No tactic* and lots of experimental shouting

[Gee_Simpson]

@Apexmed Not at all mate, nicely done! 

[HanziZoloman]

On 27/06/2019 at 23:07, FMunderachiever said:

Ok, good points. But answer this:

If a new player chooses a pre set tactic. Or any player for that matter. He should AT LEAST be able to achieve the success you achieved by letting players do their own thing while you picked their roles.

Otherwise, all these added in instructions are pointless and the player is deliberately being led down a blind alley when all they needed to do was pick a formation and roles, which 99.9% of people playing the game could have done.

 

And just make the AI more clever then. Make Guardiolas tactics more effective. That would reflect real life

Well I am a big underachiever in FM and my first goal is always not getting fired in season 1. I always pick lower and middle class teams and before getting in touch with this Forum used the prepared tactics and usually get fired first or second season because there was no improvement or lesser success. That is what’s happening if you just splash some players on the field and try to win.

this experiment of Herne is very interesting because I used shouts and speeches and Dialoges frequently and I believe it was this when I accidentally had I winning squad or reached the goal of season on last matchday.

[Apexmed]

I had a new challenge: no CI/PI, minimum crosses, minimum balls from crosses, maximum through balls

 

Edited January 9, 2020 by Apexmed

[Rakatics]

In line of the oppening post, i've started a save using no TIs, PIs, OIs.. 

The roles are inspired by Klopp's Liverpool system. 

The only changes i usually make during a match is changing the DMd to DLPd if i notice him having time on the ball, Car to BBM if i want more presence in and around the area (good goals from him, just outside the box) and the F9 to DLFs, CFs or PFa, depending on what i want (more movement or more presence in the area).

So far, it is the best football i've managed on FM20. 

 

 

Edited January 12, 2020 by Rakatics
added more screenshots

[HanziZoloman]

1 minute ago, Rakatics said:

In line of the oppening post, i've started a save using no TIs, PIs, OIs.. 

The roles are inspired by Klopp's Liverpool system. 

The only changes i usually make during a match is changing the DMd to DLPd if i notice him having time on the ball, Car to BBM if i want more presence in and around the area (good goals from him, just outside the box) and the F9 to DLFs, CFs or PFa, depending on what i want (more movement or more presence in the area).

So far, it is the best football i've managed on FM20. 

 

 

Same to me here it’s incredible good and fun! 

[Gee_Simpson]

1 hour ago, Rakatics said:

In line of the oppening post, i've started a save using no TIs, PIs, OIs.. 

The roles are inspired by Klopp's Liverpool system. 

The only changes i usually make during a match is changing the DMd to DLPd if i notice him having time on the ball, Car to BBM if i want more presence in and around the area (good goals from him, just outside the box) and the F9 to DLFs, CFs or PFa, depending on what i want (more movement or more presence in the area).

So far, it is the best football i've managed on FM20. 

 

 

Looks good! I may try it as an away tactic to see if it makes me more solid. 

[Maldini's Heir]

On 28/06/2019 at 03:42, herne79 said:

I've been having a little experiment and playing around with using Touchline Shouts with no tactical instructions*.

* No tactical instructions here means no TIs, PIs or OIs used and Mentality left on Balanced.

All I've done is pick a team, a formation and thrown together some player roles & duties.  Then during matches I just use touchline shouts, no other changes (apart from subs).  I've never done this before so I wanted to see two things:

1) The effect of using no TIs, PIs or OIs.  I want to leave things as "vanilla" as possible without bogging players down with tactical instructions.  In other words, I give them the framework (Mentality, formation and roles) and then let them get on with things.  I have no tactical style in mind (a primary reason for using TIs etc) and want to remove (as far as possible) any outside influence which may distract my players.  I want to focus on the players as much as possible.

2) What happens when using the shouts?  Does it do anything?  It would be even harder to gauge this if I threw a bunch of TIs at my team or made constant tactical changes during the course of a match.

My Setup

 

 

 

Can I ask a question....(great idea by the way, I'm sort of doing the same but with some instructions).....why is your RWB set to Defend when you're playing a Trequartista on the right side of attack?

Surely you need your RWB overlapping?

I've noticed a few people have different attacking levels for their FBs. I just play my both on Support.  

There was once a time where I'd look at opposition teams and try and see if there was a weakness down a particular side but it didn't seem to make a difference.

[HanziZoloman]

Hey man, I do the same experiment with my hearts. Very balanced tactic and then teamshouts! It’s great first season 3rd place, this season close to Christmas I’m 2nd behind Celtic with a streak of 14 unbeaten games.

Herne quit his time here but he explained that because Zabaleta is only as a WBd good enough especially with Yarmolenko in T role in front. Though it is linked to the West Ham players and could be different with other players.

i also play with two supporting WB but to get more out of your team you could also bring your players stats and a different tactical balance into play. For example Cleon has a very adventurous tactic (which works well) with many creative roles and a CWBa behind a RMDa which is really gung-ho but it makes sense as the CWBa is in transition higher up the pitch and closer to counter players on the flank. 
 

 

[El Butero]

I just wanted to stop by and thank you for this topic, Herne. It gave me really good insights in how this game actually works. I am one of those guys who almost always loses himself in way too many instructions in the TC. This topic gave me some inspiration to try something like this myself with a 4-1-4-1 (or 4-1-2-2-1 as it was called). Having great fun and actually enjoying my save more than I ever did, because I don't lose myself in every little detail anymore. It's not that I don't touch the TC instructions ever, but I'm much more aware of when I need an instruction and what that instruction does. 

Example: I didn't like how rushed my play was, so I added lower tempo. A great little side effect of that change is that I am now seeing great build up play with much intentional posession, and thats even without having any of the usual shouts like high LOE et cetera. I really love it.

[Hoof-it]

This saved my sanity for playing this game. Its just simple and makes things easier to understand. 

[ta11zx]

Wow so you achieved 3rd by doing nothing.  And here i am wasting hours looking at opposition reports, looking for weakness of opposition and losing 3-0.

 

Hours wasted reading guides and trying out tactics just to lose 4-0 and you present this and finish 3rd.. 

 

I guess this really is the "Zidane" approach as Zidane has no clear tactical identity and focuses more on man managment than tactics.  He motivates them to perform better.  You need to be able to handle player personalities to manage real madrid and thats why Zidane is success without any tactical masterclass.  You don't need to tell kroos when to make a pass or modric when to dribble through pkayers or what movements to make. 

 

But still... its depressing seeing this as I've wasted hours trying to get good at this game to no avail. 

[Riziger]

I'm going to try this 'minimalist' approach to start at least. Will give me a much better understanding of roles and duties + formation without any more variables from the TIs/PIs.

Also he didn't do 'nothing'. Picking the right roles/duties, and players that can play together in one cohesive system in and of itself is more than half the battle in this game.

[ta11zx]

17 minutes ago, Riziger said:

I'm going to try this 'minimalist' approach to start at least. Will give me a much better understanding of roles and duties + formation without any more variables from the TIs/PIs.

Also he didn't do 'nothing'. Picking the right roles/duties, and players that can play together in one cohesive system in and of itself is more than half the battle in this game.

....yeah this should be reported to SI as a bug.  Shouldn't be able to achieve this so easily.  Totally ruins the fun of the game and makes almost 90% of tatical aspects obsolete. 

[Zemahh]

8 hours ago, ta11zx said:

Wow so you achieved 3rd by doing nothing.  And here i am wasting hours looking at opposition reports, looking for weakness of opposition and losing 3-0.

He wasn't doing "nothing". Every Role has some kind of instructions or hard-coded behaviors tied to it and even just thinking those out carefully is doing a lot. To paraphrase, it's not like he came into the dressing room and said "alright lads, you're free to do whatever you want!", instead he already instructed every single player on what to do with selecting their Roles and Duties/selecting players with certain Player Traits. That's the basis of every coherent tactic.

Whether you decide to add any Instructions on top of that, to either achieve a certain playing style, mitigate your weaknesses or play to your strengths, is up to you, but you certainly don't absolutely need to use them if you see no reason to. FM isn't a puzzle you've solved once you've ticked certain instructions.

[FMunderachiever]

3 hours ago, Zemahh said:

He wasn't doing "nothing". Every Role has some kind of instructions or hard-coded behaviors tied to it and even just thinking those out carefully is doing a lot. To paraphrase, it's not like he came into the dressing room and said "alright lads, you're free to do whatever you want!", instead he already instructed every single player on what to do with selecting their Roles and Duties/selecting players with certain Player Traits. That's the basis of every coherent tactic.

Whether you decide to add any Instructions on top of that, to either achieve a certain playing style, mitigate your weaknesses or play to your strengths, is up to you, but you certainly don't absolutely need to use them if you see no reason to. FM isn't a puzzle you've solved once you've ticked certain instructions.

Do you think it would be fair to say that people dont make a good set up of roles in a tactic, because its hard to work out what roles someone should actually play?

Watching a real life game of football, its not that easy to pigeon hole a player into an fm "role"...... does this lead people into problems do you think?

 

[ta11zx]

2 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

Do you think it would be fair to say that people dont make a good set up of roles in a tactic, because its hard to work out what roles someone should actually play?

Watching a real life game of football, its not that easy to pigeon hole a player into an fm "role"...... does this lead people into problems do you think?

 

do you think managers in real life tell players to play as a ninverted winger or as a regista?  do managers in real life use these role names to tell playrs how they want them to play?

ive always wondered this. 

[FMunderachiever]

41 minutes ago, ta11zx said:

do you think managers in real life tell players to play as a ninverted winger or as a regista?  do managers in real life use these role names to tell playrs how they want them to play?

ive always wondered this. 

This is my point.

Of course, a real life manager doesnt tell his player "today i want you to be a regista".

A manager in real life doesnt see a sheet and say hmmmmm this player has 17 for crossing whereas this one has 16 either.....obviously they have player data and stats and they can identify desirable qualities in players but putting finite attribute numbers on it.....clearly not.

During a game, a player will display characteristics of multiple roles. Like if you were to take say.......prime Steven Gerrard.....

What IS he? you cant easily put him into a role because, one moment he exhibits ball winning midfielder qualities, the next he exhibits playmaker qualities, etc etc.

Some of the "hard coded" stuff always creates a conflict. Like.......i like player x for this role, but that one hard coded behaviour you dont want gets in the way.

Theres a definite skill to picking a logical team setup

 

Edited January 6, 2021 by FMunderachiever

[Hoof-it]

9 hours ago, FMunderachiever said:

This is my point.

Of course, a real life manager doesnt tell his player "today i want you to be a regista".

A manager in real life doesnt see a sheet and say hmmmmm this player has 17 for crossing whereas this one has 16 either.....obviously they have player data and stats and they can identify desirable qualities in players but putting finite attribute numbers on it.....clearly not.

During a game, a player will display characteristics of multiple roles. Like if you were to take say.......prime Steven Gerrard.....

What IS he? you cant easily put him into a role because, one moment he exhibits ball winning midfielder qualities, the next he exhibits playmaker qualities, etc etc.

Some of the "hard coded" stuff always creates a conflict. Like.......i like player x for this role, but that one hard coded behaviour you dont want gets in the way.

Theres a definite skill to picking a logical team setup

 

Obviously not but end of day we are playing a game and id imagine it would descend into chaos if not.

[herne79]

On 06/01/2021 at 00:07, ta11zx said:

Wow so you achieved 3rd by doing nothing.  And here i am wasting hours looking at opposition reports, looking for weakness of opposition and losing 3-0.

 

Hours wasted reading guides and trying out tactics just to lose 4-0 and you present this and finish 3rd.. 

 

I guess this really is the "Zidane" approach as Zidane has no clear tactical identity and focuses more on man managment than tactics.  He motivates them to perform better.  You need to be able to handle player personalities to manage real madrid and thats why Zidane is success without any tactical masterclass.  You don't need to tell kroos when to make a pass or modric when to dribble through pkayers or what movements to make. 

 

But still... its depressing seeing this as I've wasted hours trying to get good at this game to no avail. 

You think I haven't spent a similar amount of time trying to get good at this game? 

There are many different ways of playing the game.  Looking at opposition reports or reading tactical guides is most certainly one way and never a waste of time.  I've spent hours doing that myself as well.  If you read through the thread you'll also find a post I made detailing what I did when I lost 3-0, a game I could have easily won (or at least drawn) if I'd made tactical changes.  But I purposely did nothing tactical to address issues which I'd noticed.

So this thread isn't about doing nothing and still getting results.  It's about showing the impact of an oft overlooked tool we have available to us - a tool that may actually be a bit more useful than we might otherwise think.

And it also shows that lots of tactical settings aren't always needed.  Having a well thought out formation with roles & duties selected which compliment and combine well with your players (check my post on page 3 for more info on that) is the basis of any coherent tactic.  The addition of TIs & PIs on top then helps you define and refine a certain style of play and/or to help you address certain issues you might notice.  Players are quite capable of playing a football match without us managers confusing them with all manner of instructions - unless you want them to play with a certain style or need them to sort out a particular tactical issue.  But I wasn't playing with any style in mind and I purposely didn't use any instructions to address issues as that would have clouded the possible impact of shouts.

Your Zidane analogy is a good one.  If I had carried on this save I wouldn't have used TIs & PIs to define a style of play - I'd let my players get on with it without any style of play in mind.  But I would have used TIs and PIs to help address issues if and when they occurred as well as use the shout tools.

[FMunderachiever]

On 06/01/2021 at 01:07, ta11zx said:

Wow so you achieved 3rd by doing nothing.  And here i am wasting hours looking at opposition reports, looking for weakness of opposition and losing 3-0.

 

Hours wasted reading guides and trying out tactics just to lose 4-0 and you present this and finish 3rd.. 

 

I guess this really is the "Zidane" approach as Zidane has no clear tactical identity and focuses more on man managment than tactics.  He motivates them to perform better.  You need to be able to handle player personalities to manage real madrid and thats why Zidane is success without any tactical masterclass.  You don't need to tell kroos when to make a pass or modric when to dribble through pkayers or what movements to make. 

 

But still... its depressing seeing this as I've wasted hours trying to get good at this game to no avail. 

I think what @herne79 thread does well is show where to invest your hours into getting better and the fundamental to doing that is a good set up and choice of roles.

This is harder than it looks. I was always naive to this thinking i was a decent player but id get bored of seeing us score and concede the same goals constantly, to the point id say the game was broken.

My instructions were forcing these kinds of goals though, and when i had a philosophy in my head id totally overdo it with instructions too and make a good idea go bad.

You can make a good tactic better by careful use of instructions.

But you cant make an average tactic good by the same measure because the set up of good roles is 90% of the game, not split blocks, gegenpresses, defending disengaged training sessions and team meetings. Those are all squeezing out a percent here and there.

Edited January 7, 2021 by Experienced Defender
inappropriate word

[ta11zx]

2 hours ago, herne79 said:

If you read through the thread you'll also find a post I made detailing what I did when I lost 3-0, a game I could have easily won (or at least drawn) if I'd made tactical changes.  But I purposely did nothing tactical to address issues which I'd noticed.

Where can I find this?

 

Hmm maybe your right, I barely spend time on thinking about impact of roles and formation when I'm making a tactic.  I spend more of my time focusing on team instructions and end up with too many. 

[herne79]

3 minutes ago, ta11zx said:

Where can I find this?

On page 2 :

 

3 minutes ago, ta11zx said:

Hmm maybe your right, I barely spend time on thinking about impact of roles and formation when I'm making a tactic.  I spend more of my time focusing on team instructions and end up with too many. 

Try and flip it around.  Have a read through the post I made on page 3 about how I set up my roles in combination with my player's abilities (attributes and Traits).  For example, if I set one of my fullbacks as a Wingback with the attack duty that's fine if I want my WB getting forward lots.  But what if the player I use there also has the Trait to get forward often?  Now I have a wingback who is going to get forward even more.  Is that still ok for me?  Great in attack but what about defending?  Am I leaving myself too open now at the back?

And for team instructions, like I said above, TIs and PIs are only really for defining a certain style of play and/or for addressing specific issues.  So if I want to play tiki taka I may set certain TIs and perhaps make some adjustments to my selected roles/duties (assuming my players are capable of playing in that style).  Or if I notice my defence is getting torn apart I may make a TI adjustment to my defensive line or my pressing.

But what I'll never do is set a whole bunch of TIs to what I think may give me a style of play because if it doesn't work how do I know what to change?  Like @HUNT3R said back on page 1: start small and add, don't start large and subtract.  It's much easier to add things to see if something works rather than try to remove something .

[FMunderachiever]

16 minutes ago, herne79 said:

On page 2 :

 

Try and flip it around.  Have a read through the post I made on page 3 about how I set up my roles in combination with my player's abilities (attributes and Traits).  For example, if I set one of my fullbacks as a Wingback with the attack duty that's fine if I want my WB getting forward lots.  But what if the player I use there also has the Trait to get forward often?  Now I have a wingback who is going to get forward even more.  Is that still ok for me?  Great in attack but what about defending?  Am I leaving myself too open now at the back?

And for team instructions, like I said above, TIs and PIs are only really for defining a certain style of play and/or for addressing specific issues.  So if I want to play tiki taka I may set certain TIs and perhaps make some adjustments to my selected roles/duties (assuming my players are capable of playing in that style).  Or if I notice my defence is getting torn apart I may make a TI adjustment to my defensive line or my pressing.

But what I'll never do is set a whole bunch of TIs to what I think may give me a style of play because if it doesn't work how do I know what to change?  Like @HUNT3R said back on page 1: start small and add, don't start large and subtract.  It's much easier to add things to see if something works rather than try to remove something .

This has probably been asked a thousand times but definitively.....

If a player has a player trait to "get further forward" as an example, then he will get further forward.....even if this contradicts his PIs or hardcoded instructions to "hold position" for example?

He will go forward on the low mentalities....or just be more INCLINED to go forward on higher mentalities than lower ones?

Also.... is the only way to "calm him down" to either use a role that kind of stifles him more (probably not well explained but you know what i mean) or get him to unlearn his trait (coaches often think players cant learn and unlearn their behaviour).

Im good enough at the game to enjoy it, just wanted to get some definitive answers on this kind of thing

[kingjericho]

9 minutes ago, FMunderachiever said:

This has probably been asked a thousand times but definitively.....

If a player has a player trait to "get further forward" as an example, then he will get further forward.....even if this contradicts his PIs or hardcoded instructions to "hold position" for example?

He will go forward on the low mentalities....or just be more INCLINED to go forward on higher mentalities than lower ones?

Also.... is the only way to "calm him down" to either use a role that kind of stifles him more (probably not well explained but you know what i mean) or get him to unlearn his trait (coaches often think players cant learn and unlearn their behaviour).

Im good enough at the game to enjoy it, just wanted to get some definitive answers on this kind of thing

PPM prevail over PI and roles/duties. But PI and role/duty can limit the player's willingness to use said PPM.

[herne79]

38 minutes ago, FMunderachiever said:

This has probably been asked a thousand times but definitively.....

If a player has a player trait to "get further forward" as an example, then he will get further forward.....even if this contradicts his PIs or hardcoded instructions to "hold position" for example?

He will go forward on the low mentalities....or just be more INCLINED to go forward on higher mentalities than lower ones?

Also.... is the only way to "calm him down" to either use a role that kind of stifles him more (probably not well explained but you know what i mean) or get him to unlearn his trait (coaches often think players cant learn and unlearn their behaviour).

Im good enough at the game to enjoy it, just wanted to get some definitive answers on this kind of thing

Essentially I just boil it all down to a simple process: each time you make a selection you add a little or take away from a player's willingness to get forward.  The effects are cumulative, they don't override each other.  So a player with the Trait to get forward more will get forward more if you use the attacking mentality compared to the defensive mentality.

Re. "calming him down", lots of ways.  Imagine you are setting up a system and you decide to use the Attacking mentality along with a Complete Wingback (attack), the look for overlap TI, and a player with the Trait to get forward often.  And low and behold you are wide open to counter attacks down his flank because he's so far forward he's at the opposition's corner flag 99% of the time.  What to do?  You could:

1) Reduce Mentality.  That could easily work but would also have an impact on all your other players and tactical settings because it changes so much.

2) Make him a Wingback or a Fullback instead of a CWB.  Both options are less aggressive than CWBs and more defensively solid.

3) Change his duty to support or defend.  Again, more defensively solid but he will still make overlapping runs (just at less risky times).

4) Remove look for overlap.  He's going to overlap anyway so there is not always a need to tell him do so even more.

5) Change player to someone without the Trait or unlearn his Trait.

6) Some / all of the above to get a cumulative effect.

I know I keep mentioning full/wingbacks but imo this position is one of the most important to get right.  All too often I see people using overly aggressive wing/fullbacks with predictable results.  There is simply no need to make them so aggressive (unless you want to) - a wingback (defend) will still make overlapping runs even when using the defensive mentality.  He just won't do it as often when using more aggressive settings.  One thing I will rarely do is combine an attack duty wing/fullback with a player who has the Trait to get forward often, especially when using the higher mentalities.  That isn't to say you can't or shouldn't do it - just be aware of what you are telling your player to do and have a plan to ensure adequate defensive cover (if needed).

[Experienced Defender]

A fullback's tendency to bomb forward is also affected by the defensive line setting - besides the already listed factors such as PPM. role/duty, mentality and instructions (both team and individual). On that score, a higher D-line will encourage fullbacks to get forward more than standard or lower one.

[Gee_Simpson]

Great advice guys, especially herne, this is getting bookmarked