don’t mean that there is the need to remove them. And once again what was common between side arrows and “headless chickens”? Still no loss of functionality?

What did we get in return? Nothing on the surface, but I'm guessing there's been a whole lot of internal tweaking and it would seem the result is actually Footie Sims who go about their jobs of playing football rather than robot chickens who simply run about in strange patterns. The engine is now able to actually simulate players making decisions and positioning themselves "intelligently". That's a plus, is it not? It's a positive thing when instead of detailing how eleven players move under all circumstances, you simply tell people to attack and the players translate to the best of their abilities? That's like real life, isn't it?

I’m afraid that no. Modern football is much more organized than you think. Certainly, not in that comical kind which has caused analogy to a headless chicken. And of course the first thing needed by a player on the pitch is his head. But nevertheless the answer is no.

You tell Lampard and Gerrard to play in the same midfield and they cancel each other out by getting in each others way all the time and not building up for one another. You'd think even Svennie could have wibble/wobbled that issue away, no? Sadly, for English people at least, reality doens't quite work like that. Managers instruct, but they don't outright control. Believe me, as a Dane I'd have liked them to do so, because then Poulsen wouldn't have knocked Rosenberg in the chest and we'd have drawn with those damn Swedish buggers instead of losing.

If Lampard and Gerrard still will be canceling each other on WC2010 I’ll eat my hat (which I actually don’t have of course). )

All that I can suggest here is to believe in Don Fabio’s abilities.

This far, I'm actually reasonably sure that most of the pro-arrow crowd largely agrees with me. The argument hasin fact been that SI should have reworked arrows instead of removing them. I'm sure we'd all have liked to see that, as visual interfaces are indeed very lovely, especially for those of us who aren't able to mentally form equations over some 120 different sliders (10 for each of the 11 players + the team sliders) as well as a good number of checkbox or drop-down box options.

The answer to this complaint, I'm guessing, is that simply reworking arrows isn't remotely as simple as it sounds and unless we want FM 09 to become FM 09½ or FM10, that rework simply has to wait. Of couse, the only real additional functionality you'd get from this visual interface would presumably be increased control over sideways player movement, which leads us right back to the shouted summary above.

May be it costs to announce such things in advance. )

Let's do some non-financial cost/benefit thinking, just for the heck of it. Does this "loss of control" hurt tactical options? To some extent, yes. There are situations where it's genuinely useful to have a player change position, even if it means moving to the new position with his head up his backside. On the other hand, most of that can be replicated, and what little that can't be replicated is traded for an engine where one setting isn't systematically abused and where that abuse is causing a number of features to work poorly or not at all.

Without this particular feature, the positional arrows, the abuse of the feature is obviously gone. Other forms of abuse may well remain. We don't know yet. What we do know is that without the arrows around to force players to shove their heads up their backsides, the players are acting a whole lot more like players. Save for sideways movement. Am I the only one sensing a recurring theme somewhere?

Yes, you are right. It sounds like you are repeating the same.

Oh yes, sideways movement. It's a problem. It's been said so repeatedly from both sides of the fence. Everything else works better, since the match engine now has less instruction conflicts to deal with. Note the word. "Less", not "none", but fewer than it had with the arrows. That is where the improvement comes from, Russians.

Improvements in positional defending can not be linked with arrows because they take place when one team constantly has posession. Improvements linked with removing arrows has right name. And this name is hidden imperfections. So it’s very unlikely that all improvements come from removing of arrows. )

It may be a suboptimal solution in a perfect world to cut the bugged feature, but in our current imperfect world with massive deadline issues it seems more and more like a very rational decision to cut out a feature that is being horribly misunderstood and abused by just about everybody, does it not?

May be but only if users know why it was made that way.

Now, I'd like to apologise if I'm out of line. I'm a total rookie around here and I don't know the actual tone I'm supposed to be using. I tend to be a bit of a hillbilly in my choice of words and so the odd bit of blunt language typically ends up where more eloquent and formal wording might have been preferable. I don't mean to flame, offend, troll, **** on, suck reproductional organs on, or in any way bother any individual users. I merely felt like making a few comments in a topic that is alread much too long.

I think the reading of the entire topic excuses any length of post. ))

In closing, if I may make a suggestion to the Russians, it would be to dig up someone who actually speaks both Russian and English and have him be a focused point of communication. Your cause really isn't helped any by having a handful of you guys getting stupidly frustrated, possibly resulting in crybaby nonsense like that stuff Dukesh just posted. There's nothing wrong with passion, but it won't bring you anywhere in debates. You can't "passion" your way through without pressenting rational arguments. It just doesn't work like that. Stay calm, focus on the issues and possible solutions, and do try not to make obvious insults of anyone.

It’s very nice to suggest something to speakers of another language in the end of very long post. )

There is another one misunderstanding. There is no something like Russian point of view on this. People who think that all is nice with fm09 hasn’t any need to write here. Everyone express his own opinion. Nobody can be responsible for all others. Now, when it’s clear, I can say that your idea is simply unrealizable.

And about staying calm.

If it is impossible to get your player to do exactly as you want, it will be for one of three reasons:

1: It's a bug (which you can then report)

2: It is unrealistic (which you can then argue)

3: Your tactical settings are wrong (which you can then ask about)

After such things it’s really hard. May be, if it has been told by someone like Sir Alex or Marcelo Lippi I would fall in awe and kiss the ground. I don’t sure. But in this case it doesn’t work. )

[Mitja]

b) "individual creative freedom" is mystification and don't work

you're not the first who's been saying that. only team creative freedom works?

[shevelevee]

you're not the first who's been saying that. only team creative freedom works?

Yes, only team

[Mitja]

Yes, only team

are you sure?

[shevelevee]

May be I'm not sure, but I must believe those mathematics methods, which were using during tests.

[KDR]

Individual CF works OK for me. I also have few probs getting my LM/W to go in-field - he is an AM L/C so he plays strictly in a position if I take away his CF, and because he is more naturally an AMC, with normal-high CF he will come into his 'natural' position.

My RM/W can do the same. He is natural in both RW and CM positions. With normal-high CF, he will come inside. If I don't want this, I limit his CF or play my out-and-out RW, whose only natural position is down the wing. Because his PPM says 'Runs down the right', that is what he does 99% of the time.

Even so, there are times when the player does thing I do not want or expect him to do. This is because of the decisions stat and also his intelligence. A thick player will not know which move to make in relation to the game situation; an intelligent player will, but will not be infallible.

In any game situation, players will behave more or less like players, i.e. human beings.

As for the arguments saying about arrows on boards...is there anyone left using them? Even my last Sunday morning parks manager had rigged himself a magnetic board up out of the side of an old fridge with a Subbuteo pitch glued to it, and magnets painted two colours that he'd got out of a pack of magnetized letters his missus had bought for the kids!

He just said 'When we have the ball, I want you to do this *if you can*'. When we lose the ball, I want you to drop back to form two banks of four' (or whatever). As a forward, I was expected to press the ball/player in possession on the left side. The other forward did the same on the right. We had to buy the players time to form up. If the CM or winger had gone ahead of us, we knew enough to fill the hole, which meant the most advanced player then pressed on that side. When the ball went out of play, we resumed our normal 'shape'. Under NO circumstances did we ignore the game situation to blindly run forwards, backwards, or side-to-side. If we had, the boss would not have been happy and would have reamed us for not having the brains to see what the situation demanded.

So far, this is what I am seeing most often in FM09. In 08, I was seeing players do stupid things rather than the most logical, according to overall instructions.

I no longer concede so many stupid goals by getting caught wide-open down the wings because of the farrows, and my players will close down according to the team instruction.

[shevelevee]

Individual CF works OK for me. I also have few probs getting my LM/W to go in-field - he is an AM L/C so he plays strictly in a position if I take away his CF, and because he is more naturally an AMC, with normal-high CF he will come into his 'natural' position.

My RM/W can do the same. He is natural in both RW and CM positions. With normal-high CF, he will come inside. If I don't want this, I limit his CF or play my out-and-out RW, whose only natural position is down the wing. Because his PPM says 'Runs down the right', that is what he does 99% of the time.

M8, that's what you want to see. If I ask you "What do you do, when your players are very tired?", you'll say "I reduce training workload, or give player a rest". And you'll be absolutely convinced that it will help. But after testing this area of the game using RTE like FMM, I saw that it is wrong point. Absolutely wrong. Honestly, can you believe in this?

[Ainu]

May be I'm not sure, but I must believe those mathematics methods, which were using during tests.

How could you ever put the results of the creative freedom slider into mathematics? How do you single out the specific effects of only that slider from the dozens of other factors that come into play? I'm extremely sceptical about this, and would very much appreciate a link to said tests.

[footynut]

Some of the use of arrows were completely unrealistic so I was in favour of not being able to use them but then again some were completely realistic and I think we have lost some control without them.

For instance the sideways arrows were particularly useful to get your full backs to tuck in more and cover the centre backs particularly if you were playing with a high width setting. This was a good tactic to use against teams using fast strikers and balls in behind your defence.

Now it seems there is no way to do get your full backs to play narrower than your wingers.

[Mitja]

Now it seems there is no way to do get your full backs to play a narrower than your wingers.

yes it is. tight man marking. they stick to centre backs a lot.

[footynut]

yes it is. tight man marking. they stick to centre backs a lot.

Sorry, I don't understand this. Why would a full back stick to his own centre back if you've asked him to go man for man with an opponent?

[shevelevee]

Any updates? Any news about possibility to tell players to cut inside?

[Aaron_AO]

arrows were open to abuse.

good one from SI but now i'd like to see a couple of more tactical customisations... e.g. easier set piece routines etc.