Attributes should basically dictate positions, team instructions should basically dictate mentality.

[ceefax the cat]

I post these every year, pretty much, so I think I'll just combine them into 1 post this time. Sorry, I have no idea why this post is in bold but I can't disable it.
 

POSITIONS

The game is riddled with bizarre preferred positions - players being a world expert at AMR and RWB but having absolutely no clue what a right-sided midfielder or right back are, and requiring months of training even to begin to pick it up, for example. Even worse that they then forget the previous position they learned, even if it's incredibly similar to their natural one.

Creative false 9-type strikers or wide playmakers who can't play AMC, cultured DM's who can't play MC, combative, defensive MC's who can't play DM, deadly finishing IF's who can't play up front - there are loads of little absurdities in every single squad and all they do is unrealistically prevent you from being able to use various formations. Football isn't like that. If you play on the wing, are rapid, great at marking and tackling, can run all day, dribble and cross really well then by definition you will be good at full back and wingback, and probably a very useful winger. There isn't some mystical training process required to make that happen, beyond basically being familiar with the system you're playing in.

Attributes should pretty much completely dictate positions. If you're big, strong, great in the air, good off the ball, have a lovely first touch, can finish a bit and have some vision, there is no universe in which you're not effective playing as as target man, should your manager put you there in training and in matches. You are literally already good at it. Positions require players with certain attributes and it would be both much more fun and much more realistic if that was the case in FM.

 

MENTALITY

Just as positions should pretty much be a token of attributes, mentality should pretty much be a token of team instructions. 

There is no such thing as a system that is slow, uses direct passes to very few attacking players while keeping a back 6 in position, wastes time and plays for set pieces, that is 'Very Attacking'. Similarly, if I tell my players to make lots of forward runs, press high up the pitch and get the ball forward and into the box as quickly as possible, we already know how attacking that is - very. There isn't any need to apply some kind of filter to the tactic to make it that way.

"Lads we're sitting deep, wasting time, and trying to feed off one or two chances on the break. In a VERY ATTACKING way". Sounds fairly mad, no? But if you want to make a system that gets the ball forward with purpose, you might well end up saying that in the Tactics Creator.

This weird, opaque, mislabeled instruction (that affects ALL of the others under the hood) is by far the single biggest issue with making the Tactics Creator intuitive to use and there's surely no need for it to be there. Everything that Mentality currently does should be a part of other team and player instructions.

We used to have 'shape' and I think mentality should go the same way. It's a way of describing a tactic, not an instruction in itself.

 

 

 

[Zachary Whyte]

Thank you for the detailed suggestion, we will put this under consideration for a future FM.