ceefax the cat Posted March 30, 2022 Share Posted March 30, 2022 (edited) "Mentality" affects every other instruction we give our players, in ways too opaque and unexplained for us to understand. And there is no such thing. Our instructions to our players should BE the mentality. In real life, if I tell my fullbacks not to go forward, my team to take no risks with the ball and waste time, put two holding midfielders in front of the defence, defend deep and close the opposition down on the halfway line, that constitutes a defensive approach. There is no 'attacking' version of that. In FM I can do all of those things and then somehow declare that my 'mentality' is in fact 'very attacking', which then alters all of my other instructions and causes my players to behave very differently, in ways that are never explained. Confusingly, I might even find that my team works better that way because otherwise I'd have been defending too passively and now my players are producing bright, sharp counterattacks when they do win it. It's totally counterintuitive, doesn't do what it says on the tin and has no real reason to be in the game. There just is no attacking version of a very defensive set of instructions, or vice versa, in real life. We should be telling our players literally, visually, what to do on the pitch in absolute terms and that should be the end of it. "Play direct passes and take more risks"...."Ok, but do you mean in a 'cautious' way or an 'attacking' one?" is a conversation that will never happen around any game of real football. We should be telling them simply what we want them to do: "Counterpress, send the fullbacks bombing on with plenty of width, get plenty of bodies into the box and sling crosses in, push up, recycle possession quickly, play at a high tempo, and don't waste any time please". Oh, then we must be attacking, no need to explain any more.... Except in FM all of that goes through the mysterious additional filter of 'mentality'. You might even find it counterintuitively works better on 'balanced' because 'attacking' results in your players trying to get forward too quickly. That is just unnecessary nonsense that has nothing to do with real football and, as we can see in the tactics forum, mostly just serves to confuse the hell out of people and make the game seem like a random black box, so they end up ditching any knowledge of football they thought they had and resorting to trial and error to try and pick their way through the counterintuitive UI. The fact that this one made-up, overarching instruction affects all player behaviour both in AND out of possession makes it even more nonsensical and restrictive . The fact that the most suitable mentalities for keeping possession are defensive while the most suitable ones for breaking forward quickly from deep are attacking highlights the dysfunction of it all, as does the fact that, if you go over to the tactics forum, you'll see very knowledgeable players using roles and mentalities in a way that is totally counterintuitive and contrary to the advice given in the game, more to mitigate the effects of 'mentality' than anything else. "Mentality" in football IS the instructions and there's no reason it couldn't be that simple in FM. It should be the next 'team shape' - a description, not an instruction. Edited March 30, 2022 by ceefax the cat 7 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
DominicForza Posted March 31, 2022 Share Posted March 31, 2022 I may be the only person who misses the sliders! At least with sliders we could select individual players' "mentality" and players could be instructed to play "roles" without locking out instructions. Maybe I WANT a DLP to take Long Shots. Sometimes I DO want that. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
ceefax the cat Posted March 31, 2022 Author Share Posted March 31, 2022 (edited) Yes it's really restrictive. Same goes for roles. There's apparently no such thing as a striker who plays a supporting role in attack but doesn't come back deep into his own half to defend (unless you raise your entire team mentality to compensate perhaps, creating all kinds of problems elsewhere), or a playmaking AMC who attracts the ball but also shoots a lot, or an inside forward who also crosses, or a false 9 who doesn't dribble so much, or an attacking wingback who doesn't dribble so much, or or or or... roles and mentalities offer a very restrictive set of options with lots of linked parameters and knock-on effects, where it really should be possible simply just to tell your players what you want them to do from an open menu of behaviours. Edited April 1, 2022 by ceefax the cat 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrators Kyle Brown Posted July 13, 2022 Administrators Share Posted July 13, 2022 Mentality is currently one aspect of tactics we have under review already, thank you for the further comments. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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