WelshMourinho

Managing expectations would be sprinkling the good with the bad. No one expects massive feature reveals in these updates, but it's a development update for a move to a new engine, and there is not an ounce of "this is going well guys." Miles is literally talking about cancelling his holidays and events he's had planned because of the struggles of this move. It doesn't sound good. In terms of people talking about the women's weight, maybe I'm being naive but I don't think people in the fm player base would ever bother looking at the women's weight fluctuating over a season. Women are in FIFA and all I've ever seen anyone talk about in regards to that is they don't think women should be rated as highly as men in ultimate team. I'd like to think the people who play FM are more mature than fifas playerbase (or ea sports fc to give it its current name). The people we're talking about here wouldn't have known the women's weight was fluctuating in the first place, let's be honest.

While understandable, the optics of it are not good. Every update we've received so far has pretty much just been "we're removing this because none of you play it, we're removing this because it doesn't work properly, and we're removing this because we just can't get it sorted properly yet." There have been zero positive developments according to the development updates Miles has out out. I couldn't give a toss about weight going, but I don't understand the need to touch it in the first place. For those arguing no one looks at it so who cares? That argument goes both ways. It's just an absolutely bizarre focus for SI to take in my eyes. Just leave it as a fixed number like it has been for years and move on.

Genuinely intrigued with how the development of the game is going behind the scenes. All the news we've had from development updates and there doesn't seem to be anything where they're like "this is happening and is really cool for the game". Right now it's just "this is being removed and BTW I've cancelled my holidays."

And yet those comments at least offered something to this thread, unlike yours. Not really gonna look into this too much myself. I didn't use any of the modes they're removing, so that'll have zero impact on how I play the game. I'm sure some people will miss them while they're gone, but I won't be one of them. In terms of shouts going... they were never really a big part of my gameplay. They felt a little bit shoehorned in, as if SI were saying "real managers can talk to their players mid match and now you can too" but it didn't really have a lot of substance to it in my view. It also felt, much like similar other things in the game, that some seemed to work far better than others. I'd have preferred them to have been reworked, but again, it won't be something that will have a massive impact on my enjoyment of the game. The UI looks plain, but it's far too soon to be making solid judgements on it. We don't know how the final game will look, but at least we have a sense of what they're looking to do, and an inkling of what it'll look like on our screens. All in all we know certain things are being removed, and I'm hopeful that the next updates we get (whenever those may be) will be focusing on how things have actually improved for the new engine.

As someone who rotates a lot and tries not to play players with a high injury risk (unless forced), my feeling on this is that the game tends to balance this out by giving you more long term injuries, and even then I'm regularly quite far below what's expected. Here was a particularly horrific period I had in my save in the season I've just finished. Just loads of horrific contact injuries more than anything, or stupid stuff in training. If I look across at some of our rivals, they get a lot more short term niggles, but they're a lot more frequent overall. Honestly if they toned injuries down I think I could get through a season with very few at all lmao. It's fine the way it is imo

Came here to make this post about the energy system in the game anyway, and in some ways it's a follow on from what @Jonthedon26 posted. This season my tactic was as follows: I've made numerous tweaks over the seasons (this is my 8th season at Liverpool), and this is by far the most intense the tactic has ever been. It resulted in my first treble (PL, CL and FA cup) which does, tbf, suggest it's a bit ridiculous but I think there's a lot more context behind it other than just high,intense pressing = win. Our best performances were earlier on in the season. Here was us away at Old Trafford, a ground I've struggled at every year. We lost, but we were dominant. I found that the best way to play against the big teams, especially away, was to play with a lot of intensity, however the further on into the season we got, the less viable this became, and that was mainly because the players just got extremely tired. Here, for example, was our away legs in the CL towards the latter stages. We were very poor in both of these games, and I was often required to bring in substitutes around the 60th minute because my players were a lot more tired than the opposition. The Milan game is the only time this season I dropped the high line to the mid block, dropped how often the press was triggered and I believe I removed counter. If I'd kept those on we would have been dust long before the full time whistle . This was a pattern throughout, especially for the front 4 who obviously had to run a lot more. By the end of the season even rotating every game wasn't enough, because the amount of running required meant players were having to play at a high intensity every 3/4 days, and it definitely caught up to a certain extent. Which brings me to the CL final against Barcelona. If you look at the match momentum at the bottom, you'll see that for 90 minutes we were very much second best, and we were a lot more tired than Barcelona were. Again, I was forced to sub off my 'favoured' players, but our quality of depth is such that we still have an incredible team when those players come on. Okoduwa is considered a 4.5* player, Nilsson, Hazeldine and Plattel are all 4*s. Compare that to Barca's subs, two of which came on with no match sharpness. One of the players who did have sharpness, and was actually the first sub they made, was D'Angelo. This was another game in which I was basically forced to drop the counter attack and dropped how often we triggered the press, and I only increased our intensity when Barca were down to 10 men and had their poorer players on. A defensive player with poor composure (10), and 12 for heading and tackling. The difference in quality there is ridiculous, and I think is a far bigger reason why the system of pressing appears overpowered. Not one single human player is considering a player like this a viable option in their squad if they're going for a Champions League trophy. My takeaway from the entire season was that, as strong as our system was in the early parts of the season, the fixture congestion caught up with us and I was having to rotate a lot. Players were quicker to tire, were more susceptible to poor performances to the point where I was actually happy to bring them off, and those substitutions were so often the difference maker for us. I do think it could be tuned more, and we probably should've seen even more fatigue being built up, but like I said there was a lot of regular rotation going on. I still felt like it took far too long into the season for players to get suitably fatigued. The Barcelona game, to me, shows exactly why this system is so effective for human players. There's no doubt for me that the best way to approach games is with a high intensity, but if your players are in any way fatigued (which they will be after a season of pressing) then you really do see a drop off. We were poor in numerous mid week games, and subs were a must every time. On another day Barcelona are out of sight before we have the chance to bring on subs. The second point is that the AI simply can't keep up in terms of depth. If you look at the Barca squad, by the end of the game their best players are the ones who are exhausted, whereas the only fresh players they have are players who are a massive drop off. Compare that to my team, the drop off is basically non existent,

That is a dreadful solution. It's not like the older games where 3 striker formations were OP, you could literally just not use it and it would never be apart of your game. Pace is one of the attributes in the game and you can't ignore it. Yeah you can avoid stupid stuff like signing a team worth of them like this experiment, but very few people will actually play their game that way so yeah, it probably should be near the top of the list if they want to provide a good matchday experience, like they say they do every single year. Same with 'attacking tactics', which I'm reading as high pressing. Every top side in the world is utilising these elements, and the fact the game can't differentiate between good players who are suited to the style, and players who are unsuitable to the style, is another negative to it.

This game is advertised as being the most complete version ever. God forbid people expect a tad better than having this many 'overpowered' things in it.

How much deeper do West Ham have to be before their superior mental and technical attributes take over? Practically their entire team is back there and they're still getting drilled by a bunch of yard dogs. You've brought up Vinicius Junior, who was actually criticised for his end product early on in his Madrid career, but who's reached the 20 goal mark in each of the last 3 seasons. Before that he managed 6. He developed his all round football ability and became a far better player, he didn't become faster. Adama Traore has existed for years, we've seen him play for a relegated Middlesbrough, a mid table Wolves, and a top team in Barcelona. He would've faced a variety of different blocks, with different types of space afforded to him. His best season came in the Championship, because it was a lower level. I don't know exactly what the problem is, no one here does, but the reality is this team is dreadful at kicking a football and that would show over the course of a season. This isn't a one off cup game in which they've faced an aggressive opponent, this is a consistent performance over numerous saves with numerous formations.

Where does it suggest they were turned into a counter attacking team? You're making that assumption based on "fast players = counter attack" when the original test was a front footed approach (which finished 2nd) and Zealand's only input was ensuring a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-1-2-1-2 diamond was utilised. The game against Man United they had more possession, and the goals against West Ham have the West Ham players penned in their own box? There's no suggestion that this was a sit back and counter tactic.

Absolutely nothing here suggests that they were playing as an underdog. The original tester went all out gegenpress and finished 2nd with the same team. Zealand didn't do anything tactically and just let his assistant crack on, and still achieved a solid mid table finish. To say "nothing to see here" is absurd. If I go into the tactics forum and say guys I want a solid counter attacking tactic, what attributes should I look for? I will get various responses from great players who'll advise looking for things like positioning, anticipation, concentration, off the ball, first touch, dribbling etc. It requires a lot more than just pace, which should be the issue here. All of these things are incredibly important to the style of play, but apparently this test should be written off because the players are fast? I think that's nonsense. Also lets not forget the standard that is being used here. Premier League defenders on the whole are not slow. We aren't dealing with 9 pace vs 17 pace mismatches. Either way you look at this, it is silly that this transfer strategy is proving fruitful with more than one style of play.

The problem here though is that it's AI against AI. Zealand didn't manage the team (from what I can tell from this video) he got his assistants to use numerous formations and he saw a similar level of success all the way through. I feel like you must not have watched the video because some the goals vs West Ham weren't based on 1 v 1's with the faster players getting an entire half of space to run into. You're using real football logic and assuming that's why it has done well here, but the evidence provided suggests that's not what happening. We get a million threads every year on here with people saying they've suffered a mid season slump, and the response (rightly) is always the same. Your team is performing well and so the AI have adjusted to be more cautious. That is exactly what would have happened in this save, and it should have seen a slump, but it didn't. Which tells me there's more going on here than a simple 'fast player beats slower player' scenario.

I think Guardiola definitely regrets not starting with Doku, but that's the beauty of hindsight. I think there's a good chance they would've got back in had Alvarez scored his chance, Doku's goal just came a bit too late, and in fairness to United they defended well in stoppage time. I'm currently using this system. That's not my strongest team, but it's the tactic itself that matters. I used a fairly narrow width last season, and I found that while we kept the ball better, we didn't carve out many chances. I switched the width and while we overall have less possession, we are far more dangerous for it. Both wide men have the winger role, but pretty much any winger at the club is either left footed, or has cuts inside as a trait. I find there's a lot more variety with our attacking play than if we had them playing as either IW or IF. I'm definitely considering changing 1 or 2 of the in transition instructions, but right now I'm not certain. For big games, especially away, I tend to change the SV to a support role, and I'll bump up the tempo from slightly lower to the default slightly higher. The thinking behind that is basically to stop the SV from bombing on as soon as we win it, but I like the faster play so we aren't dilly dallying about against teams that will feel comfortable pressing us. I've played around with the 2 full backs quite a bit too, my back up full backs are more attacking in nature, so I've at times used two IWB's on defend, which has been really fun to watch, especially the DLP's movement. I've also swapped the roles too, so the right back becomes the IWB and the lb becomes the IFB. The fbs especially have played a lot of different roles and duties this season lmao. I'm still not particularly happy with the striker role. I've tried an AF, a DLF-A, and a CF, and none have proved to be as consistent as I would like. Nothing I've tried so far has seem to stick. I've thus far avoided a support role upfront because of the two wingers, but considering they also like to cut inside at times it might be worth a gander.

I've hated this about backroom staff for years now, especially when they get promoted as an improved feature. Attributes on them should mean something. An assistant with a very good tactical attribute should be able to provide some decent advice. Instead it's just a number to boost the star rating of training. I understand why they probably don't go down this route, at the end of the day it is Football Manager and they won't want to take away too much away from the user, but we're at the point of presets now so I don't see why acquiring a very good backroom staff wouldn't have this sort of effect. I feel like this would bridge the gap between what is actually happening in the engine, and what the visual engine is showing. I honestly don't understand how anyone could watch the ME and understand fully what is happening and where things are going wrong, because sometimes what you're seeing just looks like nonsense. At least having a decent backroom staff could help that understanding more, because currently trying to watch the ME in any depth is guesswork.

I started with the Guardiola esque IFB-L(S)-BPD(D)-IFB backline but the long shots of the libero were incredibly off putting. I changed him to a regular CB-D and made the LB an IWB(D) because again, the long shots on a support duty were frustrating, especially when I'd see the more technical players (the 4 attackers) moving it around just for the defender to smash it from range lmao. The rest of my set up is quite similar to yours too, with a winger support on the left wing, an AM(S) behind the striker, and a W(A) on the right, all behind an AF up top. My midfield pairing is a SV(A) at DMCL and a DLP (S) at DMCR. It produces some good football but I find the striker role is very hard to get right. I'm also not yet entirely convinced by the defend duties all across the back line, so I may switch to an IWB(S) again and see if he fares a bit better. The only thing I would say is that big away games it seems to struggle, The rotations are fantastic when they're pulled off, but I'm finding a lot of frustration in terms of building effective attacks in these games. I've considered switching to something more traditional, but it feels a tad redundant to focus on getting a certain profile of player just to ditch it in the big games. I think if I could crack these games for my team I'd be able to move on to a different team in my save.