Ditch the "mentality" slider altogether.

[Mitja]

Is it too difficult for you? I'll try to make it simpler still.

Player A

Mentality: 16

RwB: Often

TTB: Mixed

LS: Mixed

CB: Often

Player gets ball. He understand roughly how riskily he should be playing. He has two immediate options to evaluate:

RwB & CB: If they player thinks either has a greater than 20% chance of succeeding, he will try them. Player decides one does, and then tries the move.

However, if he doesn't think they are 'on', he has secondary options of looking for a through ball or shooting from distance. He then goes through the same decision making process.

If neither of these are on, he plays a safe ball.

Player B

Mentality: 4

RwB: Often

TTB: Mixed

LS: Mixed

CB: Often

Exactly the same process, except he has to decide the attacking move has a greater than 80% chance of succeeding, or he will play a safe ball.

Player C

Mentality: 10

RwB: Rarely

TTB: Rarely

LS: Rarely

CB: Rarely

Basically a player in a defensive role, a water carrier whose main function is to play safe balls. However, if the aggressive move is absolutely on, he will still play it. Even so, as his main duty is to be the first line of defence behind the attack, his defensive duties need to be roughly matched to his mentality. With a mentality of 10, normal CD and normal tackling would be desireable. The higher the mentlaity, the higher the CD and the more aggessive the tackling. The lower, the lower. There is a range in which he can operate, but that iis roughly how it works. Not exactly rocket science.

Any clearer now, or do you want to continue being obtuse?

so a manager needs to find the right balance between personal instructions, mentality and creative freedom (which you didn't mention but it is linked to this issue if it does what it says in menual) to control frequancy of those personal instructions as well as closing down and tackling agression. basiclly more you lean towards 'all out attack' mentality, less 'often' instructions you should set to players becouse their high mentality rating inclines them to do the attacking stuff. and that is obvious in ME, full backs making stupid 60 yard passes eventhough they're set to pass very short, players shooting from everywhere when set to shoot rarely/mixed etc. i guess this can be controled partly by seting high creative freedom so they ignore your instructions. but it makes using mentality extremes useless (at least for us normal players) and it's totally against RL logics. just like linking closing down and tackling agression to mentality.

[Mister Z]

Great post Mr Fraser

Paul, Thanx for the reply.

My my tuppence contribution, reduce the number of slider settings in the GUI and make player attributes and special moves more leading in the ‘tactical’ decisions they are making. So don’t ask a creative winger and ball virtuoso to “run forward” and “run with ball” but let the ME decide what he is going to do.

[PaulC]

Paul, Thanx for the reply.

My my tuppence contribution, reduce the number of slider settings in the GUI and make player attributes and special moves more leading in the ‘tactical’ decisions they are making. So don’t ask a creative winger and ball virtuoso to “run forward” and “run with ball” but let the ME decide what he is going to do.

Cheers. Not convinced we need to reduce the slider settings, but we have one or two ideas of how to avoid this being an issue for those who prefer a different approach.

In the current version, a player's attributes and PPM's will generally affect his decisions, your instructions are just one factor in him making those decisions.

[Mitja]

Cheers. Not convinced we need to reduce the slider settings.

at least Time wasting?

[Rupal]

Not convinced we need to reduce the slider settings

Oh dear!

Hope CM gets it right!

[PaulC]

Oh dear!

Hope CM gets it right!

Well you will find out soon enough

[iamjerome]

Truly mind boggling stuff. I can only assume that my unbeaten run of 16 goals conceded and 119 scored in 46 matches using my own custom built tactics is some kind of bug. I had put it down to the anticipation, decisions, positioning, acceleration and influence of my sweeper that controls the off-side trap, but that would imply creating highly detailed individual roles for individual players using this completely broken, inept, illogical and non-specific tactical system and ideas taken from the equally rediculous TT&F.

for someone who's made a lot of fantastically thought out posts on these forums you're being unnecessarily pathetic and thick when it comes to listening to complaints about the ambiguity with regarding sliders and people not being able to visualise how their tactical instructions translate to the game. i don't think anyone said it doesn't work, but it's definitely a module that could be improved.

and don't worry, i am having a nice unbeaten run too with 92 scored in 32, 20 conceded - i've got a reasonable grasp on how everything works but at the same time i find it painstaking to explain to my housemates who i've introduced to fm how logic works in fm and help them deal with their frustration. like i have been saying now for at least a few months: fm should be easy to learn, difficult to master

not difficult to learn and easy to master; because that's exactly what it is right now.

[Mitja]

Oh dear!

Hope CM gets it right!

reducing the number of notches is not the worst thing it could happen if you ask me. that would be not introducing new personal instructions.

[Rupal]

Well you will find out soon enough

Indeed!

If a decent CM gives SI the kick in the backside which it so badly needs in order to get rid of some of the complacency which seems to exist at the moment and to take a long, hard, realistic look at the things which ordinary players are finding difficult, it will have performed a very useful service.

[Mitja]

fm should be easy to learn, difficult to master

it's not looking very promising this will change though.

good example of your statement is how to make (unbelivebly simple and basic instruction like) your second striker to drop deep. first you need to read through 50 page document (what % of FM players do it?) and then you need to experiment with mentality being low enough (but not too low becouse it will ruin your mentality framework), then forward runs need to be on rarely (but you might not want player to drop when you have the ball), then you need to change that player's marking to man (but your team plays zonal) and tick tight marking. did i forget something?

not to mention it's not possible to instruct your full-backs to 'hug line' or wingers to play 'slightly more AMC role' etc. but who cares about that, these are all extremly complex tactical ides which would be too much for avarage FM gamer.

[iamjerome]

Cheers. Not convinced we need to reduce the slider settings, but we have one or two ideas of how to avoid this being an issue for those who prefer a different approach.

In the current version, a player's attributes and PPM's will generally affect his decisions, your instructions are just one factor in him making those decisions.

i can see why you'd want to retain the 20 notch system (and also for anyone who defends it) in that it does offer a huge range of options, obviously, and "depth" but there's no denying that most of it is artificial and not to mention, really isn't a 20 level scale in real life football that FM tries to recreate. in any case, number scheme only adds to the confusion for players not already acclimatised to the system.

before SFraser replies with his earlier analogy of "back a bit, forward a bit" etc - yes, you are right but that is general tweaking that should happen during the course of a game and the 20 system does offer that but it also offers no way of learning from the game unless you only play with full matches (and please, i am 100% sure more than 90% at least, of fm's playerbase do not play with full matches on not only because it takes up too much time but the match engine and 3d isn't even half as good to watch real football - that isn't a criticism, it is expected, but designing a game that requires watching an entirety of a football match to watch rather than sacrificing the essentially needless 20 scale and using a 10 scale (for example) instead for things like mentality (needs to be renamed), cd, cf, etc. time-wasting really, really shouldn't have more than 3 - this is one slider i have absolutely no idea how it is meant to translate to the real world.

[Rupal]

it's not looking very promising this will change though.

good example of your statement is how to make (unbelivebly simple and basic instruction like) your second striker to drop deep. first you need to read through 50 page document (what % of FM players do it?) and then you need to experiment with mentality being low enough (but not too low becouse it will ruin your mentality framework), then forward runs need to be on rarely (but you might not want player to drop when you have the ball), then you need to change that player's marking to man (but your team plays zonal) and tick tight marking. did i forget something?

The funny thing is, there's ever such an easy way of doing this. The old PC/Playstation Player Manager did it. You had a screen like the positions screen in FM and could simply move your second striker a bit deeper by dragging his icon with your mouse/controller.

Of course, that's MUCH too unsophisticated, isn't it? I mean it's GOT to be better to read a huge long manual and alter x number of sliders.........

[Mitja]

The funny thing is, there's ever such an easy way of doing this. The old PC/Playstation Player Manager did it. You had a screen like the positions screen in FM and could simply move your second striker a bit deeper by dragging his icon with your mouse/controller.

Of course, that's MUCH too unsophisticated, isn't it? I mean it's GOT to be better to read a huge long manual and alter x number of sliders.........

you know what i've always wanted to know, what do 6 notches of 'Own area' mean in Closing down slider? what is the 1st notch, where do players start pressing? 6-yard box or outside area?

[iamjerome]

it's not looking very promising this will change though.

good example of your statement is how to make (unbelivebly simple and basic instruction like) your second striker to drop deep. first you need to read through 50 page document (what % of FM players do it?) and then you need to experiment with mentality being low enough (but not too low becouse it will ruin your mentality framework), then forward runs need to be on rarely (but you might not want player to drop when you have the ball), then you need to change that player's marking to man (but your team plays zonal) and tick tight marking. did i forget something?

not to mention it's not possible to instruct your full-backs to 'hug line' or wingers to play 'slightly more AMC role' etc. but who cares about that, these are all extremly complex tactical ides which would be too much for avarage FM gamer.

yep, i fully agree here. it's annoying arguing this because i fully respect wwfan's TT&F work - it's no doubt, helped a number of people, but my housemates just laughed off having to read a 50 page document to understand how a FOOTBALL game works; we all liked CM because we knew football and as such found it were easy to translate our philosophies to the game. and of course old cm's are nothing as good in terms of the ME now, but can anyone really deny there's something fundamentally wrong with how the tactical instructions work now?

i've personally being looking forward to the CM demo too, but not expecting too much. this is their best chance to get bite into the market back in ages and we'll see how it rolls off. i thought si genuinely understood the issues with the tactical interface but i'm not sure what to make of the post paulc made that i replied to above though.

[iamjerome]

to be honest it shouldn't even be an argument whether the sliders are "good" or "bad", they work but aren't good enough is the astute answer. but what about solutions or new concepts to replace them? i don't have anything concrete but what i do think is that instead of using a small series of ambiguous and inexplicably linked sliders, they should be divided into a larger number of simplistically defined options. these new sliders also should of course have the ability to be used collaboratively to draw advanced football strategies or movements (as opposed to the current system of using several ambiguous sliders to create SIMPLE movements) as well as create contradictory instruction - BUT, they would be a lot easier to distinguish as contradictions and issues than they are now.

[swash]

Is it too difficult for you? I'll try to make it simpler still.

Player A

Mentality: 16

RwB: Often

TTB: Mixed

LS: Mixed

CB: Often

Player gets ball. He understand roughly how riskily he should be playing. He has two immediate options to evaluate:

RwB & CB: If they player thinks either has a greater than 20% chance of succeeding, he will try them. Player decides one does, and then tries the move.

However, if he doesn't think they are 'on', he has secondary options of looking for a through ball or shooting from distance. He then goes through the same decision making process.

If neither of these are on, he plays a safe ball.

Player B

Mentality: 4

RwB: Often

TTB: Mixed

LS: Mixed

CB: Often

Exactly the same process, except he has to decide the attacking move has a greater than 80% chance of succeeding, or he will play a safe ball.

Player C

Mentality: 10

RwB: Rarely

TTB: Rarely

LS: Rarely

CB: Rarely

Basically a player in a defensive role, a water carrier whose main function is to play safe balls. However, if the aggressive move is absolutely on, he will still play it. Even so, as his main duty is to be the first line of defence behind the attack, his defensive duties need to be roughly matched to his mentality. With a mentality of 10, normal CD and normal tackling would be desireable. The higher the mentlaity, the higher the CD and the more aggessive the tackling. The lower, the lower. There is a range in which he can operate, but that iis roughly how it works. Not exactly rocket science.

Any clearer now, or do you want to continue being obtuse?

Van der Sar rolls it out to Vidic, Vidic picks out Carrick, Carrick plays it wide to Giggs, but what's this Giggs calls a time out while he reaches into his sock and pulls out a calculator, he's working out the probability of delivering a successful cross............

A great post by wwfan demonstrating why so many people dislike the tactics interface so much, it's more like an A level maths exam than a way of telling a bunch of low IQ footballers how to try and win a football match.

The game is heading so badly in the wrong direction, it beggars belief that SI cannot see it!

[Mitja]

to be honest it shouldn't even be an argument whether the sliders are "good" or "bad", they work but aren't good enough is the astute answer. but what about solutions or new concepts to replace them? i don't have anything concrete but what i do think is that instead of using a small series of ambiguous and inexplicably linked sliders, they should be divided into a larger number of simplistically defined options. these new sliders also should of course have the ability to be used collaboratively to draw advanced football strategies or movements (as opposed to the current system of using several ambiguous sliders to create SIMPLE movements) as well as create contradictory instruction - BUT, they would be a lot easier to distinguish as contradictions and issues than they are now.

i don't think there's aanything fundamentaly wrong with sliders, maybe reduce number of notches so each notch has at least a bit of meaning, compared to previous/next notch. far greater problem is Mentality having big effect on all other sliders, it's almost impossible to read its corelations. when IRL it's the other way around, i argued that 'mentality' as such is only a 'sum' of all other instructions (but even that's not the point).

personal instructions are the area which should be extended; simplify and make team instructions logical and easy to understand and introduce new personal instructions like PPMs (fundamentaly many of PPM are nothing more than instructions, i doubt a PL player needs to learn whole season how to move into chanells, or hug the line).

[This field intentionally l]

Presumably FM10 will come with an ESRB rating of "For pseudo-intellectual condescending smart-arses only".

[iamjerome]

i don't think there's aanything fundamentaly wrong with sliders, maybe reduce number of notches so each notch has at least a bit of meaning, compared to previous/next notch. far greater problem is Mentality having big effect on all other sliders, it's almost impossible to read its corelations. when IRL it's the other way around, i argued that 'mentality' as such is only a 'sum' of all other instructions (but even that's not the point).

personal instructions are the area which should be extended; simplify and make team instructions logical and easy to understand and introduce new personal instructions like PPMs (fundamentaly many of PPM are nothing more than instructions, i doubt a PL player needs to learn whole season how to move into chanells, or hug the line).

i meant sliders in the sense of the tabs eg. "mentality", "creative freedom", etc - the SYSTEM itself is fine, yeah

[Mitja]

yeah i know. but i doubt anything will change or improve much. Paul's and wwfan's posts convinced me they wouldn't. and i think i know what they intend to do.

[Lyssien]

Van der Sar rolls it out to Vidic, Vidic picks out Carrick, Carrick plays it wide to Giggs, but what's this Giggs calls a time out while he reaches into his sock and pulls out a calculator, he's working out the probability of delivering a successful cross............

A great post by wwfan demonstrating why so many people dislike the tactics interface so much, it's more like an A level maths exam than a way of telling a bunch of low IQ footballers how to try and win a football match.

The game is heading so badly in the wrong direction, it beggars belief that SI cannot see it!

This is a good post to disagree with. IRL, Giggs is not calculating that much, but he IS taking into account:

- Different situations that you have shown him in training.

- His own judgement of how those training situations compare with the one he is currently facing.

- What you have told him to do in such a situation.

FM is not letting you do that much with training. Instead, it directly lets you micromanage tactics during the match, as if your players had been training on these situations all week/ all season/forever. The final effect is the same, and very realistic, imo.

[SFraser]

Now can somebody please explain clearly why, if the player mentality slider is to do with risk taking attitude alone, when you have a difference of more than 3 notches between defence and midfield or midfield and attack your assman refers to a gap (too much space) between the respective players and says that the opposition may exploit this or that the forwards won't get any help from the midfield?

It means that the players ahead of the ball are taking up positions and making runs that are too risky for the players in possession to consider passing to. The difference between the defensive mindset of the defensive players and the attacking mindset of the attacking players means the defenders wont pass to the attackers and the attackers wont help out the defenders.

If a gap doesn't involve relative player positions then what the hangment does it involve?

Is this a case of the actual game being wrong (ie your assman's comment) rather than just the manual? Or maybe wwfan has already shed the light of his countenance upon the problem after all!

No doubt I will be harangued for defending the system, but if a defensive player wont pass to an attacking player and an attacking player wont drop back to win the ball and you have no one in between the two to join the play then the attackers and defenders might as well be on different pitches.

The gap that the assistant manager refers to is a gap in mentality that makes it difficult to link the defence to the midfield and the midfield to the attack. If you visualise it as a gap in positioning you are not exactly wrong because you don't have midfielders dropping back to assist the defence or midfielders linking up with the strikers. The differences in mentality produce massive gaps between defence, midfield and attack even if the formation looks like there are none before kick-off. It doesn't have to be purely a gap in positioning although it often is, it is gaps in instructions that prevent your players working together.

good example of your statement is how to make (unbelivebly simple and basic instruction like) your second striker to drop deep. first you need to read through 50 page document (what % of FM players do it?) and then you need to experiment with mentality being low enough (but not too low becouse it will ruin your mentality framework), then forward runs need to be on rarely (but you might not want player to drop when you have the ball), then you need to change that player's marking to man (but your team plays zonal) and tick tight marking. did i forget something?

not to mention it's not possible to instruct your full-backs to 'hug line' or wingers to play 'slightly more AMC role' etc. but who cares about that, these are all extremly complex tactical ides which would be too much for avarage FM gamer.

Have you ever considered the fact that your footballers have something of a "mind" of their own in FM and when they see 5 players on their own team trying to get into the same space on the pitch they decide to position themselves and make their runs elsewhere? Have you considered the fact that asking a Forward to drop deep when you have deep lying central midfielders and a Striker encourages the opposition defence to push up, putting your Striker offside and causing your Forward to play on the shoulders of the Opposition Defenders?

You winger will only play as an AMC when moving infield is a better option than staying out wide and he has been told to move into space. If you play 4-4-2 and there is no movement from your players and no space to exploit in the AMC position then no one will move there.

Rooney likes to drop deep, Ronaldo likes to cut inside and Giggs plays an AMC these days. How rediculous would it be if Rooney, Giggs and Ronaldo all banged into each other when Ronaldo moves over to the left flank for United? I don't remember seeing that happen recently, but I have seen Rooney, Giggs and Ronaldo all play in the same team and all pop up on the flanks, in the AMC position, or get behind the last man at various times throughout various games. This is because all Uniteds front players are told to move into space and create space for others to move into, and Uniteds attacking midfielders play close to the Forwards while the fullbacks act as wingers.

If you want someone to play as an AMC put him in the AMC slot. If you want a Winger to pop up in the AMC position from time to time then you better make sure your deep lying forward isnt trying to get into that space, or the flank is wide open and the midfield packed. I find that the more Free Roles you give and the less you restrict players options to try Crosses or Through Balls etc then the more your striker will move out wide and your winger cut in, but thats just me trying to create holistic football tactics like I see week in week out with United, rather than trying to shoehorn one custom built "Cut-In" role for a winger into a tactic that has no room for it.

for someone who's made a lot of fantastically thought out posts on these forums you're being unnecessarily pathetic and thick when it comes to listening to complaints about the ambiguity with regarding sliders and people not being able to visualise how their tactical instructions translate to the game. i don't think anyone said it doesn't work, but it's definitely a module that could be improved.

I could say the same for many of these posts I am responding to. Calling the tactical instructions "ambiguous" combines the individual behaviour of complex players in response to your instructions with the complex behaviour of players working as a team and blames the difficulty in understanding their behaviour on 3 rather simple "does exactly what it says on the tin" sliders. The real problem is not the sliders at all, it is the complete lack of understanding that a slight and obvious change to the behaviour of one player can have a large and profound knock on effect across the entire team. You might give your two strikers and two wingers free roles and watch the strikers sit upfront and the wingers hug the flanks for 20 matches of the season. You then give a central midfielder a free role and suddenly your team produces passing and moving football Johan Cruyff would be proud of. This has nothing to do with the sliders and everything to do with creating exploitable space for the first time in a season.

The sliders are not ambiguous. What is ambiguous is the effect of individual player instructions across an entire team. Changing the sliders wont suddenly make the consequences for the entire team show up outside of the Match Engine its self. Writing a million page manual wont make the consequences any clearer outside of the Match Engine.

Presumably FM10 will come with an ESRB rating of "For pseudo-intellectual condescending smart-arses only".

Yes I hear a lot of Real Life Managers think this game is spot on.

[Mitja]

- Different situations that you have shown him in training.

- His own judgement of how those training situations compare with the one he is currently facing.

- What you have told him to do in such a situation.

FM is not letting you do that much with training. Instead, it directly lets you micromanage tactics during the match, as if your players had been training on these situations all week/ all season/forever. The final effect is the same, and very realistic, imo.

- not happening in FM

- not happening in FM

- not happening in FM

i think it's pointless to discuss things which begin with ''as if..''. and where does the mentality argument kick in?

[llama3]

personally the sliders work for me, its just a case of getting them right (yeah i know how that sounds) but its the way it is. they are quite fair. using the current tactical model i have created genuine arsenal-style tactics

[Mitja]

SFraser

i'm really glad you cracked the game and thank you for trying to help us. most interesting post! for a moment i almost believed everything you said but i think you mixed up the game with real football or maybe we're playing two different versions of FM. you talk about FM like it's 99% close to real football, and i just can't see that resemblance. in your opinon it surely must be my tactics. but i also can't see that resemblance in AI tactics and i would feel like cheating if i had your FM knowledge. and then when i see some basic stuff like closing down not working half decently, defensive tactics totally useless, counter attacks being rare as siberian tigers, hundred long shots and off-sides per game, crossing being useless like my mother was crossing etc, then i start having doubts about everything you say.

to suggest one free role can have such influence, i think you confirmed everything we're saying here.

[Rupal]

The gap that the assistant manager refers to is a gap in mentality that makes it difficult to link the defence to the midfield and the midfield to the attack. If you visualise it as a gap in positioning you are not exactly wrong because you don't have midfielders dropping back to assist the defence or midfielders linking up with the strikers. The differences in mentality produce massive gaps between defence, midfield and attack even if the formation looks like there are none before kick-off. It doesn't have to be purely a gap in positioning although it often is, it is gaps in instructions that prevent your players working together.

This is becoming more and more convoluted. We are starting to twist words out of their normal meanings, here. What on earth is a 'gap in instruction' for goodness' sake?

You are a defender of the current system. Perhaps you could explain how anybody who has not made a minute study of threads like these (ie Joe Public who buys this game in a shop somewhere) is supposed to read the assman's comments about 'gaps' as meaning this (whatever it actually does mean)? Humpty Dumpty would be delighted, as he would find a soul mate here ('words mean whatever I want them to mean').

It's just the same as wwfan's contorted explanation of why the game manual is incorrect when it says that positioning is directly affected by mentality. Even if both of you are right, how on earth is the average player who doesn't bother to read through posts on this website supposed to get his/her head round things? And why on earth should this average player even start to consider that when he/she is told by the game manual that mentality directly affects position, what it actually means is that mentality doesn't affect position or that a gap between midfield and attack or attack and defence actually isn't anything to do with the formation he/she has set up but has everything to do with how 'risk taking' his/her players are?

Is clairvoyance a necessary talent to have to be able to play FM with some basic understanding??

'The sliders are not ambiguous. What is ambiguous is the effect of individual player instructions across an entire team. Changing the sliders wont suddenly make the consequences for the entire team show up outside of the Match Engine its self. Writing a million page manual wont make the consequences any clearer outside of the Match Engine.'

I have read and re-read this paragraph and am still not one penny the wiser about what you are trying to say here.

At the very least, there is a serious failure of communication between SI and their customers, as the former seem to be unable to provide a clear, straightforward explanation of how their game's tactical system works, while the latter struggle to master the impenetrable, almost quasi-mystical concepts of gaps which aren't really gaps and positions which aren't really positions!

[Lyssien]

- not happening in FM

- not happening in FM

- not happening in FM

i think it's pointless to discuss things which begin with ''as if..''. and where does the mentality argument kick in?

You can't possibly expect FM to exactly simulate the human brain functions, do you? This cannot even be done in the MIT reasearch labs. As I said, the end result is very close to what is happening in reality.

I did not make a specific argument on the mentality slider in that post, I made a more general comment on sliders logic.

[schuey100]

The slider system will remain until SI figures out a way of making the game complicated enough to retain a gamer's interest. I think it's clear the current system is a nonsense, the comment about the Monty Python sketch earlier in the thread is spot on. Much of what I read about tactics is laughable.

However if SI introduced direct instructions, made the game easy to understand and allowed players to communicate instructions to their team effectively then the game, in it's current form, would be far too easy to master and the gameplay would be shot.

The reason the gameplay works somewhat today is that no one really understand what influence all the sliders have on each other, how to translate your vision to the pitch etc so people use guess work and, moreover, totally misunderstand the sliders themselves.

Modern football management is all about visuals, Andy Gray on Sky Sports is a good example. FM needs an interface where players can be positioned according to plays, according to ball position and where on the pitch they are. This game should allow me to set routines, plays, make sure that Ferdinand is covering Neville if Ronaldo cuts in. Basic stuff, Rooney to move wide to receive if the ball goes long but if we're playing through the centre then Rooney needs to leave the line and allow....etc etc etc etc etc

Traingles on the edge of the box, movement from the wingers to draw out the full backs, all this is stuff managers work on but none of it can be done in FM.

Set piece routines. The fact that we still cannot give basic instructions and set up routines is ridiculous. APPALLING. How many goals are scored from set pieces and free kicks? And what control do we have over these at the moment? Terrible.

FM could be so good but I'm not sure I have the confidence in the current developers to achieve what could be possible. The problems is that FM went a certain way with tactics and so much time, effort and funding has gone into the system that I see small steps towards the same direction rather than the revolutionary change the game really needs.

As for those that support the sliders because they understand them, that's simply not true. There are too many variables to be able to understand the slider system properly. That's exactly why it works so well in keeping the game 'uncrackable'.

[Mitja]

Lyssien, i didn't want to sound rude but why bring something as an argument when it's far from being a game feature?

[Mitja]

However if SI introduced direct instructions, made the game easy to understand and allowed players to communicate instructions to their team effectively then the game, in it's current form, would be far too easy to master and the gameplay would be shot.

The reason the gameplay works somewhat today is that no one really understand what influence all the sliders have on each other, how to translate your vision to the pitch etc so people use guess work and, moreover, totally misunderstand the sliders themselves.

you might be right but cracking sliders isn't fun nor a chalange to me. agree with your whole post, FM is lacking tactical depth so obviously i almost feel sorry for people who think it doesn't.

[iamjerome]

You can't possibly expect FM to exactly simulate the human brain functions, do you? This cannot even be done in the MIT reasearch labs. As I said, the end result is very close to what is happening in reality.

I did not make a specific argument on the mentality slider in that post, I made a more general comment on sliders logic.

i hope you didn't take any of the criticisms i made as a comment on fm's take on human cognition and how tactics affect it - no, i think the probability framework developed is excellent and i can't think of a better way to show what they have.however, what i do not agree with is the difficulty in learning HOW some of the tactical instructions translate in affecting players cognition as well as team movement/framework etc. of course, i dislike what mentality is, but only because it's impossible for anyone that isn't us or a reader of wwfan to figure out exactly what everything is and what and how it effects the surrounding elements unless you seriously commit yourself to experimentation. as for SFraser, rupal and mitja covered everything i would have wanted to say, really.

[PaulC]

yeah i know. but i doubt anything will change or improve much. Paul's and wwfan's posts convinced me they wouldn't. and i think i know what they intend to do.

I think you and one or two other posters are jumping to conclusions. I've said in various threads recently that we are looking at improving the accessibility of tactics for future versions.

[Mitja]

I think you and one or two other posters are jumping to conclusions. I've said in various threads recently that we are looking at improving the accessibility of tactics for future versions.

i never said you wouldn't. it is just a general feeling i got from reading yours and wwfans posts, defending slider system, not even considering that some slider's 20 notches don't make any sense etc. this started as discussion about why Mentality should be ditched and now it's a whole slider system defending/attacking thing. i think threads like this can give you best possible wiew on issues people have with tactics. i don't think slider system should be replaced with something revolulionary but there are some tactical features now which give you almost unrealistic control over simple things (like Time wasting, Creative freedom, Closing down..) and on the other hand control over player movement, positioning and set-pieces is minimal. make sliders visable and understandable. if you think simple, tick-box instructions would make the game too easy/exploitable or something else, why don't say so? but imo Mentality slider and its unrealistic and unneccesery connection with all other sliders is where the problem's lying.

[lkp022]

First of all, I have to say that I agree with those who feel the game needs to be improved in several areas. I've also been struggling with the game this year, feeling like many says that you have to “crack a code» in order to succeed. I wont go in to all of the specifics regarding my opinions on the mentality slider issue, since all has pretty much been said. I do however want discuss a couple of other things. The first thing in some regards to the topic, the other one maybe not. Maybe this should be posted as an own thread (sorry), feel free to redirect this if possible (admin).

These two are the "players positioning" on the field, and the "players attributes".

Both of these categories on FM09 can be compared to how this is done on the game «Pro evolution soccer» (PES), even though this is not an especially tactical game. BTW in PES the attributes varies from 1-100 (not 1-20).

Players positioning:

On PES you can decide on your own where the players positioning should be, not constricted in such a degree as on FM. This means that you have the option to play with wide wingers for an example, without this necessarily affecting how wide the rest of your team plays (as discussed previously). If you want the one winger to be a line hugger, and not the other one, you can do so also. I could go on and on with examples for the whole lineup..........but I wont:)

Players attributes:

Another thing that bothers me are some of the technical attributes in the game. Here I will use some examples with past and present Liverpool players to illustrate my points:)

Dribbling:

For an example; in FM you have the attribute «dribbling» which indicates how good the player is with the ball at his feet. His pace and acceleration etc will then aid to this skill when it comes to dribbling.

In PES the pace and acceleration is the same in general (called Top speed and acceleration). This indicates what a players top speed is, and how fast he achieves this through his acceleration. In PES however the «dribbling» is divided in to «dribble speed» (DS) and «dribble accuracy» (DA).

The DS indicates how fast a player can run with the ball without loosing control over it.

This means that a player with top speed at 85 and a dribble speed at 99, will be able to run with the ball at approximately the same pace as he normally achieves running without the ball (85).

The DA however indicates how good the player is at the traditional dribbling, technical feints etc. He doesn't have to be quick when running with the ball.

To illustrate would Djibril Cisse be a player with good DS but not good DA. Hes quite fast at running with the ball at his feet, but not a technical dribbler. This means he can beat players due to his pace and not due to his technical feints. His contrary would be players like Luis Garcia and Benayoun, who both have good acceleration and DA (slippery players I call them). They lack great pace and DS, which means that they cant rely on “powering” through players when dribbling as Cisse would. They on the other hand have to technically outsmart opponents when beating them. Messi and C.Ronaldo are examples of players with both excellent DS and DA (in addition to pace and acceleration).

What type of dribbler you are is something that doesn't show itself in FM. You cant divide it in to just dribbling and speed attributes like FM does. Its more intricate than that, as explained above.

Passing:

The same principles apply here, FM calls it «passing», which indicates how good a player is at passing the ball, both at short and long distance. The last one is decided by his technique and passing ability.

PES has divided this in to several categories;

First of all, short passes are divided in to both «short pass accuracy» (SPA) and «short pass speed» (SPS). This means that some players can have a very accurate passing skill but have a weak touch on the ball when passing, which again can lead to interceptions. Others use more speed but doesn't achieve the same accuracy, which also can lead to interceptions.

For an example is Xabi Alonso a player with great accuracy but slightly lower speed. Gerrard is the opposite, his short passes are fast but sometimes inaccurate.

The long passes are divided the same way in to accuracy and speed. Some players have great long pass accuracy but lack a little speed, Alonso an example again. Others hammer the ball with great speed when passing long, but lack some accuracy. Gerrard is good at both, but slightly better at speed than accuracy.

My point is that you can be a good passer at short distances, but not at long ones. This is something FM haven't taken into account with their «passing» attribute. The fact that you have good technique in addition to your passing ability shouldn't necessarily mean you're a good long passer.

Shooting:

FM divides the ability of putting the ball in the net with your feet, between «finishing» and «long shots» attributes. In PES no such distinction is made. Her you have the skills; shot accuracy (SA), shot power (SP) and shot technique (ST).

The SA decides how good a player is at placing shots where he wants them, while SP decides how much power he achieves. The ST determines how good a player is at finishing from difficult positions or cramped situations etc.

The better both SA and SP is, the better a player is at hitting the back of the net from distance. If a player has good SP but poor SA, it either rockets in or goes for the moon. Gerrard is a player with both excellent SA and SP. Riise on the other hand has great SP, but lacks SA somewhat. When Alonso takes long shots (except from his own half) you often see him placing / curling them with the inside of his foot, not hammering them in with his wrist like Riise does (used to do). Arsenals Eduardo scored a magical goal with his heel recently, which is a good example of both excellent ST and SA (but most technique).

Summary:

This went on way longer than I planned (sorry), but it's hard to stop once you pop. In my opinion, bot these modifications Ive discussed here (players positioning and some technical attributes) should be implemented in future releases. This of course in addition to fixing the issue of the mentality slider.

[SFraser]

SFraser

i'm really glad you cracked the game and thank you for trying to help us. most interesting post! for a moment i almost believed everything you said but i think you mixed up the game with real football or maybe we're playing two different versions of FM. you talk about FM like it's 99% close to real football, and i just can't see that resemblance. in your opinon it surely must be my tactics. but i also can't see that resemblance in AI tactics and i would feel like cheating if i had your FM knowledge. and then when i see some basic stuff like closing down not working half decently, defensive tactics totally useless, counter attacks being rare as siberian tigers, hundred long shots and off-sides per game, crossing being useless like my mother was crossing etc, then i start having doubts about everything you say.

to suggest one free role can have such influence, i think you confirmed everything we're saying here.

Does this remind you of anything?

Such as perhaps this?

I am sorry you are having such difficulty getting to grips with this game, but that does not make me a liar and it does not make Football Manager "broken and unrealistic". Football manager is a complex game that requires a basic understanding of real football tactics and the ability to interperate the match engine. People like WWFan can help you with the former and point you in the right direction with the latter, but only experimentation and practice with the Match Engine can help you understand in detail the true workings of the latter. The fact you have to learn how to play Football Manager does not make it "broken and unrealistic" either. It makes it identical to every other game in existence, except this one is a lot more complicated than most.

All that has been confirmed in this thread is that you don't understand the game and would rather rant that it is broken and imply those that have a grasp of the game are liars. I have never denied that it is abstract and complicated, but I understand it and I enjoy it and I think it is most realistic football game you can get. You are welcome to complain that it is hard to understand, or that it contains bugs here and there, but you are completely wrong to state it is broken and unrealistic.

This is becoming more and more convoluted. We are starting to twist words out of their normal meanings, here. What on earth is a 'gap in instruction' for goodness' sake?

Telling your Defense to play cagey defensive football and take no risks while your Midfield is instructed to play creative attacking risky football. Unless you instruct someone to link the two aspects of your game your Defence will remain isolated from the rest of your team. Usually it is the Fullbacks and Wingers that link the defence to the midfield and the midfield to the attack in a 4-4-2 but that is a basic system that is rather easy to anticipate. Basically if you have a "gap" then your defence cannot easilly link up with you midfield and your midfield cannot easilly link up with your attack.

You are a defender of the current system. Perhaps you could explain how anybody who has not made a minute study of threads like these (ie Joe Public who buys this game in a shop somewhere) is supposed to read the assman's comments about 'gaps' as meaning this (whatever it actually does mean)? Humpty Dumpty would be delighted, as he would find a soul mate here ('words mean whatever I want them to mean').

Either trial and error or he could try and wrap his brain around the concept of attacking and defensive mentalities for his players. Defensive mentalities for Defenders, Attacking Mentalities for Midfielders, Assistant reports Gaps between Defence and Midfield... How is this happening?!

It's just the same as wwfan's contorted explanation of why the game manual is incorrect when it says that positioning is directly affected by mentality. Even if both of you are right, how on earth is the average player who doesn't bother to read through posts on this website supposed to get his/her head round things? And why on earth should this average player even start to consider that when he/she is told by the game manual that mentality directly affects position, what it actually means is that mentality doesn't affect position or that a gap between midfield and attack or attack and defence actually isn't anything to do with the formation he/she has set up but has everything to do with how 'risk taking' his/her players are?

You could try playing the game and watching what happens in a match when you alter instructions. Pre-Season is a good time for experimenting with the instructions if you are not entireally sure what they do.

I have read and re-read this paragraph and am still not one penny the wiser about what you are trying to say here.

I am saying that you do not understand that players make decisions based on the game they are involved in, the shape of the team during play, the actions of other players on the pitch, their attributes etc. Not getting the desired behaviour from a player may not have anything to do with his instructions and may have everything to do with the fact he is an idiot. Different players respond differently to identical situations. The same player with the same instructions as last game may behave differently in a slightly changed formation or against different opposition.

At the very least, there is a serious failure of communication between SI and their customers, as the former seem to be unable to provide a clear, straightforward explanation of how their game's tactical system works, while the latter struggle to master the impenetrable, almost quasi-mystical concepts of gaps which aren't really gaps and positions which aren't really positions!

Gee imagine having to watch your team to find out what tactical instructions you give produce which response from which player. It's almost like working with real players, how game breaking. Your post shows you have absolutely no conception of players as individual decision making entities with their own personalities, which as far as I am concerned is the true beauty of Football Manager. Ofcourse Vidic is going to make subtely different positional and defensive decisions to Ferdinand when given similar instructions, his positioning, decisions and composure are different! Do you expect SI to produce a detailed list of instructions and consequences for every player in the game? Because any "guide" that attempts to state that all players will be in X position and do Y action with Z instructions will be wrong.

Much of what I read about tactics is laughable.

However if SI introduced direct instructions, made the game easy to understand and allowed players to communicate instructions to their team effectively then the game, in it's current form, would be far too easy to master and the gameplay would be shot.

Modern football management is all about visuals, Andy Gray on Sky Sports is a good example. FM needs an interface where players can be positioned according to plays, according to ball position and where on the pitch they are. This game should allow me to set routines, plays, make sure that Ferdinand is covering Neville if Ronaldo cuts in. Basic stuff, Rooney to move wide to receive if the ball goes long but if we're playing through the centre then Rooney needs to leave the line and allow....etc etc etc etc etc

If you think that a real manager actively controls every "play" made on a football pitch then you have no idea about football at all. The FA Cup Semi Final Replay between Manchester United and Arsenal at Villa Park in 1999 comes to mind. A 30 yard curler, a deflected 20 yard shot, a red card, a penalty kick saved by the keeper and a 70 yard dribble through the best defence in the League at the time by the best Winger of the Premiership Era.

How many of those events were actively and precisely planned on the training ground? Name one.

FM could be so good but I'm not sure I have the confidence in the current developers to achieve what could be possible. The problems is that FM went a certain way with tactics and so much time, effort and funding has gone into the system that I see small steps towards the same direction rather than the revolutionary change the game really needs.

As for those that support the sliders because they understand them, that's simply not true. There are too many variables to be able to understand the slider system properly. That's exactly why it works so well in keeping the game 'uncrackable'.

Ofcourse the game and tactics are "uncrackable". The entire match engine is built around the players playing football and the managers deciding the framework for play. The manager cannot make the players decisions for them, only impress upon them what kind of play he wants to see, and this is the entire point of the current match engine. That's right, the personality, motivation and ability of your players can be more important in a result than your tactics. Has no one queried why Sir Alex Ferguson has a tactical knowledge of 13 but is top of the World Wide Hall of Fame in FM09? It is because he is a man management genius that plays aggressive attacking football and cares only about winning.

It is sad to see such a brilliant Football computer game subjected to such a profound lack of Footballing knowledge. The edition of Football Manager produced after the complaints raised in this thread are taken onboard will be the edition after the greatest Footballing Simulation on the planet.

[Wayne\'o]

so what different instructions could we use instead of doing away with slider?

may be more player instruction's. one for the full back would be over lap MR or ML and try to get in box or hit the byline for a cross?

i dont think simply having a 1 off instruction such as defend, normal or attack would be enough for variety. are people complianing because they dont understand the slider's? and how to impliment them to gain success??

every tactic or instruction will come down to player quality at end of day.. a premier ship fast tempo short passing would never work in lower league unless you had a pool of superior players, as i dare say, kick long and chase wouldn't do so well in the top league's..

if we have to many instructions at what point do we leave any thing down to the player him self? IRL a manager may tell a player the sahpe he wants the team to play in, but the player will have to do the best to his ability and also use his own judgment as to what and when he does any thing..

i aslo think it boils down to the match engine, some times less is more but if there are not a wide varity range in tactics wouldn't it be simple to choose one of defend, normal or attacking mentality?..

if you want to impliment player stats and skills into a tactic frame via the match engine i would presume this is a huge area of the game to cover and get working..

i have noticed the change from 9.0.3 from the 9.0.2 patch...

also people talk about tactics and they dont like slider's!! in a build up to a match. players work on different training routines to combat teams, training could be made alot more tecnical to allow users to train players how they want there team to play. at the moment all training is about is getting a player to improve his Current ability. IRL training is has several different area's. fitness, tactics, morale, skills etc, IRl players CA will improve with age and a manager who trains him well and teach him the right thing's. See how indepth it could become when you talk about reality and how real life teams dont use slider's? where do we draw a line? games such as strategic are going to get more complex as time goes by..

FM isn't for the faint hearted or dare i say it lazy and dim people, you have to have the intuition to disect information provided in the game to enable you to make changes..

id say there are loads of people who have moderate success playing a certain way but when it doesnt work, trying somthing new just makes th egame seem unresposive, we need to break away from the normal and try different thing's and as some one said. this is where freindly's come in.

IRL managers will use pre season to test there new recruits and to see what tactics best suit them, lets face it some times IRL players just dont adapt to playing under a different manager.. prime example was a certain player this season..

[Rista]

SFraser, one question for you. How well do you think Ferguson and Mourinho would do in this game and would they stand a chance against, say, you or anyone who has read TT&F?

[schuey100]

SFraser, to throw accusations about a lack of football knowledge to emphasize your point is a bit puerile and adds nothing. Knowledge of football has very little to do with this game and that is the point people are trying to make. As Rista said, if SAF or JM playedf this game they would be utterly clueless in the tactical side because what they do in real life bears no relation to what we do in-game.

What most of us want is a way to communicate instructions to players, to translate football ideas onto the pitch. The game is limited in these areas because the slider system is so blasted complex. If we took a poll and asked 100 people here how the mentality slider affetcs position and how it relates to the width slider or the def line slider we would have 100 different answers.

Did you watch the game this evening? Man U vs Inter. Did you see how Scholes moved into the channels and Giggs cut inside, across the area with Ronaldo lurking and Carrick supporting? That was planned. It happened over and over again. Tell me, how do I do that in FM? How do I instruct the players to do that? Even if it is possible I have no idea how to do it and I've played this game for a long long time.

This isn't a case of lots of us being negative for the sake of being negative, we want to help improve the game. The slider system is holding back the game in our opinion. I'm not even saying I have a solution but the sliders must be changed.

[wwfan]

i never said you wouldn't. it is just a general feeling i got from reading yours and wwfans posts, defending slider system, not even considering that some slider's 20 notches don't make any sense etc. this started as discussion about why Mentality should be ditched and now it's a whole slider system defending/attacking thing. i think threads like this can give you best possible wiew on issues people have with tactics. i don't think slider system should be replaced with something revolulionary but there are some tactical features now which give you almost unrealistic control over simple things (like Time wasting, Creative freedom, Closing down..) and on the other hand control over player movement, positioning and set-pieces is minimal. make sliders visable and understandable. if you think simple, tick-box instructions would make the game too easy/exploitable or something else, why don't say so? but imo Mentality slider and its unrealistic and unneccesery connection with all other sliders is where the problem's lying.

This thread seems to divide people between those who are able to translate individual tools into conceptual wholes versus those who want absolute definitions with no inter-relating variables. If you are of the former type, you have no issue with the sliders, for you see them as part of a more complex whole and tend not to think of them individually at all. If you are of the latter, you want a more transparent system of virutal communication and feel that the only way to do this is to remove or redefine sliders.

A common argument is to lower the number of notches. Why does that make any difference? Is a 10-notch slider any closer to reality than a 20-notch one? There are no instructional notches in reality, so any notch based slider system is just as unrealistic as the next, no matter how many notches they have. It's pointless even going there.

The only option that would assuage the latter group was to haev a selection of real world phrases which they could apply to the team, for example:

Tell the team you want it to attack.

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap

However, ultimately, the same issue of transparency will still happen.

Tell the team you want it to defend

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap

How does the second compare with the first? Will they overlap as much in a defensive formation? We need to clarify.

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap at every opportunity

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky

But when should they start making this move? Is it risky for them to even start thinking of this until the ball is in the final third, or opposing half, or should they do it when it is deep in your own half.

Tell the full backs you want them to overlpa at every opportunity as soon as the ball enters the other half

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap at every opportunity as soon as the ball enters the final third

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap at every opportunity as soon as we get possession

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move when the ball is in the other half

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move when the ball is in the final third

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move as soon as we get possession

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky and when the ball is in the other half

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky and when the ball is in the final third

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky and we have possession

Currently, we can do all of this by combining two sliders. So, where to go?

[Rupal]

SFraser, of course, misses the point which I am making (deliberately?).

I am perfectly capable of understanding that players make decisions. It is curious that the paragraph which I found incomprehensible does not mention players' decisions at all, so how on earth anybody not blessed with second sight would make the connection between the two is beyond me.

Let me try to explain myself more simply so that there is no further possibility of obscurity.

We have had a number of lengthy, detailed and complex posts from SFraser and wwfan attempting to explain how the current tactical system works. They defend the current slider system because they claim to understand it. When asked why what they are saying appears to conflict with some very basic parts of the game manual or, in the case of the assman, with something which we are actually told by the game itself, they engage in convoluted explanations about how something which we are told directly affects position in fact doesn't but affects attitude instead, or that a gap is really a gap in attitude, not a physical one.

How is the average player who doesn't read their lengthy posts supposed to suss this out?

Is it reasonable on the part of SI to be so misleading? Should a guru like SFraser not be supplied with every box so that he can lecture the average punter about how gaps aren't gaps, positions aren't positions and condescendingly suggest that he or she should watch the match??

In the absence of such pearls of wisdom being available when you buy the game, it means that you have to visit a site like this, read through loads of posts and then attempt to get your head around the lengthy offerings of SFraser. In due course, you will, presumably, emerge as a wiser and more worthy human being, suitably humble and impressed with SFraser's erudition and pithy use of denigrating phrase.

Well, SFraser may be satisfied with such an arrangement. A number of people are not.

[PaulC]

I think someone made the point above that people should use friendlies to experiment with tactical settings in preparation for the real season. I think that is an excellent point, although I realize some casual users may not have the patience or time.

So, we are currently looking into potential solutions that will help out users who come into that category

[Rupal]

This thread seems to divide people between those who are able to translate individual tools into conceptual wholes versus those who want absolute definitions with no inter-relating variables. If you are of the former type, you have no issue with the sliders, for you see them as part of a more complex whole and tend not to think of them individually at all. If you are of the latter, you want a more transparent system of virutal communication and feel that the only way to do this is to remove or redefine sliders.

I think that you have not wholly taken on board the issue which a number of people have.

Essentially, what some of us are saying is that:

1) the sliders, especially the mentality one and their use are explained misleadingly by the game manual and that such things as the assman's comments are similarly misleading.

2) in order to make a player behave in a particular way it may be necessary to move a number of sliders, whose interconnection is by no means transparent (because of point 1) above). This can appear to be unnecessarily complex

3) the slider system does not enable us to do various things which we may well wish to do. For example, I can only set global width for my team. I can't ask one winger to tuck in and the other to play wide. I can only set global passing direction (down one or both wings, mixed or through the middle) as opposed to specifying that player A should feed player B. There is no simple way of making adjustments to position for my players, I have to engage in calculations about their mentality and go through a rigmarole of working out how this will indirectly affect their relative positions to their team mates.

I appreciate that it is possible to make the system work after a fashion (this point has been made earlier). But it requires a good deal of time and knowledge on the player's part to work this out for himself/herself, rather than blindly copying other people's suggestions without really understanding what's going on. Most people don't have that time or knowledge.

As was said earlier, the game should be easy to understand and difficult to master. The tactical system as it exists doesn't help in this.

[Rupal]

I think someone made the point above that people should use friendlies to experiment with tactical settings in preparation for the real season. I think that is an excellent point, although I realize some casual users may not have the patience or time.

So, we are currently looking into potential solutions that will help out users who come into that category

It needs far more than a few pre-season friendlies to work out that the assman and the manual are giving misleading information (if wwfan and SFraser are correct).

[PaulC]

Ok Rupal you have most definitely made your point. I think we agree that the game should be easy to understand and difficult to master, so feel free to judge us again once we have tried to address that

[Rupal]

Ok Rupal you have most definitely made your point. I think we agree that the game should be easy to understand and difficult to master, so feel free to judge us again once we have tried to address that

Thank you kind sir!

[iamjerome]

This thread seems to divide people between those who are able to translate individual tools into conceptual wholes versus those who want absolute definitions with no inter-relating variables. If you are of the former type, you have no issue with the sliders, for you see them as part of a more complex whole and tend not to think of them individually at all. If you are of the latter, you want a more transparent system of virutal communication and feel that the only way to do this is to remove or redefine sliders.

there's no need to be so patronising - you select geniuses aren't the only people able to "translate" the game, as i have said time and time again, i find success in fm (and have in every iteration) simple and generally get the team to play exactly how i want but my issues are completely centred around my experiences of dealing with new players (my housemates/friends) who come to FM and by extension, my struggle to teach them the rather essential intricacies of the game - and let me assure you, zero out of the 4 others in my friend circle who regularly play FM are even remotely interested in the concept of having to read a 50 page document or read posts in these forums regularly, to comprehend a game based around FOOTBALL.

PaulC - that's great to hear

[Mitja]

A common argument is to lower the number of notches. Why does that make any difference? Is a 10-notch slider any closer to reality than a 20-notch one? There are no instructional notches in reality, so any notch based slider system is just as unrealistic as the next, no matter how many notches they have. It's pointless even going there.

The only option that would assuage the latter group was to haev a selection of real world phrases which they could apply to the team, for example:

it feels stupid to repeat things but i'll do it anyway. try to divide 20 notches of Closing down on pitch and you'll see how odd that seems. i'd be most grateful if you or anyone else can answer this question; what do 6 notches of 'own area' mean and where do players start pressing when instructed to press on 1st notch? that's how things work in reality. i asked this question a couple of times and i think it's a fair one.

it's the same thing with (almost) all sliders. there are 'instructional notches' in reality imo. but compared to FM each 'notch' is an instruction; simple and comprehensibe one. even when you follow the rutine of 'you can always ask them to try it a little more or less' there would never be 20 notches for most sliders (Time Wasting, Creative freedom come to my mind imediatly). this is a game and all instructions should be more understandable than they are for coaches who earn money with coaching. people have been playing this game for years but still don't know what each instruction really does, TT&F saying totally different things than manual, having discussions like this, and the fact that real life football knowledge doesn't count much when playing this game and many other things, it all confirmes that tactical interface is far from being user-friendly or realistic. then add facts like when manager instructs a team to start closing down at 'x' and use 'y' agression when tackling or dribble 'z', players don't need to 'combine' those instructions with 'mentality' (whatever it is). they will simply do 'x', 'y' and 'z'. it's all so unnescessary complicated. right now it's almost impossible to learn what each tactical idea does and imo complexity and diversity is on low level. it hasn't improved for far too long now.

[Mitja]

about over-lapping full-backs.

imo we should have far more control when it comes to players' movement. it's unbelievable that there are 20 notches for Time wasting and only 3 sliders for movement behaviour plus almighty Mentality slider. also in reality strikers need to move forward (when having posession) no metter what they instructions are, on contrary CBs or full-backs don't need to. what i want to say is that 'Forward runs' for strikers are somthing completly different to full-backs'. ditch Forward runs and introduce two new sliders, tickboxes or something else - player movement mentality: (this would bring much needed diversity to tactics, we could control width, cutting in, every team would apear differently etc and it would work perfectly with Mentality)

- vertical movement: hold position, come deep, go forward (+ overlap instruction for full-backs only, or just high Mentality), mixed

- horizontal movement: hold position, hug line/move into chanell(s), move centrally, mixed

[Wayne\'o]

The only option that would assuage the latter group was to haev a selection of real world phrases which they could apply to the team, for example:

Tell the team you want it to attack.

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap

However, ultimately, the same issue of transparency will still happen.

Tell the team you want it to defend

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap

How does the second compare with the first? Will they overlap as much in a defensive formation? We need to clarify.

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap at every opportunity

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky

But when should they start making this move? Is it risky for them to even start thinking of this until the ball is in the final third, or opposing half, or should they do it when it is deep in your own half.

Tell the full backs you want them to overlpa at every opportunity as soon as the ball enters the other half

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap at every opportunity as soon as the ball enters the final third

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap at every opportunity as soon as we get possession

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move when the ball is in the other half

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move when the ball is in the final third

Tell the full backs you want them to overlap when they have the chance to make a difference to an attacking move as soon as we get possession

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky and when the ball is in the other half

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky and when the ball is in the final third

Tell the full backs to overlap when they don't think it is too risky and we have possession

Currently, we can do all of this by combining two sliders. So, where to go?

at end of day this is no different from having. tackle hard or easy, try more long shots, make forward runs, close down more oftern, try threw balls, run with ball ect...

there are not multiple choices and option's when telling players the above instriction's.. so why would they need loads of options to enable them to overlap the winger's, it's a simple comand, overlapp or always stay behind the Wide player, of corse instead of putting the full back on ultra attacking setting to make him actually be more direct then the wide player him self, it's an option that could be added id there was no slider... with any instruction you give a player, carrying it out depends on his ability at the end of the day so why would there need to be multiple choices to ask a full back to over lap?

[De Siem]

The Slider system is indeed better than having hundreds of tick boxes, however I think the slider system on it's own is incomplete. Since the effects of changes in sliders can be rather subtle, they're difficult to spot in the Match Engine. What I'd like to see is a tactical overview that shows how slider change affects a players position on the pitch in relationship to the ball. Sort of a hybrid between the old wibble wobble and the slider system.