retired_dego72

Was the wibble/wobble that unrealistic though?

After all real life managers use whiteboards or tactical boards to put across tactical ideas- and w/w was imo a decent way of replicating this.

I so wish SI had refined this rather than chucking it out of the window totally. </BLOCKQUOTE>

I do actually like wibble wobble. It was a good gaming system, though undoubtedly for the hardcore gamer. However, a manager would no more tell his players where exactly to stand on the pitch when the ball is in section A as he would suggest that a player attack 45% of the time and not 40% or 50%.

As a purely gaming thing, I'd call the Wibble Wobble the better interface, being more visual, but I recall some mention of it being discarded due to it making it too easy to produce a supertactic in the presence of a 2d engine. If that is so, it's disappointing that the solution chosen was to nerf the interface rather than improve the AI. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, thats why it was discarded.

This is pure speculation but with SI choosing to nerf finishing for the 8.01 patch rather than fix the defending it does percievably appear that SI have made some decisions because they are easy, rather than possibly being the right ones for the game.

Thje removal of W/Wo was one such for me- rather than fix the match engine so certain tactics could exploit the 2D engine in its infancy they instead removed what for me was the most intuitive tactical tool there was.

I agree that real managers dont tell their players where exactly to stand, but imagine how useful a refined W/Wo system would be.......

We would be able to position our players more creatively and flexibly for set pieces.

We could give our players more direct positioning instructions, making it so much more intuitive when creating a 451 that turns into a 433 and vice versa.

We could show our defenders where the line is, even the line for defending freekicks etc. Rather than hope the interface gets what we are aiming for.

I know all of this can be done using the existing setup but how easier would it be with any kind of visual way to setup tactics.

retired_bull

The big problem is that tactics are abstract, they're really hard to communicate in a discrete way that a computer can understand.

This is what causes all the problems of interpretation. The only way to find the right balance of, for example, the width of your formation is to constantly tweak it, but then every time you tweak it it breaks something else in the formation, so you'll have to tweak that as well. With the dizzying array of sliders and tick boxes plus all the off-the-pitch factors, it's just confusing and frustrating.

To be honest, I really don't understand tactics, a lot of the subtleties of everything you change is lost on me.

Maybe the tactics can be broken down in to simpler levels to make it more accessible.
Something like:
1. The objective level - Most of the time you'll want to go for the win, but if you're outclassed you can tell you can set your tactics up to grind out a draw.

2. The strategic level - How the team achieves the objective - Tell your team to be really energetic and positive, or sit really deep and compact.

3. The player to player level - How each player achieves your strategy - Tell your centre backs to stick to the opposition strikers like glue, and rough them up, tell your wingers to get right beside your fullbacks to harass the opposition wingers, and run around their fullback to exploit is lack of pace.

I think at the moment, setting up a tactic in FM is akin to level 3. I think the more simple minded of us would prefer something along the lines of level 1 and 2, which can just be tick boxes or three position sliders.

retired_Balanchinegal

I'm fairly similar to that, only I use Five settings.

eg. Ultra Defensive / Defensive / Normal / Attacking / All Out Attack

I don't buy into that "twenty increments" nonsense.
How on Earth would a manager IRL get that across to the players?

"Right Lads, Fulham at home last week was easy at attacking number 17, but Portsmouth away; we'll need to take it down to about 12 and keep it tight for a while..."

Trash.

retired_dego72

I'm fairly similar to that, only I use Five settings.

eg. Ultra Defensive / Defensive / Normal / Attacking / All Out Attack

I don't buy into that "twenty increments" nonsense.
How on Earth would a manager IRL get that across to the players?

"Right Lads, Fulham at home last week was easy at attacking number 17, but Portsmouth away; we'll need to take it down to about 12 and keep it tight for a while..."

Trash. </BLOCKQUOTE>

Exactly- which begs the question- "why on earth did SI decide 20 was a good idea?"

SI?

retired_kiesha75

I base all of my tactics on what I'd do in real life rather than what the game wants me to do. This isn't as successful as some but I find it far more enjoyable than spending all my time trying to crack the match engine, especially as it changes after each patch. I understand real football tactics and can generally say why a team is doing well or badly but this is a waste of time in FM as it would be very difficult based on highlights. If something is going badly wrong it is clear form the stats and I might tweak or change my tactics. But I use one from two for every single game at the start.

retired_dchago

Personally, I think I'm quite good on the tactical side of things. I'm no genius, but I have had much more success then I have had failings.

The one thing I don't like is the slider system and how it works. I don't have a problem with sliders being used, it's just that I feel we need a graphical representation on the positions screen of how the changes we make are affecting the shape and positioning of our team.

For example, if I set my strikers to have a mentallity of 10 and 20, I'd like it to be shown on the position screen that one player is playing further up then the other.

Also, with closing down, when adjusting this, it would be good if we could see the area of the pitch the player is likely to close down in. More graphical representaion for tactic would make it easier for new players and novices to set tactics IMO.

Finally, and most improtantly, I feel we need an analysis tool. CM has one in ProZone, and whilst I think it's not really any better then using the match report tool in FM, at least it has one. If FM had a tool in which the assistant gave feedback for each match (with how good this is based upon his tactical knowledge attribute) then it would be a lot easier for people to get a beter understanding of why there tactic doesn't work.

retired_cRankLin

It has taken a lot of trial and error, and a peak at the fanzine, before I got to grips with the tactics.

I should say, however, that I have a friend that never sets individual instrutions and always plays a direct 4-4-2 with hard tackling regardless of his club or players available to him, and generally does very well, doesn't seem to work for me though

Figuring out the closing down instruction was key for me.

retired_pschnapps13

There was a very popular thread on just this subject for FM06, where the general consensus was, "no, we aren't given enough information on tactics". The manual is/was (I'm still on FM06) very skimpy on a very central part of the game. There's no indication in the manual on what the setting actually do - i.e. what SI understand a "forward run" or "man marking" to be. The problem seems to be that everyone has a different interpretation of what they think a setting should affect. Rather than guessing, SI should just write a decent manual.

For example, the description of creative freedom was something like "do you have a team full of Brazilians? Then enable this setting". That's not helpful info, as it doesn't tell you:
a) what "Brazilians" is meant to mean (skillful players? flair players? creative players?)
b) what the players will really do if you set it high or low (do they try more creative killer passes? Do they try more tricks? Do they just have more freedom regarding your instructions (as SI claim)). These things should be put in plain and simple English. We need a definition, not a glossing over.

If you're interested, I can post the link to the old thread...

aby

I'm fairly similar to that, only I use Five settings.

eg. Ultra Defensive / Defensive / Normal / Attacking / All Out Attack

I don't buy into that "twenty increments" nonsense.
How on Earth would a manager IRL get that across to the players?

"Right Lads, Fulham at home last week was easy at attacking number 17, but Portsmouth away; we'll need to take it down to about 12 and keep it tight for a while..."

Trash. </BLOCKQUOTE>

:thup: :thup:

circlewalker

I can get my team doing what I want them do.

However, that doesn't always result in a win.