I think I know what's going on

[cookizzz]

I suggest you reviewing the forms of your players, replacing poor form players with backup players even if backup players' qualities are far lower, and using consistent players who are not necessarily the highest quality players or MOM. As you have already been knocked out of CL &CUp, you only have 1 official match per day, so you can use a relative consistent starting lineup. In my experience, a consistent lineup can gradually help improving performances. If low quality player have good performances, I will continue to use them. Don't change your formation too dramatically. I also consider counter formation but changes are usually limited to whether I will use a DMC instead of a MC, whether my wingers will push up or down, whether I will move my DC/DL or DC/DR to the centre, etc. My teams always have better performance in 2nd half of seasons after I use a consistent starting lineup which always include one or two players who are the lowest quality players in my whole roster.

[El Pistolero]

He has said it on my abondoned account once lol.

Systems and tactics change from time to time. Meaning that Nordeous will change the order of strongest and weakest formations. It does my head in when Nordeous decide 4-4-2 is the ultimate formation because what, Watford and Leicester have a few good counters. It's stupid, I know but I was killing the league with 4-5-1v with attacking short passing style and Nordeous decided to tank it. It took me a few games to realise "Normal mentality" was the new preferred order at the time. Now they've tanked that, the right arrow balance is the new thing for the time being depending on preferred mentality.

Having the right formation just isn't enough. I tell people this all the time but they never listen. I'm sick of people playing narrow diamond or 4-3-1-2 narrow and saying oh play mixed, or play down flanks, it makes no sense.
People post crazy orders like attacking, mixed passing, mixed style, high press, hard tackle, man mark counter attack?????
And then post on here saying why are they losing and blame Nordeous for messing with them personally.

Here is a basic formation and orders. An easy one.

4-1-2-1-2 narrow
Attacking
Short
Through middle
Own half
Zonal
Normal tackling
No counter
No offside

It is important you have a very good AMC.
If losing sub DMC for CM change to 4-3-1-2
Red arrows to full backs and AMC is important
Hard attacking, mixed passing, down middle, high press, hard tackle, zonal, no counter, yes offside trap.

I'm not saying that is the ultimate orders for the formation, but those are suitable for the formation.

[Darren Power]

can i ask mate which are the correct arrows for say 4-5-1v dmc blue n the wingers red?,ive an awesome striker but scores more when i play him in his other position amc,its the midfielders who seem to be getting the goals n forwards the assists,well to me anyway

[cookizzz]

For information, if strongest formation changes from time to time, probably 4-5-1v and 4-3n-2(AMR/AML)-1 are two of the recent good formations. After badly performing in first half season, both my teams continue to use these formations and they win all matches since beginning of second half season. There were many tough and close matches, but my team eventually won all of them till today.

I never buy any token, and have no chance to farm in this season. In case, Nordeus thinks that a winning steak can encourage me buying tokens to ensure winning champions, they will fail.

[Tyltyl]

I've never spent money on this game and I had bad and good seasons, usually depending on my market choices and how good were my opponents. (and troll results too).
It would be ok for me if my team had bad and good times, even famous teams with great players have them. My only doubt is that nobody is sure about how this game works! If I knew what makes my team play like s**t all of sudden I would be glad to fix it. Maybe change formation and tactics? Send them to vacation to raise morale? Sometimes the game it's too inconsistent to actually help you finding the winning formula.

I don't need the source code for this game, but some more transparency on how it works would work.

BTW I agree on the fact that maybe it's not all about token buyers. Yes it helps a lot, but you can do it even without, I smashed through some seasons with no money spent.

[gizzmo]

I experienced what Ponzu says 2 seasons ago. I did not blame it on token spending as it happened to me just 1 day after I bought 5 scouts. I just think Nordeus decide, at some point, that you will not going to win. It is very frustrating and can make you do stupid things. My advise is: be low profile and wait for the storm to calm down. Easy to say ? I know that the (huge) difference between you and me is that it happened to me early in the season so I did not lose much as you did. Except my sense of humour. At some point, the engine started roaring again and I became unstoppable. This season I'm under much more pressure: everything goes like a dream, treble is in sight ! If something like this happens to me again, I am dead. But what I am sure of, is that this "valley of dispair" crossing has nothing to do with tactics or form or whatever: during this period, I played great games against strong teams (and won) and awful ones against weak ones (and lost) - all of them playing the same way! In my case, there was a huge difference between league and cup games. League seems to obey a kind of hidden rule in which Nordeus make life difficult for the best team (me, most of the times) to finally letting it win the title after a huge fight. Artificially, some weak team keep winning early in the season and suddenly collapse, just when you were beginning to think: it's dead for me this season.

[El Pistolero]

can i ask mate which are the correct arrows for say 4-5-1v dmc blue n the wingers red?,ive an awesome striker but scores more when i play him in his other position amc,its the midfielders who seem to be getting the goals n forwards the assists,well to me anyway

I stopped using 4-5-1v but it would depend on your orders. If you're attacking use more red arrows, even on defenders. Basically 3 red defence, blue DMC , 1 red MC 1 untouched and 2 red wingers. You will have to play around with it.

[ponzu]

I use mostly 4-5-1V because I have had good success with it (well, not recently) and because it is listed as a counter to half the formations in the table. http://forum.topeleven.com/formation...ation-use.html Is this completely outdated? What, in your opinion, is the new "best" formation?

I have heard the advice not to change the formation too frequently. This goes against the idea that each formation has an optimal counter or two. Since my opponents refuse to have the same formation, how can I use the same formation all the time? When I first started, I played the first 5 seasons or so with 4-4-2, won some, lost some, won 3 leagues in the process. Then I started losing everything, turned to the forums and found out about counters. I started countering each opponent according to the table and climbed from the 7th to 2nd. I continued adjusting my formation according to the table, or past performances (big losses) by my upcoming opponents, or common sense, and this worked for 1/2 season this time around.

I am also hearing that formation, form and quality do not matter if Nordeus decides to put you in the corner. This, currently, is closest to my own conviction.

I guess, as a group, we are undecided as to why Nordeus does this, and how to get out of the doghouse (or whether it's possible). I bought an expensive 18 yo fast trainer Nordgen ST. Tall fella: 194cm. His debut is in a few minutes. I am still 1st (tied) playing the 8th place team. I have 3 Q points on him and he has been equally cold. We'll see what happens. I have no expectations. He is playing 4-1-2-1-2 ("Narrow diamond?" I don't see it looking like a diamond. Unless you consider DMC-MC-MC-AMC as making the small diamond with two ST above; I would have called this formation something else). The traditional counter, surprise, surprise, is 4-5-1V. Or 3N-5-2V, which I may try so that the new guy has someone to show him the ropes.

[ponzu]

I spanked him 5:0 on his turf. I went 3N-5-2V. At one time my D seemed to be outnumbered, but the DMC with blue arrow (well, they are all the same color on the phone) did his job as a sweeper. The new ST was a beast. He only scored one, but it was a beauty. He dribbled around and past two defenders, a move I rarely see in the live game. He gained +109. With the other 1st place team losing, I regained the 3 point lead.

Not sure I proved anything. I did a few of the things that I and others suggested (as remedies for the doldrums), but in the end it may be just Nordeus playing god. We shall see how it goes from here on out.

[HoofDaddy]

I'm tanking this season on my main after too many troll results. My junior club has gone untouched since day 2 of this season and is currently 5th with 35 points in its league. There might be something to consistent lineup and formation in league play as I've been switching formation nearly every game with varied results.