retired_mgavlick

Therein lies your answer. All it is doing is to tell you to pass ahead of a player for him to move onto rather than to his feet. It is not about splitting the d-line.

It also has to be taken into account that my suggestions here are for top sides only, not for struggling LLM sides. At the top level, most defenders can pass.

retired_rayrhi

wwfan:

From your penultimate post:

Heavy pressing with an attacking mentality REQUIRES hard tackling

Strong statement this. Would the consequences of not using these settings as such result in a poorly implemented tactic? Don't answer this, you can't.

Open space. No wonder you can't break the opposition down. A good, controlling, home tactic should have close to maximum width and a deep d-line. That way the opposition has to chase you all over the pitch to get the ball. This a) opens attacking space & b) tires them out so you can exploit tired legs in the last 15 mins. I have lost count of games I have won with one or two late goals as the opposition simply runs out of energy ands starts making mistakes.

I fully agree that an extremely wide system works better. As for the defensive line, the effects are so observably minimal or non-existent even, that it doesn't matter what setting you have it at. A deep line would only kick in anyhow when you are not in possession. With this in mind, I fail to see the advantages of a deep line whilst attacking. A low defensive line does not 'stretch' the pitch, as you claim. I have carried out roughly 20 matches of defensive line experiments, and I can assure you that the slider does not control the defensive line—which is strange, because that's the slider's label.

Often for whole team. In conjunction with high FWRs for wide players, mixed/often for midfielders, having everybody on often will have them all looking to feed ball into space in front of players, rather than just passing to feet. This allows for much more free-flowing football. Don't percieve through balls as a ball past the opposition's d-line, rather than a ball played ahead of anyone in space. The more players look for it, the more the attacking opportunities.

I agree with this to the fullest extent. I wish I hadn't discovered it only recently. I was under the impression that too many through balls would lead to wasted possession. In fact, I think the manual told us this.

Free roles are vital for a top side. They allow players to pull opponents out of position which opens up exploitable space. I would suggest at least two (prefer three) for a top four team.

I have carried out an experiment where a whole team was set to free-roles and I noticed nothing. Players certainly do not roam around the pitch as expected. I've tried it with full creative freedom and minimal. If you look at the editor, you will notice that every player has a free role hidden attribute. I would guess that having a player with a high free role rating would benefit performance-wise having his free-role box checked, and that it is not observable in-match. I would venture to say that a few/a lot? of the sliders/individual settings are set up like this, meaning that it will improve your performance because you have simply hit the right 'spots'. This does not mean that these settings are observable in-match.

In mathematical terms:

Player x with a free role attribute of 20 will enjoy a creativity boost, or a higher percentage chance of scoring a goal if his free role box is checked.

This is a crude example, but should give you a cheap insight in to how I feel it works.

retired_mgavlick

I can ssure you the deep d-line works. Try it.

D-line 15, width 20 = lots of missed chances

D-line 6, width 20 = much better scoring opportunities.

It works less well against teams coming at you, but against teams sitting back is absolutely necessary.

Free roles also work. Even if it is moving slightly inside for the full back to overlap, it adds a small amount of space and increased unpredictability.

One thing I forgot to mention. For quality sides, have all the attacking players (wingers, forwards) HUB. Helps enormously.

retired_rayrhi

This defensive line theory might well be true, but it sounds like a trial and error discovery, not a logical footballing decision. It may well be that the defensive line slider is significant to the performance of a tactic, but the fact that I can not observe it in-match automatically constitutes it as useless in my mind.

Your free role theory may also be true, but you must have telescopic vision if you can see it happening. I know what a free role is. If you watch Totti, Rooney, Cantona, or Sheringham playing it, you'll see them dropping into the central midfield. Very very rarely do you see wingers playing a free role in football. The free role 'number 10' SS/AM position is a luxury position taken by a luxury player. The free role is POORLY replicated in FM. Even the likes of wingers Giggs, J. Cole, Ronaldo, Joaquin, Vicente, play a disciplined game. Yes, the exception is maybe Messi and Ronaldhino in Barcelona's 4-3-3, but it's certainly not common and requires immense talent in those 3 forward positions. The fact that you claim that a successful team must have 3 players set to free-roles is footballing nonsense. In footballing terms, this would be considered suicide. I would further venture to say that few players in FM have a high free role setting. Surely, setting players to free role with a low free role attribute is as contradictory as having a player with a long shots value of 3 set to long shots?. Free role = roam around the pitch at will and ignore defensive duties. This is the classical meaning of the role. I await your reply.

retired_rayrhi

I have never tried having all forward players HUB, but I will certainly try it. Thanks for the advice, mate.

JeffRogers

retired_mgavlick

I changed the d-line in 06 as well and it made a similar difference. It seems to help regain possession and guards against the rapid counter attack. The assumption is, that with a high mentality side, a low d-line will allow for a series of easy passes once you regain the ball as players are spread out rather than tightly knit.

Free role maybe poorly described in the manual. I didn't used to do it but Abramovic's research discovered the AI did. Based on that, I tried it and it made a big difference. In the most attacking formations, wingers rarely need to help out defensively anyway, so it certainly can't do any harm.

@ bob: Hard tackling with wingers won't work well if you are doing everything else badly. If they are narrow and miss the tackle then the whole wing opens up. It's part of the holisitic. I certainly wouldn't do it for a defensive system.

You have argued yourself into a corner with the second quote: I'm lazy and don't use anything except a universal tactic! Well, no wonder the game seems like it is cheating. Do you really think quality managers only have one tactical plan for all games. Again, passing down the flanks is not boring with a well worked tactic. You should see some beautiful moves, but you must have the space to construct them. It may well be boring in a tight formation.

As for my last point, have you really tried that combination? If not, how can you say it doesn't work and everything is scripted?

retired_rayrhi

wwfan:
Does your def. line theory work simply because it 'does?' or have you observed its effects. I can assure you that I have tested it extensively, and the back-line still defends at approximately the same 'depth' even when the slider is set to both extremes.

I agree that in the attacking 4-3-3/4-5-1 formation that the wingers do not do much defending in FM, so I agree that there is no harm done. But how do you personally perceive the hidden free role attribute? How do you think a winger with a free role attribute of 1 would behave with his free role box checked? Surely the attribute is there for a reason...

retired_ggrose

The D Line does not show a visual effect on the 2d match as I too have tested it extensively from placing it on 1 to the extreme of 20 and the defence seem to fall back to the same spot regardless. I have read in another thread in which Cleon was stating that although the D Line will not be noticed visually it does make a difference to the match regarding the stats and the way it is played.

I am rather confused here although I must admit when I drop the D Line back we seem to be defending alot more in our own half.

To make things alot easier SI really do need to explain in depth what ALL the sliders do and not leave it up to the self acclaimed experts to tell us what each slider does exactly when their are so many variables to consider that they cannot possibly know what each slider does as positioning one slider in a certain position whilst another is in a set position may have a knock on effect to another slider.

The only people to know exactly what each slidre does and its effect are the programmers and I am truly amazed that SI stay quiet and cannot be bothered to explain further what there purpose is.

One last thing, If these so called experts never seem to have a problem with matches and are so great then why not prove it and put your actions where your mouth is and play a Network game?

I think that this would be a good test to see what is what:

1) Rashidi
2) wwfan
3) cleon
4) Millie
-------------
5) Arteta
6) Alibog

If this network game was to begin then it would be rather interesting to see wwfan, rashidi go on there amazing runs.

Sorry no offence but it just amazes me that with you guys mastering this game that neither of you have ever seemed to play a network game against your critics.

Arteta would you be up for it?

retired_rayrhi

a. We have anything to prove to each other. We are not out to 'harm' one another.
b. People are of differing time-zones. Impossible.
c. We all have about 10 minutes a night to spare. A season would not be finished until FM 2011.
d. Disagreement is not tantamount to disrespect.