retired_nabrooks

Back when 07 was first released, I logged a bug whereby if you had a playmaker or target-man in either list, they would be used as such regardless of whether you had the check-boxes ticked or not (which still hasn't been fixed as far as I can tell). I only played if for a couple of weeks back then to log a few bugs and data issues and only really picked it back up with the release of the latest patch.

Having played it for the last couple of weeks, and having read both SI's and Cleon's take on the team vs individual mentalities, it just hit me that it may suffer from the same bug that the target-man did/does, in that the over-rides aren't working as they should.

If I'm right (and I've only tested this for a couple of matches so far, so I may be wide of the mark), I don't believe team mentality will affect the mind-set or positioning of any players with an individial mentality set as Cleon suggested it may, but I DO believe team mentality is taken into consideration when the match is being calculated, even if every player has an individual mentality set. So if I set everyone on a normal mentality, but have an attacking team mentality, the engine will regard me as being attacking and I'll be vunerable to the counter-attack. If I drop the team mentality to normal and set the individual players to attacking, counter is no longer a problem.

As I said, I've only tried it for a couple of matches and don't really have the time to do extensive testing, but if the theory is right, with a well balanced tactic the only adjustments that may need to be made are finding (roughly) the right TM to counter the oppositions (and maybe the CA check-box), and may do away with the need for 14 tactics or so.

retired_janellewood86

Very, very interesting. Just as I was thinking the debate was dead it seems reignited. Eeeexecllent!

I was convinced I saw a diffence in team performance when using team mentality AND individual mentality, but I could neither prove it, nor explain it properly. I know Cleon and many others thought similarly too. Currently, I play on the assumption that it makes no difference. If it does, though, I've got to rethink my tactics again...

I know that wwfan and a couple of others use the target man/playmaker bug to their advantage - "semi" target men, if you will - and get the benefits of sort of focussing play through one man without the disadvantages of one dimensional play. If mentality is the same, not only will I be able to shout a belated "told you so" at certain doubters, but also fire up a few old games that I lost interest in.

I have a sneaking suspicion that there's nothing there, but it would be nice if there were.

retired_rjw13838

Who says its a bug? I look at it as a usefull feature. I can tell my team to play the ball a certain way to a certain player, but at the same time I dont want play to be centred around him. Works perfectly by choosing a target men, but not selecting the target men box.

If they considered it a bug so far, they should just leave it alone and call it a feature imo...

retired_janellewood86

I would agree! I used the word "bug" as that was the word he used.

Yes, I find it incredibly useful too.

Who says its a bug? I look at it as a usefull feature. I can tell my team to play the ball a certain way to a certain player, but at the same time I dont want play to be centred around him. Works perfectly by choosing a target men, but not selecting the target men box.

If they considered it a bug so far, they should just leave it alone and call it a feature imo... </BLOCKQUOTE>

barefootboo

IMO it's working like it ought to be, individual mentality and team should be combined, when I tell my boys to go out and battle for a draw against F.C. abramovich I tell that to my team, I don't take every player aside and tell them, "now I want you to stay 5 yards lower on the pitch at all time compared to normal"

It also makes the game more playable since you don't have to tell every player how to play in every game

retired_orucollegegirl

I'm also finding that if I balance my team nicely, all I have to do is adjust the TM, and sometimes the passing style to change the way I want to play. I do find though that I have to tweak this in game as the opposition changes.

I never adjust any of the individual settings and this seems to work fine. Currently 13 pts clear at the top of ECN with Worksop Town!!

retired_nabrooks

Don't get me wrong, it's how I WANT the game to work, but it's not been designed that way. I did ask a while back for some way (another check-box maybe ? ) of linking a players individual mentality to the team mentality slider, so that if you dropped/raised the team mentality slider by say 5, everyones mentality changed regardless of whether they were on individual mentalities or not. Would make setting up things like deep lying playmakers/strikers SOOOO much easier if it could all be controlled by one slider rather than having to go through and alter every player individually (or making a shed load of tactics with the changes). Doubt we'll ever see it though as SI have a knack of making things a lot more complicated than they should be

Still undecided if it's unitentionally working like that atm. Even playing the same match a few times without touching the tactics can throw up a number of varied results, so it's pretty hard to deduce whether it's because of the slider change or random element #414351.