Riding PES rainbow (exploring and describing the ATTACK/DEFENSE levels).

[papinho81]

Quote: Originally Posted by Cavani161

I've redone the tactics of teams and I've put auto change attack/defense level to On for teams and I don't know if it's me...but I feel like I've noticed a difference in terms of how teams are playing. I was watching Barcelona vs Juventus and Barcelona was playing their usual game, then as they went up in the score they really sat back and kept the ball away from Juventus and not putting many players forward.

I might be wrong but I think the auto change for ATT/DEF only concerns the user as the CPU has always changed its level instantaneously when getting or loosing the ball. So it sounds a bit weird to me that only changing this user "comfort" setting has dramatically changed the way teams are playing. Could it be that you tried it post patch and the difference you describe is the difference between pre and post patch?

Also concerning the Barca attitude, I have also seen that as soon as they get a 3 goal advantage (can be at the start of the second half if they get those goals before) they switch to a very deep B/B level. Even if it kind of make sense to switch into a more defensive attitude once you have done the break it is really but really not the Barca philosophy. They would concede two goals if they can score 4 or 5 more rather than sitting deep and waiting the end of the game.

Edit: I have to concede that despite they switch to B/B they relentlessly try scoring more goals.

[papinho81]

Two short video illustrating some of the issue I am having post patch. Read the description of the videos for the details.

Spoiler

For me the biggest issue now is the poor decision making made by the user AI players and the cpu ones when it comes to mark a man or go for the ball. Too often you see players with acres of space because of that. It is even worst when one man of the back line decide for some reason to follow a man deep in the defense at the cost of the defensive shape (even using the auto offside trap). Before patch I was pissed of about DMF doing that but they stayed in the vicinity of the back four. Now FB or CB can drop acres away from the defensive line. If it happened from time to time I would be OK with that but it happens repeatedly. I feel I just can't trust my defense positioning.

[kilay]

Quote: Originally Posted by papinho81

What do you mean killay? Are you testing those different teams or do you suggest me to do so? What do you mean about behavior? The way their ATT/DEF level evolve during the game?

Yep, in my opinion the att/def level is different for any of these teams, for example(in my OF) i've Arsenal and Man Utd have O/B behavior but their switches following the result are different. Arsenal never push.up on the red slider (doesn't matter the result), Man Utd on a draw start with red at '65.
I'm pretty sure that the default tacts of these team have different tweaks about changing strategy, so is just an idea to test and have more choice to customize our tacts.

[kilay]

Anyway rivalries and different ranking should affect also those behaviors , during my maps of the tactics i've seen a lot of tweaks, but the save/load tricks don't bring also that behaviors. SO probably are written only on the exe... Damn KONAMI.. anyway if anyone find any team that in single knockout match don't switch on red after '65 if the result is a draw please tell me...
I'm desperately at research of something that can remove this ****ty red slide

[papinho81]

Quote: Originally Posted by kilay

Anyway rivalries and different ranking should affect also those behaviors , during my maps of the tactics i've seen a lot of tweaks, but the save/load tricks don't bring also that behaviors. SO probably are written only on the exe... Damn KONAMI.. anyway if anyone find any team that in single knockout match don't switch on red after '65 if the result is a draw please tell me... I'm desperately at research of something that can remove this ****ty red slide

Yep, rivaleries for sure affect the ATT/DEF level (I have seen with Dino tool that there is 3 different types of rivaleries). Teams automatically switch to O/O during rival games.

I agree the evolution of the ATT/DEF level during the game can not be transferred from one team to another with the save/load trick. Same thing with the advanced tactic.

[papinho81]

We didn’t ride much, did we?

The patches kind of stopped our dynamic. Now I guess the patch has been gutted, at least I gutted it. I think overall it improved the gameplay particularly inside and around the penalty area but I am not going to extend about it, as it is not the topic of the thread and I would prefer we move on and make progress in regard to the issues/features addressed by the thread.

Here are some observations from my testing during the past two weeks or so.

Do the ATT and DEF levels can be treated independently?
I think the answer is no. A team that is O on ATT do not attack the same way whether it is B, G or O in DEF. The higher the DEF level is, the more intense (to use Matt word) the attack will be and vice versa. I think this is because the ATT/DEF level dictates the number of players involved (as mentioned by klashman in is pes 2015 tutorial) in attacking or defensive phases. So if players are not asked to retreat deep in defence (like when on B on DEF) they take advantage of their higher defensive position to get involved more quickly into offensive phases but also a larger number of player gets involved in the attack.

How they affect players positioning?
Pretty much everything is on klashman tutorial in the sections “numbers in attack/numbers in defense” and it is quite spot on despite the tutorial have been made for PES 2015 (http://klashman69.blogspot.ch/2015/0...-tutorial.html). I will not repeat what he already said I will just add, based on the previous point that the positions in ATT very likely influences positions in DEF.

How they affect players aggressiveness?
In defensive phase I think the DEF level dictate at what height on the pitch the team should start pressing aggressively instead of whether they defend aggressively or not. On O on DEF attackers and offensive/side midfielders will stay high in the opposition half to prevent easy build up from the back. Sometime they will also press the FBs which is very nice to see. Of course it also depends on other setting such as the height of the D line and the defensive attitude, AGG/CONS and ALL OUT/FRONT L PRESS but if you want to get a high pressing team (gegenpress) you can use the combo DEF on O, AGG and FRONT L PRESS.

In the offensive phase I am not sure if the ATT level influence how aggressive is the team when it comes to move up the ball. More players get involved that is for sure but do they tend to take more risk with the ball at cost of loosing possession is an open question for me. I checked pass completion and possession stats as possible metrics to give me clue about that. I didn’t see a decrease in both stats when moving up the ATT level as one could have expected if higher ATT level was dictating teams to take more risks but pretty much the opposite (higher stats with ATT on O and even higher with increasing DEF level).


Here is how I will use the ATT/DEF level when editing my tactics:

O/O: Very attacking minded team that spend a lot of time in the opposition third (probably using the Action zone stat from whoscore to help my decision, cut off to be decided) and that press their opponent (helping my decisions with the aggressiveness stats I derived from whoscored (see Royce and my tactic thread second post)).
So it would suit well team such as City, Liverpool, Barca, Real, Bayern, Inter, …

O/G: Offensive teams less into high pressing.
Example: Fiorentina, Napoli, Palace, Chesea?

G/O: Less offensive team but that uses a high press approach of the game.
Example: Leipzig, Leverkusen, Lyon, Lazio, PSG, …

G/G: For teams that have a more balanced approach of the game, likely the majority of teams
Example: Juventus, Milan AC, Schalke, …

G/B: For teams that spend some time in the opposition third but that really not into pressing
Example: West Ham, Watford, Burnley, Wolfsburg…

B/G: For teams that do not spend much time in the opposition third but that do not endure to much pressure in their last third.
Example: Espanyol (could almost be B/O!), Celta Vigo (a clear B/O), Bologna, Middlesbrough?, …

B/B: Very defensively minded teams.
Example: Udinese, West Brom, …


I hope this will be helpful.

Let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions to refine this scheme, more in depth observations to share or even if you disagree.

[Spora]

Papinho here posted pretty much what I was thinking about A/D levels so I'm just going to post some thoughts I have.

I think the A/D levels mostly affect numbers in attack/defense by moving players higher/lower on the field in a pretty straight forward way. Also there seems to be some effect on player aggressiveness depending on the level. I haven't noticed any other effects except some changes at max ATT level when GK and CB might join attack or corners.

When choosing A/D levels some thought should be put on formations and other tactical options. What I mean by that is that if a team's game plan already has a low defensive line it could be overkill to put them on blue def level. Also I wouldn't use too much blue A/D levels and especially blue attack level. I just think the game plays better and more realistically with higher levels. On the other hand orange defense level could drain teams stamina too fast in some cases.

[papinho81]

I have been trying to find the pattern that makes underdogs starting their games on G/G instead of their default ATT/DEF level during league games (doesn't seem to happen on cup ties) but I didn't manage to clearly identify it.

I thought that your team had to be 4.5 stars or plus and the cpu team 4 or less, but starting with Everton (4.5 stars in my game) against Swansea (4 stars) they started with their default A/D.

I then thought that you might need at least a full star of difference but using Man city (4.5) against West Ham (4) they started on G/G.
But with Inter (4.5) against Torino (4) they started with their default A/D.

Also using FC Porto (4.5) against Boavista (2) they started on default A/D.


Do you have any idea of what could be the pattern behind that, team starting on G/G instead of their default level?