Asunto: Football Formation discussion

This is to continue the conversation about formations that are currently going on in the bug report thread.

I, for one, would like to voice my agreement with trueblue. If you have a ridiculous setup like lining up all your defenders down one side, you deserve to get destroyed in the score.

Personally I think the best way to get around this is to remove the "attack down left/centre/middle" options and assume a somewhat even attack.

For example, in hockey we don't have this concept of "primarily enter the opponent's zone via the left side". It's silly.

I can appreciate what the designers/developers were trying to do, and maybe they've got a better way in mind to deal with these weird formations in the simulation, but to me that'd be the easiest way to get around this nonsense.

And it is nonsense, I don't care what anyone thinks.

I agree with you when you say that:

"If you have a ridiculous setup like lining up all your defenders down one side, you deserve to get destroyed in the score."

I totally disagree with you when you say:

"Personally I think the best way to get around this is to remove the "attack down left/centre/middle" options and assume a somewhat even attack.

For example, in hockey we don't have this concept of "primarily enter the opponent's zone via the left side". It's silly."

Hockey and football are very different, in football we can attack more by one side or another if we have better players there.

One more thing, tactics can be discussed here, but if you have weird tactics to report, please do it on the "Reporting bugs"

The problem is that in a real game, you're going to notice that teams are lining up 3 defensemen on one side, and compensate by moving your player, or changing your tactics. In a simulation you CAN'T do that.

In real life, however, managers would move their players to the opposite side, or change the location of where the attacks come from.

While I agree with some of what Nascimento has said, I don't agree with his conclusion.

I think that its fundamentally true that a game that perfectly represents real life is not always (hardly) ever very fun. That is why many things are simplified, or purposefully made unrealistic. Shooter games, strategy games etc.

However, I think that in this case Nascimento, that saying because this is a simulation, it will not represent soccer perfectly is a cop out.
I agree that it will be based off of formulas and calculations, but in order to call it a "Soccer" simulation, it should strive to come close to soccer, otherwise the name is misleading. Call it just a simulation and we're all good.

The fact is, if you can win by leaving all your players on center and left, and the right wing open, then its not even simulating soccer.

It's also not logical that it would work. In a real game, they wouldn't win possession at center and left and lose right.. therefore winning 2/3 of the possession... If I was the coach of the opposing team, I would play the entire game in the right wing, and win 100% of the possession or force them to not play like that.

I am not bashing the developers, I am not convinced it is there goal to allow these formations to be okay, I think they are working on it.

Supporting the argument that it's okay is an undependable stance.

Yes, this is true !
You can make just one move ...and that's final ! If the opponent catch u on wrong side ...c'est la vie !

But that is the normal situation of a simulation game.

Still, both teams, playing with balanced tactics (cause otherwise they would lose) attacking by the right, left or center makes perfect sense...

I meant undefendable stance (also not a word.. but I did not meant undependable)

Of course, but even if you go like put all players at the left side, and your opponent setup to attack only against your left side in the few times he attack the right side of your defense they will create chances and score.
Cause let's face it, if you set attacks down the left side you'll attack sometimes on the right side anyways.

I suppose the key here is that you have a side "preference", rather than just one side that you go down. I've never watched a footie match where they only attacked from one side, it's silly. However, I have seen matches where a star player plays right wing and there is a tendency to cover that wing more heavy by defenders.

Still, having all your defenders on one side SHOULD get you destroyed by attackers on the other side/center, because the side you choose in your settings should be a preference, not a limiter.

I hope I'm making myself clear.

I think we're on the same page, just voicing our arguments differently.

And like I said, playing with 3 left backs would only be good to kick the ball away from trouble. Cause it would be crowded, but sometimes would be a mess and they would just make wrong things and therefore give space to the opponent at times.

Yeah, i totally agree with you, but for example, in the team that i played, we have a start right wing we attacked more by that side, but of course we attack by other side too but more by that other side.

That's why we have in PPM the option to select preffered sides to attack, the team will not only attack by that side, but will give more preference to it...

Right. I think the key thing we were missing was "preference". In the situation that we're describing (heavily defended on one side, no one on the other side), I would expect the simulator to have at least 3-4 goals scores from the unguarded side 95 times out of 100.

now, if your team can score 6 goals to overcompensate for your weird formation, then more power to you, but otherwise 3-4 goals should be sufficient to overcome most teams.

Soccer, or Football as its more commonly known as in Europe is a completely different game to hockey.

Excellent wingers are a real commodity in the modern game, as is having a strong defensive ability, or great central attacking mids and a great front line.

However, if you line a team up to play exclusively on the left or right sides of the pitch in the initial formation, then I wholeheartedly agree that that team should be humiliated in the scoreline.

Football is also about balance, and this is the key really.

You can have the best players in the world, but if your team is unbalanced, then its not gonna work out.

"Team Balance" should therefore be brought into the reckoning when scorelines are being created by the match engine, as a seperate attribute alongside Goalkeeping, Teamwork and individual Skill.

Even adding this in as an invisible variable will work, based solely on symmetry.
Maybe give it a "out of 10" rating based on where managers choose to position their players.

Perfect positional symmetry = 10/10
All players positioned on a wing = 0/10

I think this by itself would cut out the silly formations and realistically see anyone choosing to use such formations, being hammered.