[Discussion] Safe Set Pieces

[glengarry224]

What about an instruction/setting for 'safe set pieces' which overrides any other instructions and tells your team to 'play it safe' or simply to hold your usual tactical formation? 

I've tried to develop safe set pieces to protect leads or against superior sides.  Sometimes they work, but other times, they don't either because I make a mistake or I don't know why.

For example, in my safe attacking corners/FKs/throw-ins, I tell all of my CBs and FBs to 'stay back,' plus maybe a DM/CM to 'stay back if needed,' and/or others to lurk instead of attack, and I will sometimes try for a short corner, just to maintain possession.  But sometimes, I forget that I've made a sub which now makes one of them the set piece taker.  Other times, for for some reason, they go forwards instead of staying back.  Or even when 'staying back,' my defenders start further up the pitch, even with quicker strikers/wingers, instead of following my 'standard/lower defensive line' instruction, and I get killed on a counter.

You could include presets which are safe but I think that one 'check box' or drop-down setting would be better.  In some circumstances, I try to change to my safe set pieces but the ME switches me back to my basic set pieces. 

[BuzzR]

I second this.

If I may take it a little further, we need a quick way to switch set pieces during the match - safer or riskier or whatever. 

Now we have to go Tactics -> Set Pieces dropdown -> Free Kicks / Corners - > Load etc. And it doesn't always work, as @glengarry224 mentioned. 

It's great we have a "Team Instruction Pop-up" with auto-pause during the match. How about another tab there ? In Possession / In Transition/ Out of Possession & Set Pieces.  

Maybe we can have split sections in this new tab with Set Pieces / Corners / Throw Ins  , each with the current Collection Loaded . Maybe a button "Play It Safe"  that loads the " Safe Collection" previously defined. 

How about some checkbox rules that could override the set pieces ?

- Like " DM always stays back if needed" - so if a player that finds himself in DM position and he is the corner taker, he will not be the current corner taker ;

- or "At least 3 men are staying back" with a list of candidates by position .

 

 

Edited June 4, 2021 by BuzzR
spelling

[Michael Sant]

It sounds like based on what you've both written here @BuzzR and @glengarry224 some of what you're describing would more likely fall under bugs in terms of player behaviour. Players being too high, the set piece instructions reverting to another routine - we'd welcome bug reports of this nature if its persisted into FM22 so we can investigate that side because a new feature for set pieces wouldn't necessarily fix that issue after all.

Given the time have either of you perhaps settled on what would be the way you would request for this to appear in the game specifically?

[BuzzR]

12 hours ago, Michael Sant said:

It sounds like based on what you've both written here @BuzzR and @glengarry224 some of what you're describing would more likely fall under bugs in terms of player behaviour. Players being too high, the set piece instructions reverting to another routine - we'd welcome bug reports of this nature if its persisted into FM22 so we can investigate that side because a new feature for set pieces wouldn't necessarily fix that issue after all.

Given the time have either of you perhaps settled on what would be the way you would request for this to appear in the game specifically?

Hi. Thank you for your response @Michael Sant.

I think we could split this in 2 ..

1. A feature request regarding Set Pieces mechanics and UI design considering what we could call " Safe Set Pieces" : a way to easily enable/ disable a collection of user defined ( or default )  set pieces.

    At this point the game allows us to define a collection as we want, name it as we want - but changing the current set pieces to another collection is tedious... Tactics -> Set Pieces dropdown -> Free Kicks / Corners - > Load . Reverting to the previous collection requires the same number of clicks.

    What we would suggest is a simple toggle ( check box ) "Use safe set pieces collection " and a dropdown selector of the set pieces collection we would like to use. This 2 controls could be on tactics pop-up/ panel, maybe under another tab as we have now in possession, in transition, out of possession. 

2. A suspect behavior was indeed observed in FM21 regarding changing/ loading set pieces collections during match - as not always the change would be made on corners/ throw ins. 

    I cannot say the same about FM22 as I did not touch the set pieces for now.

Nevertheless I would like to continue to support the feature request seen above - point 1.

Thank you.

[glengarry224]

13 hours ago, BuzzR said:

Hi. Thank you for your response @Michael Sant.

I think we could split this in 2 ..

1. A feature request regarding Set Pieces mechanics and UI design considering what we could call " Safe Set Pieces" : a way to easily enable/ disable a collection of user defined ( or default )  set pieces.

    At this point the game allows us to define a collection as we want, name it as we want - but changing the current set pieces to another collection is tedious... Tactics -> Set Pieces dropdown -> Free Kicks / Corners - > Load . Reverting to the previous collection requires the same number of clicks.

    What we would suggest is a simple toggle ( check box ) "Use safe set pieces collection " and a dropdown selector of the set pieces collection we would like to use. This 2 controls could be on tactics pop-up/ panel, maybe under another tab as we have now in possession, in transition, out of possession. 

2. A suspect behavior was indeed observed in FM21 regarding changing/ loading set pieces collections during match - as not always the change would be made on corners/ throw ins. 

    I cannot say the same about FM22 as I did not touch the set pieces for now.

Nevertheless I would like to continue to support the feature request seen above - point 1.

Thank you.

Thanks @Michael Sant and @BuzzR.  I've had limited time on FM22 but will report if I see any similar bugs. 

As far as UI, what about something like this:  a setting (drop down menu?) where the player can dictate the minimum number of players to 'stay back?  maybe set the number of players at each level? But most importantly to set the number staying back, maybe 'Lurk Outside Area' is second most important.

As @BuzzR wrote, it's a lot of clicks to change mid-game.  Not only do you need to load a new set -- which didn't always work well in FM21 btw -- but you then have to check how that set looks with your current lineup.  It's very time-consuming and no-fun to do mid-game, but something I wanted to make sure of, say, post-80 when I'm protecting a lead.  

That's also something I have to do before each game, especially if, for example, my #1 corner-taker is my LB and my #2 is a CM and I don't play my regular starter at LB.  Or if I move my LB to CB mid-game.  Etc.

[Kyle Brown]

We've got a number of features in the database regarding set pieces and it's something we're looking to improve upon. Thank you all for the suggestions.