Specialties

While it's rather hard to tell how important specialties are, there is no doubt that it would be a good idea to have them in mind when building a squad. I haven't seen a team that would be well-built in this area and, to be honest, my own ain't well designed either. Let's take a look at this subject.

I've been pretty amused when I was talking to one experienced player few months ago. He asked me who to buy, I asked him about his other players and advised to buy some player with some specialty (let's say it was winger TM with head). He asked why, I pointed him to rules and he was really surprised to find out that he really should buy such player. I've said it before -- you WILL find some new things in the rules if you haven't read them for a while.

Specialties is not a thing that matters a lot in every game, but sometimes it can give you those one goal of huge importance and you will be thankful that you've bought that guy. I'm not an expert on transfers, but I think that player with specialties do not cost more money than those without them, so it might be a good idea to invest wisely, to invest in guys with proper skills.

In this chapter we'll analyze everything that seems to be important on this topic. I will also try to answer the most important question: which specialties are good for which players?

At this point it's really hard to make any conclusions on specialties from our experience. Yes, quick wingers and forwards scored... yes, unpredictable defenders screwed up few times, etc. But how often does that happen? Heck knows. For that reason we'll have to depend solely on rules.

And what do rules say about our topic? Here's a quotation:

Weather special events.

Technical players lose Scoring and Playmaking skill in rain and gain the same skills in sun.
Powerful gains Scoring, Defending and Playmaking skill in rain and loses scoring in sun, and also get more tired in sun.
Quick loses Scoring and Defending in rain, and also loses Scoring in sun.

Goal special events
Unpredictable can use their passing skill to create unexpected long passes and their scoring skill to intercept the ball or generally be unpredictable in a way that creates a chance. If a defender or inner midfielder has sufficiently low defense skill, they can also make a stupid pass that gives the opponent a chance.
Quick players can create a chance by making a quick rush, if they are wingers or forwards; unless the opposing defender is also Quick or has sufficient defender skill.
Technical players (winger or forward) can create a chance if their opposing defender is a head specialist
Wingers with sufficient winger skill can create a chance that will have to be finished off by another player (winger or forward). If that other player is a head specialist or has sufficient scoring skill, he will score.
Any player with sufficient set pieces skill and sufficient scoring skill can score on a long shot.
Corner: To score on a corner, your player responsible for set pieces will need a sufficiently good set pieces skill and then the recieving player of the corner will have to have a sufficient scoring skill. The higher the number of Head specialists in your team, and the lower the number of head specialists among your opponents, the better your chances to score. Having no head specialists at all will make you very weak at defending against corners and very weak at scoring on your own corners.
Experience: Experienced attackers (wingers and forwards) can score using their experience. Inexperienced defenders and inner midfielders can give their opponents an extra chance.Tiredness: Tired defenders can make mistakes. Unless the opposing attacker is also too tired, this may create a chance for the opponent.

Weather special events.
This thing is simple: if a special events kicks in, specific skills (i.e. scoring and defending of a quick guy in rain) of a player get either a penalty or a bonus. Let's say that powerful defensive inner midfield gains a bonus in rain. His playmaking, scoring and defending rise. Thus he contributes more to midfield and defense of his team. Scoring boost does nothing, since this guy makes no use of it. If a player relies heavily on affected skill(s) (let's say defending in case of central defenders) and if it happens early in the game (effect kicks in at some point during the match and results in a changed performance till the final whistle) the boost or penalty will be really big.
These events happen very rarely (too rarely, come on dev team!), thus if a positive effect kicks in, it's sometimes a good idea to... sell that guy! I remember that one Polish guy sold his wingback for the double price right after he's gotten something around 50% more stars than usually.

Goal special events.
Certain specialties of certain players with certain characteristics may result in a goal. This seems to be far more important than weather special events. Not only they appear more often, but are a direct threat to the unlucky team. Let's go straight to what's good for which players.

• Defenders - powerful is good (gains defending in rain and only gets tired in sun, but it barely ever counts, only in "stamina" special event, but what's the chance both events would happen to one player in one game?). Quick is rather neutral (worse performance in rain, but can stop quick winger or forward). Unpredictable is good for players with high passing and high defending (more about "high" later) and bad for players with bad defending and passing (especially, because if they don't have passing, a positive effect is unlikely to happen). Head - rather bad (better to have other guys with head, as defenders can lose a goal to technical attackers).
• Inner midfields - powerful is rather good, but not as good as for defenders (gains defending and playmaking in rain, but gets more tired in sun, which is important). Unpredictable is rather bad (playmakers have worse defending, especially in teams with good players). Quick is bad (a little, they only lose defending in rain). Technical is neutral. Head is rather good (no penalty; corners). Edit: head playmakers are also a subject to special events made by technical wingers or forwards. Check in this game: 8408757. Thanks to our Spanish friend rgomila (PuroFisico (123598)) for pointing me to that match.
• Offensive wingers - quick is great (nice goal event, almost no penalties... who cares about defending in rain for that guy?). Head is good, but only if you have an offensive winger (with good winger skill that is) on the other wing. Unpredictable is OK (especially if he has good passing). Technical is good (might score against defenders with head). None of the specialties are bad.
• Wingers towards middle. They count as wingers, but rather make use of inners' skills, so it's a mixture. Head is great if an opposing winger has a decent winger skill. Quick is good (not sure if his winger skill counts, though... if it does, forget about it). Technical is good (might score against defenders with head). Powerful is good (same as for playmakers). Unpredictable is good (especially if this guy has nice passing). None of specialties are bad.
• Scorers. Unpredictable is great (especially if this guy has nice passing). Quick is rather good (nice goal event, but negative effects on scoring in rain and sun). Head is nice if you have a good winger(s) (offensive, not TM). Technical is good (gains scoring in sun/loses in rain, but also can score against defenders with head).

Also it's good to have a guy with decent set pieces skill. Preferably a scorer, because he could score long shots, too.
As you've noticed, it might be nice to have a few guys with head, preferably wingers TM (if you have offensive wingers), scorers (same applies) or playmakers (cuz there are no really good specialties for them). The more headed guys you have, the more you want to have that set pieces guy around. Also, I'm not 100% sure, but I think rules USED TO state that head players play slightly worse. Now it's not in there anymore.
Experience. Inners seem not to care about it as much as others, they can't use it to score directly or create a chance for an opponent. So if you want to get a good captain, think about defender/winger/forward.

Finally some general analysis. As you'll find out, many issues are a mystery to me (please tell me if you have some firm info on that!). Do not treat it too seriously.
This will be covered more precisely in a chapter about game engine: there is a certain number of actions (goal chances) in every game. I'm 90% sure there's 10 regular chances (midfields compared to determine who'll the chance belongs to and then attack compared to defense, nothing more about it here) and some (maybe 4? I wouldn't bet money on it, though, even hattrick pennies) special events chances. Note that before special events were introduced with HT 6.0, there WERE long shots, so I guess these "special events" might be among regular chances, only solved differently.

We don't know how are special events drawn. By saying that, I mean how does it happen that a particular team gets a particular kind of a goal special event and how weather events occur.
First let's take a look at weather events. My lucky guess (only a guess) is that the game checks every player if his special ability might kick in and does a check. I.e. it's raining and the script checks whether each player has a Technical, Powerful or Quick specialty. If yes, then there's x% chance of him having a bonus/penalty.
Goal special events are a bit more complicated and more questions arise around them. At first: does possession matter? Honestly, I have no idea. Special events happen too rarely to try to make any assumptions. Then: how a player or a kind of an event is chosen? It could (and only could) look like this: a special event and an executing team is drawn, then an appropriate player(s) are drawn, comparisons are being made, finito. Eh, I should better stop messing with your head with stuff that I barely know myself.

It's rather unknown what kind of comparisons are made when resolving some special events or are they just a purely random thing. You've noticed "winger with sufficient winger skill", "defender with sufficient defending skill", etc. In some situations there's just one player skill that matters and I think it's compared to both teams overall skills (just like when new tactics' abilities are compared). Example: winger with high winger skill (check #1) and then scorer's or opposing winger's scoring (check #2) (unless the chosen player has head). This could be either compared as I've said above, or to opposing team's defense. Another type is stamina and experience. I believe that script compares those skills of one attacker and one defender. Also note that some events appear to create a chance. Is it just written this way or maybe such an even would create a regular chance (side of an attack drawn and then it's strenght compared to appropriate defense)?

Team with defensive style of play should take specialties more seriously than others. Whether you have a defensive coach or you have 4 or 5 defenders you (and your opponent as well!) have a smaller chance of scoring from regular chances, you more often draw your games and that one extra goal could make a big difference.
I guess that's all for now. 5:26 in the morning and I still need to format this text :/.