Community » Hattrick Press

Practical guide to using the new formation interface

Written by Mod-Ghigno

I realized that many managers do not know all its features well and, given that the old interface continues to exist, I imagine there are also those who still do not use the new one, preferring to do the old way.

The new interface, however, in addition to being in my opinion rather practical to use both from PC and smartphone (I suggest you use the desktop version, however, much more convenient than the app to set the training) once you get the hang of it, introduces a series novelties that are simply not available on the old interface.

So here is a small guide for those who have some problems on the new interface, or perhaps continue to use the old one today because with the new one at the first experiences they found themselves badly.

As I rehearsed to write this article, I learned things I didn't know, and now I use the interface much better than before.
So at least to me this guide was certainly useful.
I hope it can be for someone else too! ;-)

Ciao. Fabio.

Written by trigrottro_e_klolala and translated by Ghigno

The new training interface was introduced in 2017. However, it did not replace the old one, which continues to be available.
From the preferences page one of the last items allows you to decide to continue using the old interface.
This way when you set up the formation the old interface will open, but with one click you can switch to the new one.

Let's see how to set up the training from scratch.

Start

The new lineup setup interface consists of five subpages: start, lineup, team orders, penalty kicks and control.

In the start sub-page you can decide which lineup to start from: all empty, the standard formation, a saved formation or a formation from a previous game. It is often convenient to start with the standard lineup or the lineup of a recent game, but in this example we will start from scratch, and therefore choose "empty lineup".

Insertion of starting eleven

The formation sub-page is divided into three sectors: the starting formation which contains the calculation of the evaluations at the bottom right, the bench, and on the right the list of players which can be sorted according to various parameters.
To enter a starting player you can use three methods, depending on how comfortable you are:

- dragging: click on a player and drag him to a square of the field; you can also directly give it a behavior (offensive, defensive, towards the center or towards the wing) by dragging it to the edge of the box;

- choice of player / position: click on the player and then click on the position on the field (on the border to give a behavior);

- choice of position / player: first click on the position on the field (on the border if necessary) and then on the player; in this way when you click on the position the system suggests the best three players for that position (based on the stars they would make, it does not mean that they are really the best players for the needs of the game!), but obviously you are not obliged to follow the board and you can choose any player from the list on the right.

The three methods are indifferent, use the one that suits you best. Personally, I use PC drag-and-drop but I prefer the other two smartphone methods.

Clicking on a player on the field opens a menu that allows you to change his behavior, set him as a marker, captain and / or shooter, remove him from the field (more polite method than dragging him to the basket that appears at the top right) or replace him with another player.
To move it from one position to another you must instead use dragging, or first remove it and then reinsert it.

Finally you can choose a tactic and attitude (normal, match of the season or match).

The bench

You can select bench players with the same three methods as starting players, but there are a lot of actual changes here compared to the old interface.

First of all, there are two more seats on the bench: the roles of central defender and full-back have been distinguished, and the extra reserve has been added.

Furthermore, under each seat on the bench (marked with 1) there is a second seat (marked with 2), which serves not to insert additional benches (there are seven seats, and they are those marked with 1) but for decide who should enter as a second reserve in that role if necessary. You can then choose, for example, whether to set the dc, or the wing, or the extra as the second reserve of the full-back. And so for each role (the 2 under the extra slot is useless).

Last difference compared to the old interface: you can select several times the same player in position 1 of the bench (for example put the same player as first reserve both full-back and central defender), obviously in this case you will bring less than 7 players on the bench.

The calculator evaluations

In the box of the starting lineup, at the bottom right, you can see the evaluation calculator, which is updated every time you add a player to the starting lineup or make any changes.

N.B .: the evaluation calculation gives you the exact values at the start of the game with two exceptions: it does not calculate the special weather events and always considers the scorer's base malus (50%).

So every time you make a change you will see the values update and the change made by this change highlighted.
Nice, but what if once I set up my basic lineup I wanted to see the variations compared to a lineup that has more changes?
For example, if I take off the dc, insert a tip in its place and move the wings from normal to towards the center, how can I see the global variation?

The buttons above the evaluation calculation come to our aid.
Leaving aside the first one that is used to copy the evaluations to paste them on the forum or in an email, the other three are "recall memory", "delete memory" and "set memory".
Let's see how they work.

Once you have set up your basic lineup, you can store it with "set memory". From now on, all changes will be calculated with respect to the stored lineup. Then you can make all your changes to the formation and you will see the difference between the new one and the one saved in memory.
You can also return to the saved lineup by clicking on "recall memory".
Finally with "clear memory" you cancel the memory, and then go back to see the step-by-step variations every time you make a change to the formation.
I assure you that once you get the hang of it, the mechanism is very practical!

Player Ratings and Ratings

Still in the starting lineup box, at the top right you can choose between three views: "lineup" (the one used so far), "player ratings" and "ratings".

With "player ratings" you see the stars and stamina of each player, with "ratings" the ratings of each department.
But above all you have on both pages the possibility to move the time and see how these parameters change over the course of the game.
So you can see for example at which minute a player's stamina will drop below 70% to decide when to replace him, or analyze the drop in overall team ratings due to fatigue during the match.

Team orders

Okay, we have finished setting up the starting lineup and bench, and we have set the captain, the shooter and possibly the marking on an opponent player.
Now we can move to the orders sub-page and program the changes we want to make during the game.

The orders available will be from a minimum of 5 to a maximum of 10 (based on the tactical assistant).
On the left you continue to see the formation and the bench, but be careful, from this sub-page you cannot make changes. On the right you have the list of orders.

To set an order you have to click on new team order and choose between substitution (a player enters from the bench), changes behavior (changes the behavior of a player who is on the field at that moment, even if he can start from the bench) and swaps position (two players are exchanged on the field at that moment, even here one or both may have started from the bench).

To insert the players in the order boxes you can use both the drag and the double selection as seen for the starting formation.
It should be noted that in the conditions linked to the result it has been inserted "the game is not tied" which is not in the old interface.
Finally, here are some useful tips for beginners, regardless of whether you use the new or the old interface:

- when you make substitutions that involve a change of position (for example if at a disadvantage you plan to remove a central defender to insert a striker) in the advanced conditions do not use inherit, which can create problems, but insert the behavior you want for the new player;

- when you foresee a change due to expulsion (for example if you want the reserve midfielder to enter the field instead of a forward if a central midfielder is sent off), just click on any of the three squares of the central midfielder and the system will automatically choose the correct one, i.e. the one left empty for expulsion;

- you can enter multiple orders with the same conditions (for example, 3 orders to be done at 61 'at a disadvantage), and in that case they will be executed in the order in which you entered them. It is important that the order sequence is correct. If you want to insert a striker in place of the central defender and then move the full-back to where the exited central defender was, the sequence must be this. If you put them in reverse order, the first order cannot be executed because the center-back post is occupied. In fact, the system does not consider orders with the same conditions as a single order, but executes them one at a time;

- if you want a change to take place in the regular time of a match you have to set it at minute 89. Minute 90 or 91 in fact does not mean the beginning of recovery, but the beginning of extra time;

- if you intend to change the shooter with a double change (for example, the shooter is a full-back, you want to remove it to insert a striker and let the second best shooter enter who is a midfielder on the bench so as not to be left without a valid shooter on the field) first field the new shooter and then remove the old one. You can double change at the same minute, but you have to use the right order.

Once you have entered all the orders, I advise you to close each order by clicking on the side arrow in order to see them all together, and check them again, paying particular attention to the correct sequence of simultaneous orders.

Penalty shootout

The penalty kicks sub-page is very simple: you just have to put the penalty takers in order for the knockout matches. In addition, the penalty takers are also used to indicate who must take the free kicks in the event that the first shooter is no longer on the field. So get used to always setting 3-4 penalty takers even for league matches.
The insertion as usual you can do it both with drag and with double selection.

Control

Ok, we have set the starting lineup, bench, substitutions and penalty takers.
Now we move to the control subpage.

Here we see some summary information and we can change (or choose if we haven't done it before) the captain and the shooter.
We can also leave the choice to the system, but it is not sure if it makes the optimal choice.
For the captain in particular, the system underestimates the charisma a little and mistakenly gives more importance to experience.

From here you can also set the marking, but be careful: if you set it here it will not be updated in the "Training" subpage. So, in order not to get confused, I suggest you always set any marking in the "Training" sub-page.

Finally, you can compare your initial ratings with those of an opponent's recent game, and save your formation as a standard formation or with a specific name. This will allow you in the future to be able to recall it from the "Home" page.

We're done, just click "Confirm" and cross your fingers for the game!