Selecting takers - an exercise in pointlessness?

[kimkallstrom]

If you let the computer choose your takers and captain, it selects the best man available for the job. As far as I can see it does this based mainly on hidden attributes.

For example, despite being in a squad full of players with high attributes for set-pieces, crossing, passing, creativity, and decisions, the computer selected a player who was not anything special in these areas to take my corners. I asked my coaches to take a look at him and they recommended his corner taking (I don´t use the editor or Scout because it´s cheating).

A centre-half takes my penalties who judging by his attributes should be the last man to do so. But he hasn´t missed so presumably he has a good score for the penalties hidden attribute (coaches didn´t say about it though). In penalty shoot-outs I never mess with the automatic order.

My skipper, as selected by the computer, can´t even speak English. But the coaches and other players in the squad recommend his leadership.

So here´s the questions:

(1) Are these players the best men for the job or is the game designed so the auto-select just uses hidden stats without taking into account the visible ones? (In which case i´ll stop using autoselect).

(2) Is the autoselect based on something else, for example your Assistant Manager´s Judging Player Ability stat? (In which casre i´ll stop using autoselect).

(3) (off topic) Does the Free Kick taker just take direct shots on goal or ALL free-kicks? (Because they´re very different things).

[Kingsley]

For the captain, the AI appears to decide based on the Influence attribute, the players reputation and the players age (an older player with lower influence will take prescient over a younger one)
I tend to assign my own captain as I like it to be a defender or midfielder who is a first team regular, and I decide it based on Influence which you can see. I have no idea if it makes any difference, but it makes me happy.

I also set the freekicks based on the Set Piece attribute, but only to a player who has over 15 for this, otherwise I let it default

Penalties I let default, unless I have a player on a hat-trick, or a player looking for some goal scoring record or highest scorer award at the end of the season.

[SteveV]

Effective set piece takers seems to be pretty random. Corners for example, you know who your best corner takers are because 9 times out of 10 your team gets a chance when they take it. When 9 times out of ten the ball is headed clear or the goalkeeper gets it then you don't want that player taking corners....BUT quite often the best corner taker has like 12 or worse for set pieces when other guys with 17+ attributes never create anything. I use pre season friendlies to rotate corner takers to find the best one, because it isn't always obvious, sometimes a CD with 10 for set pieces turns out to be the best one!

[Effiong unmarked!]

The crossing att comes into play for corners, as well as the set pieces att. I'm not sure whether long shots comes into play for dfks.

ifks seem to be mostly taken by the elected taker but wide ones, deep ones, and quick ones can be taken by other players a lot of the time. It would probably be better if dfks and ifks were split, so that you could elect a different taker.

[SteveV]

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ifks seem to be mostly taken by the elected taker but wide ones, deep ones, and quick ones can be taken by other players a lot of the time. It would probably be better if dfks and ifks were split, so that you could elect a different taker.

Yes, the problem when setting free kick takers is not only do you not know if it is direct or indirect until the commentary tells you but you also don't know where on the pitch the kick is taken from. I often have a striker set as the second free kick taker 'just in case' its a direct free kick in a central position where they tend to hit the target more than the default player that the AI suggests.