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Interview with Shrewnaldo
Questions by Poe - Answers by Shrewnaldo
Hello there, thanks for your time – I’ve been a big fan of the tactical work you have done in the past, both on Twitter and FM Veteran. What are your thoughts on the current FM2014 match engine?
Well first of all thanks for inviting me to be interviewed. I have to admit that it feels a little weird but I’ll do my best.
I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone who has read my blog or followed me on facebook that I am not the biggest fan of the FM14 match engine. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that I think this version of the game is a big step backwards from previous versions. There are just far too many glaring errors to ignore.
In previous versions the errors have been few and far between but in 14 they are simple things that occur in every game – when was the last match someone played that their ‘keeper didn’t catch the ball and then walk backwards over the line to concede a corner?
Often times the errors can be seen to be based on people’s opinions only – this role should be doing x, this type of playing should be doing y. But this time round there are objective failures including actual laws of the game being ignored (goalkicks that are touched inside the box but not retaken) and the laws of physics being broken (shots off the bar that bounce back at impossible angles).
Unlike 13.3 or FM12, the faults are not only apparent to the in-depth gamer and do not have an impact on every 5th or 6th match – they are consistent, common and clear for all to see.
Where do you feel it needs major improvement?
The match engine itself?
One of the key flaws at the moment, for me, is the way that players react to the game un-folding around them – particularly when an unexpected event occurs such as an underhit pass or a deflection. It is one of the most frustrating aspects of the engine when you see your defender standing still next to a ball that has been deflected into his path whilst a striker runs in from 30 yards away to “intercept”.
This is the kind of realism that I think people are looking for – natural reactions from players on the pitch. The drive for ‘realism’, which SI maintains is the driving force behind the removal of sliders from the training and tactical interfaces, is blown to shreds by the phenomenally unrealistic events that occur in the majority of matches we play.
Are the current roles and duties adequate enough to allow you to play the way you want to?
No, absolutely not. Although it’s not necessarily the roles and duties which are the sole restrictive element but also the inherent behaviour of each position. Anyone who read my blog article where I tried to create a hybrid 3-4-3 will know that I wanted to use players who would defend at fullback but move into the DM line when we have the ball – similar to what Pep Guardiola has been doing with Alaba and Lahm recently (after I posted that article I might add ;-) )
However, the inherent (and unbreakable) behaviour of fullbacks in FM14 forces them to stay wide which made that particular tactic impossible.
Now I have a certain amount of sympathy with coders on that one as I guess it isn’t that common an approach to try; and there has to be a certain amount of inherent behaviour to make the game look even slightly realistic; but it’s incredibly frustrating when you are trying to create something even slightly outside the remit which SI (or the people they have chosen to trust on tactics) deem to be logical or “realistic”.
Are the strategy and mentality options too restrictive and vague?
Absolutely. The terms themselves aren’t exactly intuitive. Most people will have an opinion on what they deem to be an ‘attacking’ or ‘defensive’ approach but it’s quite difficult to put into words and I really doubt that there would be absolute agreement between any two people. What does ‘attacking’ really mean?
SI deem it to mean a higher line, higher tempo, more direct type of football. While ‘defensive’ is lower line, lower tempo with less direct football. Except ‘defensive’ isn’t really defensive and ‘counter-attacking’ is supposedly the strategy which best matches Pep’s Barcelona side – a side which didn’t score a counter-attacking goal for about 4 years.
How is anyone supposed to know what kind of effect their tactics are going to have when the concepts are so contrary to popular understanding?
When this thread (http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php/382854-The-Mentality-Ladder-A-Practical-Framework-for-Understanding-Fluidity-and-Duty) is presented as an explanation of the fluidity then I can’t really see how anyone would think the interface is either logical or intuitive.
What features would you like to be implemented into FM15/16/17?
I’d like to see more flexibility throughout the game – tactics, player interaction, media interaction, etc. I’d also really like to see more data analysis. More statistics on the squad screen and more match analysis statistics
I have been doing some work recently regarding the Tuchel system at Mainz – a 4-3-1-2 high pressing, aggressive tackling system and am finding far greater success with a higher tempo game than a slower one – do you think the match engine is biased towards this type of system?
I can’t be 100% sure but what you can definitely be certain of is that each match engine is biased towards a particular type of system. People who defend the game and the match engine will always tell you that a balanced, ‘logical’ and realistic tactic will work no matter which patch.
I don’t subscribe to that belief and find it more than a little ludicrous. 14.1 was a ‘logical match engine’ until 14.2 came along. It broke only the exploitative tactics, of course, and now gave you the ‘logical match engine’ you always wanted. Until 14.3 came along and broke all those exploitative tactics that didn’t really exist in 14.2 and now you REALLY had your ‘logical match engine’.
I think you see where I’m going here…
Reading through FM Veteran at work – I understand you are a huge advocate of the tutoring system in FM14 – the main benefit obviously being faster improvement on young talents. What do you think is the best way to tutor a young player who has a poor personality (unambitious, etc)?
Yeah I’m absolutely a fan of the tutoring system. For anyone who hasn’t read my guide on tutoring then it can be found here http://footballmanagerveteran.wordpress.com/2012/08/21/shrews-guide-to-tutoring-in-fm/
The biggest benefit for me is the impact on personality simply because there is no other mechanism for affecting such a substantial change, certainly not one that you can control like tutoring.
Taking an umambitious player and tutoring them with any senior player that has a higher Ambition rating will have a very good chance of increasing the low attribute.
Personally I would try to target a particularly useful tutor who covered all the bases – a beneficial personality with high ratings in Ambition and Professionalism (the only attributes to directly affect player development), some useful PPM’s and a decent Determination attribute (not required for player development but useful and the only visible attribute which is directly affected by tutoring).
Do you believe it is financially prudent to sign players exclusively for tutoring youngsters at clubs in lower divisions?
It can be, yes. Developing youth players can be particularly important at lower level clubs given the finances available.
Of course, the wages can also be tight so it’s a balancing act as to where the greatest benefit lies.
I noticed you have done a lot of work at Rapid Wein in Austria by reading through your Shopping by Attributes article – do you think it would be more beneficial for the series to remove the star ratings for players in order to force players to look at what they are buying?
It may not be useful for the casual player but I don’t think the star ratings are particularly well implemented. Of course, the system would probably still be in the background and how the AI would target signings so rather than remove it, SI should look to improve it.
That would have the dual impact of improving the AI’s transfer policy and making the stars more useful to the human player.
How important do you think it is to buy players with the correct PPM’s? Do you think it is possible to ‘override’ their PPM’s with enough training/tactical fluidity?
For me, the PPM’s which can be implemented using tactics are utterly useless. Or rather they were in FM13. Why would I implement a PPM that is then irreversible when I could just select the option through personal instructions?
They may be more useful this year but not much. Of more use are the PPM’s which are completely independent of the tactical interface such as “arrives late in the opponent’s area”. In fact, not only would I say these are of more use, I’d also say they are the only PPM’s which should exist.
Take Aaron Lennon’s “runs with ball down the right” PPM. Is this really a preferred move? Is this really something that is ingrained in his psyche? Or is it just that he plays as a right winger with pace so that’s what his coach wants him to do tactically?
And finally – what is the greatest moment you’ve had in Football Manager? What is the worst experience you’ve had whilst playing the series?
That’s a really tough one. I had a great save with East Stirling back in an old game, maybe CM01/02, where we won the Champions League. That was fairly special but I’d have to say that my Feralpi Salò save was one of my favourites. The Champions League win in last year’s version was pretty special and would be tied with my FM11 Club and Country save with Rapid Wien and Austria where, as you can read here http://www.thedugout.net/community/showpost.php?p=3151482&postcount=2873, we beat France to win World Cup 2022.
The worst moment? Well this year I got relegated for the first time ever as my US Dunkerque side failed to stay in Ligue 1 after back-to-back promotions. It wouldn’t have been that bad except it came in my network save with Petr Uchio… particularly embarrassing!
Thanks for your time.
Thanks for asking me. Hope people find it interesting
You can read more from Shrewnaldo via FM Veteran or by visiting him on Twitter @Shrewnaldo
- Date Created
- 03 Jun 2014 10:56:49
- Date Updated
- Unknown
- Last Comment
- 04 Jun 2014 08:59:22
Comments
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George14brfc
HUNT3R
I'm surprised that you don't get (or maybe you do get it, but you're just criticising) why people advocate using a "logical" balanced system over a tactic that exploits the ME. The tactic based on football logic will always "work", regardless of which ME we're using. These systems rely on good movement between the lines, like a Fullback joining the midfield with a midfielder covering or a Striker dropping deep to create space for an Attacking Midfielder to exploit. Another key component is that you'll score a bigger variety of goals, because there are many different chances being created and it doesn't rely on one specific movement or player.
The exploitative tactics we see almost always take advantage of a certain ME weakness, which renders them ineffective when the weakness inevitably gets fixed. These tactics rely on one specific goal threat and you won't likely see a big variety in goals scored. They'll generally outperform "logical" tactics, but will need re-thinking with every patch/update which leads to a lot of confusion and myths like "the AI has found out my tactics" or "you have to change tactics with every new patch" because updates supposedly "break" tactics.
You'll see "logical" tactics also affected by ME changes, but because they don't rely on a single source of goals, they'll still generally perform as well as the did pre-patch. I had a 5-3-2 on an older ME (might have been early FM14 or even FM13) that worked well and I scored a fair amount of goals from everywhere. On one ME, my wingbacks were very dangerous and they I saw them run rings around opposition fullbacks. Probably 60% of my goals came from my wingbacks either scoring or assisting goals by leaving the fullback for dead. Because fullbacks were "weak", D-lines were quite deep and midfield lines were also quite deep to deal with the crosses and cut-backs, that meant that my 2 strikers and AMC didn't get as much space as they "normally" would, but they still scored goals.
Then an update came round. Fullbacks started defending better and wing-play was more intelligent. I didn't change a thing. Obviously my wingbacks performed worse than before, now scoring/assisting maybe 30% of my goals. All that happened, was that my AMC and 2 Strikers started being more involved in creating and scoring goals. Where my wingbacks couldn't get past the fullback, they'd pass it on to the front 3, who now had more space because D-Lines and midfield lines were "back to normal". On the whole, I was still getting the same results as before and over-achieving as much as I did pre-patch.
The exploit tactics that had wide players on "dribble more" and "exploit flanks" and relied solely on them getting past the fullback often to create/score had to be ripped up and completely new tactics had to be created, while some of us were wondering what all the fuss was about.
Perhaps there's something to be said about the seemingly "major" changes from update to update? Personally, it doesn't really affect me, so I'd want SI to carry on and do their thing. I can see how it can be frustrating though.
KEZ_7
Shrewnaldo
I'm not criticising people who advocate using a balanced system over an exploitative one, not at all.
What I am saying is that the concept that all supposedly logical tactics will work in every match engine and that only exploitative ones are 'broken' by patches is completely ludicrous. Let me try and put it in a context that may explain it better.
Patch 14.x has an in-built flaw / bug that makes playing an offside trap incredibly dangerous because runs from deep are not properly picked up by the midfield. Patch 14.x2 then fixes this by correcting the defending AI.
Situation 1 - I've built a tactic on 14.x that takes advantage of this bug and win every game 5-0 using a counter-attacking system against teams that play an offside trap. When 14.x2 comes along, my tactic is now "reasonably effective" and no longer exploitative.
Situation 2 - I've built a tactic on 14.x that is entirely 'logical' but uses an offside trap and I'm losing game after game 5-0 because my midfield doesn't pick up the runners like it should.
Situation 3 - I've built a tactic on 14.x that doesn't take advantage of the bug but which also protects me against it, using a deep line. When 14.x2 comes out, I start losing more goals because the 'balance' to fix the bug of runners from deep has been re-jigged to keep the "average goals per game" statistic now that the unrealistic number of goals against offside traps has been reduced.
And that's before we've got to the bugs in 14.x2 breaking the "logical" approach that I'd taken in 14.x.
On both 14.x and 14.x2 I was told that a "logical", balanced tactic would be effective. Is that really the case? I don't think so. It's a glib comeback that is aimed at belittling the person who is complaining about the patch but is trotted out for every single version of the game and every single version of the patch.
If 14.x was such a balanced engine that rewarded "logical" tactics so much, why was 14.x2 needed in the first place?
I'm not criticising those that wish to play a balanced tactic, I reckon I'm one of them and I don't know many people that simply look to build an exploitative tactic. I do, however, find it borderline insulting that SI consistently suggest that "actually this one is good. Remember when we told you the last one was logical and broke all those nasty exploits, well actually we meant this one... at least until the next patch comes out. That one will break the exploits we're telling you currently don't exist in our realistic 'logical' match engine."
I don't think anyone expects the game to be bug-free but we can do without the sales-pitch rhetoric telling us that the only problem is we don't understand football or our tactics aren't "logical".
HUNT3R
You'll have this, unfortunately. There will be some exploits that you wittingly or unwittingly use or fall victim to. Situation 1 could be a "logical" tactic where certain ME characteristics cause it to be more or less successful.
Situation 2, as a moderator, we'd have to tell the user that his tactics are good and logical. We'd have to point out that the only reason it's failing is because of a problem with the offside trap instruction and recommend the he/she not use it until the next update.
Not too sure about situation 3, I'll be honest.
I think you're bringing up an issue that I touched on at the end of my post.
diegomendoza67
I think you hit the nail on the head with a lot of tactical elements being the reverse of popular understanding in the game. It took me a long time to adapt to this version and now find my most of my tactics just using the standard mentality and making the adjustments through team instructions.
The trouble is that there is no real visibility as to how much you have maxed an instruction out so to speak. The endless debate on SI games as to whether Hassle opponents maxes out closing down so why would anyone add close down more in play instructions and opposition instructions.
Yet you play a match with a high line and hassle opponents selected and within 10 minutes you have your assistant popping up in the right hand corner saying that so and so needs to be closed down more. Well hang on isn't hassle opponent supposed to max out closing down so what difference is it going to make adding an opposition instruction going to make? Or is the hassle opponents not the extreme level of closing down?
I guess that is the biggest issue with FM 2014 now and what the sliders gave you...visibility.
Another gripe that has really got to me is traditionally on FM it was always easier to beat the small teams and harder to beat the big teams. Now i'd argue it is the other way round. I can go from beating Real Madrid 4-0 away one week to drawing 1-1 with Kavala at home the next. Now you put that forward on the SI games forums and you'll get the one dimensional response that it's your tactics. From what i see watching the games in full I'm not convinced though.
The underdog definitely has the advantage on this version and as much as it gets played down in the SI games forums as being unimportant, complacency has got to be more of a factor than is made out.
Now i understand that the AI is much more reactive on this version than on previous versions however what i sometimes can't grasp is how much better the poorer sides are at reacting to my tactics than the larger sides.
Now in real life who's going to have more tactical nous, Carlo Ancelotti or Giannis Goumas?
And don't get me started on the shooting. I still struggle to understand some of the misses the match engine displays and the regularity of the 1 shot 1 goal against you when playing an form of high line. It's never good when you know what's going to happen before it has happened. I know my team can finish those chances as I've seen them finish from similar positions time and time again in previous seasons. So what is causing the issue?
I find myself having to change tactics each season, which i don't mind, to retain my grip on the Greek Super league. All of them are "logical" with what I think is the right balance for the players at my disposal. Now i'm only in 2018 but i already have 5 super league titles, 5 greek cups, a Champions League, a European Super Cup, a World Club Cup and a World Cup in my trophy cabinet. So am definitely successful on this FM but i don't feel the sense of achievement that i should. The results have come more from trial and error tactically and luck rather than trying to implement what is in my head. There are still so many things that can be improved with my team but with me trying to stick to a mostly Greek side and who have come through the Pana Academy i need to look at other ways to fix these other than buying in new players.
Though here is again where we come back to visibility and lack of control. I'll set the scene...My striker and couple of my AMs have just had a bad day at the office and we've drawn with a side we should have beaten comfortably. We had the chances but couldn't put them away to save their life and when the opposition finally did get the ball the strung a 20 pass move together and scored their only chance of the game.
I'm pissed off but then again i accept that this kind of happens but as a good manager i want to make sure that something like this doesn't happen again. I can say i'm not happy in a press conference but then I'm still not sure how much impact that actually has and i certainly don't have any visibility on it's effect.
What i should be able to do is talk with the players involved to understand what went wrong, suggest that they focus on more shooting drills in training this week and assign one of my coaches to work with them specifically.
Anyway that just some of the thoughts I've had recently and a mild rant.
For me FM 2014 has become so focused on tactics that it is almost used exclusively as a reason for anything that goes wrong. It is causing players to constantly change tactics, get lost in mentality ladders and genuinely get frustrated. At the end of the day it is still a game and it needs to get the balance between realism and enjoyment. It needs to lose some of it shackles and let players be able to express their new ideas, try different approaches both on and off the field and be able to better analyse their own mistakes in game rather than rely on forums. In that way FM forums can get away from complaining and arguments and back to people talking about their games, sharing ideas, the players they've developed a man crush for, the roller coaster rides they've had and get back some of that FM love.
I guess the true test of the quality of a Football Manager is whether Shrew can have a Rapid Wien and Austria game again that lasts the full 12 months between releases.
fmgod