(sic)

Yeah, this is the main issue I'm having with FM right now. People have tried making that back 3 shape from a 4 man defence, but it just doesn't work. My No.6 is a FB-D who is told to Stay Narrow...doesn't look narrow to me at all. No.27 is my LCB who is told to stay wider...doesn't look like he's staying wider at all... It just looks like players are ignoring these instructions, or that the instructions simply don't impact the players behavior nearly as much as they should. The rest does work somewhat as it should, No.21 is my IW-S who is told to stay wider...he does do that initially, but later on he'll move narrow. No.7 is my IF-A, the idea is that he should occupy the halfspace, and again, he does that mostly, although I would like him more narrow.

That's the thing, it isn't nowhere as complex, and it can't be. First due to technological limitations, and second, it's a game. And like you said, even with the current tech, we are limited. There might be a few reasons for this. I think the main reason is that they want the game to be available for everyone, meaning PCs/Laptops that are 10-15+ years old. Second reason is money. I don't think they could get near that level of customization with the current ME, and developing a new one will take a lot of effort, time and money. And it wouldn't be worth it in the end, because the requirements for the game would go up, meaning old computers wouldn't be able to run the game. The current ME seems very rigid, and you can clearly see the "if x happens, do y". To me it seems like it takes a lot of effort to develop new roles, because then you have to program a lot of stuff from the scratch. You have to set what the AI will do and how they will react to certain movements. Giving that sort of freedom to a player seems impossible right now. With your example, that stuff already happens under the hood...at least somewhat. Players that don't necessarily occupy certain areas will, to an extent, look to make runs into space, or cover empty spaces, depending on the roles, duties, instructions, etc. But often that's nowhere near enough to what you want them to do. They AI needs to be smarter, meaning doing all of these things, but better (being more aware of the space, better decisions on when and where to run, etc.). Even giving some ability for the players to dictate those movements would be possible. Allowing to dictate how a role/player performs in certain phases of the play (the overall addition of In Possession, Out of Possession and In Transition was great, but I don't know why SI haven't expanded upon it more), meaning the buildup, mid third, final third, as well as in defensive transition and in offensive transition. Right now, you have "When team has the ball", "When player has the ball", "When opposition has the ball". Those should be expanded more, converting certain player traits to instructions, and overall revamping the whole PI screen just like they did with TIs. Example: You have a double pivot. You'd want one player to act as a playmaker, dropping deeper to pick up the ball, while the other player will push forward. Now that's easily doable in the game right now. But, if you want to fine tune it a bit, it's where it becomes hard/impossible. I might want the player dropping deep, to drop right in the middle and occupy that space while our team has the ball. The player pushing forward should also push forward and occupy the central areas as a No.10 would. But instead you end up with something lopsided, where none of them really occupy the centre, but instead the side of the field they were positioned originally. Another example would be the Inside forward/Inverted winger. What if I wanted them to defend wide, like in a 4-4-2, but then in possession they should be narrow and act as two No.10s (A lot of managers that use 4-2-4/4-4-2 do this). They will simply be too wide, until they get to the final third. Yes, you can make something similar to this in game, but it's never going to be exactly the same thing. The hidden instructions (aka the hardcoded behaviors) absolutely do exist, but I'm not sure if we can 100% be sure of what they are. Those unofficial sources are probably true in most cases I'd say.

I guess, realism and more options for customization. The thing is, there's constant evolution in football. When WCB became "popular" in real life, it took 2-3 years for the role to get implemented in FM. We could've created that sort of role ourselves if we had the ability to actually tell players what to do, where to go, when to move, etc. But the thing is, especially due to the way the match engine is built, you can't have that in game. The AI wouldn't know how to react. There are already around 40 different roles in the game. A lot of them have certain hard-coded behaviors specific to them. In a lot of cases, I can't really go and tell each player on the pitch exactly what to do, and expect them to do it. They are simply hardcoded to behave a certain way, and there's sometimes little variation to it. Instead I often have to compromise, do I want them to do this one thing, or do I want them to do the other thing. In a lot of cases, I can't have the players do both. Rather than having freedom to tell your players how you want them to behave in different phases of play, you instead have presets (aka roles). I might like how one role performs in defense, or in buildup, but dislike how they play in the attack/final third, and vice-versa. One example could be Wingbacks. In real life in back 3 / 5 systems, they are often acting as wingers who will stay wide to provide width, while also pushing forward earlier, in some cases being in line with strikers. In FM I can somewhat do this, but not by using a player in WB position. Instead I have to use them in ML/MR spots, but then defensively they don't behave as Wingbacks would. Another example could be the Winger role. While I do like how they hold the width early on, in the final phases of attack, you'd often find them quite narrow. I might not necessarily want that, but I have no choice, as pretty much all roles in AML/AMR spots are hardcoded to come narrow in the final third. In this case a Wingback would provide the width I need, without coming narrow in the final third. But again, the issue is other phases of play where they wouldn't push as high as early as the Winger would. This can somewhat be influenced by player traits, but not to an extent I'd like to see. Also a lot of player traits should really become player instructions, but that's another topic. I do understand the concerns that there's less structure and that the AI (or even other players) wouldn't be able to cope against players, but that's also solvable and it sounds like an excuse. We've had this ME for how long now? I think it's time to move on and make something new and better, but that would require too much time and money, that I feel like SI would rather spend elsewhere. I also understand this wouldn't work for a lot of players, who simply prefer to load up a tactic, or create something simple themselves by using the preset roles. Or to players who would rather focus on transfers, squad building, and winning stuff, rather than building tactics. But even that is solvable, give players the ability to choose between the simple or the advanced tactical creator. They can still have preset roles that give a general idea of how a player might play.