Footedness again: how's Ronaldo doing in your save

i know this has been discussed many times before but it's a game spoiler for me. i truely hope Paul changes his mind about weak foot weighting in CA eqasition and puts it out of it or at least to some minimal level. having ability to use both feet is an adavantage in football but it should be nothing more than just another attribute. the ME should be 'weighting system' not attributes.

a couple of pictures to back up what i'm talking about (there are countless examples like this in any game):

this guy's attributes would make you think he could easily walk into any team's first eleven. you're wrong, he's playing in mid-table french league reserve squad:

the difference between these two players is almost 50 CA points. compare their attributes:

this weighting system makes some of the best world players (which are good with both feet) look 'avarage', becouse their exellant weak foot ability costs so much CA points. it also makes avarage players (with poor WFA) looking like world class:

what i'd like to know is how is Ronaldo performing in your game? is it anywhere near like in real life?

EDIT:

read posts number 10, 13, 22 and 27, they sum up this issue well.

Given yes/no options only I went for the 'no', Mitja.

I think it is obvious that a two-footed player is better than a single-footed one if he has the same attributes apart from that. Thus he should have a higher CA. Vice versa, two players of the same CA should not have the same attributes if they have different skills on their weaker foot.

Also it is clear that weaker foot ability should (as it does in FM already) have a different 'worth' in different positions.

The problem, which also SI have acknowledged to exist btw, is that the weight of two-footedness is too big. I expect that to be addressed i.e. lowered for FM10.

Regarding your question, Ronaldo in my game does perform very well, but judging just by his performances, you would not guess he might be among the world's best 5 players. Indeed a good example for what is wrong here.

I don't like the fact that some players with weaker foots have absolutley god-like stats on view (e.g. pogrebnyak)

I don't like the fact that some players with weaker foots have absolutley god-like stats on view (e.g. pogrebnyak)

or 99% of the regens.

use cr.ronaldo for the man u winker and Ronaldo for the brazilian legend.

Given yes/no options only I went for the 'no', Mitja.

I think it is obvious that a two-footed player is better than a single-footed one if he has the same attributes apart from that. Thus he should have a higher CA. Vice versa, two players of the same CA should not have the same attributes if they have different skills on their weaker foot.

Also it is clear that weaker foot ability should (as it does in FM already) have a different 'worth' in different positions.

The problem, which also SI have acknowledged to exist btw, is that the weight of two-footedness is too big. I expect that to be addressed i.e. lowered for FM10.

Regarding your question, Ronaldo in my game does perform very well, but judging just by his performances, you would not guess he might be among the world's best 5 players. Indeed a good example for what is wrong here.

i deliberatly left only yes and no options. imo if ME was able 'to reflect footedness' properly there would be no need for WFA to have any weight. it looks like it doesn't have much effect in ME - becouse if it does than players are punished/rewarded twice for their WFA. once via ME and attribute wise before that.

this way attributes will never be realistic. that's why i think Ronaldo or Sall/Terry are perfect examples. how many of Ronaldo's 'real' stats were sacrified becouse he's two footed, we all know how he should look like..

sorry to be pedantic but i wonder if you could post some screanies to back up what you say? and i don't mean just you. very well might be 15 goals in a season..

use cr.ronaldo for the man u winker and Ronaldo for the brazilian legend.

yeah you're right probably. i'm a great fan of real Ronaldo.

I'm in 2022 and Ronaldo has retired so I can't check on him but as for C. Ronaldo, he's 37 and still at Man U and has an average rating above 7.20 for most of the seasons he has also won quite a few European player of year awards and world player of the year awards as well.

Tbh he's been one of the best players on my game

If footedness is reflected properly (and what exactly is wrong with the way it is represented at the moment?), then there is absolutely a need for WFA to be weighted in CA calculations. Otherwise you have the situation where two players with the same CAs can have different 'abilities' when they play games in the match engine, which is clearly wrong.

i voted no: they SHOULD have a weighting but the current system is of course inherently flawed.

EDIT: I REGRET MY VOTE! i'm not really sure what's wrong with having it like the WF rating is a % of the real attribute set by the ratio

eg

Left foot = 20

right foot = 10

dribble attribute = 16

dribbling 'ability' with right foot is now 8, and whilst it's not 'good' by any means it's still sufficient for a player to use when needed and the space is there, etc etc. i'm not really too sure why it would need to eat up CA points if this is already the case, also random completely irrelevant stats wouldn't really be affected either, right?

and what exactly is wrong with the way it is represented at the moment

you must be kidding right?

you must be kidding right?

Indulge me...

I chose yes.

The disparity in attributes caused by the footedness is causing massive problems to the managers. At stake is a system whereby the attributes of the players is one of the fundamentals for a manager to select that particular player to play the game for the team. With the skewing of attributes to fit in the footedness issue, managers are faced with a "fog of war" which cannot be helped by the in-game scout, forcing managers to seek the help of external scouts such as the Genie Scout to find out the CA of the player. This showed that the situation is that bad to the extent that relying on the attributes of the players alone can't really tell a manager whether the player has the ability to play on the field. So to choose a player with either foot with average attributes or another with one foot with world-class attributes? How do we judge?

One could say either footedness certainly help the players to perform much better on the match engine, but how to quantify the extent. To co-relate footedness and match performance is difficult.

It would be better if the match engine can match the players on the players' "real" attributes and giving some advantage to either footed players, without the either footedness restricting the "real" attributes in the CA allocation system.

i voted no: they SHOULD have a weighting but the current system is of course inherently flawed.

EDIT: I REGRET MY VOTE! i'm not really sure what's wrong with having it like the WF rating is a % of the real attribute set by the ratio

eg

Left foot = 20

right foot = 10

dribble attribute = 16

dribbling 'ability' with right foot is now 8, and whilst it's not 'good' by any means it's still sufficient for a player to use when needed and the space is there, etc etc. i'm not really too sure why it would need to eat up CA points if this is already the case, also random completely irrelevant stats wouldn't really be affected either, right?

that's what i meant with ME thing and players being punished/rewarded twice. it's nice&simple, doesn't create 130CA world beaters (in terms of attributes)...

I chose yes.

One could say either footedness certainly help the players to perform much better on the match engine, but how to quantify the extent. To co-relate footedness and match performance is difficult.

It would be better if the match engine can match the players on the players' "real" attributes and giving some advantage to either footed players, without the either footedness restricting the "real" attributes in the CA allocation system.

But to co-relate any attribute and match performance is equally as difficult. How do you determine the effect of Technique on match performance? Composure? Decisions?

And you cannot have the match engine giving advantages to attributes that aren't factored into CA, it would just break the game in a massive way.

Indulge me...

check Sall... those stats suggest he should be one of the best CBs in the world, even if being just right footed only. but he's in Saint-Etien's reserves. so i need to have magic calculator or use in-game editor to find out his real (sh!tty) ability?

he's gained attributes becouse he's right-footed only. all his att went up not just those that have to do with foot ability like passing or shooting. he should perform far better (especially mentaly and phisically) than his real quality is...if attributes do metter in ME.

I chose yes.

The disparity in attributes caused by the footedness is causing massive problems to the managers. At stake is a system whereby the attributes of the players is one of the fundamentals for a manager to select that particular player to play the game for the team. With the skewing of attributes to fit in the footedness issue, managers are faced with a "fog of war" which cannot be helped by the in-game scout, forcing managers to seek the help of external scouts such as the Genie Scout to find out the CA of the player. This showed that the situation is that bad to the extent that relying on the attributes of the players alone can't really tell a manager whether the player has the ability to play on the field. So to choose a player with either foot with average attributes or another with one foot with world-class attributes? How do we judge?

One could say either footedness certainly help the players to perform much better on the match engine, but how to quantify the extent. To co-relate footedness and match performance is difficult.

It would be better if the match engine can match the players on the players' "real" attributes and giving some advantage to either footed players, without the either footedness restricting the "real" attributes in the CA allocation system.

thanks for a help Wen Jie, you sumed up perfectly what i'm trying to say.

check Sall... those stats suggest he should be one of the best CBs in the world, even if being just right footed only. but he's in Saint-Etien's reserves. so i need to have magic calculator or use in-game editor to find out his real (sh!tty) ability.

he's gained attributes becouse he's right-footed only. all his att went up not just those that have to do with foot ability like passing or shooting. he should perform far better (especially mentaly and phisically) than his real quality is...if attributes do metter in ME.

I'm not talking about players attributes, you specifically made the comment "imo if ME was able 'to reflect footedness' properly", so what do you think is wrong with the way footedness is represented in the Match Engine?

But to co-relate any attribute and match performance is equally as difficult. How do you determine the effect of Technique on match performance? Composure? Decisions?

And you cannot have the match engine giving advantages to attributes that aren't factored into CA, it would just break the game in a massive way.

Yes, you are right there. To co-relate any attribute and match performance alone is already so difficult. So you see the problem? One more footedness issue comes in to mask the above relation which is already so complex.

In my opinion, knowing the CA is already part of breaking the game, which almost all of us do anyway. You do not need to know the CA to play the game, CA is for the researchers and game coders to determine. As managers, the fundamentals are still the attributes of the players.

Sorry, I'm at work and can't post screenies. I dare posting at work, but not playing

What we need is a smaller attribute penalty and more of an impact in the ME for double footedness. Then it would be right.

Yes,

At least the CA weight of a two feet player should be reduce quite a lot. Making godlike players out of of average player annoyed me to the max.

I'm not talking about players attributes, you specifically made the comment "imo if ME was able 'to reflect footedness' properly", so what do you think is wrong with the way footedness is represented in the Match Engine?

no one except Paul knows that.

if ME calculates WFA like this:

player A

finishing 10

RFA: 20

LFA: 5

-----------

player B

finishing 10

RFA: 20

LFA: 15

then player A finishing with left foot is 2,5 and player B's 7,5. that's a huge advantage by it self and this advantage comes from ME. i can't see any reason for game to manipulate with real (db) attributes.

thanks for a help Wen Jie, you sumed up perfectly what i'm trying to say.

Cheers, I am just reflecting the problems of what myself as a manager has faced for a few versions of FM. Sad to see many other managers facing huge problems too! Researchers are having a hard time with all the balancing that needs to be done, and listening to complaints why this player with only foot (Silva of FM 08) is so over-rated and that player with either foot (Ronaldo of FM 08) is so under-rated. Things have improved a bit for FM 09 but still attributes remain a difficult gauge for managers with the interference of footedness.

not to mention WFA having effect on stats that have nothing to do with foot ability (all mental and phisical stats change). there's no rational explenation for that.

no one except Paul knows that.

if ME calculates WFA like this:

player A

finishing 10

RFA: 20

LFA: 5

-----------

player B

finishing 10

RFA: 20

LFA: 15

then player A finishing with left foot is 2,5 and player B's 7,5. that's a huge advantage by it self and this advantage comes from ME. i can't see any reason for game to manipulate with real (db) attributes.

I really don't see what the problem is here? Player B is stronger with his left foot, so he effectively has a higher finishing with that foot. He only has that advantage because one of his attributes (WFA) is higher. If his Composure was higher then he'd have an advantage too. The same with Technique, Decisions and probably loads more. How do you suggest it should work?

not to mention WFA having effect on stats that have nothing to do with foot ability (all mental and phisical stats change). there's no rational explenation for that.

This has been explained thousands of times. It's just the game balancing the CA and attributes. It's the same for absolutely any attribute. If you use an editor to change a players finishing from 1 to 20, his other attributes will go down because the game has to balance the CA and attributes and it has no way of knowing which ones are 'wrong', so it makes a best guess. WFA does not 'have an effect' on mental and physical attributes during the normal course of the game.

I really don't see what the problem is here? Player B is stronger with his left foot, so he effectively has a higher finishing with that foot. He only has that advantage because one of his attributes (WFA) is higher. If his Composure was higher then he'd have an advantage too. The same with Technique, Decisions and probably loads more. How do you suggest it should work?

you really must be kidding!

one more try:

you have these two same players, only their WFA is 1 and 20. they should be equal players (but in current system they're far from it) in all attributes execpt in those that deal with foot ability. so player A (WFA 1) should be equaly strong, fast, agile, creative, good at heading, marking etc etc as player B, only his finishing, dribbling, passing etc is 1 with his weaker foot. player B (WFA 20) is same player just his finishing, first touch etc is 20 with his weaker foot.

you really must be kidding!

one more try:

you have these two same players, only their WFA is 1 and 20. they should be equal players (but in current system they're far from it) in all attributes execpt in those that deal with foot ability. so player A (WFA 1) should be equaly strong, fast, agile, creative, good at heading, marking etc etc as player B, only his finishing, dribbling, passing etc is 1 with his weaker foot. player B (WFA 20) is same player just his finishing, first touch etc is 20 with his weaker foot.

Again, I don't see what the problem is? The WFA 20 player is clearly a much stronger player because overall his passing/crossing/shooting//dribbling/first touch and so on are stronger. Surely you must accept that a two footed player has a massive advantage over a totally one footed player?

This has been explained thousands of times. It's just the game balancing the CA and attributes. It's the same for absolutely any attribute. If you use an editor to change a players finishing from 1 to 20, his other attributes will go down because the game has to balance the CA and attributes and it has no way of knowing which ones are 'wrong', so it makes a best guess. WFA does not 'have an effect' on mental and physical attributes during the normal course of the game.

Yes, you are somehow right to say that WFA does not 'have an effect' on mental and physical attributes during the normal course of the game. However, the damage is already done before the start of the game. Some players' mental and physical attributes are compromised because the WFA already took up a huge portion of their CA, leaving little for distribution to their attributes.

Yes, you are somehow right to say that WFA does not 'have an effect' on mental and physical attributes during the normal course of the game. However, the damage is already done before the start of the game. Some players' mental and physical attributes are compromised because the WFA already took up a huge portion of their CA, leaving little for distribution to their attributes.

But that's just a case for tweaking the weighting slightly (which PaulC has already said will be looked at for FM10 iirc), not removing it completely.

It's simple. The current weighting system is far too strong. It needs a huge ass tweak.

Again, I don't see what the problem is? The WFA 20 player is clearly a much stronger player because overall his passing/crossing/shooting//dribbling/first touch and so on are stronger. Surely you must accept that a two footed player has a massive advantage over a totally one footed player?

sorry mate but you just don't get it. i agree WFA 20 player is better but only by the amount his WFA is better (and this difference should be calculated by ME in manner we discussed before). he's certanly shouldn't have all attributes lowered to compensate his exellant weaker foot.

this is Sall with WFA 20, see any difference to my first screanie:

this difference would be even bigger with strikers for example.

Awesome that you have showed that. Shows a big ass problem to me.

Mitja: Could you now increase his CA to see how many points it would take to get his attributes looking like they did before?

I'm sorry mate, but it's you that's not getting it. It's not "lowering to compensate for his excellent weaker foot", it's rebalancing his attributes to his CA. If you had increased his CA when you increased his attributes, it wouldn't have lowered them. That's the same for any attribute, if you increase an attribute without increasing CA, they will get rebalanced when the game starts. The game does not know which attributes you have changed in the editor (how could it, unless it keeps a history of all your edits or something) so it has to make a best guess at what the players attributes should look like to fit his CA and adjusts them accordingly. I presume this best guess is working along the lines of keeping the distribution of attributes the same, so the 'type' of player he is doesn't change, just his overall ability, so most attributes will get reduced by roughly the same amount.

The weighting assigned to WFA is debatable, but since it affects so many attributes (passing, crossing, shooting, dribbling, first touch etc) it has to have a high value in my opinion.

bigdunk...i'm fairly sure mitja knows all that. He's just saying that the weighting is ridiculous as it stands. The match engine calculates on all the attributes so players with wfa 1 are performing much better than wfa 20 even if the wfa 20 has much better CA than wfa 1.

Something else to consider is, the player is a centre midfielder also. Therefore WFA points take up more CA than they would for someone who ONLY plays centre back.

It's also impossible to gauge the "strength" of a weaker foot without a scouting program because there are only around 7 descriptions for foot strength on a scale of 20 (100).

It is very difficult to gauge a two-footed player. Although you can somewhat compensate for weaker feet by adding on numbers, the actual number to add on is impossible to gauge.

While perhaps a lower attribute to compensate for two-footedness somewhat makes sense, it just makes the game much harder when getting players. We, as humans, read Passing 15 as being worse than Passing 16 and better than Passing 14, rather than "Passing 15 is just one part of a true passing attribute which is weighted depending on every other attribute and the player's weaker foot". I don't think people really care about how weaker feet impact every other attribute - it would simply tell us to avoid signing players who have wooden legs.

To me, I want Passing 16 to mean that a two-footed player can pass with 16 "points" with each foot, and therefore his value be much higher than a Passing 16 player who is one-footed, meaning his weaker foot has Passing around 5-6.

Yes it would mean CA 180, say, is ambiguous dependent on weaker foot but then again, if weaker foot is going to have such a huge impact, it's not worth weighting it in. The relative drop in points then becomes much less for two-footed players - in the sense that while there's a huge difference between Passing 17 and Passing 20 for one-footed players, the same difference only corresponds to a difference of 1 point for two-footed players, so in a sense big weightings force the previously large effects to be quite small.

A weighting system should always avoid heavy weights as a result.

Oh, and it's almost impossible for two-footers to be world-class (19-20) in set-pieces as a result.

Ronaldinho, nearly two-footed, in real-life is still a pretty darn good free-kick taker on form. That's nearly impossible for regens to replicate this in the game, unless for some reason they are able to take free-kicks with both feet.

bigdunk...i'm fairly sure mitja knows all that. He's just saying that the weighting is ridiculous as it stands. The match engine calculates on all the attributes so players with wfa 1 are performing much better than wfa 20 even if the wfa 20 has much better CA than wfa 1.

He certainly should know all that, I've personally explained it to him more than a few times, but he still keeps coming out with statements like "he's certanly shouldn't have all attributes lowered to compensate his exellant weaker foot." which makes me think he really doesn't get it. Also, if you read Mitja's first post, he explicitly asks for weak foot to be completely removed from CA calculations, which is clearly wrong in my opinion.

The only person that knows how ridiculous the weighting is, is PaulC, as he knows exactly how the effects of it are implemented in the match engine. He's said he's going to look at it for FM10.

I'm sorry mate, but it's you that's not getting it. It's not "lowering to compensate for his excellent weaker foot", it's rebalancing his attributes to his CA. If you had increased his CA when you increased his attributes, it wouldn't have lowered them. That's the same for any attribute, if you increase an attribute without increasing CA, they will get rebalanced when the game starts. The game does not know which attributes you have changed in the editor (how could it, unless it keeps a history of all your edits or something) so it has to make a best guess at what the players attributes should look like to fit his CA and adjusts them accordingly. I presume this best guess is working along the lines of keeping the distribution of attributes the same, so the 'type' of player he is doesn't change, just his overall ability, so most attributes will get reduced by roughly the same amount.

The weighting assigned to WFA is debatable, but since it affects so many attributes (passing, crossing, shooting, dribbling, first touch etc) it has to have a high value in my opinion.

i know all about how these things work. you don't have to explain it.

WFA should have no weighting in CA system. we proved it if that's how ME calcultes WFA, there's no need to calculate it when attributes are transfered from db. if they're not calculated in ME than that's one big problem with ME.

there are many problems with this system we haven't talked about yet. regens, researchers, players with blank attributes, training,...

i know all about how these things work. you don't have to explain it.

WFA should have no weighting in CA system. we proved it if that's how ME calcultes WFA, there's no need to calculate it when attributes are transfered from db.

there are many problems with this system we haven't talked about. regens, researchers, players with blank attributes, training,...

I'm sorry, but you haven't proved a thing. If anything, you've proved the exact opposite. Earlier you stated that a player with a higher WFA is better at finishing with his weaker foot than a player with a lower WFA (agree, yes?) so surely that player must have a higher CA than the player with the lower WFA. That's the very definition of what CA is. Again, you can apply this argument to other attributes. Why bother weighting Technique, Decisions, Composure, Anticipation, Concentration and so on into CA? All these attributes are doing is affecting other attributes in certain circumstances in exactly the same way WFA does, so why are you not complaining about these?

I'm not disputing that there are problems with this system, but WFA having a fairly high weighting is not one of them. And I have yet to see anyone suggest an alternative system that more effective at modelling this stuff without being utterly impractical from a research or programming point of view.

He certainly should know all that, I've personally explained it to him more than a few times, but he still keeps coming out with statements like "he's certanly shouldn't have all attributes lowered to compensate his exellant weaker foot." which makes me think he really doesn't get it. Also, if you read Mitja's first post, he explicitly asks for weak foot to be completely removed from CA calculations, which is clearly wrong in my opinion.

The only person that knows how ridiculous the weighting is, is PaulC, as he knows exactly how the effects of it are implemented in the match engine. He's said he's going to look at it for FM10.

While the attributes are clearly some function weighted against CA, the disadvantage of having such a dominant weighting is that when this dominant weighting is present (i.e. a pure two-footer), the weightings of the smaller attributes (passing, crossing, etc.) result in much smaller effects. As a result, you get some very poor players at first view. Even if it were highly obvious that these attributes, although reduced, were actually equal to a one-footer with higher attributes, we cannot tell how much of an effect there is for a player who has a moderately weak foot, but not one-footed nor two-footed.

There's no misunderstanding of what CA is. But there is a problem with how it is used.

I'm sorry, but you haven't proved a thing. If anything, you've proved the exact opposite. Earlier you stated that a player with a higher WFA is better at finishing with his weaker foot than a player with a lower WFA (agree, yes?) so surely that player must have a higher CA than the player with the lower WFA.

he's only better in those 8 attributes that deal with foot ability, which should be calculated in ME and thus ME being weighting system (player with WFA 1 should have big problems using weak foot even for most simple tasks like controling the ball and playing simple passes).

not when transfering real att from db. more i think about it, more it seems obvious that WFA has no meaning in ME. and that's an easy but totally unrealistic workaround.

i know all about how these things work. you don't have to explain it.

WFA should have no weighting in CA system. we proved it if that's how ME calcultes WFA, there's no need to calculate it when attributes are transfered from db. if they're not calculated in ME than that's one big problem with ME.

there are many problems with this system we haven't talked about yet. regens, researchers, players with blank attributes, training,...

Too extreme..

If the CA is meant to represent a collection of a player's abilities, then the weak foot certainly has a place in there (just like the number of positions a player can play imo).

What can probably be tuned is the importance of the weak foot or its interaction with attributes in order to ensure alignment of the CA and match engine performance in light of the various criticisms brought forward.

As for the research aspect, think of it as any other important attribute. Most researchers would not give a striker 1 for finishing. So why should the player be given a 1 for the weak foot unless he truly deserves it? This means that us researchers have to be aware of the importance of the weak foot and not just give a 1 unless the player uses the weak foot only for walking just like even the poorest of finisher defenders in top leagues/divisions receive a 3-4-5 for finishing.

As for regens/players with blank attributes, they were tuned in 9.0.3 to ensure that they do not end up with extremely low ratings for the weak foot and the incidence of one footed players is quite rare from what I have seen.

Mitja: Could you now increase his CA to see how many points it would take to get his attributes looking like they did before?

You tried this yet Mitja?

While the attributes are clearly some function weighted against CA, the disadvantage of having such a dominant weighting is that when this dominant weighting is present (i.e. a pure two-footer), the weightings of the smaller attributes (passing, crossing, etc.) result in much smaller effects. As a result, you get some very poor players at first view. Even if it were highly obvious that these attributes, although reduced, were actually equal to a one-footer with higher attributes, we cannot tell how much of an effect there is for a player who has a moderately weak foot, but not one-footed nor two-footed.

There's no misunderstanding of what CA is. But there is a problem with how it is used.

Like I've already said, the actual value of the weighting is up for debate, but since it affects so many key attributes it has to have a fairly high weighting - A two footed player is a better passer/shooter/crosser/dribbler etc and will play better in the match engine because of that. And again, it's the same as many other attributes. A poor looking player with high Decisions is potentially better than a good looking player with low Decisions. The same with Composure, Concentration, Technique, Strength, Pace, Stamina, Work Rate and so on.

It's also a reasonable reflection of real life. Take someone like David Jones (he's a former Man Utd youngster that we had at Derby and is now at Wolves), he's got a great range of passing, he's a good finisher, he's creative, his movement's good and so on and so on. He should easily be 15+ in all these attributes, in game But he's the most one footed player I've ever seen and it absolutely cripples his game. Game after game you'll see him get the ball and have to turn to get the ball onto his strong foot which slows the game down and half the time he ends up playing the ball backwards or getting caught in possession. Maybe the match engine in FM doesn't replicate this type of player that well, but it certainly should be doing and the fact that's it's not, is not a reason break the CA/attributes system as well to compensate.

WFA, technique, passing, jumping, pace, anticipation and ALL the rest of a players attribute set are maintained by CA.

Example (a poor example) of CA distribution.

Increase a players technique to 20 (from 11) on a player and the rest of his attributes will fall by (lets say) 1.

Increase WFA on a centrally located player(from 1 to 20) and all of his stats will decrease by 2 or 3...

WFA is a highly regarded attribute for a central player(arguably).

Paul C is looking into the weighting per position for FM10

There's also the argument that arguably it's, say, passing, technique, creativity, first touch, tackling, ... which determine how good a midfielder is, rather than how good their weaker foot is. We don't say Carrick is awesome because he has two strong feet - he's awesome because he's a good passer. Conversely, we don't say Fàbregas is rubbish because he's (comparatively) one-footed. In fact, even though he's not two-footed, he's still a darn good midfielder. Why? Because he turns out to be a very creative passer who can choose the right moments to find, pick and execute the correct pass.

The way CA works, though, is to balance out the match engine, when in fact that's simply a way of justifying the ends while passing on the burden to the middle. I don't believe CA should primarily determine how someone performs in the match engine - especially considering it's the attributes, not the CA, that counts. And as the pictures demonstrate, being able to differentiate good from bad with such a high discriminant (weak foot) is impossible!

CA is not used by the match engine.