Mentality Importance

[edhdurham]

I kinda ask this last year as well, but with the tactical changes this year how important is the mentality?  For example I am playing with a fluid counter, which is cautious by default, does it really matter whether I change that to Positive or Attacking for games where I am the stronger team / favourites...  last year I tried to play defensive counter attacking football and just tweaked instructions where applicable, never really had much success but wondered if it would work this year.

If you look at teams like Atletico Madrid, they are solid at the back and counter with pace, they dont ever really change from that other than playing different types of players in certain positions and tweaking certain instructions.

[Experienced Defender]

Mentality is always important, and it does matter when you change it. But other tactical settings matter too. 

[Jedi5diah]

Conflicting Mentality if it is not used with "the right roles"

playing positive with counter (more players have to be with Atk/Sup role)
playing cautious with counter (more players have to be with Def role)

my question is the relevance of team mentality when i have already setup the roles for my tactic, am i just choosing the right mentality so that the tactic does not break or the individual roles will superceed team instructions vice verse

[Cleon]

Mentality is not tied to the roles/duties you use in the way you think it is. The mentality changes how the role functions slightly. You can use any role/duty on any mentality. There is no 'use X number of support/attacking roles for this specific mentality etc. Mentality isn't something that conflicts because it adjusts the base of the role you use.

[zemaniano85]

@Cleon this is really interesting... So if a role, let say fullback on support has an individual mentality cautious, and another positive but the same PI hold position, what the difference will be in the ME? Thanks 

[Rashidi]

6 hours ago, zemaniano85 said:

@Cleon this is really interesting... So if a role, let say fullback on support has an individual mentality cautious, and another positive but the same PI hold position, what the difference will be in the ME? Thanks 

Play it and find out yourself

[edhdurham]

Is it true that mentality is just a risk slider, positive = take more risks, cautious = less, there are a few YouTube videos claiming that...  If that's true there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to keep the mentality (cautious) the same for every game and just tweek the roles or instructions...  or will the game expect me to be more positive when I am the stronger team?

[Experienced Defender]

53 minutes ago, edhdurham said:

Is it true that mentality is just a risk slider, positive = take more risks, cautious = less, there are a few YouTube videos claiming that...  If that's true there is no reason why I shouldn't be able to keep the mentality (cautious) the same for every game and just tweek the roles or instructions...  or will the game expect me to be more positive when I am the stronger team?

It is true that mentality involves the "risk" factor in the sense that a higher mentality encourages players to make more forward passes, more speculative shots, to put more crosses into the box etc., but it would be too simplistic to reduce it just to the level of risk-taking.

The game don't expect you to be either positive or "negative" (i.e. cautious). You can even intentionally play on a more cautious mentality against weaker teams in order to try and draw them out of their solid defensive shape and then hit them on the counter if you cannot break them down through regular attacking.

[edhdurham]

OK so if I have a tactic that works on cautious, but changing to positive doesnt just make it work better from an attacking point of view (which I guessed was would be the case as some of the roles would need to be amended as well) I can just play cautious / fluid counter and try and find the best way of making my team better at breaking down the opposition via TI rather than just trying to be more attacking overall.

[Dfs]

There is a great tool made by @fmFutbolManager that shows how players' mentality changes based on their duty and overall team mentality. If u google fm mentality calculator its easy to find. I found it very useful and I hope its not a problem I revommend it.

[summatsupeer]

Roles and duties are the most important thing IMO, that builds the combinations and what your players focus is. This is where you can fix/tweak individual/combination issues.

Mentality is separate but almost as important since it will affect everything. This is were you modify the team as a whole.  Just going standard to control/positive will make a lot of changes, jumping multiple mentalities will make huge changes.

Other TIs are based of mentality and again modify the focus of the team or parts of the team so can refine or ruin a tactic so shouldn't be under estimated.

[Robson 07]

The following images are taken from the Lines & Diamonds thread which although old is still a reference guide.  Unless someone tells me otherwise I think the tactic creator brings the following by default with each mentality.  It would be interesting to learn if much has changed.  Might be a help to anyone that hasn't dug into a thread that far back.