Resource icon

Hacker - breaking the game with all I know about it V2

Here is the defensive, time-wasting tactic that I'm talking about in the post.
 

Attachments

  • Brick Wall.fmf
    44.8 KB · Views: 496
These are my results so far in my own save with Schalke, 3rd season, almost halfway through it. Media predicition still only 3rd despite winning a treble last season, salary spending only 9th in Bundesliga.

Salary.PNG


Table.PNG


Schedule.PNG


Undefeated so far in the league, only loss this season coming in supercup against Atletico (I've messed up roster building a bit this offseason, and didn't have enough quality depth after a couple of key players got injured). Really happy with the defence, 9 clean sheets out of 14 games, only 5 goals conceded in the league so far. Only 2 games this season where I lost more than one goal (supercup vs Atletico and away game in UCL vs Liverpool which I drew 2-2).
Nothing out of this world offensively, partially because I've got only 2 quality shadow strikers in the team at the moment, and once one of the them got injured I've had to use an undeveloped youth player in his place.
I've been testing and experimenting with a few possible tweaks, but so far got nothing that would substantially improve the results of tactic.
 

Attachments

  • CompsHalf.PNG
    CompsHalf.PNG
    502.2 KB · Views: 232
  • MP.PNG
    MP.PNG
    519.5 KB · Views: 275
  • Roster.PNG
    Roster.PNG
    625.8 KB · Views: 315
Even though i'm not a fan of strikerless formations, I decided to give your tactic a go and it's been really impressive so far. Got me the championship in Romania with Dinamo Bucharest (media prediction 5th), about 20 points ahead of 2nd place. I'm very impressed by the defence and offensively is not bad at all. Very good set piece routine can get you 15+ goals from your central defenders.
I've done a very small tweak by changing the defensive midfielder from DLP to DM on support, keeping/adding all the instructions from the DLP. He's getting much higher rating now, defensively solid, occasionally scoring and providing plenty of assists.
Excellent tactic overall, possibly the best around (y)
 
Depends on what you understand by "set piece exploits". I usually get around 15 goals from corners per season, and I would say on average I score from a throw in every 3rd game or so, but I'm not exploting any bugs with those routines as far as I'm aware, they're just overall solid.
 
A quick update of my save. I'm on second season, using now my tweaked version with the DM instead of DPL.

Screenshot (66).png


Could be the beginner's luck as my club is playing for the first time in history in Champions League groups, but still, Liverpool are the kings of Europe. On top of that, my team is really young and inexperienced, all domestic players with highest CA of 114.

That's the run in domestic league so far.

Screenshot (65).png


I'm always playing games in extended highlights, keeping the morale as high as possibile and most important during the game, you have to use shouts to see that green faces all the time.

Thanks for the tactic mate! 👍
 
While tactic is a really important part of the game if you want to be successful and "break the game", squad building is as important.
To keep my save more fun and engaging, I've decided to implement the popular DNA philosophy. You can find more info in for example FoxInTheBox's video, but the general idea is that I've identified a few key attributes, and have set certain treshholds, that I will want every player in my squad to have.

I've chosen 4 mental attributes that are often used in people DNAs to build a hard-working, resilient team, and 4 physical attributes as the tactic is pretty physically demanding and I often find my players being really tired by 70-75 minute mark if I play every 3 days (and for the most part of the season I do).

The attributes will be:
- Determination
- Teamwork
- Work Rate
- Decisions
- Pace
- Acceleration
- Natural Fitness
- Stamina


To calculate the DNA stat I'll simply add all the mentioned attributes and divide them by 8, to get the average. As I'm managing a top bundesliga club, that have already won a treble last season, I'll be aiming for an average of 14 for every regular starter, and 13 for bench players. I won't be as strict on youth players as they have time to develop, but to seriously consider a youth player in my future plans, I'll still want them to have an average of at least 11-11,5. Goalkeepers are obviously exception to the rule, as they don't really need attributes like stamina or pace.

These are the current DNA values of my team:

CurrentDNA.PNG



As you can see, at the moment I have only 5 players that meet my DNA threshhold, so there is a lot of work to do. Players highlighted in red are players that theoretically shouldn't be in the squad. However, Buske and Drągowski are goalkeepers and Zöllner is a 17 year old with a big potential. That leaves me with Marcus Edwards and Jean-Claude Ntenda - Edwards is 24 years old, but he is a star player, and I don't really have anyone who could be remotely as good as him, so for the time being he's staying in my team. Jean Claude-Ntenda is a 20 year old right-back with only a little bit more room to grow - I'll be looking to loan him for the next season, and if his DNA doesn't improve, I will then sell him. As my other right-back doesn't meet the regular starter DNA treshhold I'll be looking for a new one.

The player I've decided on is 24 years old Takehiro Tomiyasu.

FirstDNATransfer.PNG



His DNA stat is 14.75, which is above the treshold for starters, all his DNA attributes are over 13 and to add to that, he has a resolute personality, is a consistent performer, enjoys big matches, isn't injury-prone and can use both feet. I couldn't really ask for more, perfect fit for my team. First transfer according to DNA philosophy done.


These are my current scouting assigments:

Scouting.PNG



Players I'll be looking to bring in, don't need to have all the DNA attributes over 13/14 to meet the treshold, but at least 10 in all of those is what I'm looking for. I'll then filter for a player that meets the threshold when I'm looking to buy someone.

I'm already a rich club, with superb youth facilites, so I don't really need to bring wonderkid regens to my team, but if you're a smaller club looking to make money you could lower the age, lower the attributes requirement to 8-9, remove the current ability needed and set potential to superb. I'm also looking for players that fit my tactic in terms of position, because I can afford a player that is instantly ready to use, but with a younger player you can remove it.
If you have less scouts, or more nations loaded, you can set a region as scouting range, instead of specific nation.

If you want to implement the DNA philosophy in your club, but you're a smaller team you can just lower the DNA treshold for regular starters to something like 11 or 12, and then gradually increase it with time.

In the attachments I've added my squad and scouting views for DNA:
DNA Hacker and DNA Scouting are general views to get a quick glimpse at their DNA attributes, while DNA Export is a view wich you can use to export your data to excel - press ctrl + p when using the view, export to web page, then open the file and there you have data that you can copy-paste to Excel, and calculate your averages to get the DNA stat. I've also included my general squad view which I've used for a long time.

DNA Training:

To complement the DNA philosophy I've also created training schedules that focus on the DNA attributes - you can replace a defending engaged session with aerial defence, every now and then, to work a little on heading for defenders (useful for set pieces). As there is not much rest in these schedules and 2 physical session a week, I don't recommend setting the intensity to double for the first team in the rest tab (but for the youth teams, go ahead and do it). When having a internation break and no games, you could probably use some sort of balanced schedule, as the one I'm using is set on a certain set of attributes while neglecting the others a bit. Maybe I'll create a free week schedule later.

DNATraining1.PNG


DNATraining2.PNG
 

Attachments

  • DNA Hacker.fmf
    14.1 KB · Views: 170
  • General Squad View.fmf
    14.3 KB · Views: 116
  • DNA Export.fmf
    13.9 KB · Views: 114
  • DNA Scouting.fmf
    14.1 KB · Views: 164
  • DNA 2 Games.fmf
    19.2 KB · Views: 178
  • DNA.fmf
    19.1 KB · Views: 189
Last edited:
Regarding to the DNA Hacker how can i use it? I'm sorry
 
@Egraam, any ideas on how to improve DLP position ? No matter who I played there, they usually get about 6.8 point every games
 
While tactic is a really important part of the game if you want to be successful and "break the game", squad building is as important.
To keep my save more fun and engaging, I've decided to implement the popular DNA philosophy. You can find more info in for example FoxInTheBox's video, but the general idea is that I've identified a few key attributes, and have set certain treshholds, that I will want every player in my squad to have.

I've chosen 4 mental attributes that are often used in people DNAs to build a hard-working, resilient team, and 4 physical attributes as the tactic is pretty physically demanding and I often find my players being really tired by 70-75 minute mark if I play every 3 days (and for the most part of the season I do).

The attributes will be:
- Determination
- Teamwork
- Work Rate
- Decisions
- Pace
- Acceleration
- Natural Fitness
- Stamina

First of all thank you for your great analysis, I think this thread contents are invaluable.

Considering that Agility and Dribbling seems to have a big impact on a tactic performance but probably only for players on attacking duties, would it be useful to create two different DNA filters for defensive and offensive roles, implementing in the last one Dribbling and Agility? Do you think 10 values would be too much and would make harder to find players that fit into a small/medium team?
 
Regarding to the DNA Hacker how can i use it? I'm sorry

It's just a squad view for your convenience, to allow you to quickly inspect your teams DNA attributes. Put the downloaded file in your Football Manager 2021 -> views folder, then go to the "Squad" tab in game -> click on the box net to "Players" -> "custom" -> import view and then choose the file. It's nothing fancy, just a simple squad view for DNA attributes with some other basic info like age or personality.

@Egraam, any ideas on how to improve DLP position ? No matter who I played there, they usually get about 6.8 point every games

That's the problem I've also ran into myself (DLP performing the worst), unfortunately I haven't been able to find any solution yet. One thing you could possibly try is the tweak suggested by @ClaudiuG, changing DLP to DM (S) with the same instructions, but from my own tests (both FMBase save with frozen players and holiday tests with different teams) there seems to be a slight drop in overall team performance, however I haven't tested it enough playing by myself, so maybe it could be a possible solution for you.
Other interesting option that was actually performing decently in my tests was changing the DLP to Half-Back, it especially improved the underdog performance in the FMBase frozen tests, so maybe it could be something to consider when playing away against strong teams, but from my own playing experience the tactic struggles more with creation than defence, and changing DLP to HB will naturally limit the offensive capabilities of the tactic.

First of all thank you for your great analysis, I think this thread contents are invaluable.

Considering that Agility and Dribbling seems to have a big impact on a tactic performance but probably only for players on attacking duties, would it be useful to create two different DNA filters for defensive and offensive roles, implementing in the last one Dribbling and Agility? Do you think 10 values would be too much and would make harder to find players that fit into a small/medium team?

I consider DNA to be the core of my team - the attributes that everyone needs to have, which will allow me to build a hard-working, strong physically squad, that's why I don't have any technicals there (because those are usually position specific). But that doesn't mean that if a player has a high DNA stat I'll automatically buy him and put him in my team, it's more like - "you pass the DNA treshhold? Great, then I can look at your other, position-specific attributes and find the best option that way". My method of scouting is to get all the players that have DNA attributes over 10 in my shortlist, look through them using player search filters, filtering by position-specific attributes or just checking the scout recommendation (because I already have full knowledge of them, after scouting them), find the one that is the best for the position I'm looking for, check if he passes the DNA treshold, and if he does I buy him.

Ideally I would want my players to have all the DNA attributes over 13/14, but there could be a case of a player that has for example 11 teamwork but 15 and 16 in all his DNA attributes - that would put his DNA stat (average of DNA attributes), over my 13/14 treshold, but if I have set a higher requirement in scouting I wouldn't have found him. What I would recommend is to set the value to 2 or 3 below your DNA treshold for bench players (bench players are 1 point lower than regular starters for me at the moment). If you're getting too many or too little scout reports for your liking, you can then tweak the value.
 
Hi @Egraam
Thx for this one. I've been using Phoenix 3.0 and ZAZ blue 2.0 - but i've decided to try Hacker - as positive mentality looks interesting on current patch. My results so far with Barca (yeah I know Barca - but for strikerless I think is the best top team). My results so far, it's just a beginning of season but I haven't get any similar results with those 2 great tactics as with yours. Best start which I've in FM2021

1613758533801.png


Request - could you please explain what are the files form post #12? Which one is Views, trainings?
Amazing DNA approach as well - I'm using Genie Scout so added your idea to my personal which were Consistency: Important matches; Ambition Determination; Professionalism. >10 or 9. Lot of players to found, either for elite or low league teams.

I think this thread deserves more attention as @Egraam might hit something which hasn't been seen since very long time. At least till SI will bring next patch which will demolish current approach where strikerless tactics are the best.
 
Sorry, my bad, should have name the files better because right now it's not very clear:

DNA & DNA 2 Games = Training schedules
DNA Hacker = Squad view with DNA attributes I've chosen + age, position, personality and contract expiry date
DNA Export = Squad view for exporting with ctrl + p -> save as web page, which you can use to easily copy data to excel (if you want to quickly calculate DNA stat for all your players)
DNA Scouting = Scouting view with DNA attributes
General squad view = My squad view I've been using for a while, nothing special or DNA connected about it I've just thought someone my find it useful
 

Attachments

  • GeneralSquadView.PNG
    GeneralSquadView.PNG
    623.5 KB · Views: 214
Hi @Egraam
Thx for this one. I've been using Phoenix 3.0 and ZAZ blue 2.0 - but i've decided to try Hacker - as positive mentality looks interesting on current patch. My results so far with Barca (yeah I know Barca - but for strikerless I think is the best top team). My results so far, it's just a beginning of season but I haven't get any similar results with those 2 great tactics as with yours. Best start which I've in FM2021

View attachment 540145

Request - could you please explain what are the files form post #12? Which one is Views, trainings?
Amazing DNA approach as well - I'm using Genie Scout so added your idea to my personal which were Consistency: Important matches; Ambition Determination; Professionalism. >10 or 9. Lot of players to found, either for elite or low league teams.

I think this thread deserves more attention as @Egraam might hit something which hasn't been seen since very long time. At least till SI will bring next patch which will demolish current approach where strikerless tactics are the best.

Could you post your line up please?
 
Top