Ability and Potential

I'm doing some editing, creating my own fictional players, but want to clear some things up about Ability and Potential Ability.

First off, the Ability score is the players current level of ability, and Potential is the maximum level of ability they can reach (whether they've hit it and are on the decline, or are still yet to reach it)... yes? That's mostly self-explanatory i think.

What i'm struggling with a little is how a players Ability score relates to their actual attributes. Is their any link? For instance, a player with 190 in Ability should have world-class attributes and likewise a player with 120 in Ability isn't going to have a load of 15-20 attributes. Is there an exact science between what their attributes should be based on their Ability score?

Also, how much can i expect a player to improve their attributes if they have, say, still 5 points to reach in terms of their Potential (e.g. Ability is 145, Potential is 150)? The same question if there is a 10 point difference, 20 point, 30 point and so on. How much will players improve (given the right training)?

I basically want to make sure the attributes i give the players and their Ability/Potential rating tally to make some sense.

I appreciate any feedback.

There is a link. But there are other thins to consider such as hiiden attributes and footedness. All in all i would say olny SI know exactly how it works.

Players don't usually reach their potential ability. Depending on development, a player with a PA of 170 might never become all that good.

I have an idea!

I'm going to create mock players who have different Ability ratings, who play in the same position, with things like hidden attributes, footedness, Potential, age, height etc. etc. all identical, so the only variable is the Ability - and i will leave the player attributes at '0' so the game generates them for me depending on the Ability rating of that player.

That way i'll try and see some sort of link i hope.

There is a formula that links the players attributes to their CA but only SI know the formula and they wont say. All that we know is that each attribute has a weighting to it and that the attributes that are important to a particular position have a higher weighting than the less important ones. A world class player will have attributes around 16 across the board for the critical ones

Your best bet is to try and dig out Marc Vaughans good player guide of a few years back (maybe even more than a few years even)

That will give you a good guide as to how players are weighted

Players don't usually reach their potential ability. Depending on development, a player with a PA of 170 might never become all that good.

Whilst a player of PA 155 could become excellent with the right training.

Your best bet is to try and dig out Marc Vaughans good player guide of a few years back (maybe even more than a few years even)

That will give you a good guide as to how players are weighted

It was for 07, so two years.

I think, from snippets, that the weighting increases as the attribute increases. So for example, increasing a striker's finishing from 17 to 20 will take more CA than increasing it from 1 to 4.