Ok, time for round two. New to the FM series altogether, I played most of an MLS season to get the hang of the sim as much as possible and naturally a few questions, the answers to which I was never able to flush out, remain. I am preparing to take what I've learned and begin a slightly more serious save now. I debated whether or not to start a new thread since these are new questions, but I figured I'd just lump them all into this one so the next "stupid new guy" can find some answers all in the same place. These are of a more tactical variety.
Again, I tried finding the answers on my own first but was unable to get a clear picture so here they go:
Opposition Instructions - How much is too much? As one raised around American football, I have a natural tendency to make a large number of changes frequently, as if each possession is a new drive where I want to highlight what worked on the last one and fix what went wrong. This, I discovered, is a horrible approach for football, as it's known to 99% of the world. I thoroughly sort through the scouting report and make initial adjustments based on my notes, but a little, I won't say "bug," helped me discover I was doing more harm than good.
Whenever I visited the Advanced Tactics screen from a live match to check any number of things (usually the formation familiarity as set with the current instructions), then tried to return to the field without making any changes, I would select discard all changes, because if I select confirm, I have to wait two possessions at least before I can use my instructions bar again, even thought I didn't actually make any changes. Anyway, when I hit discard all changes, it wipes my opposition instructions back to nothing. I would go through my matches and at times, my team would seem to all of a sudden keep possession, hold a decent shape and in general play better. I learned that this would happen when all my opposition instructions were cleared. So, obviously I suck at setting those.
When I looked online at what other people were doing, I read where someone said to hire a coach with a high tactical rating and ask him to set the opposition instructions, then study what he does. I did that, and found it helpful, but more often than not, his instructions were very minor (show the strikers and a skilled attacking mid onto their weaker foot). So I'm wondering where to draw the line here. If I am not an aerial team and can't mark or defend headers well and want to force wingers who can cross on aerial teams onto their inside foot and/or close down on them, is that too much?
Formation Familiarity - I was a solid halfway through my test season when I discovered the changes I would make in the instructions palette during a game affected how familiar my team was with that formation/tactic. This makes sense, when I think about it, because if I've asked my team to stay on its feet while tackling all year, then tell them to get stuck in, of course it will be new and they will not be as polished. I also discovered some instructions affect the familiarity more than others. How much credence should I place in familiarity. Is it worth sticking to the game plan where my players are most comfortable, even if I'm being beaten, or should I push them out of their comfort zones to attempt to counter, fix, the way an opposition attack or defense is beating us? This is another one of those "where is the line" questions.
Formation/Tactic Fun - So many little issues with formations/tactics.
1: If, for instance, I'm playing something like a 4-3-3, and the opposition has the pressure on and I want to pull my wingers back a little to offer support, effectively altering the formation to what is really a 4-1-4-1, what is the best way to accomplish this? I can go to advanced tactics and reposition the wingers to defensive locations, from attacking ones. I can just change the winger roles to defensive wingers and tell them to defend instead of supporting or attacking. I can create a second tactic altogether that basically is a 4-1-4-1 and switch to that, but as far as I understand, that will reset all my instructions to whichever ones load by default in that formation/tactic, which is kind of a pain.
2: As far a mentality and style are concerned, if I have, say, a two-goal lead at home and want to sit on it for the final fifteen or so, am I better off staying in the default attacking mentality and standard style which is familiar and helped us get that two-goal lead, or should I switch to more of a counter/rigid look, which will make heavy alterations to our familiarity but set us up with a more defensive look to better handle what will almost-certainly be an onslaught of attackers? Again, would this be something I would want to do within the formations, just reselecting the mentality and style, or should I prepare and train a separate formation/tactic specifically for such situations?
3: There is rightfully so, a great deal of discussion within the realm of tactics and formations regarding home vs away. Many people have formations designed for play at home and and different ones specifically for playing away from home. Location also seems to play a heavy part in what needs to be said in all phases of the pep talk and how well those talks are received, but that's for another time. What should I look for in a tactic/formation for play at home and what should I prioritize for play away from home.
4: Based on my questions throughout this formations/tactics section, you can see how it is possible for me to require roughly 4-6 different tactics, ha ha. Obviously that isn't going to work, and the more tactics I add to training, the longer it takes to learn them. It is worth filling all three tactic slots, even if it takes longer to learn them, or would I be better off with just two, or maybe even one and all out master them?
This is all just meant as a round-table discussion. I'm not looking for clear-cut solutions, just opinions and what others have discovered works and doesn't work for themselves to give me a better idea of what to expect. Answer if you can, what you can, at your convenience.
Thanks again in advance, and sorry it's so long. ;-)
