retired_dellydoolittle

I'm using CF like this. if I manage quality side I give it more (2 most creative players on high, defenders, DM low normal...), more defensive tactics get I also lower CF.

I'm asking this becouse I never paid so much attention to this (didn't notice such a difference) and it's a little odd to me to give such a low CF if you're managing quality side. but of course there are many types of managers, some want their players to stick more to their tactics then others.

retired_aries

Completely understand :thup:

It's just over the course of many saves at many levels, and in different countries, this is something that's worked very effectively for me.

Perhaps it's a little extreme for some teams, like high quality squads, as you mentioned.

I'm a Man Utd fan and looking at how they play for real, would doubt that even the defenders would be asked to perform a real life equivalent. Rio Ferdinand does have the odd foray through the middle of the park after all!

It's perhaps more in keeping with lower quality teams where organisation and playing as a unit is paramount over creative individuality.

That said though, playing this way, even with lower league teams in the English Blue Square North or or Spanish Segunda B4, the movement and passing of the team overall is alot better. They follow my instructions more clearly. Granted, players do still make mistakes, but no more often than with higher creative freedom settings, perhaps even less.

retired_aries

Gonna check back here for any more comments tomorrow :thup:

When I'm on the forums, I'm also playing FM at the same time and usually post when I press "continue", rather than watch the status bar.

Am about to hit the heavy Christmas schedule of fixtures now. Will let you know how my lack of CF does on muddy and waterlogged pitches heh!

retired_gwenlyn

This is a really interesting discussion guys and has me thinking about my own use of Creative Freedom. I have tended not to use this setting at all - or so I thought. I thought that by setting it to Normal (i.e. in the middle) that it would have little or no effect. In other words, I assumed that the middle default position was like the zero position and anything to the left and right acted like a negative or positive respectively.

But having read what Cleon said about it, perhaps I will start to experiment more with this. It's strange. I tend to play around with every other setting in the tactics (just to work out what they do) but this is one that I tend to leave alone. Perhaps this stems from FM06 (I think) when this setting could cause some serious damage to tactics. It's obvious to me now though that I should re-visit this and have a play with it as heathxxx suggests.

Looking forward to more of this tomorrow.

[p.s. Is it just me - or because of the wine I'm drinking - or is the tactical forum actually really interesting at the moment? There seems to be much more of a healthy discussion going on at the moment. There's the usual nonsense threads but largely things are constructive.]

retired_dellydoolittle

I allways set CF individualy. if I had FB with high creativity, decision and flair attributes, why not give him more creative freedom? this is how I've set it (little decrease after reading theathxxx posts :

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/4789/cffc9.jpg

retired_gwenlyn

Mitja: What sort of possession and shots/goals stats do you get in your games? I am interested because you use a more direct passing than I do and I just realised that I prefer never to use direct passing because I found that I got about 40% possession or less when I used this. It's interesting to see your use of creative freedom in this context also. It seems to make sense to have a more direct passing game with the reduction in creative freedom but that's just theoretical. I've never tried this.

retired_hope

I would agree with you here. I find that when playing direct passing creative freedom can be reduced even for strikers, which I then increase closing down for. This seems to result in winning a lot more aerial challenges and causing pressure on the opposition defence something that when playing direct you need to do or you will find the opposition get to much time on the ball.

retired_dellydoolittle

Mitja: What sort of possession and shots/goals stats do you get in your games? I am interested because you use a more direct passing than I do and I just realised that I prefer never to use direct passing because I found that I got about 40% possession or less when I used this. It's interesting to see your use of creative freedom in this context also. It seems to make sense to have a more direct passing game with the reduction in creative freedom but that's just theoretical. I've never tried this. </BLOCKQUOTE>

just think that direct passes as extended short pass, it defenetly isn't long. most teams in england play so. my possesion is allways somewhere around 50%. I tweak it with tempo but even more with time wasting, if I think we're playing too fast. no problem with possesion, just don't score much even I'm creating fair amounts...

retired_happydawg

I follow the manual strictly on creative freedom. It reads thus: "..... it may be advisable to limit this on a team basis and allow it for the more talented player[s] in your team".

I have team CF on low 3-5 and only have it higher for two or three players, at most. In my case , the AMC and one of the strikers. I won't give it to both strikers because I want one to stick to his instructions. It is about the only slider that I don't have many problems with.

retired_aries

I think this is going to be an interesting experiment.

Like I said before, it's made a marked difference to my own games.

Hawshiels
I recall this being the case and in honesty I assumed it to be the same in FM07. It's only since playing FM08 that I've been tinkering more with tactical settings. It appears that SI have fixed things more with creative freedom to enhance the realism.

As Libertine'82 said:
This clearly shows that the correct use of creative freedom at different levels of the game is important to get right.

I would certainly agree that you could have a number of players given creative freedom, especially with big clubs with alot of creative/flair players. What I believe though, is that even with a club like Manchester United, I would still only have a maximum of say 3 players - examples: Rooney, Tevez, Ronaldo - the forward three if you like.

The rest of the team would be set to 5 clicks or below on the slider. What I have seen represented in the match engine, is a better overall fluidity of passing between players, as they observe my tactical orders better.

The difficulty at lower levels is that it's rare to have really good creativity/flair players, therefore narrowing your options down. When you've got perhaps one really good creativity/flair player, he can sometimes get marked out of the game. It's best if you've more than one player with high creativity in this case.

Re-assessing creative freedom has certainly been an eye-opener for me and has boosted my enjoyment of FM08 even more. I believe I trully have more control over how my team plays and performs, with my desired tactics and formations. :thup: