korzy

i thought u were saying RWB and TTB are conflicting.. didnt you?

pele10

tbh if a player is good and has more the 14 in passing,long shots, through ball, and crossing, i would set to mix..

i'm only going at what i was tought.
no one ever told me to do through balls
no one told me to stop shooting long
no one told me not to cross..

so in fm if a player is good at somthing i put it on mixed and i aint had a prob yet

rashidi1

I've just stuck them in for the player as he has high decisions good passing and good dribbling. I tend to try different things to see how the tactic shapes out. The player has all the hallmarks of being a destroyer. I just want to see if RWB makes him carry the ball into the box. Furthermore, he tends to win more freekicks as well which is kinda nice to have..though ideally he should be on mixed.

Like all things this is a merry run with the hammers to while away my time

rashidi1

Incidentally conjuration..applies to raising the spirits of the dead..here I'm raising the ghost of west ham's glories.

Columnarius

Hi Rashidi,

I have A LOT of questions. I hope you'll find them well thought out and helpful for the community as a whole.

This tactic works great for me (as Arsenal) but I don't really understand why. I feel like I've tried to make a very similar tactic any one of a number of times but not with the same success.

I'd like to clarify a few points you made to better understand the theory behind them.

This is a point I see debated as much as any other and I still don't think I understand it. Can I truly play a short passing game with either quick or slow tempo? Is it really just a question of whether they have the passing skills and stamina to pass quickly or are there other factors to consider?

Does this mean you suggest that I switch all players with individual mentalities back to team and set the team slider all the way to the left side (1) when I'm trying to protect a lead? If so what else do I need to change (forward runs on FB/Wingers? defensive line? closing down?) to succeed after making such a mentality change?

I didn't really understand what you meant here. What do you mean by two extra notches on the mentality slider?

When I try to build a similar tactic, I had my central midfielder in the attacking mid position. You have a fwd arrow from a central mid spot. What is really the difference? Is it just that the player goes deeper to defend? Does it have to do with how he moves into space when we get the ball back? How do you decide to do a CM with a forward run instead of an AM?

Likewise, when I try to do an aggressive home tactic, I put the wingers on forward runs (tried long arrows and short arrows). I still don't really understand what the effect is of having no arrows, forward arrows, or long forward arrows on the wingers when you are playing an attacking tactic. In all cases the wingers may have forward runs set to often, so what is the difference? Are you simply reducing the % of the time the wingers are up the field by not having the arrows? Would having the arrows increase the likelihood of the wingers being up the field to run onto direct balls? If so, how would long forward arrows work with short passing?

Why did you decide to have your wingers with no forward arrows (side arrows I realize) as opposed to forward? What about the tactic makes that work?

Is it correct to assume its all about putting the wingers in a position to receive passes, and that the forward arrows would move them too far up the field given the short passing of the defenders? Or is there more to it than that?

It seems like when I increase creative freedom on wingers, I have less crosses and lower crossing percentage. I also have more success when I up creative freedom on a layer like the CM in this tactic. Why? What exactly is happening here? Is the CM (assuming he's good) deciding on his own where to stand to receive passes easier and in turn trying to more adventurous (but more successful) passes because of it?

Finally, are you suggesting creative freedom for the CM or the wingers or the Forwards? And if so (or not) why? Also, how did you arrive at that conclusion?

I don't think you mention this in the post but does this suggest you want focused passing down the center? What is the effect of choosing that over mixed or wide and how would you go about deciding which one to use?

I think I get this but I'm not 100% sure. Are you saying that the reason you've gone with 1 for passing for everyone from the CM is that you don't want the ball to be lobbed down field, you want small incremental steps down the pitch? Why 1? Why not 2 or 3 or 4? Is 2 or 3 or 4 simply increasing the % of the time they decide to making a longer pass? How did you decide that short incremental passing up the field was more useful than longer passes? Is this part of the reason why the wingers don't have forward arrows?

Why does this work? I've tried 4-4-2 with wide, normal, narrows and I honestly can't tell the difference. What makes you see that normal instead of narrow or wide is good for home? What process did you use to determine that narrow instead of wide or normal is good for the tactic away?

Is this because you are building the short passing game and you don't feel you have the team to move the ball quickly? If you had more talent, would you consider going normal or fast paced? Why does slow tempo work for this tactic away as well as home? What process did you use to determine that slow was the right choice? Also, when you say slow, do you mean the fastest notch of slow (most right that is still slow) or the middle notch of slow or the slowest notch of slow (most left i.e. 1)?

Same basic question. Normal-push up means half way between the first notch of normal and the first notch of push up? Or is the half way between the middle notch of normal and push up? Or is it the mid-point of the last(most right) of those two? Why not higher or lower and how to determine that? What is the real difference between ticking it a single notch higher or lower?

I set this all the time when I create a 4-4-2 with the wingers wide. Why are your wingers inside with side arrows instead of already on the wing? How does this help them do the things you mention better than being out wide?

Does this mean you want one of the strikers to have forward runs rarely, hold up ball, and try through balls with mixed for everything else like crossing, run with ball, long shots, etc. Also, does this mean that the other striker should have mixed for basically everything?

You mention that you expect the CM to arrive in box late and occasionally get fed balls (I assume you are thinking of a back pass from inside the box or on the end-line?) If so, why does that make you decide you need the Striker to act like a hold up man to make that happen? What is the process by which you decide that over just having him run with balls sometimes or often, etc.

Why? How do you determine that this, rather than rarely (even away) is the right choice? Also, is the main difference between the runs being often or mixed as opposed to rare that he will simply be further back on the pitch a higher % of the time(when he's not running) and thus reduce the chance of being caught off guard against counter attacks? Or is there more to this choice that fits into having him available to help with the short passing?

This takes away the wingers and FB as easy choices for the opponent to pass to? How do you determine this is better than loose (especially on the wingers who need to be ready to attack). I can't see any difference visually when I watch a match and I tick or un-tick this. Only when I tell the guy to specifically mark player x do I see him staying noticeably closer.

So what do you see that makes you go one or the other on this?

I assume this means that you want both DCs to have 10 (one tick to the right of the default) all the time regardless of home/away and regardless of whether the other defensive players (FBs, GK and DM) who are using the team mentality are set to normal (a slider setting of 11?).

Also, I assume that when you say attacking for the others (CM, Wingers and forwards) that you mean the middle slider of attacking (17, three ticks to the left from the far right side)? If so, why this value over say 12 or 13 or 14 or 15 or 20? And if not this value, same basic question, when you pick attacking, how should you be deciding which tick within attacking to go with?

Many points here I want to clarify. First off, you say that the further apart your layers are in terms of mentality. I assume by this you mean, the greater the different in the split mentality between the attackers and defenders (right now its roughly 10/11 for defenders and 17 for attackers), the more you need to bump up the defensive line?

Is this because as you make a larger split, you create a larger gap between the two sets of players, that can be exploited, and by raising the d-line, you increase how far up the pitch the defenders will try to break up play, making them charge into that gap before the offense really gets going?

Next, you mention link players. I assume in this tactic that is the DM/CM. And what you mean is, the player you want the defense to pass to when they win the ball, who is going to then turn and feed killer passes up the field, right?

So if you had a tactic with direct passing down the wings, and wingers with long forward arrows trying to run onto the balls, you wouldn't want them on too high of a closing down because you'd want them in space when you won the ball to be able to get to those passes?

Or if you had a tactic with a target man and direct passing, you wouldn't want him closing down too often because you'd need him in space to win the header (or take the ball to his feet) in order to then flick/pass on to other attackers?

Just want to make sure I understood that point fully.

You say you want the FBs on 8 and the DCs on 5 (for both home and away I assume). Why these values? How are these the right values given the mentality split of 10/11 to 17 (or whatever the correct attacking value is)?

How do you actually determine this is the right value compared to 11 or 12 or 18 or 6?

Next, you mention that you want the wingers on MAX for closing down. I assume that is 20. Why does this work? Is it because the CM is the link men and the wingers don't need to be in space when we win the ball? Is it because they need to rush out from their inside positions to attack the Wingers/FB of the other team?

How would this change if you played them out wide instead of inside with side arrows?

Finally, you recommend high for the others, which I take to mean the DM and the two forwards. Is high 17 (the middle of often)?

Why are these values okay to be constant both home and away? I know the tactic isn't changing mentalities - its changing width and defensive line only as far as I can tell. But with a typically more aggressive attack from your opponents at home, how did you figure out that universal closing down would work well?

You don't cover a few additional areas I want to clarify for settings:

For team settings:
Is creative freedom left at 11 for home and away? (everyone is ticked to use this team setting).
Do you leave time wasting at 11 for home and away?
Is tackling left at normal? (everyone is ticked to use this team setting).
I already asked about focus of passing above.
Are you ticking use target man for the striker who is holding up the ball and placing him in the target man list?
Are you ticking use playmaker and placing the CM in the playmaker list?


For GK, I assume team mentality (11) and normal creativity (11), team passing style (1). What about everything else? I'm going with rarely for everything but not sure if this is the right choice. Also, I know defender collect doesn't work, so what are you setting for distribution/distribute to?

Do FB get mixed forward runs even away? Are long shots and through balls left at mixed?

For CD, I've got everything set to rarely. Is this what you assumed and again, how would you have determined this (over say, letting them try through balls). Is it because you want everything to be simple passing to the DM/CM?

Regarding DMC, I am assuming forward runs and rwb of rarely, long shots mixed (or player dependent), through balls mixed and crossing rarely. Tight, zonal marking. How about hold up ball?

For the wingers, are long shots and through balls mixed? Do they need to ever be told to mark specific players (the opposing FBs).

Regarding the CM, should I bump creative freedom and tick free role?

for the TM style striker, as I mention above, I'm assuming fwd runs rarely, hold up ball ticked, and through balls often. Is this assumption correct? Can I leave run with ball, long shots and crossing to mixed? Is baseline vs mixed important from a cross from perspective?

For the other striker, as mentioned above, I'm assuming mixed for everything. Same question of the baseline. Also, why would I choose baseline or mixed for the strikers generally?



Okay, so those are the specific questions/clarifications. On to general questions.

I mentioned at the top that I feel like I've tried to make this tactic a number of times but without the success this one has. I usually go with the following formation:

ST ST

^ ^
| AM |
ML MR
DM

DL DC DC DR

Sometimes I even try it with long fwd arrows on the wingers.

One ST gets mixed everything with cross from baseline.

Second ST gets fwd runs rarely, hold up ball, try through balls often, everything else mixed, cross from baseline.

The AM gets run with ball often, try through balls, cross rarely, long shots mixed high creativity, sometimes a free role.

The wingers get forward runs, run with ball and cross ball often (from baseline at home, mixed away). They get through balls, long shots mixed.

The DM gets rare forward runs and run with ball rarely, through balls often, close down often, cross rarely, long shots mixed.

FB get forward runs often at home, mixed away. Run with ball mixed, crossing often. Long shots/through balls mixed. They cross mixed at home and deep away.

DCs and GK get rarely for everything.

I try ticking or not ticking target man (adding/removing him from the target man list). Ticking or not ticking play maker for the AM, I try long arrows or short arrows for the wingers, I try narrow or wide or normal width, I try slow or fast tempo. I try attacking mentality or normal mentality or even defensive mentality home or away.

I change all these one at a time and play a game once or twice and look to see if it makes things better or worse.

Basically, I get nowhere. I win sometimes, I lose more than I win and I don't have a clue why it doesn't work.

So what is different about that approach from what you've done here? And why am I having more success with your approach over mine?

I'm sorry for such a huge set of questions but there are all the things going through my mind when I read what you've written and try it myself.

I hope a careful examination of these issues will benefit the community (and me!).

Cheers.

Columnarius

My nice looking formation got squished. It is the basic 4-4-2 diamond with the wingers all the way out wide and not inside as MCs as you've got. Probably obvious but I wanted to clarify it.

I've also tried a flat 4-4-2 without really understanding success failure of one vs. the other.

rashidi1

Yes you can, I've seen countless times that a short passing game can be played at high or slow tempo. Ideally playing one touch on slow doesn't seem to make any sense, but if you were on slow tempo, and if defenders were set on short passing, you'd see them knocking the ball about. If passing is set to 1 you will see a lot of one touch passing. If I want my team to play a quick tempo passing game which is fluid and one touch, I would seriously think of adjusting the width. If its too wide, I force some players into making too many TTBs.


I'm not really good at making defensive tactics. I've really created one that is consistently parking a bus, its just too stressful to see an opposing team rain down attempts. IMHO, if you want to play defensively I would suggest making each individual mentality defensive, and then reign in players who have FWR on often. I wouldn't adjust closing down that much, and I wouldn't reduce defensive line below lowest notch of normal. Not for now at least. The lower your defensive line, the deeper your depth, the closer you allow the AI to come to your goal. I rather keep them as far as long shots are possible. I tend to reign in fullbacks and tell them to stop making fwr, I may also consider telling my wingers sto RWB often just to keep them on the feet with the ball.


Mentality slider has 2 extra notches, count the notches for creative freedom and compare it to mentality and you will find 2 extra on mentality and this has been the biggest mystery for me. SI confirm the existence of both these but refuse to go into detail on what they do, so anything anyone says about it is pure conjecture.


1. I haven't noticed other players making space for players to run into like dummy runs.
2. The Farrow tells my MC to go forward when my team has possession of the ball, in other words I want him to play as an AMC when we have possession and drop into the MC role when we defend. I want the central MC area to be defended. Physically I want a dot there..I chose this method..the alternative would have been an AMC with a Barrow down.

The arrows just tell your player the role he will play and the position he takes up when your team is with and without ball. Putting him on forward runs is slightly different. He will set off on a FWR when a player in or around his zone has the ball, like an MC standing adjacent to allow him to make the fwr. When I put the arrow on, I tell him to make the run whether or now there is someone to help him or not. Setting FWRs as an option seems to be more well rounded an instruction, but giving a FARROW basically orders the player "GO THERE, you play as a wingforward when we're attacking.."

In general all attacking tactics should incorporate FWR on mixed or often for attacking players such as wingers. These need to be used well, anchor or link players can often go missing if FWR is set often for them. Such players include playmakers.

Using arrows on a ML literally makes the ML take the forward run early whether its a good attacking move or not...a 442 becomes a 424 with 2 long farrows. Its always good to know the effects. Sometimes setting them to FWR often gets the same effect without the added risk 2 long farrows do. One is a blatant instruction, the other one allows attributes and your buildup play to determine whether its good or bad


I don't exactly have a strong team..they are good but Chelsea is better..having no farrows meant that a dangerous area of the pitch would still be closed down well by my wingers. Giving them a sarrow is like a hybrid instruction..it tells them to play as ML and MC. I'm still trying to make it work well. The two midfielders are expected to do the hardwork of closing down any and all threats near the flanks, so they have to tightmark as well.


This tactic is meant to simply do one thing and that's to punch a hole through the centre. The players on left MC and right MC are just there to close down as many threats as possible. If they do go up to take part in attacks they do so only when they have the support of the attacking fullbacks.


I rather have a defined structure of looking at roles for players. If a winger is supposed to attack and cross ball and your instructions are clear..why increase his CF? If your instructions are good ones, there should be no need.

For the MC he can be given high CF, he's been told to have high TTB, RWB often and has literally been told to do anything he wants, especially if he has high flair and creativity. In that case he is playin in a natural position and the risks of doing something more dangerous are higher with him. I find giving high CF's to wingers not very efficient.

I rather keep CF high on the MC alone.. I'm still sitting on the fence for my 2 attackers who have a CF of around 10 in the game.

I want my threat to come from the MC which is why I want to play a quick passing game through the middle.


Passing is set to one touch for some of the midfielders, the idea here is to get the ball to the link players fairly efficiently. The other choice would have been shortest direct passing. Passing of 1 is one touch passing. The rest are just short passing. And if I'm playing high tempo with loads of forward runs then I prefer using 1 for passing. Having said that, this is not ideal for quite a number of teams. Its essentially playing "arsenal's " kind of football. Another good option to take is short passing of 4 or 5. Personally I don't see that much of a difference between 2 an 7 on the short scale. If 2 is short so is 7.

When i was playing with blackpool I found that weaker teams aren't ideally suited to 1 for passing, its too dangerous for them and when they do not have good targets to pass to, they hoof. So you need good passing targets around you to enjoy one touch passing and this has implications on width



I usually start with normal for all teams and then adjust ingame. I find that normal keeps my shape tighter for most matches, and my pitch is also "a standard pitch". If I'm playing away from home, I look at their pitch size to determine whether I'm playing narrow/normal or wide. And then I look at my tactic as well. If I want to play through the middle, I seldom play anything but normal or narrow.



Tempo is like my heartbeat in a game. I usually start slow away from home at around 5 and then at home I tend to play with a quicker tempo. Slow tempo implies buildup play against more defensive formations which I sometimes face. Quicker tempos for me work better against teams who match me. Against teams who are superior to me, I pay attention to the 2D screen and adjust accordingly.

I'm now playing a match againt Chelsea, away. I'm deploying a 433, quick tempo and wide and I'm having a hell of a time keeping them out..probably the wrong choice for me i'm still in the 20th min now.


It depends on my player mentalties, and I visually check it ingame and make adjustments to it during the course of a match. That happens to be the range I play in. I seldom play in defensive or high. I look to my players and see where the depth of their defending extends to. Once I find where I think I'm comfortable with, I lock in. Then I use that as a pressure gauge to push up or down.

Answered this already

Yes


A lot of this I did with testing..setting up a striker on hold up allows others to move into attacking positions if they have forward runs on. Now the only reason he has a lot of instructions in excess is because I'm testing things out at the same time as well. Since he has high decisions, I've given him max CF and often instructions to basically give him free reign


I want them to still be an attacking force, I look at decisions to decide. Furthermore setting them to rarely means they hardly poses an attacking threat. And this formation needs attacking threats. The more runs they have the more often they will go forward and depending on their mentality this can sometimes be good and bad. They have good decisions..so away from home they are on mixed..at home they are on often. Its a dangerous option, and sometimes against very good teams, I do occassionally play mixed or none.

Tightmarking reduces their crossing numbers, and also increases my tackle numbers. This is what I look at
So what do you see that makes you go one or the other on this?
When it comes to mentality..I like my defensive players now to be on the last notch of normal along with my 2 DCs and for the rest of the team I adjust the wingers to normal and have the attacking group on attacking. Is there a huge significance in numbers. I don't think so. I just pay attention to whether they are attacking or not.[/1]

I won't confirm the mentality figures that you have provided. But when you playing with attacking mentalities I find it almost impossible to play with a low defensive line, too many gaps open up, which is why I have to keep bumping up the dline. And there is a kind of limit to where that stops being useful. I wouldn't think a tactic with a defensive line of 18 is any good.
Yes and how deep the mids will go down depending on their closing down

Yes you did

Stats and visually. Though the engines does need fixing. For now, I just look to see that they are closing down in the right places and not going for a ball they are not supposed to.

Let's wait for the patch to come out before we head here..ideally I wouldn't want them to be on max

If a tactic is based on a formation of players that takes a certain shape, then it follows that closing down should work irrespective of whether you play home or away, since the shape is the same, and you are only closing down spaces

+++++Timeout+++++

Hammer1000

As a Hammer, i'd be interested in seeing exactly how you are managing to achieve so much success, especially with the admitted problems with the Demo in its present state?.

Looks to me like yourself and Cleon already have the game sussed even in it's infancy, i dont suppose you would be prepared to take me under your wing(so to speak) and show me down to the minutest detail, just how you manage to have such unmitigated success?.

Yourself and Cleon are obviously way ahead of anyone else on the boards here, so why not take that wisdom and help out your fellow FM'ers?, surely if everyone had your knowledge there would be a lot less work for you to do on here, closing threads and warning/banning people etc?.

What do you say?.

Wagner

Please excuse my ignorance but TTB means what?

I know that I'm going to groan when I'm told but it's driving me nuts at the moment! Thanks in advance

Hammer1000

Try Through Balls. :thup: