retired_e_fores

Excellent point, particularly regarding the managers who can tell how and why they got relegated. There still isn't quite enough relevant info (I stress that I don't want to be overloaded with info) given to the player, thus I never feel like I'm part of the team and can really correct the problems. It feels sometimes as if my players (particularly media reaction, but also in matches) are contolling me rather than the other way round. Of course, one should not have complete control over one's squad (Joey Barton a case in point) but I think the balance needs to be slightly re-addressed.

retired_janellewood86

I would prefer this to loads of tick boxes, to be honest. I don't feel the slider system is a bad one per se, but not knowing how to stop a defender dallying on the ball or how to get a striker to stay in the centre of the field is more of a problem.

Chand's suggestion is all well and good, but when you consider all the things you could possibly want a player to do, your check boxes would cover most 30" monitors!

Better explained sliders, and perhaps another positional-based sliders like forward runs such as "tuck in-mixed-stay wide", and overlap "rarely-mixed-often" would help, becuase it's clear that having wingers and wingbacks on forward runs doesn't produce this effect too well.

Most of the checkboxes Chad has produced would, maybe, be excellent for a simplified tactics screen for those who want the ass man to deal with tactics more. However, most of them are covered by the current slider system. The problem is, the sliders either have too many settings, or don't always work quite as one intends.

The "main role" thing, however, is a good one, and could be encorporated into the positional templates that come with the game.

Overall, sliders are a good way of keeping things relatively simple and clean. What's needed, however, is for either SI to explain how to achieve many of the things we've been asking how to do for ages, OR give us more tools to tell players to do these things.

retired_Myoplex

Agree with everything! It would save so much time like people saying, "Don't put often forward runs for wingers and mixed run with ball and all that *****!" just have about 10 instructions like get forward everytime etc no sliders! Its unrealistic, post that screenshot in the fm08 thing mate, its quality! I really want something like this! Great stuff guys :thup:

retired_Myoplex

Got another idea! (Sorry!) This drives me something cronic! Goalkeepers...Whether to come off their line etc so we should have to look at stats like decisions and catching to decide whether to tick or not, also i think that the better your assistant manager the more detailed stuff he tells you, what does everybody think about taking the game outside of the club?

This, in my opinion, should be optional (like a lot of things) at the start of the game. If anybody watches Dream Team (I have a feeling you do arteta! fling in Liverpool...Jason Porter?!) you should, as you are the manager, have to deal with situations like a player sleeping around or if one of your players has been dumped and his morale is really low then you should have to try and get him back with his ex or get him a new girlfriend, which would make him feel great, but it could have a reverse effect...etc!

I think that also that (like on Dream Team again) you should try to get a few players to make good friends i.e. With Newcastle if Owen, Martins & Emre all became great friends and were all on "the same level" then when they played together they would know how each other plays and make forward runs and Emre would be aware of these things etc! But also, as the manager, you should have the option to tell them to be more squad players and link up with other players...!

Also on Dream Team (yes i am a junkie!) the two centre mids have a clash of personality and don't really like on another but they inspire each other and in the end work better together!

Sorry for hurting your vision but these are my views please agree or rip them to shreds p.s. Dunno where all this came from was only gonna write something about the goalkeeper coming off his line! Ah well...

retired_noor81

Heh. Don't know about that. Depends on how it's done and how many options you're willing to put in the system.

In essence, northernace and I are saying the same thing: That there needs to be a sort of 'macro' system for tactics, where one checkbox (or any type of single setting, doesn't have to be checkboxes), translates under the hood to a set of different slider positions.

Tick "Overlap Wingers" on your full/wingbacks and that translates, under the hood and invisible to the user, to the appropiate slider settings for Forward Runs, Mentality, Run With Ball, etc. Tick "Main Role - Attacking Fullback" and that translates to a slightly (or not) different set of slider positions and instructions than if you were to tick "Main Role - Fullback".

I'm starting to think that the important thing is maybe not to get rid of the slider granularity, but to push it under the hood and away from the user. That and, of course, hugely increased clarity of options and explanations as to what everything (sliders, checkboxes, radio buttons, flying pigs, whatever) actually does.

I actually think it's more than enough to use it for whatever kind of detail you want, not just a simplified tactics screen.

Of course I agree with you that depending on how many options you're willing to give, you risk going from slider hell to checkbox hell. That's a given. But on the other hand, for example on the "Main Role" type of setting... well, there are only so many main roles any given position can have.

You'll never tell your central defenders to play as strikers, and you'll never give them striker-type instructions. Or you'll never really tell your DMC to start hugging the touchlines and tossing centers. While it's true there's a lot of variety you can have with classical and not so classical main roles, then again there are only so many roles per position. One way to avoid 'checkbox hell' is to recognize this, and just as right now we have positional presets ("Set to... defensive mid, attacking mid, etc") corresponding to different roles and translating into different sets of instructions, we can perfectly have this.

We know there is a difference between a DMC, for example, behaving as a Stopper, Midfield Support or someone who acts as a second playmaker behind the front 2/3. But all that, and maybe two or three other smaller roles I may have forgotten for DMCs, that's really all they do.

So, yeah, one way of avoiding checkbox hell is to limit the amount of options/roles per position, because in reality there really aren't that many.

retired_lachina

I have been following yr ideas Chand, and I fully support it.
SI should come out with a manual to explain things better or change the tactical sliders to be more informative.
This way we can know what is wrong and what is correct. :thup:

retired_ladylimdiddy

To be honest im quite disgusted at the lack of input on these forums from SI for the past few months when they could have really helped us out with some guidance on alot of these things we're confused with.

It's just like they're not arsed now, we've payed our money and thats that we just have to get on with it, while the post away on their 'FM Liver' forum, nice one SI :thup:

retired_ladylimdiddy

FM LIve forum even

retired_e_fores

One thing that definitey needs to be sorted out is the effect of training on day to day performance. Noone really seems to know how training makes players perform well or not well. This I think could be one reason for the ambiguity in performace and reasons for good/bad performace that we have been discussing.


If someone from SI is reading I would just like to point out that noone thus far has disagreed with the principles and ideas stated by the OP and there clearly seems to be a consensus amongst FM'ers that something needs to be done.

retired_B-Scott

I suspect SI do have a close eye on these forums as we are the best link to the outside world - but I can also understand why they dont interact with us, in this context - because once they started, they would have to continue, basically commiting resources etc.

Also I suspect giving out details of the structure and coding method behind the engine, which is what we ultimately would want, would be useful to competitors, of which there are a few now in this genre.

Some of the more recent suggestions to improve the tactical approach on these board have been very impressive in my opinion, and I would hope that SI are taking note.