New FM Live 1.2 Tactic system

[wwfan]

wwfan i don't need it to be easier just the lack of people playing at my ends a killer we would have a network of ten people playing now no network at all i'm the last man standing :-(

Again, the new method of designing tactics will make things far more intuitive and will hopefully rekindle playing desire for many. If that weren't the goal, we wouldn't be doing it.

[pele10]

as long as it's more to real life would help eg you're tactic is messed up because you have creative freedom at 15 instead of 14

[BOC]

Interesting thread. I'm an old timer really. I played CM93 and a few versions beyond then went away. I came back to FM07 found it too difficult and left again. With FM2009 I was about to give up again until I stumbled across TT&F and from there the larger community where I read more and learnt more. So I would give huge credit to wwfan and millie. My understanding was they devoted much of their time to playing the beta, testing tactics, learning it inside out and then bringing us the results. Thats an amazing commitment and while I think it's fine for people to criticise their work it's terribly unfair to suggest they are attempting to mold FM in their chosen direction. Why publish anything if thats the case?

I find a lot of the issues get a bit clouded when I read these arguments between people. I would consider myself a casual gamer who wants this game to be as realistic/complicated as possible. All I want is to understand those complexities. I don't want the idiot button to set a player to a sweeper or a tactic to defensive. I think it's good idea that this is planned to be part of future versions but I don't want it. Others may.

I want to understand why certain settings are the right settings in certain situations and why they are not in other situations. I want to make my tactic and see it work. If it doesn't work I want to understand why it isn't.

I still stare at extended highlights and have no idea why something isn't working. I am clueless and it feels very disheartening. There don't appear to be any clear answers to these questions. Why is the best player at my club being dispossessed in every highlight? You could find threads from the "engine readers" for want of a better name that will tell you to change passing, tempo, adjust mentalities so he has more options and so on. I read these things I go back to my tactic. I set up my rule of 1 or bands of 2 and so on and I still see the same thing.

Which brings me to my next problem. If I suddenly have a button that sets a sweeper, alters the defensive line to suit that etc. or a button that creates a defensive 442 (based for example on a TT&F standard 442) I will still have the same problem. I'll win one game and the next game my team will lose badly and look inept. I'll be back where I started but this time I'll have an in-game approved tactic that doesn't work and leaves me more confused.

I agree with Hammer when he talks about the 3-d highlights. I'm not convinced we are seeing what we need to see to tell us whats wrong. I can never shake the feeling that my best player is losing the ball because in this highlight we are going to conceed a goal so how it represents us conceeding the goal in 3-d is immaterial. I still can't see the obvious connection. I am not going to push this because after all it's a just a feeling on my part that may just be borne out of ignorance.

Either way I need some more feedback so I can learn and understand the complexities.

A tutorial that shows me 3-d highlights demonstrating how a team conceed because they are pushing up too much and how to recognise this from the highlight or a highlight showing a team struggling to score against a well organised defence demonstrating how to spot this problem and how to counter it by adjusting width, tempo and so on.

An assistant manager that gives me more meaningful advice and a scout with high tactical knowledge making better suggestions than "play deep or have fast defenders".

I want complication but I want the complication to fade over time because what I see and what I'm told make sense and eventually when I lose I might actually believe it's because the other team were simply better on the day. Sorry enough rambling.

[wwfan]

It's nice to see a constructive post that isn't trying to bait us. What we are hoping is that the new system, rather than being idiot buttons, highlights the necessity of making good football/tactical decision pre-and-during each game. The new system will make these decisions intuitive and dynamic, which will hopefully make the match experience far more enjoyable for everyone. As the ME/match experience is both fundamental to the success of FM and being heavily criticised for being too complex and difficult to understand, we are directly addressing that issue.

We might fail, but the fear of failure only hampers innovation, so we need to give it the best possible try. It might not be to everybody's taste, but that will be true of every change. What Ov has offered is for those who are worried about the direction this is taking the game a chance to sign up for some FML Beta testing so they can experience the system in its development phase and directly contribute to the ongoing process of implementation. The more people, feedback and ideas, the better the system will become.

[TMDaines]

There is a little more information about the system in development here:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=112539

If any of you guys would like to join the FML Beta to test out this system, then say so here and we'll get you onboard.

Any chance of an FML beta invite for a hardcore FM09 and FML user? You'll get the new features well tested!

[Ov Collyer]

No problem TMDaines I'll make sure Marc D gets you on board - expect a mail within a few days.

[Ov Collyer]

Interesting thread. I'm an old timer really. I played CM93 and a few versions beyond then went away. I came back to FM07 found it too difficult and left again. With FM2009 I was about to give up again until I stumbled across TT&F and from there the larger community where I read more and learnt more. So I would give huge credit to wwfan and millie. My understanding was they devoted much of their time to playing the beta, testing tactics, learning it inside out and then bringing us the results. Thats an amazing commitment and while I think it's fine for people to criticise their work it's terribly unfair to suggest they are attempting to mold FM in their chosen direction. Why publish anything if thats the case?

I find a lot of the issues get a bit clouded when I read these arguments between people. I would consider myself a casual gamer who wants this game to be as realistic/complicated as possible. All I want is to understand those complexities. I don't want the idiot button to set a player to a sweeper or a tactic to defensive. I think it's good idea that this is planned to be part of future versions but I don't want it. Others may.

I want to understand why certain settings are the right settings in certain situations and why they are not in other situations. I want to make my tactic and see it work. If it doesn't work I want to understand why it isn't.

I still stare at extended highlights and have no idea why something isn't working. I am clueless and it feels very disheartening. There don't appear to be any clear answers to these questions. Why is the best player at my club being dispossessed in every highlight? You could find threads from the "engine readers" for want of a better name that will tell you to change passing, tempo, adjust mentalities so he has more options and so on. I read these things I go back to my tactic. I set up my rule of 1 or bands of 2 and so on and I still see the same thing.

Which brings me to my next problem. If I suddenly have a button that sets a sweeper, alters the defensive line to suit that etc. or a button that creates a defensive 442 (based for example on a TT&F standard 442) I will still have the same problem. I'll win one game and the next game my team will lose badly and look inept. I'll be back where I started but this time I'll have an in-game approved tactic that doesn't work and leaves me more confused.

I agree with Hammer when he talks about the 3-d highlights. I'm not convinced we are seeing what we need to see to tell us whats wrong. I can never shake the feeling that my best player is losing the ball because in this highlight we are going to conceed a goal so how it represents us conceeding the goal in 3-d is immaterial. I still can't see the obvious connection. I am not going to push this because after all it's a just a feeling on my part that may just be borne out of ignorance.

Either way I need some more feedback so I can learn and understand the complexities.

A tutorial that shows me 3-d highlights demonstrating how a team conceed because they are pushing up too much and how to recognise this from the highlight or a highlight showing a team struggling to score against a well organised defence demonstrating how to spot this problem and how to counter it by adjusting width, tempo and so on.

An assistant manager that gives me more meaningful advice and a scout with high tactical knowledge making better suggestions than "play deep or have fast defenders".

I want complication but I want the complication to fade over time because what I see and what I'm told make sense and eventually when I lose I might actually believe it's because the other team were simply better on the day. Sorry enough rambling.

I agree with what you say.

The tactic system we're devising here is not aiming to give more feedback and explanation as to *why* something happened - it's just aiming to make it easier and more intuitive to set up your tactics in the way you want.

Although the two elements obviously feed off each other, we're currently just trying to create a better starting point for tactics and in-match analysis of what is going wrong (or right!) is beyond the scope of this particular work.

But yes, I think it would be fantastic if there could be a kind of virtual Alan Hansen who could pick out key aspects of a match and explain what happened, complete with scribblings on the pitch to illustrate the points being made.

One thing - "I can never shake the feeling that my best player is losing the ball because in this highlight we are going to conceed a goal so how it represents us conceeding the goal in 3-d is immaterial."

This isn't how it works - at the point in the simulation that your best player loses the ball, the engine itself simply *doesn't know the outcome.

I imagine it's possibly a case of you being aware that we *could* have made it work in this way, and so this increases the paranoia. If you are watching MOTD and the highlight starts with your team's best player losing the ball, and then a goal ends up being scored, you obviously wouldn't think twice.

*This is clouded slightly by the fact that the match has already played "ahead" to see the goal in order to know that it should show the highlight, but during the 'play head', the same applies - the engine didn't know it was going to result in a goal. The second 'play through' should simply be considered a frame-by-frame replay of the first. Hope that doesn't confuse.

[Aytumious]

I don't understand the anger in this thread. The ME is much better in 09 without the arrows and with a more organic flow to the matches. It could certainly get better -- and definitely has in the final patch -- but the groundwork is there for the new generation of the ME to be excellent. The problem lies in the interface and the thousands of permutations of sliders that are possible. By coming up with a wizard, the "casual gamers" people are talking about can sit down and within minutes have a tactic that they came up with themselves that makes sense and has the players doing what the person wants..

I see this as a huge evolution of how tactics are created in FM. The old sliders and options can remain for those little tweaks people may want to make, but if this wizard is done the right way, it will be an exceptional addition. People will wonder how they ever played without and laugh about the old days when we had nothing but sliders.

The criticism against the wizard from "casual gamers" that don't have lots of time to play is very bizarre. The wizard is exactly what they should be looking for when it comes to tactics since it will be so much easier to create tactics that have a coherent framework. The amount of time the wizard could save is huge.

[DLH]

As one who has appealed for a simpler and quicker game day, I am very encouraged by the concept of a tactics wizard and shout instructions. This is definitely a step in the right direction and one that will ensure that I will reenlist for FM2010.

Also on my wish list is a bit more help from from the game on why my team is not achieving the results I expect. I have been playing just a bit over a year now and I can not read the match engine even when I watch full or extended highlights. Am I losing games I expect to win because I picked the wrong tactic or is it because of the 3 new players I've added to the squad or is it because one or two players had a bad game or is it because the I said the wrong thing at the press conference or before the game or is it that my team is too young to play consistently good football or is it that my team is just not as good as I think they are? I could go on but you get the idea. I believe some of my perceived tactical problems may not be tactical at all. I just don't know! Would it be possible get more feedback from the assistant on why things went right or wrong? I think most of my fun-killing frustration stems from not knowing what steps to take to get my team to the next level.

[tomescan]

A tutorial that shows me 3-d highlights demonstrating how a team conceed because they are pushing up too much and how to recognise this from the highlight or a highlight showing a team struggling to score against a well organised defence demonstrating how to spot this problem and how to counter it by adjusting width, tempo and so on..

Great idea and a great post.

Top work BOC

[FuSS]

I love the 09 match engine, as always it's a work in progress but it's the best there is!

If you want to win the prem league with newcaslte in 2 seasons and think that the game is too hard cos you finished 6th, then your nuts!

You shouldn't even really be able to win the leauge with Arsenal, let alone Newcastle as they can't achieve this in real life! Yet in game you cna win the league with any prem team after 2 or 3 seasons, so if anything the game is far too easy.

The fundermental problem is that people want to win every match, what the don't realise is that THAT is unrealistic, and that at the end of the day a large amount of any match is chance/luck/happenstance, even the best teams in the world crusing to the title have a off day.....fulham 2 man utd 0 anyone!

I believe that SI try to help people to this end though, those that want an easy game, with 'bugs' like the corner bug....a match winnign exploit that you can choose to use if you want an easy win.

It's still in FM09 too....seems the corner bug has in fact been put back in with the 9.0.3 patch - Porbably to appease the moaners and let them win every match if they choose too.

[Millie]

I believe that SI try to help people to this end though, those that want an easy game, with 'bugs' like the corner bug....a match winnign exploit that you can choose to use if you want an easy win.

It's still in FM09 too....seems the corner bug has in fact been put back in with the 9.0.3 patch - Porbably to appease the moaners and let them win every match if they choose too.

The post was going so well up to this point.

I doubt SI have deliberately left bugs like this in because they want to keep the game easy. It's more likely because it's much more difficult to fix than people give it credit for, and so as not to upset the balance of the game they have not been able to fix it thoroughly in the last few patches.

[TMDaines]

No problem TMDaines I'll make sure Marc D gets you on board - expect a mail within a few days.

Fantastic.

[FuSS]

The post was going so well up to this point.

I doubt SI have deliberately left bugs like this in because they want to keep the game easy. It's more likely because it's much more difficult to fix than people give it credit for, and so as not to upset the balance of the game they have not been able to fix it thoroughly in the last few patches.

As I said generally I think the game is the best so far and I'm not one to compalin. However it is odd that the corner bug seems to have re-appeared in the latest patch. That said, you either choose to use or not to use such exploits and it dosn't affect my game in the lsightest as I choose not to - just the same as the 1 international apperance fee's can be exploited if one so wishes.

[Hammer1000]

The fundermental problem is that people want to win every match

Totally disagree

[Mitja]

for me one of the problems in whole tactical/match day experience is the difference between AI and human behaviour, there absolutly need to be the same rules we and AI follow. as much as this wizzard might be good, same thinking must be implemented to AI. we should be able to talk in english but the programing language must be the same...

[shakeable]

I think that this new wizard sounds like a really good thing. It would certainly speed things up.

I'm a little hesitant tho. I don't have much knowledge about FM live but don't you have to purchase upgrades and train skills? So what would happen if i setup my team to play a counter attacking style but i haven't purchased the tactical skill of counter attacking?

Would the wizard advice me to change my game plan or would it change the tactic to try and emulate the counter attacking style with the tactical options i do have?

As I say, if you want to help beta test it, then put your name down. Or, if not now, then if this makes it into FM10, then put your name down then if the opportunity arises.

I would like to beta test this if its still open.

[Spinsaweb]

An interesting thread so far, always good to see the passion people have for the game (FM or FML) even if it's occasionally misguided.

Personally not overly interested in FM (since FML started) so i don't spend much time in this area of the forums, but now that FML and it's upgrades have become a topic for discussion here i thought i'd add my piece.

The new tactical wizard for FML is a great innovation, brought about largely by the confusion many people have with understanding how the various tactical controls in the current system interact with each other.

Any suggestion that it's some sort of power trip, or conspiracy from Richard and Millie is laughable at best. There desire to assist people understand the inner workings of the FM tactical system is obvious and stretches across many community forums.

The TT&F is possibly the best guide around in terms of explaining how to make a consistent and sensible tactic, and the framework laid out within it is a very helpful clarification of what's happening when you make tactical adjustments.

For those who haven't seen the Wizard (and it's obvious those attacking it here haven't) i'd strongly recommend you read the blog by Marc Duffy (linked above) and take Ov up on the offer of Beta testing. Essentially it's an improvement on default tactical design, using some fairly basic descriptive choices it allows anyone to create a sensibly constructed tactic for the style of play they would like their team to adopt.

It doesn't replace any of the old tactical adjustments, it just offers a different way of accessing them (through language rather than sliders) and well done to who ever managed to code a 50 page guide into six short steps

Again the criticisms in this thread are bizarre to say the least, at this stage it's an additional option - not a replacement, so i fail to see how it will negatively impact on anyone's FM experience.

I think that this new wizard sounds like a really good thing. It would certainly speed things up.

I'm a little hesitant tho. I don't have much knowledge about FM live but don't you have to purchase upgrades and train skills? So what would happen if i setup my team to play a counter attacking style but i haven't purchased the tactical skill of counter attacking?

Would the wizard advice me to change my game plan or would it change the tactic to try and emulate the counter attacking style with the tactical options i do have?

First up FML doesn't require the purchasing of any upgrades, it's all inclusive.

How exactly the wizard affects the tactical skill system, and what parts if any are skill dependant is part of the Beta testing, and there are a range of opinions on both sides about how it should be implemented.

[RT--]

Ov - I posted in a seperate thread on GD that I'd like to help beta test FML v1.2. Unfortunately, the e-mail account attached to my profile no longer works (it was a University account, which is now dead), so as I mentioned on the other thread, <edited out> would be the best way to contact me.

No probs if it's too late to sign up now!

<edit - all sorted now, thanks>

[Ceching You Out]

I've posted this elsewhere, but I thought it might do to add it here for discussion:

I think there are two real root issues with the current tactical system.

(1) The ME is too sensitive to the input from the sliders. Sometimes making the slightest tweak can "break" an otherwise brilliant tactic. Granted, there are occasions in real football where moving a CM back to DM can suddenly change a team's dynamic; but every change shouldn't feel this way. There should be a certain element of robustness to the ME that allows the dedicated player to fine tune a tactic to get that extra pence out of his players but still allows the lazy player to still get reasonable play from being in the ballpark.

Hopefully, this ME tweak will correspond with the new tactical interface. It would be a shame to see more intuitive, high-level tactical instructions fall by the way-side because of the ME's sensitivity to a small change.

(2) The tactics are extremely vague. I would recommend that there be an additional view from the tactics screen that has a dropdown menu. You would be able to choose items like "Positioning" which would display a brief description such as "This screen shows roughly where your players will be positioned based on your Formation, Mentality, Width, and Defensive Line." Below you would get an image that shows your players micro-positioned on a field from a certain instance of play -- whether the positioning is shown for a goal kick, kick-off, etc. wouldn't matter because it mainly serves as a point of reference for any tweaks you make. Similarly, you would get dropdown items such as "Defensive Duties" which shows closing down range, man-marking vs. zonal marking, and tackling. Give the user a graphical interface for these instructions and suddenly the view of what their tactics actually do becomes so much more lucid.

If you were to combine this with the new tactical interface, you would further reduce the need for confused managers to consult outside guides (ala TT&F) and still encourage the adamant DIYer to take it upon himself to study the ins-and-outs of his made-from-scratch tactics.

Personally, I still love FM09 and don't really have much of a legitimate gripe. I think the sheer complexity of the different systems (ME, Transfers, Training, etc) and their interplay is much more impressive than the common player realizes. But at the same time, I see half a dozen small interfaces changes like this which allow the user to truly enjoy the power of the underlying engine. I think of it this way -- it takes a true car enthusiast to enjoy a Porsche engine tucked into a 1980s station wagon; but if you take that same engine, put it in the proper body and give it intuitive controls, even a bum off the street can take a whirl and enjoy it while the enthusiast will still be able to enjoy the intricacies.

[macca72]

Sounds like this could be a real winner.

A lot is made of TT&F and the author(s) approach to the game. It seems to divide the community like no other topic of discussion. If you step back a little though, and objectively put yourself in the position of SI, it's actually a sensible framework to follow.

This forum is split into a two distinct categories. Those who find a working formula with one solid framework, and tweak as they go. Others adopt a more TT&F based strategy, which you could argue works more logically through a set of pre-defined instructions.

If you were developing this game, and reading through the (quality) posts in these forums you see a common theme which says...

"Tactics have become a little over-elaborate, and we could really do with some more explanation / better defaults to help us".

To address this you need to come up with a solution that not only interacts with the ME properly and executes the users perceptions of what certain changes should do, but also identify with what may pass as a real life tactical change.

Now, I don't use TT&F, nor do I particularly agree that it's the be-all and end-all of the tactical approach to the game, however it's difficult to argue against the fact that for the most part it's logical, well thought out and despite some of it being a bit long winded, it could easily pass for a "realistic" set of tactical instructions.

If TT&F had been written on the quiet, by SI, alongside the new tactical system in FML, would it be met with the same scepticism ?

This next statement is completely my own opinion, feel free to disagree as you like, but I’ll go anyway...

The fundamental core of this game is the ME, and the tactical system is the absolute number one driver of the results and game play experience. In comparison to real life, this is where FM for me needs to be re-balanced. Football irl probably has four key, equal components. Tactical approach, Player quality (Link this to finances if you like), Training & Scouting...At least two, possibly three of these are underestimated in FM.

It's still far too easy over a relatively short space of time to buy in quality players above your level. In addition, you see no adverse affects from leaving the training at default. Training is a massive part of football, with stats analysis, biochemistry and sports science playing a huge role in football now, and can lead to massive overachievement (Bolton ?). Again this hasn't yet been developed to it's full potential in FM yet.

Scouting is better than it ever was, but irl large clubs have massive global scouting networks, (that also have a massive impact on finances), we again haven't seen this level of detail in FM yet.

The result of this imbalance, again in my opinion, is that tactics have become more important to balance the effort vs reward ratio in the game as a whole.

This isn't at all a rant, more an objective view on the tactical system and one possible, but I doubt intentional, explanation for where the game is now, and hopefully where it's heading in the future.

[wwfan]

To be honest, TT&F is only the tip of the iceberg. We've moved so far beyond it now in 1.2 development you'd hardly recognise it. From my perspective, the whole system is 100% more intuitive and the match experience 100% more dynamic. Every single tactical change, major or minor, can be done at the touch of a button directly from the match screen. You can change your entire strategy, push up your d-line, swap a couple of players' positions around, change their individual instructions, target an opposing player, slow the game down, push for a winner, make a substitution and much more without having to lose sight of the match. As such, both TT&F style players and those who only like to tweak a single tactic system should be happy. Furthermore, it all happens instantaneously.

[Stejo]

To be honest, TT&F is only the tip of the iceberg. We've moved so far beyond it now in 1.2 development you'd hardly recognise it. From my perspective, the whole system is 100% more intuitive and the match experience 100% more dynamic. Every single tactical change, major or minor, can be done at the touch of a button directly from the match screen. You can change your entire strategy, push up your d-line, swap a couple of players' positions around, change their individual instructions, target an opposing player, slow the game down, push for a winner, make a substitution and much more without having to lose sight of the match. As such, both TT&F style players and those who only like to tweak a single tactic system should be happy. Furthermore, it all happens instantaneously.

This sounds absolutely fantastic, a couch manager's dream come true. But, although I'm pretty ecstatic about the above description, I'll have to point out a truth you and SI probably already know. Every year FM tries to become more and more realistic, bring the excitement of the match day closer to reality. Watch the game, adjust and adjust more, talk to the players, address the press, handle each opposing player differently and so on. There hasn't been much incentive for that however. Match engine was until recently 2D, not exactly a wonder to behold and the newly introduced 3D ain't exactly state of the art technically either to say the least. Most players watch highlights, key ones. Some, and that's not a few, don't even bother with them. Many just can't be arsed spending too much time during match day, a remnant of the bad old Diablo days maybe where you could just fly through seasons without doing anything fancy.

By what you describing above you're pretty much forcing everyone to watch full matches to succeed which is actually the current state of the game in 9.3 as well to be honest and possibly the reason why the game has lost much of it's appeal for many players. For that to work you need to throw something back; because you're practically changing the foundations of a game that's been loved by plenty of players exactly as it was for years. The match day needs to be beautiful, reek excitement; the engine should be like really really good in both graphical representation and quality of football it produces. The instructions you give on the fly as you describe need to be implemented in such a way that you can clearly seem them happen in front of your eyes and make you feel good or bad about them depending on the outcome.

The game is plagued too much by the weight of it's own RNG. You go ahead and save a game just before you start a match. Play the 1st half 10 times with exactly the same instructions, talks, tactics, everything. Chances are you won't get 2 identical results. Now that might be the magic of football for some but it's not much of an incentive to watch 90 full minutes of every single game of the season if the roll of the dice is gonna play a bigger role than your tactical input. Players know that, engine needs to be more robust on that account.

All in all if you want people to embrace the direction you're talking the game to, make sure it's a good one. It's SI's own game, they love it more than any of us do, so don't cater to the masses, no two people in these forums can agree on what the game should be like. I gave my input, others did too and will continue doing so. You had a working recipe in past versions, many would agree that it's almost broken this year. If you wanna keep going down the same road, convince us it's worth it to follow.

I understand that much of this is largely irrelevant to the topic at hand so I apologize if it takes the thread to a different direction. After all I only bother writing all this cause I kinda like this game myself too.

[wwfan]

I think this forum has been one of the major problems SI have had in getting people to understand more recent developments. The old tacticians that worked together to build an ultimate tactic, with Diablo being the most (in)famous, have long gone, because that imethodology is opposed to the direction the game has gone. Kimz was perhaps the last of a generation. That this has happened is part of SI's long-term vision, not a reaction to any input I might or might not have had.

The problem is that neither the forums nor the manuals have been able to keep pace with the change. Despite massive strides made in the ME, the descriptions of how to play are largely based on pre-FM06 methodologies. Likewise, the tactical GUI has failed to keep up. Because of that, it can be tedious in the extreme to design tactics and shift between them, involving multiple slider clicks, constant match pauses for extra tweaks, etc, etc. Playing quickly thus becomes difficult, if not impossible, unless you can really read the match and have a series of tactical solutions pre-designed for any eventuality. If you can do the former and have the latter, all feelings of randomness dissipate. You can see if you are having a bad half and remedy it by going more defensive, and look to change things at half-time. You can instantly react to going a goal down rather than plugging on with the same formula and hoping for the best. Because you can do that, you don't need to watch the matches in masses of detail and certainly don't have to micro-manage, instead employing broad strategic changes for each situation.

What we are intending to do is put all that type of in-match management at your fingertips and provide the required information to teach you to do it, and do it well. As this will make the match immediately feel more dynamic and tactical changes more intuitve to what is going on, it will revitalise the match experience and put it back to the centre of the game. If you can't understand the match, you can't manage. We are trying to address that so everybody can understand the match and the related tactical options and, in doing so, begin to see the influence good and bad tactical decisions have on the outcome of a game. The match is the core of the game. If it is bad, FM dies. We aim to help everybody to have more fun when playing that aspect by clarifying tactics and providing solid information about what is happening in the game.

The ME is already much more robust than you imagine. Given the methodology of repeatedly playing the same tactic, without change, for a match 10 times, you will get a random slection of results (unless you are by far the better/worse side). You can't be 100% guaranteed to score first, or for their to be a goal at all, for that is the nature of football. You might have a good chance of scoring first, perhaps 60%, 20% for the opposition, 20% on no one scoring.

Thus, we have a spread of 1-0 (x6), 0-0 (x2), 0-1 (x2). As you are not changing anything, but the opposition is, perhaps the chancees of scoring a second goal for either team shift to 40%- 20%-40%. We could now perhaps have a spread of 2-0 (x3), 1-1 (x4), 0-0 (x2), 0-1 (x2). By now the butterfly effect has fully spread its wings, meaning the outcome of each game has nothing to do anymore with the finite combination you started the match with. Perhaps the final split will end 4-0 (x1), 3-1 (x1), 2-0 (x1), 2-1 (x1), 1-1 (x1), 0-0 (x2), 0-2 (x1), 1-2 (x1), 0-5 (x1). Seems random, but that is simply becasue one manager has done nothing to protect a lead or search for an equaliser, while the other has, which will significantly change the outcome of a game. I'd be far more worried about the robustness of the ME if such an experiement led to 9 wins and a draw.

[Ov Collyer]

This sounds absolutely fantastic, a couch manager's dream come true. But, although I'm pretty ecstatic about the above description, I'll have to point out a truth you and SI probably already know. Every year FM tries to become more and more realistic, bring the excitement of the match day closer to reality. Watch the game, adjust and adjust more, talk to the players, address the press, handle each opposing player differently and so on. There hasn't been much incentive for that however. Match engine was until recently 2D, not exactly a wonder to behold and the newly introduced 3D ain't exactly state of the art technically either to say the least. Most players watch highlights, key ones. Some, and that's not a few, don't even bother with them. Many just can't be arsed spending too much time during match day, a remnant of the bad old Diablo days maybe where you could just fly through seasons without doing anything fancy.

By what you describing above you're pretty much forcing everyone to watch full matches to succeed which is actually the current state of the game in 9.3 as well to be honest and possibly the reason why the game has lost much of it's appeal for many players. For that to work you need to throw something back; because you're practically changing the foundations of a game that's been loved by plenty of players exactly as it was for years. The match day needs to be beautiful, reek excitement; the engine should be like really really good in both graphical representation and quality of football it produces. The instructions you give on the fly as you describe need to be implemented in such a way that you can clearly seem them happen in front of your eyes and make you feel good or bad about them depending on the outcome.

The game is plagued too much by the weight of it's own RNG. You go ahead and save a game just before you start a match. Play the 1st half 10 times with exactly the same instructions, talks, tactics, everything. Chances are you won't get 2 identical results. Now that might be the magic of football for some but it's not much of an incentive to watch 90 full minutes of every single game of the season if the roll of the dice is gonna play a bigger role than your tactical input. Players know that, engine needs to be more robust on that account.

All in all if you want people to embrace the direction you're talking the game to, make sure it's a good one. It's SI's own game, they love it more than any of us do, so don't cater to the masses, no two people in these forums can agree on what the game should be like. I gave my input, others did too and will continue doing so. You had a working recipe in past versions, many would agree that it's almost broken this year. If you wanna keep going down the same road, convince us it's worth it to follow.

I understand that much of this is largely irrelevant to the topic at hand so I apologize if it takes the thread to a different direction. After all I only bother writing all this cause I kinda like this game myself too.

You raise some valid concerns Stejo.

At this stage the new system though, really saves you time rather than uses up more of it. That is, it hasn't (yet) introduced any new instructions to the match engine but instead, the "Touchline Instructions" option provides a series of "one-click" options that will change several logically-connected settings in one go. So you don't necessarily need to pause the game, go to your tactics, fiddle about with X, Y and Z and then continue the match.

We're very much coming at it from the angle of "how can we help someone who can't be bothered/doesn't have the time to read a long document explaining how various different controls interact".

One option would simply be to simplify the controls themselves but this would be something of a step back. While there are some who find aspects of the tactical system difficult/time-consuming to grasp, there are others who revel in it. There is a healthy community surrounding the tactical aspect of FM - this forum is just one example. We don't want to lose that by watering things down either.

So the logical answer seems to provide an optional higher-level, more intuitive, user interface and get the best of the both Worlds.

In short, the complexity of FM has probably outstretched the UI in recent years and this is an attempt to put that right and make sure that the match becomes as enjoyable as possible for as many people as possible.

[Macgyver0]

Will this be include in fm 2009 in a future patch?

[Ov Collyer]

It won't be included in FM2009, no.

At the moment it is being beta-tested and refined inside FML, and all being well (as in, if people like it and it works ) then hopefully it'll find its way to FM10, though no decision has been made on that yet.

[shakeable]

It won't be included in FM2009, no.

At the moment it is being beta-tested and refined inside FML, and all being well (as in, if people like it and it works ) then hopefully it'll find its way to FM10, though no decision has been made on that yet.

Is the beta still open? I haven't received an answer to my post further up.

[Ov Collyer]

Yep - I'll draw someone's attention to this thread so they can make sure you're added to the beta.

[macdyne73]

Great work SI. You guys are doing a good job with this idea.

For the record, I'm one of those middle ground players, not so casual but not crazy about micro-management either. I don't always follow the TT&F 100% and I've never even watched matches in extended highlights never mind the full 90 minutes..

I'm really looking forward to this new development and will be following it. I hope testing goes well and it will make it into FM10. Personally, I don't mind the current tactical UI but the idea of another more intuitive UI with more transparent feedback makes me salivate with anticipation!

Feedback. I agree this game needs more and better feedback (especially from the ass man) especially about tactics.

I guess that's the problem with some ppl here. Their team is not doing well, their team is making mistakes, they are being steamrolled by "inferior" opposition etc. and they don't know why it's happening. It's frustrating! (Actually, the info is all there but some people don't/can't/won't see or notice it. But that's a different story eh?)

Also, more feedback from scouts who check out your next opponent would be great. Which brings me to something I just thought off. Say your scout's just come back to you with the opposition report. You go to your tactics screen to check your settings, pick your squad, etc. It would be a nice feature if you have an option to hold a "tactics discussion" with your ass man where he would make some general comment about your tactics in relations to your opposition's most likely set up. If, for example, your tactic is too conservative or too aggressive or just plain flawed then he should just go ahead and say so.

I think this would save a lot of people a lot of headache. Just a suggestion though. Feel free to disregard if it's not a suitable idea..

Anyway, if the new tactics UI includes better, more direct feedback that it will be a winner. Coupled with an upgraded match engine and better 3D, it will absolutely rule!

[NCFCRossky]

Yep - I'll draw someone's attention to this thread so they can make sure you're added to the beta.

Can I be added to the beta to please. Thanks!

[shevelevee]

After strange decisions about arrows and seeing still a lot of very successful tactics... When SI don't keep their words about control of lateral movement... After no reply in my suggestions about tactics development in beta forums...

I think, I understand, what's happening with our lovely game) When i read Miles' interview in 2007 when he said, that the main idea is to make Fm more friendly for newbies, I became alerted)) But now we can see that it is really the main idea - to make all more easy... Is it bad? No, if there will be also some things for those people who love to tune their tactics during many hours... for people who choose Fm because of freedom which cm and fm give us, freedom to create our own tactics...

Even if this wizard will be added as option, and we still be able to make tactic without this wizard - it will be slap in the eye for many fans. When the developers decide that adding new features in tactic is not so important than make this tactic easy to understand, it seems for us like somebody attempt on our freedom (yeah, illusory, but freedom!)... It is psyhology problem...

I don't want to start another battle (something like "the realism or without the arrows"). Just want to rise one important point - if there will be nothing new in tactic, which gives us more abilities to control our team at the field - this will be Rubicon for the series. A lot of old fans will left these game because the game will change priority..

If you want this new function will be accept by all fans, SI, wwfan, Millie - you need to add something new for the old fans, who like to play with tactic, to tune it witout TTF and other manuals, who like to play full match, to find their own way in tactic building. We dont' wanna any "tactic bible". Is there any tactic bible in real life? Are Hidding, Ferguson, Wenger and others use any wizard?) I (and others) don't want to see that Fm will be "the casual arcade game". I (and others) want them to be simulator of footbal management. That's why any step in "make game more easy" direction is like stroke in heart for us.... Plase, understand this, and you will understand why there are so much agression. When you love your girl not only for appearanceб but for their intellect too, you will be very dissapointed, when somebody make it more nice, but and more stupid)

Excuse my English.

Hope it helps.

Thanks in advance.

[Millie]

As we said. The wizard is phase one of getting tactics easier to understand. Phase two is to add more instructions to give managers more control over what is going on. Rest assured, wwfan and I have been pressing for more control over lateral movement, as well as other instructions, so we'll have to see what SI are able to code and what works in the ME.

[peter-evo]

Seems like the place to ask: When do we get the emails?

[heathxxx]

I've had the email invite & have filled out the application, what happens next? Will someone contact us again to confirm we're accepted for the beta with all the relevant info?

Cheers

Heath

[wwfan]

After strange decisions about arrows and seeing still a lot of very successful tactics... When SI don't keep their words about control of lateral movement... After no reply in my suggestions about tactics development in beta forums...

I think, I understand, what's happening with our lovely game) When i read Miles' interview in 2007 when he said, that the main idea is to make Fm more friendly for newbies, I became alerted)) But now we can see that it is really the main idea - to make all more easy... Is it bad? No, if there will be also some things for those people who love to tune their tactics during many hours... for people who choose Fm because of freedom which cm and fm give us, freedom to create our own tactics...

Even if this wizard will be added as option, and we still be able to make tactic without this wizard - it will be slap in the eye for many fans. When the developers decide that adding new features in tactic is not so important than make this tactic easy to understand, it seems for us like somebody attempt on our freedom (yeah, illusory, but freedom!)... It is psyhology problem...

I don't want to start another battle (something like "the realism or without the arrows"). Just want to rise one important point - if there will be nothing new in tactic, which gives us more abilities to control our team at the field - this will be Rubicon for the series. A lot of old fans will left these game because the game will change priority..

If you want this new function will be accept by all fans, SI, wwfan, Millie - you need to add something new for the old fans, who like to play with tactic, to tune it witout TTF and other manuals, who like to play full match, to find their own way in tactic building. We dont' wanna any "tactic bible". Is there any tactic bible in real life? Are Hidding, Ferguson, Wenger and others use any wizard?) I (and others) don't want to see that Fm will be "the casual arcade game". I (and others) want them to be simulator of footbal management. That's why any step in "make game more easy" direction is like stroke in heart for us.... Plase, understand this, and you will understand why there are so much agression. When you love your girl not only for appearanceб but for their intellect too, you will be very dissapointed, when somebody make it more nice, but and more stupid)

Excuse my English.

Hope it helps.

Thanks in advance.

This is why we can't win. Earlier in the thread we are accused of wanting the game to be so complex you need a PhD in the ME to play. Likewise, people are warning us not to have to make it so they have to watch matches in detail. Now we are accused of wanting to dumb it down, restrict tactical options and make it easier for the user to win.

My position is this:

FM is a simulation of football management. In real life it is impossible to design a football tactic that is so good other teams can never work out how to play against it. In previous FMs, this hasn't been the case. However, recent ME developments have made the current iteration the closest to reality ever in this regard.

If you are going to reduce the chance of a super tactic being possible and turn matches into real strategic simulations of real life, you need to add masses of dynamism to the match experience. In doing that, actual in-match decisions have to be seen to be making an obvious difference. It shifts focus away from designing a single tactic to management of the match. As such, designing tactics becomes part of training, and managing them becomes part of the match. This won't make the game easier. I suspect for many it will make it harder at first. What I suspect is that, and from FML feedback it seems to be happening, the matches themselves will become more fun.

However, for those that don't want to play this way, all the old, classic interface still underlies everything and can be accessed as usual. However, the in-match dynamism doesn't work alongside it (currently anyway) which makes the match a less rich experience. Focus reverts to trying to design a tactic that your opponent simply can't deal with. Doesn't float my boat, but if it does yours, nothing will have changed.

[shevelevee]

So, i can see 4 directions of the game development now in this thread -

1. Reducing of chance to create the supertatic (because it is unrealistic)

2. UI and creating tactic' process must be more user friendly (because it will help to sell the game)

3. In-match tactic changes must be more important then creating single very succesfull tactic (because the match is the main part of the game, and it is weird when the user create single supertactic and don't "play" FM during the matches)

4. Make ME so realistic, as it possible, remove bugs (because it is the most important part of the game)

As i think we must add at least one another direction

5. Extending the tactic settings and make it more real, give the users ability to create their own tactic based on real football tactics (again and again - lateral movement? various settings of setting pieces? in-depth individual instructions?)

In reallife it is impossible to limit manager freedom in creating tactics, because his opponent can't create so succesfull tactic, or because there are pressing bug, or corner bug, or stupid fullback's bug)

When there will be a lot of tactic settings (which can be tuned manually - for advanced users - or using the wizard - for newbies), and this settings will be limited by the match engine based on common sence (arrows - conditios - positioning correlation) it will be very and very nice.

[wwfan]

So, i can see 4 directions of the game development now in this thread -

1. Reducing of chance to create the supertatic (because it is unrealistic)

2. UI and creating tactic' process must be more user friendly (because it will help to sell the game)

3. In-match tactic changes must be more important then creating single very succesfull tactic (because the match is the main part of the game, and it is weird when the user create single supertactic and don't "play" FM during the matches)

4. Make ME so realistic, as it possible, remove bugs (because it is the most important part of the game)

As i think we must add at least one another direction

5. Extending the tactic settings and make it more real, give the users ability to create their own tactic based on real football tactics (again and again - lateral movement? various settings of setting pieces? in-depth individual instructions?)

In reallife it is impossible to limit manager freedom in creating tactics, because his opponent can't create so succesfull tactic, or because there are pressing bug, or corner bug, or stupid fullback's bug)

When there will be a lot of tactic settings (which can be tuned manually - for advanced users - or using the wizard - for newbies), and this settings will be limited by the match engine based on common sence (arrows - conditios - positioning correlation) it will be very and very nice.

I think we can agree on the top four, and accept that they are a driving force in FM development.

Number five is almost certain to happen as well, although their are 'must have' restrictions to avoid settings that could exploit and unbalance the ME. If, for example, you had a 100% customisable set piece editor, someone, somewhere, would design a system the ME couldn't deal with and everything goes haywire. Would be nice to have a bug free ME, but it is a big ask.

[shevelevee]

Number five is almost certain to happen as well, although their are 'must have' restrictions to avoid settings that could exploit and unbalance the ME. If, for example, you had a 100% customisable set piece editor, someone, somewhere, would design a system the ME couldn't deal with and everything goes haywire. Would be nice to have a bug free ME, but it is a big ask.

Sorry, but I can't agree. ME will never be free from bugs, and if will delete all that can exploit it... I told about this in our russian podcasts when we discuss arrows... There will be only one button in final)

"Do you want a good tactic for your team" - "yes" )))) We can see basics of these in wizard system.

Please, understand. The FML system IS NOT the FM system. Yes, in FML we need to reduce number of supertactics and make matches and game process more funny.

Fm is offline game... And a lot of people want to tune tactic before every match during hours, watch match in full detail, and you can't reject their point of you, choosing FML's "for fun" style... IAC there will be some exploit tricks in FM, because it's human psyhology. Do you remeber your and leroy heated discussion about cheating AI? That's why people will always try to find some easy way to win - because they don't want to be defeated by AI. And this is not only FM's problem - Isaak Asimov wrote about this a lot of works - remember "I, robot")))

A bud free ME is so pipe dream, so "the expoit-steady ME" is... We removed Diablo (with realicitic arrows!), but people used unrealistic arrows... We removed arrows. but people use corner cheat... What's next?

Excuse my English once again..

[wwfan]

Sorry, but I can't agree. ME will never be free from bugs, and if will delete all that can exploit it... I told about this in our russian podcasts when we discuss arrows... There will be only one button in final)

"Do you want a good tactic for your team" - "yes" )))) We can see basics of these in wizard system.

Please, understand. The FML system IS NOT the FM system. Yes, in FML we need to reduce number of supertactics and make matches and game process more funny.

Fm is offline game... And a lot of people want to tune tactic before every match during hours, watch match in full detail, and you can't reject their point of you, choosing FML's "for fun" style... IAC there will be some exploit tricks in FM, because it's human psyhology. Do you remeber your and leroy heated discussion about cheating AI? That's why people will always try to find some easy way to win - because they don't want to be defeated by AI. And this is not only FM's problem - Isaak Asimov wrote about this a lot of works - remember "I, robot")))

A bud free ME is so pipe dream, so "the expoit-steady ME" is... We removed Diablo (with realicitic arrows!), but people used unrealistic arrows... We removed arrows. but people use corner cheat... What's next?

Excuse my English once again..

Here I can't agree (and we were so close as well )

The 9.3 ME only seems to have one major exploit, which is the corner bug. I haven't seen evidence of a second. Can you enlighten me.

For what it is worth, every aspect that has been added to the Beta tactical system in FML will make actual matches far more dynamic and interactive (i.e. fun) which will also mean that for those who like watching full matches, it will give them far, far more to play around with. We are actually adding, not removing, functions.

[ron.e]

I don't understand the anger in this thread. The ME is much better in 09 without the arrows and with a more organic flow to the matches. It could certainly get better -- and definitely has in the final patch -- but the groundwork is there for the new generation of the ME to be excellent. The problem lies in the interface and the thousands of permutations of sliders that are possible. By coming up with a wizard, the "casual gamers" people are talking about can sit down and within minutes have a tactic that they came up with themselves that makes sense and has the players doing what the person wants..

I see this as a huge evolution of how tactics are created in FM. The old sliders and options can remain for those little tweaks people may want to make, but if this wizard is done the right way, it will be an exceptional addition. People will wonder how they ever played without and laugh about the old days when we had nothing but sliders. The criticism against the wizard from "casual gamers" that don't have lots of time to play is very bizarre. The wizard is exactly what they should be looking for when it comes to tactics since it will be so much easier to create tactics that have a coherent framework. The amount of time the wizard could save is huge.

I completely agree. Before i saw this thread and started reading it i was not going to go out and buy fm10. In fm09 i win most games but i am still left with the confusion of 'why did i win' and 'why did i lose'. I'm hoping that with this wizard and even more things going into it, i will be able to understand the game alot more. I am a casual gamer but after so many years i am slowly going more indepth interms of tactics which is a good thing. I've even started making my own tactics. I took blackpool up to the prem in the first season - the were predicted to finish 24th. For the first time i was able to create a solid tactic. But alot of the time even when i am winning games i still feel that it is not a level playing field e.g the ai can quickly change tactics at any time without me realising it but for me it takes so much longer. But as i said i hope the wizard and the shouts solve even some of these problems.

Also, I've just seen the screenshots of the new tactical system. Now that's what i'm talking about. Wonderful idea. I just hope that as well as the tactical system they will also be something of an educational aspect of it e.g if you conbined x with y this is what could happen. I think it's already been mentioned further up the thread.

[Chandaman]

This is why we can't win. Earlier in the thread we are accused of wanting the game to be so complex you need a PhD in the ME to play. Likewise, people are warning us not to have to make it so they have to watch matches in detail. Now we are accused of wanting to dumb it down, restrict tactical options and make it easier for the user to win.

My position is this:

FM is a simulation of football management. In real life it is impossible to design a football tactic that is so good other teams can never work out how to play against it. In previous FMs, this hasn't been the case. However, recent ME developments have made the current iteration the closest to reality ever in this regard.

If you are going to reduce the chance of a super tactic being possible and turn matches into real strategic simulations of real life, you need to add masses of dynamism to the match experience...

But therein lies one of the major problems, wwfan. Dynamism is good, but what has been constantly added through the years was not dynamism but complication and randomness instead. When you have so many different and unrelated factors affecting things during the game it becomes impossible for your average person to pinpoint just what exactly is going wrong because it could be anything, literally. To make things worse, we don't have and really never had a trusted in-game way of narrowing down factors and trying to find out causes both for failure and success.

How would the average player find out...

... if the weather is affecting a tactic?

... if a player is underperforming because of morale or because he's being neutralized by the opposition?

... if a player has trouble performing the instructions he's been given?

... if a particular combination of sliders is making things worse, and if so which sliders must be corrected to which values?

... if their talks have any effect at all when 90% of the time players offer no reaction whatsoever?

... if the problem is any of the above, or the AI finally "cracking" the tactic?

and so on.

When you think about how many elements of the game are either randomly affecting things or hidden behind layer upon layer of obfuscation any more or less sane person has to conclude that the game has been reduced to being a black box that the average player pokes in different places to see what happens. Sometimes something happens, sometimes nothing happens, but the player really doesn't know why in either case. We, as average players, are given precious little tools to try and learn from success and failure. Football is a complex game, but in our attempts to approach that complexity with this simulation, we've missed over and over again and ended up making it complicated, which is not the same thing at all. Complexity is depth and from that depth, understanding. Complication is obfuscation and from that obfuscation, ignorance.

I think this "high level layer" of instructions in English is a great first step, and I congratulate everyone involved for taking it. What I would humbly suggest to continue in that vein are only three things:

1- Players need a place to safely try things out. In real life this is called 'training'. A place where we can isolate things by player, position, team line, groups of players, etc and at the same time strip all the random elements from it. Pure instructions so that we can see pure results. As it is now we have to test our ideas "live" as it were, playing matches with all the random elements affecting things. Nobody can learn anything from randomness other than to expect more randomness. We need a controlled environment.

2- We need to return "weight" to the team players, and not so much tactics. Tactics are important, of course, but we've been focusing so much on this that the player side has suffered. As it is now most in-game teams, players and managers seem like carbon copies of each other because it's all been greatly reduced to the tactics employed. There is randomness, but there is little variety. Every team in the world seems to slap a 4-2-4, different managers are irrelevant, different players are irrelevant, playing against one manager or another, or one team or another, seems to always follow the same flow. Every team in the world should be different, with different players, different manager with different ideas and so on, but because of the weight of tactics they all seem to act the same.

3- Strip out much of the randomness. Or if that can't be done, give us better, reliable tools to learn from success and failure. Managers in real life have whole seven day weeks to find out what's going on. We don't. Managers are there and they can see everything, we don't - we only see coarse approximations of things (ex. asking to comment on penalty calls).

In case the silly disclaimer is needed: No, I don't want to win everything. I don't want an "I win" button. But right now I'd just settle for knowing what went wrong and what went right, so I can learn. I want a responsive collection of systems that can be learned. Not a puzzle. Not a black box. Football is fun, this really isn't.

--J.

[wwfan]

One thing I think the Collyers, Millie and I are all agreed on is that FM should be a learning simulation. However, there's a gap between what it wants to do and what it currently does. TT&F filled that gap for many. That it had to does suggest, as Ov posted earlier, that FM has failed in making its UI system clear enough for the learning to take place without a lot of external help. The new system direectly addresses that.

[Chandaman]

One thing I think the Collyers, Millie and I are all agreed on is that FM should be a learning simulation. However, there's a gap between what it wants to do and what it currently does. TT&F filled that gap for many. That it had to does suggest, as Ov posted earlier, that FM has failed in making its UI system clear enough for the learning to take place without a lot of external help. The new system direectly addresses that.

I agree, and I'd be 100% behind a "learnable" system. But what I think is the wrench in these works is not the existence or not of TT&F, but how extensive and pervasive randomness seems to be throughout every area of the game.

Nothing can be learned from randomness and this is not me talking out of my butt, it's a fact of reality. We (as human players) largely learn through patterns. Do A and B will happen. We can even learn from "Do A and B, C, D or E" will happen. But what we have now is akin to "Do A and B-Z may or may not happen depending on things we can't/won't tell you about". This is what I'm objecting to. Not to TT&F, which is a valuable resource and not to an improved UI, which is always welcome regardless of what system it sits on top. It's the underlying mechanisms of the whole thing what makes it impossible to learn.

I don't want a 100% predictable system, but just because 100% can't (and shouldn't) be achieved, it doesn't mean we have to deal by necessity with a 1% predictable system. There's no need to go to the other extreme. If a system is to be learned it must generate clear patterns of input -> result and do it consistently. And if we truly want a system that can be learned we have to be open to the certainty that eventually it will be mastered.

I think that largely through the years, this wanting to avoid supertactics, extend the life of the game, whatever you want to call it ended up injecting so much randomness that it achieved its intended result, but to the detriment of the rest of the game experience. Including fun.

Do we really want a learnable system or not? If not, disregard and maintain the same obfuscating underlying mechanisms.

--J.

[wwfan]

It is by no means 1% unpredictable as it stands. There are many things you can do to increase your chances of doing well in any given situation. The only action that will make things seem unpredictable is doing nothing, as explained above.

The other thing that can increase unpredictability is having illogical tactics, which will be unpredictable in themselves. However, simple footballing logic, when applied, pretty much always works. What the new system will do is reduce the chances of creating a horribly illogical tactic and provide easy to access football logic instructions that can change things around.

[macdyne73]

But therein lies one of the major problems, wwfan. Dynamism is good, but what has been constantly added through the years was not dynamism but complication and randomness instead. When you have so many different and unrelated factors affecting things during the game it becomes impossible for your average person to pinpoint just what exactly is going wrong because it could be anything, literally. To make things worse, we don't have and really never had a trusted in-game way of narrowing down factors and trying to find out causes both for failure and success.

How would the average player find out...

... if the weather is affecting a tactic?

... if a player is underperforming because of morale or because he's being neutralized by the opposition?

... if a player has trouble performing the instructions he's been given?

... if a particular combination of sliders is making things worse, and if so which sliders must be corrected to which values?

... if their talks have any effect at all when 90% of the time players offer no reaction whatsoever?

... if the problem is any of the above, or the AI finally "cracking" the tactic?

and so on.

When you think about how many elements of the game are either randomly affecting things or hidden behind layer upon layer of obfuscation any more or less sane person has to conclude that the game has been reduced to being a black box that the average player pokes in different places to see what happens. Sometimes something happens, sometimes nothing happens, but the player really doesn't know why in either case. We, as average players, are given precious little tools to try and learn from success and failure. Football is a complex game, but in our attempts to approach that complexity with this simulation, we've missed over and over again and ended up making it complicated, which is not the same thing at all. Complexity is depth and from that depth, understanding. Complication is obfuscation and from that obfuscation, ignorance.

I think this "high level layer" of instructions in English is a great first step, and I congratulate everyone involved for taking it. What I would humbly suggest to continue in that vein are only three things:

1- Players need a place to safely try things out. In real life this is called 'training'. A place where we can isolate things by player, position, team line, groups of players, etc and at the same time strip all the random elements from it. Pure instructions so that we can see pure results. As it is now we have to test our ideas "live" as it were, playing matches with all the random elements affecting things. Nobody can learn anything from randomness other than to expect more randomness. We need a controlled environment.

2- We need to return "weight" to the team players, and not so much tactics. Tactics are important, of course, but we've been focusing so much on this that the player side has suffered. As it is now most in-game teams, players and managers seem like carbon copies of each other because it's all been greatly reduced to the tactics employed. There is randomness, but there is little variety. Every team in the world seems to slap a 4-2-4, different managers are irrelevant, different players are irrelevant, playing against one manager or another, or one team or another, seems to always follow the same flow. Every team in the world should be different, with different players, different manager with different ideas and so on, but because of the weight of tactics they all seem to act the same.

3- Strip out much of the randomness. Or if that can't be done, give us better, reliable tools to learn from success and failure. Managers in real life have whole seven day weeks to find out what's going on. We don't. Managers are there and they can see everything, we don't - we only see coarse approximations of things (ex. asking to comment on penalty calls).

In case the silly disclaimer is needed: No, I don't want to win everything. I don't want an "I win" button. But right now I'd just settle for knowing what went wrong and what went right, so I can learn. I want a responsive collection of systems that can be learned. Not a puzzle. Not a black box. Football is fun, this really isn't.

--J.

I agree with this 110%. FM is a fun game but unfortunately, there is a little too much guesswork involved. Personally, I can deal with that but many others can't or won't. They have a valid reason to be unhappy. Like I said, more feedback is always welcome.

Also, the game has gotten that much more complicated it's about time it came with a better manual offering advise on how to play instead of just what button does what, or a tutorial of some kind.

It is by no means 1% unpredictable as it stands. There are many things you can do to increase your chances of doing well in any given situation. The only action that will make things seem unpredictable is doing nothing, as explained above.

The other thing that can increase unpredictability is having illogical tactics, which will be unpredictable in themselves. However, simple footballing logic, when applied, pretty much always works. What the new system will do is reduce the chances of creating a horribly illogical tactic and provide easy to access football logic instructions that can change things around.

I like the sound of that! I think part of the reason behind many "the match engine is broken, this game sucks" complaints is unsound or illogical tactics..

[Millie]

How would the average player find out...

[1] ... if the weather is affecting a tactic?

[2] ... if a player is underperforming because of morale or because he's being neutralized by the opposition?

[3] ... if a player has trouble performing the instructions he's been given?

[4] ... if a particular combination of sliders is making things worse, and if so which sliders must be corrected to which values?

[5] ... if their talks have any effect at all when 90% of the time players offer no reaction whatsoever?

[6] ... if the problem is any of the above, or the AI finally "cracking" the tactic?

wwfan answered most of this, but to clarify:

[1] you can tell if the ball is sticking on the ground (on a wet day) or if your players are knackered after 10 minutes (on a hot day). I agree, however, that it doesn't take a genius ass. man to say before kick off (or during the game) "playing pretty football along the ground isn't working on this mud bath" or "playing at this tempo in this heat is going to kill our players, especially xxxx who has poor stamina". Just little things like this will go a long way. But like we said, the wizard is just phase one. Phases two and three will be there to add more control and receive more feedback.

[2] and [3] can also be given via feedback to an extent, but partly this must be down to trial and error on the part of the human manager. With the new wizard, this should also be happening far less often, and if it does it should be in a far more noticable way (or at least, to me it's been more obvious so far in FML beta).

[4] will never be possible, I don't think. There are just too many variables going on, and a lot of the time ineffective performances are a combination of many different things. It's also subjective (something a computer can never pick up on). One manager may be happy with most of the side playing 6.2s if the AMC is playing 9.5 every game and scoring three or four. Should the AI be picking up on the other players? And how can it tell if it's the result of that player's instructions, part of the game plan, part of the general team setup? In theory, it would be a great idea for the ass man to be able to pick out these problems, but I wouldn't even know where to begin on such a thing.

It might be more helpful to remember, also, that tactics don't "work" or "not work". One slider notch on one player does not break or make a tactic. And one man's "work" is another man's "fail" (as evinced by the fact the same tactic can get back to back promotions with Southend, but relegate Everton). Feedback on why a particular player might not be playing well is all well and good, but if you're expecting THE answer (I'm not suggesting you are) then that is never going to come.

I agree - more feedback than we have now. But there is a limit to what a computer, or indeed anyone, can input. At the end of the day, it's the manager's judgement and the manager's response that makes him or her good at the game.

[5] this requires more option in team talks, and better feedback. "No response" should NEVER have been a reaction in the feedback. Rather, it should have been "accepted his manager's words" or something to that effect - i.e. you haven't made it better, but you haven't made it any worse either. I think sometimes people see "no reaction" and assume they've done something wrong, when they may not have done. Though it would be good to see what the assman would rather you did, whether a player needed a kick or an arm around the shoulder to get more out of him.

[6] the AI doesn't "crack" tactics, it simply changes its approach, usually to a more defensive stance. This catches people out, and appears like cracking. The wizard offers more obvious ways to go more attacking or try to pick opposition defences apart, and so should ease the transition. As people learn the game, too, the "right" choice should become clearer over time until you are confident playing any form of opposition.

Edit

Re: the other points. FML beta seems to be suggesting the tide is swinging back towards player attributes and that the randomness is subsiding. Since teams are now reacting in the ME as the ME expects them to, the seeming randomness is being replaced with more predictability. Games don't play exactly the same way every time, but it is much easier to tell how you should be responding.

The wizard also allows thousands of combinations, in loads of different styles. That should also help the "sameness" that you tend to see moving from league to league. Hopefully this will add character and dynamism to the whole experience.

[BOC]

Just a thought though. Maybe the conspiracy theorists should use one of the 72 TT&F included tactics. After all if the engine is being molded in their favour they should be even more effective now in version 9.3

[jascko]

Why is it always so that we must resort to personal attacks and criticism of so-called "gurus" (I know they hate this terminology) to get started with constructive discourse? Look at this forum in the last 5-6 months. Constructive discourse is completely absent. All you see is the occasional post where someone has found a tactic that works for him / her and ask people to download it and try it out. Discourse is completely absent. Therefore I m almost in tears every time I see such a constructive debate that has been made in this thread.

It seems that the majority of forum members want more feedback on what goes wrong when they lose and what's good when they win. I will direct my criticism to the SI. Why is it so difficult for you to be more involved in discourse here on the forum more often than you do? When you are not capable to publish good explanatory manual than you have to understand that people ask you for help. They would want you to be on the scene and explain some things. There is no one asking you about a “win formula”. We want answers to simple questions that you can confirm or disprove. We have many hypotheses on the forum, but we do not have the appropriate variables to be able to verify or falsify them. It could have been extremely helpful if you provide some concrete answers that can help us along the way to understand the thinking behind the system that you have made.

Most of us have a good knowledge of RL football. At the same time we are aware that SI is trying to create a simulation of the RL football. The problem is that we do not know if the majority of us are on the same line or in line with their ideas how RL football should be played.

Let us take examples from real life football that I have put out earlier. Is it not natural to imagine that players with less technique and passing, in addition to creativity, tend to play short simple balls? With long experience as a football player, I am of the view that direct passing should be reserved for those with very good technique and football intelligence, a role that I personally had in my team at my height. Playing Trough Balls was something that was my task on the basis of my ball and playing qualities and football understanding. You see this every day if you watch football, technically good players with good insights and passing ability play "killer balls", while the less gifted players play short and simple passing to the player who has the creativity to do something constructive with the ball. It seems to me that we have miss understood the basis on what it means to play short passing. Short passing are the easiest passing to implement in football, while the direct and long passing is the most difficult to implement technically. With short passing the only thing you have to do is to find player on your team who is few yards from you, with direct and long passing you have to find target which is moving at high speed and which is far away from you. Just go outside, find the ball, and then try to hit target few yards form you, and than try to hit moving target much longer away from you. You will be surprised how much higher percent of "short target hit" you have compared with "long target hit". I am not saying that a less talented player can not play long, or direct balls, but passing carried by such players are inaccurate and thus wasted. Not everybody can play direct and long balls with the same precision as Gerrard often does. Gerrard has technique to implement such passing with great precision. Today's modern football favors this pattern. Thus, I will recommend direct passing only to players with the high value of the passing and technique, and high football intelligence. But I m not sure if SI interpret this as I do. At the same time you don’t see SI explaining this. Are we on the same line SI or are we not? It is difficult to say that we should use our knowledge from RL football to implement in this game, because we don’t know you are thinking the same.

The people want, and as many have pointed out x times before, more feedback on what is wrong football philosophical thinking in relation to their preferences. I am fully aware that this game can be played in many different ways, and that the road to success is not monotonous. But we must be able to agree on some simple rules that apply to all. What makes me even more confuse is that there are 1000 different theories, claims, tactical sets, approaches, etc. about how the game should be played. It seems to me that we can not agree on anything! One day we face thread where it said that having all on mix FWR provide better dynamics to the team. Other day we can read statement which denies this and says that you must have FWR on certain plays to succeed. One day someone comes and claims that the tempo and passing is linked. Other days are the allegations that deny this. How should an average player deal with this? Then it helps even less that SI not want to respond to at least give us a hint how we can test this. What variables should we look at?

If SI reads this forum they can see what people are requesting, something as simple as more in-game feedback that can identify what we do wrong, if we do something wrong. We must also be capable to understand how SI translates their ideology in to the game.

[Millie]

I think that's an excellent point, jascko, and one of the reasons I don't post as much here as I did a few years ago is precisely because I had had enough of the lack of quality discussion and personal attacks.

One thing I would pick up on, though: how would you explain the fact that a number of less-technically gifted teams (Wimbledon, Stoke and many lower league sides in England) play long ball football? You have to remember, not all long balls are accurate. Therefore, you can play a system which purposely lumps balls high and far up to a target man who will use his strength to lay the ball off and flick it on to people. This is a system which uses long passing, but does not rely on accurate long passing.

Similarly, less technically gifted sides may eschew short passing, since short passing results in the ball spending more time in the defensive half, and more chance of the opposition intercepting the ball. If they're crap at passing anyway, why not lump it forward.

I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying it's a misconception to believe that less technically gifted sides should play a short passing game.

Which neatly ties in to my point about AI feedback. With so much disagreement about real world football and about the game, how can a simple computer program come to this sort of dialogue with the user? In essence, it's subjective and needs the individual manager to create his own conclusions. And if he can't, that's where these forums come in, to exchange ideas and theories about how real world football works, and how one might implement this in to the game.