GENERAL TIPS FOR NEW STARTERS

my brazil uses pretty much the same 523 lineup, except for Tulio and Zinho being the other way around (and Ronaldo playing the lone striker role but that s because I use him for full-court pressing so TA matters to some extent, also 7 in passing seems to weaken attackers when they re playing deep into the opponents end of the pitch - sort of anecdotal evidence deducted from 11 Online Career seasons so take it as a grain of salt...although it most likely holds some water as I wasn t the only one (independently) coming to this conclusion.

Imho that 7 in finishing is more helpful on the wings than it is in the middle (wings may still step inside the box to shoot, central midfielder rarely ever do that, don t they?) although (again) in the Online Career I learnt the hard way that FI 7 makes wingers perform better in those specific positions...for some reason, still, the pro s outweigh the cons in regards to 96/97 Brazil.

For those who are unfamiliar with the gameplay mechanic that modifies players performances depending on their skills, position and the portion of the pitch they re (literally) stepping on:

speaking of tactics, stats and players interactions, while tinkering with the Online Career mode we ve come to the realization that in SWOS there s definitely more than meets the eye going on under the hood, probably simple interactions but elegant ones at that.

To keep it short, we ve had seemingly pretty strong players (as in most skill at 7 or 15, like our database Didier Drogba, for instance) performing like total ass (as in, running slowly, not tackling properly upon collison with other sprites hitboxes, etc.) depending on the team he was in, the area of the pitch the aforementioned actions took place and the tactic currently used and the game built-in tactics editor reinforces this by giving red x s all over for that specific player in that specific team under certain conditions.

So yeah, some players get bought for truckload of cash, suck their wages up from the club bank and then underperform, which is pretty cool and realistic and adds a little more depth and randomness to the Online Career mode but still makes you wonder.

4. Does the game temporarily modifies a player s skill depending on the position on the pitch (like, if I put a player with low Finishing and high Tackling in the front) and then reverts them back in real time during the game if the tactics brings him back to a zone of the pitch where he belongs, according to his skillset?

JH: Yes a player’s skills will change during the game if you change his position

8. Do strikers need Tackling skill? Does it have any side effect (I noticed that maxing out the Tackling skill on forwards can be detrimental for their performances and give red x s, whereas giving them 6 instead of 7 brings em back to normal, although I could be mistaken).

JH: well a striker with a great tackling skill might be seen by the computer as a better attacking midfielder... this is because the game gives greater value to certain skills depending on where on the pitch a player is positioned

6. What are the natural roles for the 2 attacking wings in 5-2-3 tactic? Really, if we put A (forwards) we get red x s, if we put RW and LW we get players underperforming anyway...so what? As far as I know no team in the game has 5-2-3 as default tactic so there s no reference either...

JH: A good question 5-2-3 is a rather eccentric additional formation a slightly more attacking variant of 541... remember with the Xs and ticks they are only computer guesses as to how you will perform if you were an AI team, of course if you can pick the passes to pushed up wingers then it can be of benefit to you.

JH = Jon Hare.

i Think it should be called n00b cup for ppl like me