buzzing_hornet

I find the current set-pieces a real frustration, there seems to be very little movement from the players that go forward and when taking an attacking throw in the players i tell to 'go forward' seem to hover aimlessly on the edge of the penalty area which is no use to me.

As for corners and the 'attack ball from deep' option the players barely attack anything just stick to whee they started. I want my two big CBs to be attacking the 6yard box not half-heartedly wandering around the area.

Now there used to be a feature on older versions where you could position players on the pitch in relation to where you or your opposition had the ball. I'd actually like to say that back but that's a different issue.

I think the basis of that feature could be used for a set-piece editor. I'm not talking anything fancy but being able to specify types of delivery in relation to where the free kick is being taken for. Ie. If i have a free kick just inside the oppo half i'd like to have my full back lump the ball towards the back post whereas if it's out wide just short of the penalty area i'd like to have a technically gifted player whip the ball in.

Further to this you should be able to specify the areas in which you want the ball. I believe this would involve adding in the ability to add curve to the lines which are used for player runs. Thus you'd be able to have your player curl the ball into the box in that area in front of the 6 yard box.

Coupled with the above you should then be able to add player run lines to you player circles on the set-piece pitch. Ie. I'd instruct my players to attack the edge of the 6 yard box.

Not only would this add to the realism of the game i feel make set-pieces alot more bareable.

tigerhgrrrrrr

You are right about the old positon on pitch indicator, with the FM game engine it would make more sense to have this now than ever, but this has been raised & ignored before.

Regarding set piece editors, SI have suggested that it would be likely to produce loopholes which could be easily exploited leading to "super set plays". While that is a shame and I am puzzled that it cant be coded around, we have for now to accept it as correct.
My only suggestion, again ignored, would be for certain coaches to take with them from club to club their own set pieces, something definable that wont crack the AI. They only need be simple, variation would be the key. Maybe alongside the individual player settings for set pieces an option of "coach <xyz> settings" could be included which would set all players to a certain set pice pattern.

buzzing_hornet

Seems strange that these loopholes can't be coded out as it were, surely other areas of the game have loopholes which have been resolved ?

isuckatfm

I agree with the frustration of set pieces and the lack of intelligence of players within certain instructions, as well as how what the programmers intend certain instructions to do seem to differ with what the gamer expects them to do (as in your ‘attack from deep’ example). I would love to have more control over set pieces but as tigerhgrrrrrr said it’s unlikely in the near future. Here’s a link to where SI (specifically PaulC) mentioned their reluctance about set piece designers:-

http://community.sigames.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/9482076...522061463#4522061463

I think the with/without ball positioning system was removed as it made building match engine exploiting tactics too easy, and the same would probably apply to set pieces. I’m pretty sure I read that on these forums at some point or another but since I can’t find the thread don’t quote me on that .

I think the issue is how intelligent AI actually is relative to the Human manager i.e. not very. We can visually analyse and learn in a way that I don’t believe the AI in the game is capable of doing in its current incarnation. In your suggestion of coaches having set plays a Human manager, if he so desired, could easily study these plays and set up a counter to minimise the effectiveness of attacking set plays and exploit the effectiveness of defensive set plays.

You could argue that in doing this the Human manager would be behaving in a way consistent with real life, but in real life the opposition manager would adapt to this and alter his set plays as other managers began to learn them. In fact I would hazard a guess that in the modern game managers develop new set pieces for every game to prevent the opposition from watching previous match video and figuring out what set pieces they typically run.

At the moment I doubt the AI has this ability to ‘learn from its mistakes’ or gain insight from watching opposition teams in prior matches. A perfect example of this for me is in my current game I am a title challenger and heavy favourites for most games, thus opposition teams often park the bus when I’m at home. Yet on a few occasions when the game has been level (or the AI feels they can get something from the game) late in the match, the AI will suddenly go for it and my team’s dominance will disappear. In the real world opposition managers would see this match and recognise that they could actually give it a go against my team from the start of the match. Yet they will still persist with parking the bus.

This is particularly noticeable if you happen to face the same team in a short time space in a cup competition and then the league. In the cup competition they might not play defensively and get a win. Yet 1 or 2 weeks later the same team will come to your ground in the league and park the bus. If I have the same tactics in both matches then intelligent, evolutionary AI would be capable of making an assessment like:-

INPUT: We played team A (using tactic a) by using tactic b
OUTPUT: We got a good result
FEEDBACK: If we play team A (using tactic a) again, use tactic b

In FM I don’t see this type of ‘AI learning’, which would be necessary if a set piece editor were to be introduced. But this is based on my experience of playing the game rather than knowledge of the code so I could be wrong about how intelligent ‘FM Artificial Intelligence’ actually is. Just to state this is an observation and not a criticism since I don’t know to what extent programming learning in modern game AI is possible.

Actually now that I think of it remember on 06 where you could set one player lurking and everyone else to near/far post resulting in a clear shot for the lurking player. I had a player with great long shots attributes who bagged 15+ goals a season from these corners alone, yet the AI never recognised this routine nor did they attempt to counter it. The same could be said of the near post flick on in FM 07. Both of these are exploits discovered within the current rigid system that the AI could not deal with, imagine how much easier it would be if we could designate runs etc.

To sum all that waffle up :thup: to the set piece editor idea and enhanced realism, but I don’t think we’ll be seeing it anytime soon.