Custom tactics suggestions for realistic gameplay in FIFA 09

[lungfull]

that sounds like a bit of a plan...could be something to get sorted for after the jan transfer update

[Cobalt_pSp]

this takes a while but worth it...MM is so realistic

[RossTheUtdFan]

Originally Posted by bluchampblogger

In my previous post, I had talked about how some tweaking of the custom tactics for the opponent teams would make this game absolutely brilliant with variety and randomness. Thanks for your overwhelming response for that idea. As a result of your support, now I'm going to suggest you some custom tactic set ups for various types of opponents. My basic assumption is that you would be playing for a top team or a champions league team.

Relegation battlers: Let's see how they normally play. Primarily, draw is a great result for them. They may not have matching skill or pace to weave an attack from back to front too often. They would go for route one football of hoofing it up to the target men or in the D-area in some hope. They may not be tactically sound in defending and organisation but they would make it up with spirited tackles and interceptions. They would defend in numbers while leaving very few in attack. They would cross a lot and given the opportunity, they'd rather shoot instead of wasting it with a hopeful further build up play. Build Up - Speed: 40 Passing: 85 Positioning: Organised. Chance Creation - Passing: 30 Crossing: 80 Shooting: 55 Positioning: Organised. Defence - Pressure: 35 Aggression: 75 Team width: 20 Defender Line: Cover.

In build-up, they're slow and long. That means when they have the ball in their own half, they won't hurry up the attack and that they use a lot of long balls. Because they'll use long balls, their attackers would position themselves to receive the long passes, which might give you some space in the midfield. In chance creation, they pass safely, cross and shoot a lot. In defence, they won't chase you when you're in your half but will get involved as you get closer to your final third. They're also very aggressive in winning the ball from you. They wouldn't mind a crunching tackle. Defender line should be set to cover if you want a challenging game.

Mid-tablers: Must be pretty average in attack and should concentrate on defending. They might have one or two star players and the rest should be decent but may not be good enough. I'd make quicker than the relegation battlers in build up speed. I'll make it 50. The passing in build up should be 70 which means both short passes and long passes but still more of the latter. In chance creation I'd expect them to take more risks in passing so that would be 50 and I'd keep the crossing at 80 and bring down the shooting to 40 as I think they are more comfortable on the ball than the relegation battlers. In defence, I'd bring down the pressure to 30 as it would help with a quicker build up play, if the ball is won. I'd keep the aggression at 75 as I think that's the ideal setting for aggression across all teams. I can put the team width to 30 as the defenders could be a bit better and hence should be able to make up the lateral distance. Build Up - Speed: 50 Passing: 70 Positioning: Organised. Chance Creation - Passing: 50 Crossing: 80 Shooting: 40 Positioning: Organised. Defence - Pressure: 30 Aggression: 75 Team width: 30 Defender Line: Cover.

Euro-aspirants: These are good teams that may not have those five star players but still can give a great challenge to the biggies. They should have some skillful players and can be pacy. I'll give them a 60 in build up play speed and passing in build up should be 55 or 60. This means they can play short passes as well as long passes. It's more situational. The riskiness of passing in chance creation must be 65, which means they'll go for the risky passes but they might have the players to back it up. Crossing should be 55 or 60 while shooting can be 50 or 60. Basically, they'll rely less on crossing and more on passing and shooting. This could be different in various leagues, so I suggest you make you appropriate customisations. In positioning in chance creation, you can make it 'free form' for certain teams which would make the game lot more interesting and random. Pressure and aggression should remain as 30 and 75 respectively while the team width can be 40 or 45, which will help them cut down our crosses. I suggest you alwasy have the defender line as 'cover' across all teams. Build Up - Speed: 60 Passing: 60 Positioning: Organised. Chance Creation - Passing: 65 Crossing: 55 Shooting: 60 Positioning: Freeform. Defence - Pressure: 30 Aggression: 75 Team width: 40. Defender Line: Cover.

For the champions league teams, especially the so-called big teams, the custom tactics set up for build up and chance creation is almost perfect already. But since the defence sliders are messed up, you might have to change that alone for them. Once again, pressure can be 30 and aggression 75. For a team like Chelsea if you set the aggression slider to 75, they might be a massive challenge to your attackers, because they have a top class defence and most of the team could tackle rather well. The team width can be 50 for teams which uses wing backs and 40 otherwise.

If you don't know already, there are only 28 slots for saving custom tactics. That's a shame. Anyway, I'm using it this way. 3 slots for my team (Chelsea), 1 for relegation battlers, 1 for mid-tablers, 1 for Euro-aspirants and 18 other slots for specific top teams which are Man Utd, Liverpool, Arsenal, Man City (love 'em or hate 'em, you can't ignore 'em!), Real Madrid, Barca, Sevilla, Atletico Madrid, Valencia, Villareal, Inter, Milan, Juventus, Roma, Fiorentina, Bayern, Lyon and Porto. Now this leaves 4 empty slots which can be used for the in-game tactical changes.

So I'll have unique tactic setups for the above mentioned top teams and the other teams in English, Spanish and Italian leagues would get one of the tactics of (a) relegation battlers (b) mid-tablers (c) euro aspirants. As long as I've the teams fixed in the premier league, la liga and serie a, I'm fine. These leagues account for 90% of my matches. This might have left some leagues untouched. That's fine. Either I don't use them or I'm fine with the occasional random match where I can run past the defence through the centre. May be, I'd be playing samba football by then that I'd not think of route ones!

XBOX 3760 users - These tactics are saved in my FIFA 09 locker (XBL: bluechampblogger)

PS3 users - Click on the below image and update the values manually.






P.S: The slider values are ased on my own opinions and preferences. Please change it for yourself if you wish. Don't need to bash me but certainly we can have a matured discussion on what the sliders should be. But I have tested the above values and they work for me superbly.

wud you mind doing the formation and custom tactics for man utd? thanks alot

[RossTheUtdFan]

cud you please show the team you wud play for man utd ? formation,1st 11, tactics ?

[crystalpalacefan]

great help bluchamp you are a god if only ea put the effort in making this game more realistic as you have would it be possible for you to post tactics for athletico,barca,bayern,inter,juventus,lyon,millan, madrid,porto,roma,valencia, i know i could just search for someone elses tactics but i want my game to play as realistic as possible thank you for all the help

[godsend]

This is very interesting but we'll never be able to "fix" this game as we would need direct input the game in development stage.
No matter how much we tweak the Custom Tactics the Artificial Intellegence will just mess this up with it idea of how situations should be played out.with all the tweaks others will justgo super fast with all tactics

[crystalpalacefan]

just wanted to say iv finally got all the english leagues spanish and italian leagues tweaked and it plays a charm 100% im scoring from crosses corners volleys free kicks and my defence has gone up a notch this certainly works for me and thats on semi pro a couple of days ago id be playing dull boring matches same attack same defence this has really made me enjoy the game alot more thinking of goin up to the next difficulty...also i have used all my custom slots and would like to tweak EREDIVISIE, PORTUGUES LIGA, LIGUE 1, BUNDESLIGA leagues what set up should i use the english league setup the spanish or the italian?

[MONK3YNUT5]

To be honest , What I like to do is search other peoples online files for 5 star rated ones. It saves me lots of time and makes the game more enjoyable.

[WaNNa_CooKY]

Hey FIFA 09 lovers,

I am absolutely horrid at this game, but I was wondering if there were any custom tactics that are good for when you are starting out.

Gamertag: WaNNa CooKY if anyone wants to play

[WaNNa_CooKY]

Hello bluechampblogger,

My gt is: WaNNa CooKY I was wondering if u would like to play a match. I would like to borrow some knowledge that you have with custom tactics. Please message me back or send me a game invite. I will be on in 5 min and then for an hour or so.

Thanks you

[JACKNITE]

Congratulations bluchamp.... another moronic post!

The default custom tactics have been set specifically to work in tandem with the default formations for all the teams. EA spent a lot of time working on this to get it right and give us a huge range of variety playing against different teams that play differently.

In this thread you are suggesting that you actually know more about this game than the programmers. WHAT AN IDIOT!

DOING THIS WILL RUIN YOUR GAME EXPERIENCE!

Blue champ go crawl back under that rock.

[BenDoverPlz]

Originally Posted by lungfull

THE CHAMPIONSHIP

Relegation battlers
Swansea city
Nots forrest
Doncaster rovers
Coverntry
Barnsley
Midtable
Plymouth
Charlton
Cardiff
Burnley
QPR
Preston
Sheff wed
Norwich
Title contenders
Bristol city
Wolves
Ipswich
Sheff utd
Reading
B,mingham city
Crystal palace

LEAGUE ONE

Relegation battlers
Hereford utd
Yeovil town
Crewe
Layton orient
Swindon town
Midtable
Tranmere
Walsall
Hartlepool
Bristol rovers
Millwall
Cheltenham town
Mk dons
Title contenders
Leicester city
Slalalalahorpe utd
Colchester utd
Carlisle
Southend
Brighton & hove albion
Oldham athletic
Northampton town
Hiddersfield town

LEAGUE TWO

Relegation battlers
Luton town
Bournmouth
Rotherham
Midtable
Chesterfield
Rotherham
Bradford city
Morcambe
Barnet
Bury
Brentford
Lincoln city
Grimsby
Accrington stanley
Shrewsbury
Maclesfield town
Dagenham
Nots county
Chester city
Title contenders
Rochdale
Darlington
Wycombe wonderers

i just read this and i was looking for my team stockport, but apparently they dont exist and there are only 21 teams in league one and two and only 20 in the championship lol

[bluchampblogger]

Originally Posted by JACKNITE

Congratulations bluchamp.... another moronic post!

The default custom tactics have been set specifically to work in tandem with the default formations for all the teams. EA spent a lot of time working on this to get it right and give us a huge range of variety playing against different teams that play differently.

In this thread you are suggesting that you actually know more about this game than the programmers. WHAT AN IDIOT!

DOING THIS WILL RUIN YOUR GAME EXPERIENCE!

Blue champ go crawl back under that rock.

Sorry mate! Is this your normal self? Really sorry then!

I made some tweaks to the game and they work for me brilliantly. All I did was to share that with the rest of the people. Some have used it and have benefitted (in fact, almost all of those who used have benefitted from it). Some have declined the idea. You could have just declined the idea.

Instead of that, see what you've written! Your comment speaks a lot about yourself. Don't insult yourself. Go away!

[bluchampblogger]

JokeNite,

The tweaks I suggested got a mention in the official EA FIFA 09 podcast. It may just not be nonsense. Give it a try yourself. If you like it, you don't have to drop your ego and admit it here. Just enjoy!

[xWinnerxWisherx]

Originally Posted by JACKNITE

Congratulations bluchamp.... another moronic post!

The default custom tactics have been set specifically to work in tandem with the default formations for all the teams. EA spent a lot of time working on this to get it right and give us a huge range of variety playing against different teams that play differently.

In this thread you are suggesting that you actually know more about this game than the programmers. WHAT AN IDIOT!

DOING THIS WILL RUIN YOUR GAME EXPERIENCE!

Blue champ go crawl back under that rock.

Who's an idiot here..
He just trying to help but the game still cr@p.

[xWinnerxWisherx]

Originally Posted by bluchampblogger

JokeNite,

The tweaks I suggested got a mention in the official EA FIFA 09 podcast. It may just not be nonsense. Give it a try yourself. If you like it, you don't have to drop your ego and admit it here. Just enjoy!

The ball speed need to be 50 overall in Fifa 10

[JACKNITE]

Originally Posted by bluchampblogger

Sorry mate! Is this your normal self? Really sorry then!

I made some tweaks to the game and they work for me brilliantly. All I did was to share that with the rest of the people. Some have used it and have benefitted (in fact, almost all of those who used have benefitted from it). Some have declined the idea. You could have just declined the idea.

Instead of that, see what you've written! Your comment speaks a lot about yourself. Don't insult yourself. Go away!

Originally Posted by bluchampblogger

JokeNite,

The tweaks I suggested got a mention in the official EA FIFA 09 podcast. It may just not be nonsense. Give it a try yourself. If you like it, you don't have to drop your ego and admit it here. Just enjoy!

lalalala! look at the ego on you!

You just don't get it, do you?

What you are suggesting is that it's a good idea to give all "types" of teams the same generic tactics. ie. All relegation battlers will play the same way.

HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED REAL FOOTBALL?

Do you see West Brom playing the same style of football as Stoke?

While your suggestion would leave teams formations intact, allowing some variety for play, all the teams would behave in a predictable way because they'd have the same tactics.

This really is the most idiotic suggestion I have EVER heard!...

Oh no, actually that would be the one where you suggested the best way to enjoy the game is to only play exhibition matches, yeah good one that - Exhibition Matches - The Best of FIFA 09

[lungfull]

Originally Posted by JACKNITE

lalalala! look at the ego on you!

You just don't get it, do you?

What you are suggesting is that it's a good idea to give all "types" of teams the same generic tactics. ie. All relegation battlers will play the same way.

HAVE YOU EVER WATCHED REAL FOOTBALL?

Do you see West Brom playing the same style of football as Stoke?

While your suggestion would leave teams formations intact, allowing some variety for play, all the teams would behave in a predictable way because they'd have the same tactics.

This really is the most idiotic suggestion I have EVER heard!...

Oh no, actually that would be the one where you suggested the best way to enjoy the game is to only play exhibition matches, yeah good one that - Exhibition Matches - The Best of FIFA 09

do you think we dont know that some teams play different to others...

since we dont have an unlimited amount of custom tactics space we had to make do...also since each team has different quality players and different formations the teams play will always differ...

as well as that the cpu will change tactics throughout the game

so its not as black & white as you make out....

[JACKNITE]

Originally Posted by lungfull

do you think we dont know that some teams play different to others...

since we dont have an unlimited amount of custom tactics space we had to make do...also since each team has different quality players and different formations the teams play will always differ...

as well as that the cpu will change tactics throughout the game

so its not as black & white as you make out....

You know that all teams have slightly different tactics. You know that's actually how they are in the game. Yet you think it'd be a better ides to change them all to generic forms.

There is no logic to it.

Doing what is suggested here will just make the opposition AI predictable.

[lungfull]

Originally Posted by JACKNITE

You know that all teams have slightly different tactics. You know that's actually how they are in the game. Yet you think it'd be a better ides to change them all to generic forms.

There is no logic to it.

Doing what is suggested here will just make the opposition AI predictable.

i've played hundreds of games in dif leagues and not once could i predict what the cpu was goin to do.....

your gameplay effects the game more than the sliders will...

we've done what we've done so we can tighten up the defences and other factors across the board...in an attempt to correct what we think are faults in the gameplay...

we could have made every team in the game the same....but instead we've used the few tactic slots we have in the most effective way we can...

theres a good number of people that have tried these changes and think that they make things better..

if you dont choose to use them thats your choice...just dont moan at us for doin something that we wanted to do...

[Hauler]

Originally Posted by JACKNITE

You know that all teams have slightly different tactics. You know that's actually how they are in the game. Yet you think it'd be a better ides to change them all to generic forms.

There is no logic to it.

Doing what is suggested here will just make the opposition AI predictable.

You are one pathetic soul. .

[JACKNITE]

Originally Posted by lungfull

i've played hundreds of games in dif leagues and not once could i predict what the cpu was goin to do.....

your gameplay effects the game more than the sliders will...

we've done what we've done so we can tighten up the defences and other factors across the board...in an attempt to correct what we think are faults in the gameplay...

we could have made every team in the game the same....but instead we've used the few tactic slots we have in the most effective way we can...

theres a good number of people that have tried these changes and think that they make things better..

if you dont choose to use them thats your choice...just dont moan at us for doin something that we wanted to do...

?!?

Do you know what the tactic sliders actually do? FYI they determine the AI behaviours an have a MASSIVE impact on gameplay.

If you find that you're beating teams too easily (as implied by your post) did you think to try turning up the difficulty setting?

You might want to look up what "moaning" actually means. You may be surprised to discover that it's a very poor definition of what I'm doing.

I think you'll find what I'm actually doing is ridiculing.

As for keeping my thoughts to myself - this is a forum, do you understand what one of those is?

There is actually a point to me pointing out the ridiculous idiocy of this threads proposition, and that is to hopefully dissuade some people from wasting their time doing what's been suggested.

[JACKNITE]

Originally Posted by Hauler

You are one pathetic soul. .

That's a very well thought out argument there mate

[lungfull]

quit being a smart ***....

i dont believe i said anything about finding it easy to win....

what i said we we wanted to tighten up the defences.....make them more agressive, make them hunt the ball more...and in effect play more like real players.

as for your comment about the sliders....
of course i know what they do....this is why i've changed them...

you cant tell me that if you play a team ten times that the cpu will do exactly the same thing every time...

as i said b4 what you do effects the cpu's choices a hell of a lot more....

you could even have the cpu playing itself as the same team and each game will be different....

"The default custom tactics have been set specifically to work in tandem with the default formations for all the teams. EA spent a lot of time working on this to get it right and give us a huge range of variety playing against different teams that play differently."

this little comment implies that EA dont get anything wrong....if you look at the amount of negative feedback fifa 09 has gotten...you'll see that this isnt the case.

please get off your high horse and let us enjoy our game.

[JACKNITE]

Oh I see, now I see the light!

All defences but the top 4 teams mark tightly (70/75 agression), don't press high up the pitch (30/35 pressure), play with little defensive width (30/35 width), don't play for the offside trap or attempt to play free flowing football in the Premier League.

It makes perfect sense.

You WANT the game to be more monotinous and repetitive!

FYI I've never stated that EA get EVERYTHING right (if you think otherwise please point out where I have) BUT they put in the effort to create different default tactics and formations so that the game isn't robotic and monotinous. What's being suggested here is that a big part of that should be scrapped. FIFA 09 might not be perfect but essentially disabling AI variety sounds like a stupid idea to make the game better.

As for me being on a high horse, well if my comments come across as arrogant I'm sorry, I was just trying to state the bleeding obvious.

BTW how have I tried to stop you enjoying your game?