Regen System - is it going to be improved in FM 2010 or not????

I can't find any information on any improvements to the regen system (regen = regenerated players, so basically new players created by the game engine).

This is one of the fundamental flaws in FM 09 and all previous FM games. For me (and many others) the current poor Regen system makes the game unplayable in the long term, when all the real players are old/retired and you have a bunch of new players who are nowhere near as good as the start-game players. There's not a regen in my game close to being the new Messi, or the new Ronaldo, or Kaka, or the new Daniel Alves or Xavi or Gerrard or ... so on and so forth - the list goes on and on.

The basic stats for many regens are so random it's pathethic. Many of them have awful stats outside of their position-specific ones. E.g. I'm sick of there being regen wingers with high PA like 199, dribbling, crossing, etc etc, yet awful stats below 5 for e.g. pace/acceleration, stamina, so on and so forth. You get the occassional regen with decent all round stats, but they're very rare, and compared to start-game players they're still way low in comparison.

Beyond basic stats, if you use an in-game editor to view the very best regens' stats, their hidden attributes tend to be either awful or at the very best OK. They have low consistencies, adaptabilities, big match ability, ambition/professionalism, so on and so forth, and not a single regen, no matter how good, matches any of the hidden stats for the real world players at the beginning of the game.

In real life, Ronaldo (the Brazilian) at Barcelona tore the footballing world apart at 18. He was the best player in the world at 18 and 19 consecutively. Pato was briliant for Milan at 18 and has looked a quality player. Messi has been great since day one, tearing Mourinho's Chelsea apart at Stamford Bridge. Owen peaked for Liverpool and England at 17/18, scoring a wonder goal against Argentina in the WC 98. Shearer scored a hattrick vs Arsenal on his debut at 18. This list also goes on and on (alot shorter, yes, but still). Is there a single FM regen who starts the game on a high CA at a young age, where they hit the ground running as a world class player? Of course not. Every single regen within the game starts off with a low CA because SI games can't be bothered to put in a bit of code that means every so often a rare and gifted wonderkid comes along who starts the game world class. So every regen has to be built up until at 21/22 they're ready for top flight first team football. This might be OK for some, but it's annoying for me, because I'm paying for a game that supposedly simulates the real footballing world. Yet it does nothing of the sort once you get a few seasons into it.

Look at the start of a new game in FM 09. Count the number of top class players with quality all round attributes (nearly all of them including hidden ones) spread around the game. Barcelona's players, ManU's, Madrid's, Chelsea's, Inter's, Bayern's, Liverpool's, Lyon's, so on and so forth. There's a lot of quality players in the game at the start, many Champions League clubs with entire squads full of quality world class players with great stats in all relevant areas. Fast forward 20+ years in the game and look at the massive drop in class/quality and the number of players with that class/quality. At the very best, there are a handful of regens with strong stats in some areas that means they might be squad players for these CL teams if they existed in real life and at the start of the game (and that's only if you ignore the hidden stats). Anyone can see there's a big, big issue with the regen system. So why aren't SI addressing it?

Sick of SI ignoring this issue, and I feel they are doing it to boost sales by reducing the long term playability of the games they release. They don't want many of us playing one career game of FM09 for months, playing 20-30 seasons, because it then increases the chances of us not being bothered to buy FM10 when it's released (full of bugs because it's rushed in time for Christmas) the following year. This is why they're ignoring the long term aspect of the game.

:( :(

They seem to be getting better and better every year. Hopefully they don't go the route of FML(like they have done for the match engine) and continue the progress that they have made with regens.

I don't think the regens ability is bad(except Keepers, which plainly suck) it's just that their stats are distributed quite oddly. I am upset as well but FM 09 newgens by final patch were much much better than FM 08

*regens are newgens, just habit

The illusion of 'real football' is quite broken in long games. I will hold off buying FM2010 and see what the health of long games is before buying. If there is no improvement there isn't much reason to buy this over FM2009 since all that has been announced as polish is pretty much fluff.

What needs to be improved:

- Clubs needs to stop throwing away talent. Especially big clubs. It is so tedious to see big talents go to waste in big clubs until they are released at the age of 22-23 with no chance of ever realizing their potential. If a 16-year old Giggs were to start the game at Man Utd he would much more often than not amount to nothing. Same with Messi, Beckham etc. They need to make sure the path from promising youngster to good player is much more solid and consistent. The odd cases where the AI 'succeeds' is mostly due to randomness (first teamer injured or getting the player loaned out) and not to a robust simulation.

- Most regens spawn in active leagues. I have a long term save with every league viable and Italy, Spain and England playable. I specifically had every league viable to get a better distribution of regens. Didn't happen. 70% of all good prospects are Italian, Spanish or English. This completely breaks the illusion of a football world. I don't even know what the point of view-only is if it doesn't improve the standard of the league.

- The best regens often have huge flaws. Like insanely bad decision rating or extremely weak physical stats. The good prospects that are 'hand made' often avoid this. There needs to be less random stats for regens so that the good prospects have better chances of turning into well rounded players.

For a release that is supposed to focus on polish, these things have to be fixed. Issues with long term games have present for ages with no big push to get it long term solid. I know it it not fair to compare features but if side line shouts are in and long term fixes aren't, I have to wonder what is going on in SI towers.

They seem to be getting better and better every year. Hopefully they don't go the route of FML(like they have done for the match engine) and continue the progress that they have made with regens.

I don't think the regens ability is bad(except Keepers, which plainly suck) it's just that their stats are distributed quite oddly. I am upset as well but FM 09 newgens by final patch were much much better than FM 08

*regens are newgens, just habit

The patched FM09 was definitely better than FM08, but it's still a long, long way off what it should be, and as a result it's still very much unplayable as a result.

I think "good" striker regens has been done to an acceptable level - plenty of strikers with PA 185 or around there with just about decent all round stats and good striking stats (and if youre very lucky, then OK hidden attributes). But that's still nothing compared to the top strikers at the start of the game. Look at Didier Drogba's stats for example - I can safely say that except for utterly random extreme generations (one in a million type stuff), there'll never be a regen with stats comparable to Drogba (both hidden and actual), not without some form of cheating by the user. And Drogba isn't even the best striker in the world nor the best at the start of the game.

Beyond that, the regens are absolutely awful. Goalkeepers are bad as you state, beyond bad in fact, midfielders are slow and lacking in many areas (particularly athleticism), top regen fullbacks tend to be very weak physically with exaggerated technical stats, the top regen wingers are awfully done (I had one with PA 199, and a rating of 20 in dribbling, technique, free kicks, crossing, flair, creativity, yet pace and acceleration of 6, very weak, awful hidden stats).

If you get too bogged down in "yeah, this regen fullback is better than that other regen fullbacks", then you can play for 20+ seasons. If, however, you realise "omfg this is nothing like the beginning of the game, it's ridiculous how commonly bad the stats are - and where are the world class players? Where's this generation's Zidane, or Cryuff, or Maradonna, or Pele, or Messi, etc etc" then quitting the game becomes the only sensible thing to do.

It's still completely flawed and badly needs looking into, even if it has improved slightly.

Totally agree with tmonkey and Duerfian.

Out of all the "polish" that has been announced so far, the main ones are 3D, Tactics and Editor.

While 3D improvement is welcome as it wasn't too good in FM09, the improvement itself doesn't add any extra dimension to the game.

To be honest, as long as it can represent the events of the game, there's not much value it can add.

If you read the tactics forum and understand the explanations, tactics in FM09 actually isn't too bad. Counter-intuitive, but not too bad.

Improving the usability is good but FM09 tactics definitely isn't broken.

Editors is clearly something that stemmed from listening to the forum and while I like the idea, how many people that plays FM actually don't use the editor?

I understand that the minority makes the most voice and I personally do use the editor, but again, this polish doesn't really enhance the real meat of the game.

It's the cherry on top, but first get a good cake.

My biggest issue with FM09 are transfers and newgens - they are both potential game breakers.

Transfers have been discussed to death and it's disappointing that has been nothing from SI so far about this in FM2010.

New gens, as mentioned above, is broken in that it makes it too obvious the stats are computer generated. When you look at regens, some of the stats are distributed so strangely it just does not make much sense. Over time, when the whole "world" consists only of newgens, it makes it hard to immense yourself. This also explains why some golden oldies play over the younger talent because the stats of the oldies are actually more sane.

Anyways, hopefully will hear from SI about this, tho no holding my breath.

I agree with tmonkey. It seems that for FM 2009 they raised the CA and PA of the newgens, in general, which initially made it look like an improvement, but the attributes are not balanced at all for their respective positions.

I believe part of the problem also lies in so many hidden stats, which in my opinion are pointless. To explain - if a player is deemed to have a PA of 180, then what is the point of hidden stats like ambition, pressure, etc, which will only prevent the player from reaching the PA he is deemed to have? To put it another way..... how could a player with really low pressure stats etc, possibly have a PA of 180 in the first place? He couldn't.

You only really need the PA, and then something like the Determination stat would (or should) go a long way towards how quickly the player reaches his PA.

SI could make life so much simpler for themselves (and for us) by dropping all the unnecessary stuff, which interferes with the essentials of the game such as having a realistic-looking new player in terms of balanced attributes for his position. It is impossible to immerse yourself in the game without realistic newgens, and FM has gone downhill in this respect since they dropped the regens in favour of newgens.

Yep, newgens tend to have terrible hidden stats. And no I don't like tutoring them because it ends up in failure over half the time (which is silly, you should have the option to ask players privately if they are willing to learn from or tutor a certain player, instead of just demanding they do it, and risking a bust up).

Instead of newgens being solely computer generated, they could be based on a previously existing player, like regens, but then have the program modify the attributes slightly, like so -

Real Player has Pace 15, Crossing 15.

Newgen/regen will have Pace 14, Crossing 16.

These slight changes of + or - 1 or 2 or even 3 points would ensure balanced attributes but provide a "new" player at the same time. Something along those lines, a cross between a regen and a newgen, would be fantastic in my opinion.

BTW love the conspiracy theory at the last paragraph

i dont agree that there are no world class regens in the game. look at the "rate my regens thread" and you will find many quality players in 19,20 year olds, but i do agree that they are not balanced, lack of quality GKs( actually there are many GKs with potential but they never seem to improve), most quality players having a low natural fitness. the hidden stats im not sure since i dont use the editor but i know tutoring helps.i had a player from my youth team 16 year old with det of 8. i let marchena tutor him for 2 years and now his det is 17.

I think (but am not near certain) that keepers get stunted growth as your first choice keeper can last for ages. Imagine it would have be hard to get the keeper enough first team games to improve sufficiently.

Could do with a fix on them though.

Completely agree with the OP, this needs an overhaul of sorts.

Should it receive one then it would only be acceptable if AI transfer policy was equally tidied up however. As you say, it shouldn't be a matter of accepting the drop of quality across the globe and then building your team on that new standard - the standard should remain the same from day one of a new game - but even if you play a game in that way on FM09 the AIs ability to spot and chase/keep the relative top talent in that world is near non-existant.

If the scouts can tell me someone's going to be a quality player (relatively speaking) then why can't the AIs scouts/assman do the same?

The one-footedness needs to be worked out, and that's it IMO.

i dont agree that there are no world class regens in the game. look at the "rate my regens thread" and you will find many quality players in 19,20 year olds, but i do agree that they are not balanced, lack of quality GKs( actually there are many GKs with potential but they never seem to improve), most quality players having a low natural fitness. the hidden stats im not sure since i dont use the editor but i know tutoring helps.i had a player from my youth team 16 year old with det of 8. i let marchena tutor him for 2 years and now his det is 17.

If you've never looked at an editor to check the hidden stats, then you don't know how bad many of the regens with seemingly good attributes actually are.

For example, consistency is a hidden attribute, and it determines how often your player plays at his Current Ability level in X out of 25 games. So for a consistency attribute of 20 (the best you can get), a player will play 20 out of 25 games at his full Current Ability level (the remaining 5 being at some other ability level below the current ability, i.e. "off form" games). Some of the better regens I've had stats wise have had 1, yes 1, out of 20, rarely over 10, and if I'm very lucky, up to 15/16. These low consistency regens could have stats of Maradona (well as he's a regen he won't ever have, but in theory), but because of poor hidden attributes he'll not play to those stats because of such a poor hidden attribute.

Maybe it might not matter by this time in the game because almost every new player created by the engine is awful, so it "balances out". But I'm paying good money for these games, SI should at least have the decency to deliver what they promise in terms of a "realistic" football simulation for people who want to have a long career within the game. I'm not happy with a watered down version of football simulation where star players comparable to the Messi's, Figo's, Zidane's and Maradona's no longer exist because SI can't be bothered to introduce enough code to ensure different generations have the next batch of stars come through.

Others hidden attributes like ambition, professionalism, affect how a player will grow, versatility how a player learns new moves and from other players, big game how he performs in big games, etc etc. If those stats are poor, getting a regen with a good PA in the first place means you have no chance of that player ever becoming good enough. They won't improve if they're not ambitious, they won't learn moves if the versatility is low, so on and so forth. And right now, it seems the regens are completely random at generating these vital attributes, to the extent that getting a single regen with good stats AND good hidden stats AND good personality stats is practically a one in a million things.

As for other people having great regens, you need to realise that lots of people cheat, it's impossible to verify whether those regens are real or not, and even if they are, it's probably both extremely rare and they must be extremely lucky if those regens have good all round stats INCLUDING hidden attributes. I've played the game many times for the past year almost ever since it was released, and numerous times since the 9.3.0 patch, and I've not once seen a truly world class regen, only a few good ones with OK all round stats, and I've used scout and editor utilities to search low and high. My point is that if you compare the quality of players to those at the beginning of the game (what is it, 150+ top class players with great stats?) the fall in quality is MASSIVE, and even if I accept there being exceptions, it's still way too random to actually make a difference to the point being made.

BTW love the conspiracy theory at the last paragraph

Maybe the conspiracy theory was a bit lame, but still, it's ridiculous how they keep ignoring a problem that has plagued Football Manager games (and some of the latter CM games back when SI were with Eidos) for years now in terms of fully rectifying it.

It's obvious that the current regen system is majorly flawed, and I don't believe for a second that SI management don't know this. They know there's an issue here because they sought to provide a "quick fix" in 9.3.0 where they raised the frequency of higher CA's and PA's and left it at that. Yet they've had ages since 9.3.0 was released to sort out this major flaw in time for 2010, and from the looks of it they seem to have ignored it, as one would assume a revamp of the regeneration system would be well advertised and document - so my conclusion is that beyond the minor touches and tweaks they've made, they're only interested in geting the game to a bug-reduced playable level in the short term so they can meet the release deadline, which is usually a month or two before the lucrative Christmas present-fest. They're not bothered to fix the problems because they simply don't care about those customers who want to play a lengthy career game without losing all the "realism" from the football world.

I am upset as well but FM 09 newgens by final patch were much much better than FM 08

thats not saying much

** and the distribution of newgens is rubbish too, nearly all the decent ones come from the same country. throughout the WHOLE world theres only a handfull of good players from any other country.

good description OP. yea sort it out SI

Have you got any evidence to back up your case??

Personally I've played two long term games on FM09 and have seen many 100s of top class newgens produced at non-user clubs with excellent attributes so I would have to say I disagree with pretty much all of your post.

As for the spread of countries this does seem to be affected by the playable leagues you load but by using Gill's ddt file + loading a variety of countries I have found the spread to also be excellent.

I start my game in 9.1 FM 2009. there was plenty of newgens with nice stats. I bought one dc with pretty stats (marking, tackling, decision, determination, pace, acc above 18 - after few seasons), very nice FC. but in 9.3, three season - and there's no newgen with enough potential. anyone knows what have been changed? And will it looks like in FM2010?

Have you got any evidence to back up your case??

Personally I've played two long term games on FM09 and have seen many 100s of top class newgens produced at non-user clubs with excellent attributes so I would have to say I disagree with pretty much all of your post.

As for the spread of countries this does seem to be affected by the playable leagues you load but by using Gill's ddt file + loading a variety of countries I have found the spread to also be excellent.

you can't play long term games by loading a variety of countries unless you have NASA computers because its sooo darn slow. and each year on top of it only gets slower and slower.

There's a file called Gills Retain Players file, or something like that, made by a user of these forums, which is a small file that retains players from different nations, and produces regens from these nations, so you get more variation.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=107091 Link to thread for it

http://files.filefront.com/Retain+Players+by+gillsminddt/;13379805;/fileinfo.html Link to download it

Will need to start a new game for it to come into effect, but makes long terms games better in terms of player variety.

I have to disagree with alot of what the OP has written there are numerous world class newgens in the game in my long term save and they get generated from a number of countries.

The screenshot is from 2021 and most if not all of my squad are world class as I have won a lot of trophies in the past few seasons. There is also a Slovenian international out of screenshot who is my captain and a top top player. I have England, Italy and Spain loaded, there are more Italians then normal in my squad this is simply because I sent lots of scouts out to the Italian youth competitions.

This is Iker Garitano from 2020 in my other long term game, I signed him for £6.5 million at the age of 16. Between the age of 16 and 17 he scored 20 goals in 30 games including 11 in 19 in the league. The following season between 17 and 18 he got 24 goals in 39 games and bagged 19 in 25 in the league. He also made his international debut at 19 and will continue to win a lot of caps.

If the OP checks the rate my regen thread then they will find the game provides plenty of world class players. In fact there are probably too many produces as the game goes on. The OP has provided no proof of the claims of poor regens. Anyone that sets up decent scouting will find plenty of great players or potentially great players, train them right and surprise surprise they turn into world class players.

Natural fitness 7: Way too low

Jumping 20: The attribute actually means how high a player can reach, not how high he can jump. This needs to be fixed.

Finishing 19: If you pay close attention to finishing, you will find in the game that most good finishers are tall players...

The above and many, many other details are things that have been around for years and they will never be fixed, unfortunately.

Ahah what?

Natural fitness at that age won't make much difference, he's good for at least 10 years (unless he's massively injury prone as well)

Jumping is fine as it is - keeps things nice and simple.

Finishing - too many other things are taken into account, height isn;t one of them.

Ahah what?

Natural fitness at that age won't make much difference, he's good for at least 10 years (unless he's massively injury prone as well)

Jumping is fine as it is - keeps things nice and simple.

Finishing - too many other things are taken into account, height isn;t one of them.

Why won't natural fitness make a difference? What do you think it represents?

Jumping is wrong. There should be another word describing as it is not how high a player can jump but how high he car reach because he is tall.

Finishing: I know. That is why I find it strange that many tall players in the game have always glorious finishing numbers. Especially regens in my game.

So you are saying because the player is tall he shouldn't be a good finisher isn't Ibrahimovic is taller and so is Drogba. His natural fitness is low but some world class players have low natural fitness.

His screenshot was to prove that young players can be great at such a young age, at the end of the day he has scored goals in every competition and he is still a teenager.

Yes, I do agree that even after all these years and all this work, there is room to improve. There always is.

Well, that's the thing the OP said I think. Regens don't need improvement, they need to be working first in some acceptable state in order to be improved. The OP claims they do not. Maybe you don't need improvement but reworking of the whole module?

Natural fitness is the player's ability to recover from injuries and the rate at which he degenerates after hitting his peak. And that's not "think", that's "know".

Jumping is fine - renaming it or having it act differently will pointlessly complicate the matter.

There's no link between height and finishing, it would just be a coincidence.

So you are saying because the player is tall he shouldn't be a good finisher isn't Ibrahimovic is taller and so is Drogba. His natural fitness is low but some world class players have low natural fitness.

His screenshot was to prove that young players can be great at such a young age, at the end of the day he has scored goals in every competition and he is still a teenager.

No, I am saying that too many tall players have astonishing finishing because they are tall. That is simply unrealistic and in my game I have seen plenty of such situations.

And I have yet to see a good player coming out of my world class youth facilities in 12 years...

Youth Facilities are random in real life, AC Milan have top class facilities but do they produce a lot of decent youth players in real life?

So you are saying because the player is tall he shouldn't be a good finisher isn't Ibrahimovic is taller and so is Drogba. His natural fitness is low but some world class players have low natural fitness.

His screenshot was to prove that young players can be great at such a young age, at the end of the day he has scored goals in every competition and he is still a teenager.

Natural fitness is the player's ability to recover from injuries and the rate at which he degenerates after hitting his peak. And that's not "think", that's "know".

I know, that's my point. Generally, a youth player can recover easier from serious injuries than an older one. Having a low natural fitness at this age is not something that gels as realistic. Recovering from injuries is not just a number. It should depend on age (the younger the player the higher the number), determination, ambition and probably luck.

I see what you mean in a way but natural fitness is static there are plenty of real life players who are injury prone at young ages. I don't think its can be improved and I don't think it should ever change otherwise it wouldn't be natural fitness.

Youth Facilities are random in real life, AC Milan have top class facilities but do they produce a lot of decent youth players in real life?

They don't produce world class players all the time, but they don't produce completely crap all the time either. There should be a balance. Maybe my team won't produce the next Roberto Carlos but it may produce a player that can perform reasonably well coming from the bench.

And what's with the 4,4,5,6 at stamina when a player is 18 or 19? Young players should have glorious stamina, depending on their ability, like in real life. One of the reasons Ronaldo was such a phenomenon at the age of 19, 20 was that he could play at the same level, the whole entirety of 90 minutes, thus making it impossible due to his superior stamina for defenders to follow his rhythm.

edit: I am not saying that a young player should have better stamina than a Davids at 25, but below ten is completely unrealistic, unless he is 15 or 16. Don't forget how Rooney was at the age of 17. It just shows that most of the times the regen system does not show any real thought behind it or is badly, badly balanced.

I see what you mean in a way but natural fitness is static there are plenty of real life players who are injury prone at young ages. I don't think its can be improved and I don't think it should ever change otherwise it wouldn't be natural fitness.

But Natural Fitness does not mean Injury Prone. It's about how fast a player can recover. That is why it should be a bit higher for younger players.

Riz - considering it has been more or less broken for 10 versions of the game it is easy to get the idea that it doesn't have the priority it should. It is not like this is a new problem that has suddenly popped up. It has been there for every version of the game I have played (starting from CM 97/98).

I don't think you do this out of malice of course. It is just that what you deem good enough for launch (or for that matter good enough for the last patch of a game) simply isn't. To have a fully patched FM2009 work as poorly as it does in regards to a long term save is not ok.

Why is it that some people assume that anything not getting mentioned specifically in Miles' blogs or on the forums is not being worked on or looked at by us ? And why is it that some people feel we want to actively ruin their long term career games ? We definitely want people to play our games and I don't see any reason for us to ignore the long term aspect of the gameplay.

Seriously, we are working on newgens and have been working on them intensively since FM09. It's one of the areas of the game that simply needs constant re-balancing and improvements to make it more lifelike. Yes, it is not perfect and probably never will be. But trying to model hundreds of generations of footballers coming through the youth ranks and trying to match that output with the expected real life youths is not a very simple task.

And the work is not just limited to how newgens are created. Newgens need to be able to develop their skills and try to fulfill their potential as very rarely young player pops up from the youth ranks as a ready made product without the need to perfect his game. So newgens are not just about how they are being created, but also how they develop their initial attributes through their career. And this again is nothing too simple either. For example, simply adjusting the way one single attribute changes during a players career requires us naturally to first adjust the code that controls the attribute progression and possibly the code that creates the initial starting attributes for the newgens. Then, in order to verify the effects of the changes, you need to run a soak test of the game for some 20-30 seasons to get data for analysis of the attributes. And not only do you need to analyse the effects on the one single attribute, you need to also make sure there are no knock-on effects to other attributes of the players. Normally when the newgen work is at its peak, there are usually 1-2 soak tests running daily when working to improve the newgens and player progression and that is just on the development side, not including all the soaks running in our QA.

Yes, I do agree that even after all these years and all this work, there is room to improve. There always is. If we were just sitting back and saying the system was great and perfect, I'd have no problems if people said we were ignoring this area of the game. But rest assured, we are working, have been working and will be working on this area of the game. It's pretty much like the match engine actually, constantly evolving from year to year with the occasional revolution thrown in

Great post it kept my attention on the bus ride home.

I've found some pretty good newgens down the line of long term saves. But in my own opinion having "crappy" regens keeps me playing longer because of the challenges that come with it.

But people football is an era let's take tevez and maradona for an example sports personalitys were naming him the next maradona and it didn't happen. And I'm sure it'll be a few years for the next gerrard or giggs etc etc. Where's the fun in the game when you know you have a super team that will simply destroy everyones else's?

If your not finding these good or even amazing newgens I simply say your not looking hard enough.

Great post it kept my attention on the bus ride home.

I've found some pretty good newgens down the line of long term saves. But in my own opinion having "crappy" regens keeps me playing longer because of the challenges that come with it.

But people football is an era let's take tevez and maradona for an example sports personalitys were naming him the next maradona and it didn't happen. And I'm sure it'll be a few years for the next gerrard or giggs etc etc. Where's the fun in the game when you know you have a super team that will simply destroy everyones else's?

If your not finding these good or even amazing newgens I simply say your not looking hard enough.

Tevez is not an example of a crappy regen. Having crap regens actually makes long term games seem more pointless. I agree there are some good ones, but not nearly enough. We don't need players like Tevez all the time. We need some middle ground, too.

Tevez is not an example of a crappy regen. Having crap regens actually makes long term games seem more pointless. I agree there are some good ones, but not nearly enough. We don't need players like Tevez all the time. We need some middle ground, too.

I didn't make out that tevez was a regen what I was trying to make out is tevez was being linked to being the next maradona and to be honest in my eyes he's nothing special, he's good but that not good (99since he left for city anyways...what?)

What I'm trying to say is you can't expect the next best thing to be pumped out every other year andeven if they were you have to search tooth and nail (especially in the later stages) to uncover that gem.

Closing statement:

Tevez is not a bad regen but he is nowhere near the next maradona he was hyped up to be

While I don't think the newgen system is perfect, this year's seems a lot better to me. A lot of what people are saying in this thread seems to be backed up by no evidence. It's simply not true that there are no good newgens - I've run a few games in to about 20/30 seasons in and used Genie Scout to check the distribution of CA and it's not far off what is at the beginning. You've got a lot of very good players in the game, still.

The difficulty is the way that attributes are distributed. I'd imagine the attribute distribution is heavily linked to the weightings for each position. That's why you get hardly any DMs with good marking or jumping later on, for example, because those two attributes are not weighted highly at all. And there seem to be problems with the attributes that aren't weighted at all, like natural fitness, determination and some of the hidden attributes, which all seem very variable.

There was also a very noticable problem with the weaker-foot ability for newgens this time around (they're almost all one-footed).

Anyway, it's good to hear that there's still plenty of work being done on this, Riz. Newgen development and the way that the AI manage their squad development are key areas for me. Thanks for the post.

I didn't make out that tevez was a regen what I was trying to make out is tevez was being linked to being the next maradona and to be honest in my eyes he's nothing special, he's good but that not good (99since he left for city anyways...what?)

What I'm trying to say is you can't expect the next best thing to be pumped out every other year andeven if they were you have to search tooth and nail (especially in the later stages) to uncover that gem.

Closing statement:

Tevez is not a bad regen but he is nowhere near the next maradona he was hyped up to be

The problem is that there are two many regens that are completely worthless and some that are over the top. In FM you can't actually depend upon your youth program to have a steady flowing of players that some of them are -at least- mediocre. They are mostly ****.

That destroys the long term games. We need a better middle ground as far as quality in regens is concerned.

ironically pace and acceleration should be higher at younger ages and stamina etc.

its stupid the amount of low physicall attribute of players there are at top academies. in real life the top clubs choose the most athletic players.

ironically pace and acceleration should be higher at younger ages and stamina etc.

its stupid the amount of low physicall attribute of players there are at top academies. in real life the top clubs choose the most athletic players.

Of course, that's what I said above. It's a pretty logical thing but it has never happened in FM. And it doesn't seem likely to.

The problem is that there are two many regens that are completely worthless and some that are over the top. In FM you can't actually depend upon your youth program to have a steady flowing of players that some of them are -at least- mediocre. They are mostly ****.

That destroys the long term games. We need a better middle ground as far as quality in regens is concerned.

That I can agree with although I have found a few mid class players there aren't that many. I assumed SI would of thought you'd be king by now and have no need for the middle class lol.

The problem is that there are two many regens that are completely worthless and some that are over the top. In FM you can't actually depend upon your youth program to have a steady flowing of players that some of them are -at least- mediocre. They are mostly ****.

That destroys the long term games. We need a better middle ground as far as quality in regens is concerned.

Name me any top club that relies on its youth program to have a steady flow of good/quality players? It just doesn't happen, no matter how good the facilities or academy system.

Most top clubs will produce one or two gifted players every few years at best. The rest they either buy from other clubs at a young age, or pick up after they've broken in to someone else's first team.

As I say, fast forward any of your games 20 or 30 seasons and you'll see there are loads of good newgens about. They don't all come through the same teams, just as in real life.

Name me any top club that relies on its youth program to have a steady flow of good/quality players? It just doesn't happen, no matter how good the facilities or academy system.

We don't seem to be on the same page here. I am not talking about a steady flow of quality players who can play at the first team. I am talking about regens that are mediocre and not completely worthless. Especially when they come out of teams with world class youth facilities. At least players that have normal stamina, not 3s and 4s.

Most top clubs will produce one or two gifted players every few years at best. The rest they either buy from other clubs at a young age, or pick up after they've broken in to someone else's first team.

This doesn't happen in FM. In conjuction with the awful Manager and board AI, great teams have some 38 and 40 year old players in their first squad ten years down the line.

As I say, fast forward any of your games 20 or 30 seasons and you'll see there are loads of good newgens about. They don't all come through the same teams, just as in real life.

I can't play if I fast forward it. What I want is, in ten years time, my Man U world class youth facilities to have produced two -only two(!)- players that have 15 stamina... Is that too much to ask from a game that claims to be realistic?

Regens - I hated them in this game's edition.Obviously the OP did not play FM09 properly enough to see that the regens are flawed,but certainly not in less numbers.I feel like shouting this out now,but SI,Please do read this,they were just too many good freaking regens produced every goddamn year.I ran a simulated game,till 2043 and there were an average of 5 190 + PA regens produced every season.

That is maddening !!! You don't see 5 Messi's being produced every season IRL do you ? The game was ridiculous,and if by the time of release,this has not been cleared up in FM10,I won't bother getting it.Rather play FM08 which was brilliant.

TSH:

I just did a quick check using GenieScout of the DB at the start of the game, versus the DB on a savegame I have 25 years in (ie, newgens only).

At the start of the game, there were 1,036 players with a CA of over 140. Of these, 564 (54%) have stamina of 15 or more.

After 25 seasons, there were 1,869 players with a CA of over 140. Of these, 1,451 (78%) have stamina of 15 or more.

I've found a big problem with goalkeepers. I've got Akinfeev still who's 36 and I'm just praying that he'll stay good for another two years as theres literally no regen goalkeepers who are world class. There's literally no one who I can replace him with. As for outfield players, I havent noticed that big of a problem really.

This doesn't happen in FM. In conjuction with the awful Manager and board AI, great teams have some 38 and 40 year old players in their first squad ten years down the line.

Sorry but this doesn't happen, at least not for me and I proved it a couple of days ago.

Post #187 of this thread show the current state of the Premier League in my save.

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=113670&page=2

With the same starting DB and 25 yrs DB:

Starting DB: 5988 players aged 18 or under, 62 (1.0%) players with stamina of 15 or more

25 yr DB: 7867 players aged 18 or under, 104 (1.3%) players with stamina of 15 or more

(And on the age thing, 25 years in, the oldest player playing for Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool or Man City = 36, and he's the only player of that age)

Thanks for the numbers RT, I guess I am just unlucky then.

In my almost 10 years as a manager I never had a mediocre player showing up as a regen. There were all, and I mean all, worthless, despite my training facilities being world class and having great youth coaches...

My long term problems in FM are that all the players I invest time in turn out to be mediocre players

I agree with tmonkey and most people in this thread that the regens are broken and that it's one of the (for me THE) most important things in the game. But i also feel that we should we should believe in Riz Remes & SI. They have probably done much work and there's probably plenty of features that are not announces yet. If i remember correctly, they didn't gave notice to that they improved the regens from FM08 to FM09? But the difference between the versions are huge. In FM08 the problem was mainly that no matter what you (or the AI) did the players didn't develop. In FM09 the problem are mainly the distribution.

One thing that ALWAYS has been a problem and not being mentioned here i think are that regens never get the chance to play. The AI managers, especially at big clubs, needs to give the young players more first team football. They need to start to consider age when picking the team. What's the point in having a 35-year-old decent player on the bench and then leave out a 18-year-old promising player of the squad? The AI need to use younger players more often even though they may not always be better than the other benchwarmers yet.