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Following the amount of posts in my recent topic - Creative Freedom... Use Sparingly! - I'm thinking of starting a series of topics that are aimed at addressing each of the sliders in FM08.
It's my belief that this is possibly the most difficult area of understanding for many people.
The aim is twofold - to clean up the forum of lots of individual posts, and to provide a singular source of good information, help and discussion for each of the sliders.
The other alternative is to have one main topic, which discusses all the sliders, given that they do work in tandem with one another.
Let me know your thoughts about how useful such a set of topics would be, so I can see if it's worth me setting up. :thup:
Cleon and Rashidi1 - your thoughts with this would be appreciated.
Originally posted by Flyingdutchman:
I would give every slider a thread of their own
I agree :thup:
Some of the sliders are very straight forward and require little explanation or debate. The creative freedom slider was a great example of a misunderstood tactical option and it is similar sliders that require the greatest attention - and hence a different thread for each one would be most appropriate.
I posted over on the original "Creative freedom" thread that I wanted to see more done about the closing down slider but that I wasn't sure if it was appropriate until after the patch - since I really think this is one area that will be changed (tweaked) by SI for the patch.
The main sliders that would be most worthwhile are in order:
- Closing down
It's simple enough in theory but there are many attributes that impact the effectiveness of this as well as it's effectiveness (or lack of) based on other slider settings such as positioning and mentality.
- Tempo
I've found this to be a very useful slider but I get some strange effects with it now and again and I don't fully understand why. Again I think it is worth discussion and debate since I've heard many people suggest that it is how quickly the players pass the ball to each other. This is not necessarily the case if you have players set to run with ball or to have "through balls - often" - in which case, the tempo dictates how quickly the ball is moved forward ?!?
- Free role
This is very useful if used correctly. I'm not using it completely effectively yet but then I'm not sure what the attributes are that affect how well it works.
Finally, can I make a suggestion that now and again in each thread, you have a summary of what we think we've learned by that stage. For example, what attributes are key, under what circumstances the slider, etc is important. I realise this is a lot of work so perhaps one of the other guys would take this on but if we are to have a really useful thread, it may be useful for them to take a look down the thread and only read these bolded posts that contain the summary information. Maybe?
10/10 for your commitment to this heathxxx. As I've said before, I really enjoy the discussion and am happy to input based on my experience and findings but I'm not best placed to be the one giving advice.
I've found this to be a very useful slider but I get some strange effects with it now and again and I don't fully understand why. Again I think it is worth discussion and debate since I've heard many people suggest that it is how quickly the players pass the ball to each other. This is not necessarily the case if you have players set to run with ball or to have "through balls - often" - in which case, the tempo dictates how quickly the ball is moved forward ?!?
From what i understand, Tempo is "Hey, we've got the ball. How quickly shall we turn it into a shot?"
Of course, this will usually mean passing the ball fast, as the ball mvoes faster than a player. However, with a player who's been told to run with the ball, "get it up field for a shot fast" means "lets dribble forward", as that's what you've told him to do with the ball. For a winger with deep crossing it may mean "Hoof it into the area now", and for a striker it may mean "shoot first time".
I would agree that it would be helpful to many if there were discussions regarding the sliders, the only concern I would have (maybe just a personal oppinion) is what kind of input it could accumulate. Last year, for example, there was so much imput (and not all correct, I might add) that in many ways it caused a mass confusion. Who is to say who is going to be right in these matters?
The only advice I could give is try to keep things simple. You are going to have to establish an idea of which directions the sliders move to make 'attacking or defending mindsets' which is the basic idea behind the whole match-machine. And then move forward from there. You are going to incounter, at one point, that if anybody is going to be so bold as to try and make 'match tests' with the sliders that they actually first really become transparent when people discover which slider has to be moved in conjunction with which other slider to make the effect that one is looking for.
For this to work you have to have an overall gameplan, and what I mean by this is in the form of 'are we stronger than our opponent so we should attack?' or 'are we weaker than our opponent so we should defend?' (in general terms, but there are always a few exceptions and on top of this is an issue of being realistic). Lots of things come into play when assessing these issues: Manager ratings (+addaption & reputation), coaches (+addaption & reputation), players (+addaption & CA/PA), training regimes, ect...
I'm sure many haven't figured out to start with that these mentioned issues above have a big impact on the game. Before your team is actually playing the way you had intended there has to be some sort of descipline (or higher manager rating) and to some extent how good your players are at addapting (foreigners take much longer than local lads) so that your players are actually following the tactical plan that you have established (and this could actually take some or a lot of time). This is the main reason that some of you have read posts where people complain that a player/s doesn't do what he/they had been instructed to do.
I know that a lot of people are going to have different ideas on how the sliders should move and in conjuction with which other slider, so at one point you are going to have to ask yourself 'is passing vertical or horisontal?' and then the can of worms is opened.
Things also cannot be 'set in stone' (as wwfan would say) because if you look at the tempo issue, for example, it has no 'magical position' that makes your tactics successful. If you ever try to do the following: Low tempo plus high time wasting and then after try high tempo with low time wasting you will quickly see that it works in conjunction with your overall game plan during the match (garding or chasing?). But should you have these sliders always appart? the answer would be *NO*...
Thanks for the feedback so far. This is why I posed the question in the first place. :thup:
I'm perhaps leaning towards one main thread, for people to discuss the use of all the sliders. (And perhaps Hawshiels, a "tickbox" section )
Loversleaper - I understand what you mean. Because the sliders are inter-linked, one thread for each might mean each thread is basically discussing the same thing in the end. Someone asks the question - "If I have creative freedom set to X, what's the best setting for run-with-ball...", etc...
Perhaps an overview of each slider and tickbox, perhaps quoting the game manual for a start, then discussions regarding the mixture of uses of the sliders, plus help, advice and our own experiences and findings.
Someone will have to either send me the manual quotes in English, or post them for me, as my manual and game is the Spanish boxed version. My Spanish is ok, but not THAT brilliant that I could translate it accurately. (It was a nightmare trying to get the English.ltc language file for the game to run in English.)
The overall aim with a sliders topic is that it would be a good enough source of information that can be added to the "Tactics Bible", that everyone can use for help, with FM08 it's patches and future releases of FM, providing SI don't come up with something completely different.
First of all, I wouldn't take the words in the manual literly. FM07 tactics worked a lot differently than what was stated in the manual (Abramovic's AI Tactics thread revieled that), but SI have moved more in the direction of correcting some of the issues in the latest version of FM (FM08). For example 'Global' ideologies work much better in this version than FM07 and they have toned down some of the settings that were needed to make successful tactics back then. I, personally, think people will make much more progress if they give tried and tested 'theories' accompanied by comprehendable, simple results because the sliders in realty are quite straight forward. 'Tactical meltdowns' are caused by contradicting instructions and this is the main cause for failing tactics (especially when the AI starts to play tactical against you). I don't think that SI are going to come up with something totally different, but they will be fine-tuning some of the aspects in the game which could result in making some of the human users' tactical outlooks more successful...
Come on, really?
Having one slider for each topic is totally pointless, for example does tempo and passing connects, and so does alot of your settings...
There is already loads of topic about the sliders, so stop making them.
With all due respect, skallez, those posts are pretty much outdated (and no harm is intended on asmodeus, mille or wwfan as many of my own personal ideologies originated from these mentioned users) although some of it can still be relavent. FM07 worked a little differently than it does in FM08 and on top of that many of the newcomers won't recognise those mentioned posts. FM08 has become more 'refined' compared to FM07, so the explainations of them could use a little upgrading or at least some debate.
The point of this forum is to seek gaming help or to offer it. The forum these days lack interresting topics and new ideas actually should be encouraged, as there are not so many new ideas/theories/explainations around worth debating which is much needed if gamers are going to understand the direction that the FM series are taking us. Good topics are hard to come by as many don't have the time or energy (although I have a feeling that this might change after the new patch is released).
There are many that don't understand the sliders and what needs to be done to make the tactical effect that they are looking for, so I couldn't agree more with the fact that this needs to be addressed (not for all, of course). There are some few really good posts around but some people actually needs to be pointed in the right direction. Topics like this one can easily help many as long as the fundamentals in this game are taken into consideration (which I was trying to point out in my first statement in this thread). One must crawl before one walks...
FM08 - The "Sliders" Project 
Linear Mode
