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I understand (and agree) a lot to what you wrote and yes, there are much we yet to know about this tactic prediction. I really don't know the BB's real intention behind this new feature but I interpret it as an attempt to persuade managers from doing the LI/M2M cruise control ... to persuade managers to run other tactics and in the long run create balance in the game. If this boost turns out to be so minute that it has little to no affect on our tactic decision, than IMO it's a failed attempt. So from that perspective, I have to assume that the boost is large enough to affect the the game outcome ... and to have game outcome decided by this tactic prediction game is a bad idea.

If this boost turns out to be so minute that it has little to no affect on our tactic decision, than IMO it's a failed attempt. So from that perspective, I have to assume that the boost is large enough to affect the the game outcome ... and to have game outcome decided by this tactic prediction game is a bad idea.

So, to sum it up, if it does nothing it's a failure and if it does something it's a bad idea. The glass is half pee.

So we can look and see is it good for the game as a whole to reward people for not playing cookie cutters and autotactics? Yes, it is, so while it may inconvenience me, I'm encouraged that it's still a change for the better.

Its too early to tell if these are good changes. Expect a good 4-5 seasons for teams to start making adjustments that impact the game after they are introduced. So increasing SB, decreasing the cost of JR, these things will take many seasons to bear out.

While this new guess-your-opponents-tactic feature doesn't impact LI only it is geared to address the overuse of it. For that reason this is too soon. Changes have been made that havent been fleshed out by the community yet.

In regards to fixing the GE's problem with punishing well balanced teams in certain ways (ie, backcourt outside shooters in a LI offense), fix the GE itself. We already have to swallow the bizarre effort choice that was stolen from Hattrick, now we have to bother with this crap as well?

I think this, like the GS hit, are more intended to be placebo effect changes than anything else. I think that it's pretty clear from BB-Patrick's responses on this thread and the BB communication in general that they don't necessarily feel that the LI "dominance" is specifically related to the GE itself, but the way players have been created specifically for this tactic. The idea always comes back to "Oh, but if anything can beat LI, why do all the best teams run it?" But the thing is, without the players to run a different offense or effectively defend against the LI team, of course nothing else is better. And while it's easy to find guards built to run LI, good luck finding a big man built to run an outside offense and defend against LI: there are three guys total on the TL with the following search: 9 JS / 8 JR / 10OD / 8 PA / 13 ID / 13 RB. That's a perfectly reasonable build, considering I've got two guys with that skill set myself, and yet there are three meeting that criteria available on the TL - one is an NT guy, the other two played in the B3 final game this past year.

The engine itself isn't broken necessarily - you can win with other tactics at pretty much any level until you reach the point where the players are no longer available. Now hopefully these changes might spark people to train something other than endless LI clones and then complain about how no other tactics work. ;)

To be frank, hrudey ... that is exactly how I see that feature. I can also see us spending the next 5-6 seasons adjusting the boost level to make it "balance".

Last edited by TnT at 9/23/2013 4:56:17 PM

Most changes sound ok or good, except this future one:

- To more in depth tactics and possibly alter the LI domination, you will be able to guess your opponent strategy, giving you a boost.

I think it will turn the game into rock/paper/scissors, the game already has a lot of random factors, and adding more guessing just feel wrong for me.

Moreover it duplicates the defensive tactics, if you think your opponent might use a specific attack or is stronger in a particular area, you can choose a defensive tactic that try to counter the way you think the oponent will attack.

Now you could guess twice once with your defensive tactics and once with the new "guess". This is hard to rationalize.
Certainly Z2-3 is a poor counter to LI, but just fix Z2-3 rather than mess everything.

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I would really like more options for selecting tactics. A fully fledged 'Tactics Editor' would be great. Or simpler, as the tactics are more or less weights that affect the game engine (they are propably more complex, but the idea is the same), I would like to have sliders to affects those weights and to try to customize the tactics for my players and for the opposing team.

This would give the feeling of what coach do IRL, rather than a poker guess. Moreover some tactics see little use because they are too specific, for example if I want to play a slow tempo game, Patient should be a natural choice, however Patient turns to be much more specific than just being slow.
More ways to adapt tactics will help correct the defects (or perceived ones) of the existing tactics, and reduce the LI dominance.

I don't understand the comparison between the predictions of the tactics and rock/paper/scissors, simply because you will now just play rock if you are very sure your opponent plays scissors (and in some desperate cover your head and brace the impact situations). I wonder if people missed the announcement that you don't HAVE to make predictions, you have the option to do so.

Guessing right probably does little more than remove the GE boost applied to the tactic.

Even if you don't guess, your opponent could still get a boost from guessing your own tactics. Anyway, this guessing seems wrong to me because if you know the tactics your opponent is going to use, you should adjust your tactics to counter theirs. I guess the problem you are trying to solve was the LI domination. However, maybe since 2-3 zone wasn't that effective against LI you could have given a bonus (like an effort or enthusiasm bonus) to any team that uses 2-3 to guard against LI.

And Wolph, the problem I have with guessing defenses is that I don't want to be playing a 3-2 zone or something simply because I'm scared my opponent guessed I would play M2M. If I were use a different defense, it should be because I believe it will give me a tactical advantage. If I know the defense my opponent is playing, I should adjust my offense to take advantage of it. Also, if they implement this guessing option I do not think you should be able to guess the balanced offensive and defensive options (BO and M2M).

The idea is that this change would apply not only to LI but any tactic that a team just sets on cruise control and never changes again. If the downside of having it wrong is relevant enough you will only use this feature against teams that are really that predictable that they play the same lineup >95% of the time.

I personally see it as an extra challenge to be less predictable in my lineups like I used to be when I was still playing in the II division and could switch between outside and inside based offences to surprise opponents.

Personally I think it only makes sense to predict the offence of the opponent though and not the defense. If I'm a boring team that plays 100% Run and Gun my opponent would be correct to set a 3-2 (or 1-3-1) line-up and I shouldn't get a boost for predicting that based on my own predictability.

It's also nice to just see some bigger changes to try to improve/stimulate the tactical side of the game. What would be nice is a way to also stimulate the "new" tactics that noone ever plays like the Isolation or Box-and-1 tactics. Do we need more info on how to use them? Or are they broken?

I really don't know the BB's real intention behind this new feature but I interpret it as an attempt to persuade managers from doing the LI/M2M cruise control

The reason is pretty easy to see actually. BBs who can make drastic changes to GE don't have time for BB anymore (Charles...) and others who have time can't change the GE (Marin). They are limited in what they can do (increase/decrease cost of a skill, boost a defense etc.), so they are trying to do something within their "powers" BBs bestowed them. So far I think they've been doing great.

Last edited by Koperboy at 9/24/2013 5:51:22 AM