panomaniac

Thought we could have an interesting discussion about mentality itself, separate from TTF as its a big part of the game and I feel it deserves its own thread like the D-Line.

Firstly, has anyone read the manual and what it has to say concerning mentality? Well it says its one of the most important instructions in your tactics and as a result it would be nice if we could all understand as best we could.

I found it really interesting how it states that if you have a defensive team mentality then most of your players should also be on defensive mentality (this was referring to you setting individual instructions). It went on to say that too many individual attacking mentality instructions would confuse players when having a defensive team mentality. Interesting.

Does this then mean that individual mentality does not fully override team mentality and instead works in conjunction with team mentality. Eg, if you had a defensive mentality for team and attack for lots of individuals they would get confused because the team would want to play it around at the back as a whole but all the players would be wandering off into attacking positions.

What's your take on this concept, any other mentality concepts and mentality in general?

Cleon

I always thought the team mentality acted as a sort of base for the team as a whole, regardless of what individual isntructiosn they have. I came to this conclusion because I realised when the team was set to a defensive mentality, you see more balls knocked back, where as if its attacking team mentality, then I noticed more balls played forward. Regardless of what the individual instructions was.

It was be rather useless if they didn't work in conjunction with easy other though, we'd have 2 options that did the exact same thing. Surely they would had just made it one or the other if they didn't work together?

Xennaz

From what I can tell, individual instructions DO override team instructions, but "creative Freedom" and attributes like Flair and Decisions also come into play, of course. Maybe even the preferred moves, I guess.

Plays no through balls or Plays short simple passes, etc would imply that even with an attacking mentality, the player might not really go for a killer pass, etc.

I set my team mentality for about 3/4 attacking, with one "playmaker" midfielder set to all-out attack, centrebacks and keeper set to full defensive.

panomaniac

Makes sense.

On a similar sort of topic, do you think there are any other instructions where both team and individual settings work in conjunction with each other? Or do you think mentality is the only one? Personally, I think mentality is the only one and can't think of a logical reason for the other settings being linked in the same way.

jaycar

i read that also...so if you set your team mentality as dead in the middle, in a Rot system you have maybe the back 4 on defensive mentality and the 2 strikers and maybe the AMC (in a diamond)on attacking. does this mean that with 7 out of 10 outfield players on differing mentalities that all 7 are 'confused'?

it could do with some clearing up imo

rashidi1

I too have been thinking along the same lines, though I'm not certain...I have played with a 424 with team settings on All out and on defensive, and I think as well that it acts as a base or even a modifier to the actual individual settings. It does make more sense, becos the idea that one overiides the other makes no sense to me, cos it seems like a waste of coding.

panomaniac

Ok, I've had a good read through all the tactical explanations in the manual again and think I can answer your question and clear up another thing too.

Firstly, individual mentality does not override team mentality, they work together. Secondly, there are no other tactical instructions, from what the manual says, that work in the same way as mentality. The manual says mentality is the most important tactical attribute, possibly part of the reason being that it works in this way and has 2 meanings, team and individual.

Secondly, team mentality refers to the style of play your team will play, look to get forward and create chances early or sit back, be patient and don't take too many risks. Individual mentality refers more to a specific players positioning and how adventurous he is.

Thirdly, when setting up mentality I believe that you should first set up the team mentality, work out what 'style' of play you are going to use first. Then once you have worked out your mentality 'style', attacking, defensive or a mixture then you can set individual settings.

However, you must remember that the team setting is your main setting you don't want to deviate from this too much. If you had a defensive team mentality and an attacking individual mentality on many players then you'd be wanting to try and pass it around at the back but all your players would be running away into attacking positions. As a result a lot of your team would become confused because you have given conflicting instructions. Therefore, team mentality is your main setting and not too many players should be changed from this, at a MAXIMUM I'd change my GK, defenders and DMC to defensive mentality if I was playing with an attacking global setting. If I was playing a defensive global setting then at a MAXIMUM I would change, in a 4-4-2, only my strikers, wingers and attacking midfielder to an attacking mentality. As a basic rule - I personally only change a maximum of 5 outfield player mentalities, with the minimum other 5 outfield players remaining on the team setting.

jaycar

good stuff, you mentioned that possibly 5 max? thats why i brought up the 7 changes, surely this isn't good regarding what the manual says.

i dont use Rot myself, defenders are on lower mixed, mid's on dead centr and att high mixed ff a dead centre team mentality, i'm just trying to get my head around what it means in relation.

panomaniac

Yeah, in relation to team settings I'd roughly consider about 5 max changes in individual settings. As the manual says, it's best to limit changes in individual mentality settings so they're not significantly different in relation to team mentality.

Remember though, there's no set rules and my 5 max comment is simply a) my personal preference and b) a general educated guess at a number you wouldn't want to go higher than. Personally, I'm not a fan of 'set in stone' tactical theories so it's best to try and see what works best for you.

For example another way of looking at things could be like this:

If playing a defensive team mentality then at least all your defenders plus 1 midfielder needs to stay on defensive mentality and the rest can change. If you play a back 3 then if you do the maths, you could change up to 6 outfield player mentalities. I would consider this risky though.

Or if playing an attacking team mentality you could have 1 striker and 3 attacking midfielders staying on attacking mentalities while the back 4 and 2 DMC's could change to a defensive mentality. You'd then be changing 6 outfield mentalities but you'd still have a striker and attacking options in midfield on every side of the field, left, right and centre so having only 4 players on the attacking mentality could work.

Obviously a 5 same mentality and 5 different mentality split would be more balanced in a lot of situations but as shown above this isn't set in stone and you can come up with different variations based on your team and your formation.

Asmodeus

I'm just using global mentality for my team now. Should be interesting to see how it goes.