retired_hurtado22

Saved games will work fine

retired_hurtado22

If I could edit my post, I would also point out there is a tranfer update in the patch too, but wont affect previously saved games if wondering..

retired_kellyk

So why are these experiments takng place? The (or my) manual doesn't say that defensive line is linked to closing down or that it only comes nto effect when without possession.

The manual also doesn't state that width is possesion based as Arteta is claiming.

The fact that there is debate on the subject puts the quality of the manual into question surely? </BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually similar experiments were done when the demo came out the first time around many months ago.

retired_rayrhi

Man Marking Experiment

Another slider of questionable function, the man marking experiment I carried out left me none the wiser.

In all honesty, I could not tell the difference between man marking and zonal.

Man Utd — All sliders left/minimal except marking, which was set to global man marking.

Chelsea — All sliders left/minimal

I would have expected that a player set to man-marking would man mark the opposing position player. For example, your RFB would man mark the oppositions LWG, etc., etc. This happened when the opposing player was in close proximity, but Man Utd's team still sat pretty deep and seemed to play zonal. For example, if the opposition winger cut inside and left the FB, you would expect the FB to stay with the winger and follow him, but he never did. He simply ignored his marking duties and passed on the responsibility to whoever was in the closest proximity of the player. This is not my idea of man-marking. If I ask a player to man mark, then I expect him to follow the marked player wherever he goes regardless of whether or not he gets dragged out of position. Often, Ballack and Lampard had just as much space in the middle as the Man Utd's CMs. In other words, Scholes and Carrick were sitting deep and not picking Chelsea's CMs up. Perhaps this has something to do with mentality? I have noticed in the past that when you specifically mark a player, it is more noticeable in the match engine. Setting man-marking though should have the same effect. It is far too annoying setting man-marking specifically, simply because the AI changes positions and formations so often that you have to constantly keep up and tweak. Otherwise you will find the opposing striker suddenly playing on the wing. with your CB following him out there like a lost little lemming.

I am still in the early stages of testing, but my first impressions are disappointing. Man-marking could be a vital facet of a tactic with the right players/attributes, but I am not witnessing any advantage or even a subtle hint of it working in the match engine. I played 1 match with the same settings all the way through. It was 0-0 and possession was 50-50 right down the middle.

I plan on testing further changing mentality and tight marking. Perhaps my players were not positioned high enough up the pitch. Maybe they were not close enough to the opposition for man-marking to take effect. We shall see.

retired_FaultyFate

arteta,

Sorry mate but my day off turned out to be not so off . I did only one quick experiment realated to DL and my observations are similar to yours, but...

I think to analyse DL and Man Marking system we have to do more complicated experiments. Here are my arguments.

First, mentality is the only slider that defines players positions and it seems to me that, when set to extreme, it overrides (almost) all other defensive instructions, except for closing down. That is, if mentality set all way to the left, players will FIRST drop into their positions no matter what else you asked them to do when defending. As a result, we won't see the effect of man marking or DL to full extent. We might be able to pick something up ocasionally, but 99% of time we will see the same pattern, no matter whether we asked close down often or not, etc.

Second, when both teams settings are almost identical (especially mentality, passing style, CF and tempo) and set to the left extreme, DL and man marking don't make a difference because by the time the opposition crosses the middle of the field (where defense begins given the mentality settings) zonal marking = man marking as nobody switches positions, through balls, crosses ball, etc.

In my experiment, approximately at 65 minutes I changed Chelsea STs' individual mentalities to attacking (next notch to the left from the right extreme), and asked MCs to try through ball often. Before that I had not been able to spot the difference between high DL (MU) and deep one (Chelsea). However, once I have made those changes, I saw something that could be just random mistakes by MU player (Neville) or a pattern. That is whenever Chelsea intercepted ball in the middle MU DL stayed up, but Neville dropped a little deeper (don't know if he was pushed there by Shevchenko or did it himself). I saw it three times, and on one ocasion Lampard made a pass through the middle, cutting out MU DL and Shevchenko moved from the left side to the CF position, one-on-one and he scored. In the other two cases ball was intercepted by fullbacks and by the time Chelsea MCs got it (short passing) all MU team was back in their positions. I have screen of Shevchenko's goal but won't be able to post it now (at work), so may be later or just trust me Again it could be just random and has nothing to do with DL.

In summary I would say that DL and man marking experiments should include a bit more complicated settings. This I will do team vs individual mentality experiment, but before that I want to install patch and play a couple matches to adjjust to the differnces.

retired_rayrhi

I think you make a good argument, Kolobok. I too theorised that mentality may have something to do with man marking. I think I will carry out an experiment this evening with Man Utd's mentality set to attacking, in order to make the players' positions a little more advanced, and have Chelsea on man-marking globally. This way, Man Utd's players should be constantly close to a marker and maybe we will see it taking effect.

As for the defensive line, well I thought I could see it in action occasionally, but nothing happened consistently enough for me to draw any conclusions. For the defensive line experiment, I actually carried it out with both teams set to normal mentality, but still I could not see it in action. Thanks for contributing, mate, I could really use your help with these sliders. 4 eyes are better than 2 that's for sure. We'll get there in the end. And then we find out that for FM 2008, the slider system has been abolished. Either way we win.

aby

Agreed with some thoughts.

My basic tactical formation (props to Rashidi and Leroy) employs a high closing down as its core feature. With a very good team, like Man u., I can incorporate a slow tempo, short passing, wide formation to devastating effect. It is also as "pretty" as I have seen this game.

However, my closing down base will not work effectively with those settings with Havant and W., for example. They can't pass well enough, slow tempo causes lots of fumbling, and a wide formation leaves them hopeless at the back. But I still wanted to use my closing down tactic.

So, what I did was pretty simple: direct passing, mixed tempo, almost narrow width. It works! And, there is little question in my mind that while width IS an attacking slider, having your team narrow to start makes them much more effective at the back and helps shut up the shop.

Again, width, tempo and Dline are usually the only things I touch during games and I am using only one tactic Home and Away. I will eventually post some screenies.

Just some things to consider.

retired_rayrhi

Cheers for contrubuting, Jablome. I look forward to your thoughts.

retired_cindymerc

Are you still continuing experiments arteta. I found your experiments very interesting read.KUTGW.

retired_rayrhi

I plan to, mate. Unfortunately, certain people did not follow through with helping me experiment. Thus, I do not have that much time lately. I have not finished yet though, Badboy. That felt rather disturbing calling you that.