Why No News on Newgens/Regen Long Term Game Playability?

Posted a thread a few days ago asking pretty much the same question but I probably wrote too much, making it too big an effort for posters to get to the end of it all and ultimate question.

What is the current staete of long term game playability as there has been no announcements on this area of the game despite it being one of the most important aspects and since we usually get the 'It's the best yet' response regarding this I will hold my breath until I get firm evidence that I will not be bored of the game in two weeks due to poor newgens with weird stats making the game very poorly balanced in the future and generally not worth playing when you get the best defender in the game with 8 & 6 for jumping and strength.

SO anyone any information on this as this is one of the only aspects unable to be seen in a 6 month demo.

Surely the best defender in the game isn't the one with poor attributes in key areas? I know it sounds matter of fact, but in FM 2009 I played up until 2057 across a total of thirteen different clubs in eleven different countries and whilst I did see some bizarre attribute matches in my time, found it to be in no way visibly effective in the slightest.

In fact the main criticism I had with the game in the latter stages was the creation of too many high class youngsters. Because the game only allows for so much development of players over time, even from a young age, it counteracts it by having high calibre youth products to ensure a top tier of world class players exists as time goes on. But seeing international sides being played with half the squad under the age of twenty yet all world class in their own right is totally ridiculous.

It'll be much the same as FM09, if there have been no specific announcements? Just wait another couple of weeks and see in the game.

It's definitely an area we spend a lot of time looking at and tweaking to get right. It's unfortunately not just a case of saying 'all defenders should be good at x,y and z', because all players are slightly different. However forward steps have most certainly been made in regards to the Newgen system. Thanks.

Any expansion on this Neil? How much of a priority was it, if at all? Why was there no information on this before now? How is it looking at the moment? I'm not saying I would want all defenders to have max stats for heading, jumping, strength, bravery etc... just that the systems up till now maybe have lacked balance making players very weird with each FM usually encountering some very bad newgen flaw such as poor physical stats all around the board.

This is an area I am very very worried about, and to be fair no one has eleviated these concerns all too much. All we've heard is the usual its been looked ito and improved.

This is why I didnt buy FM09 and am still playing FM08.

I wont be buying FM10 either until these concerns have been properly addressed. If the game breaks after 7 or 8 seasons then I'm better off sticking to my current FM08 save.

I,ve asked around here several times if Brian Eastwick still becomes england manager and 4 or 5 seasons, or if Boothroyd is suddenly seen as the main man by the FA. No one seems to know which leads me to believe Brian Eastwick indeed will still become england manager. absurd.

I wouldnt want this thread to just sink to the depths of the abyss, Its a very important aspect of the game. More so you could argue than pretty new features.

This is an absolutley vital and important area that needs and deserves to be addressed a little better than it currently has so far.

I'm not sure how we can properly address your concerns, but I can confirm from my latest soak test on FM2010 over the weekend that Brian Eastwick has definitely not become England Manager nor has Boothroyd in that game.

These things naturally might vary from game to game and test to test, as there is always a random element involved, so I naturally cannot give a 100% guarantee that in FM2010 everything happens just the way you personally want it to happen. However in this particular test, it seemed that Stuart Pearce had eventually stepped up as English manager after Capello, which I probably would not call all that absurd.

This occurred in my FM09 game plenty of times - what with S.Pearce taking the role of England Manager after Capello. I will admit that some international teams hired some questionable managers but plenty of teams take a gamble - England hired an Italian manager not knowing how that would turn out, so you can't really complain (in my opinion).

I actually think the regen production and quality of these players in FM09 was brilliant. It was the first time I could actually plan a long-term game and continue to enjoy it to the year 2020 and beyond. I would be very happy if FM10 follows suit in that respect

This is an area I am very very worried about, and to be fair no one has eleviated these concerns all too much. All we've heard is the usual its been looked ito and improved.

This is why I didnt buy FM09 and am still playing FM08.

I wont be buying FM10 either until these concerns have been properly addressed. If the game breaks after 7 or 8 seasons then I'm better off sticking to my current FM08 save.

I,ve asked around here several times if Brian Eastwick still becomes england manager and 4 or 5 seasons, or if Boothroyd is suddenly seen as the main man by the FA. No one seems to know which leads me to believe Brian Eastwick indeed will still become england manager. absurd.

stuart pearce became the england manager after 5 seasons in my fm09 game. my games still working as well. just bought some pretty good 17 year old regens from ipswich. both have potential of 6 stars. so not all regens are bad

I still don't get why people liked the regens in FM09.

DON'T YOU GET THAT THEY WERE UNREALISTIC ??? !!!

I saw 5 Messi's being produced every year.Really ? Since when did we start seeing A new Messi every year.

I still don't get why people liked the regens in FM09.

DON'T YOU GET THAT THEY WERE UNREALISTIC ??? !!!

I saw 5 Messi's being produced every year.Really ? Since when did we start seeing A new Messi every year.

Maybe you were unlucky? I admittedly only played one career game, but I didn't see a particularly large number of superstars being created, so it clearly wasn't a problem all the time. I had more a problem with some of the 'top' players have odd stats such as one really low physical stat in isolation, or strikers with loads of all round ability but no finishing. There definitely were some issues, but I don't think by any stretch of the imagination it made it unplayable.

Any expansion on this Neil? How much of a priority was it, if at all? Why was there no information on this before now? How is it looking at the moment? I'm not saying I would want all defenders to have max stats for heading, jumping, strength, bravery etc... just that the systems up till now maybe have lacked balance making players very weird with each FM usually encountering some very bad newgen flaw such as poor physical stats all around the board.

They have been stating this many times recently. You must have missed it.

I still don't get why people liked the regens in FM09.

DON'T YOU GET THAT THEY WERE UNREALISTIC ??? !!!

I saw 5 Messi's being produced every year.Really ? Since when did we start seeing A new Messi every year.

I'm sure there are 5 potential Messis every year irl too

If there is something to criticize, it's newgens reaching their potential too often, but actually I cannot see that either.

Also surely, just one Messi a year would not be enough. That would make us end up with just 15 world class players in the game...

I didn't see another player like messi in 09, i would have loved your save mate, good newgen wingers were hard to come by for me, i usingthe real players right until the end of their careers....

I can confirm from my latest soak test on FM2010

You really shouldn't take electric appliances in the bath - it's dangerous

They have been stating this many times recently. You must have missed it.

ANy links to official comments on this subject as admittedly I don't find myself in this forum.

My biggest problem with newgens in 09 were the wage demands.

A 17 year old with only a handful of senior games suddenly wants £10k a week.

Don't have them at hand either. No further elaborations though, just statements that they have spent serious attention on newgens and their development (so nothing on top of what we have in here, so a link would be fruitless anyway).

I guess it would be too detailed for them to elaborate on which tiny bits (which have big effects in the long run) they modified in which way.

My biggest problem with newgens in 09 were the wage demands.

A 17 year old with only a handful of senior games suddenly wants £10k a week.

Depends on which level you are talking about.

Irl at the top level that's realistic unfortunately

Don't have them at hand either. No further elaborations though, just statements that they have spent serious attention on newgens and their development (so nothing on top of what we have in here, so a link would be fruitless anyway).

I guess it would be too detailed for them to elaborate on which tiny bits (which have big effects in the long run) they modified in which way.

The fact there has been now real media output or official word on this aspect I find it reasonable to infer that little work will have been done on this part of the game as the highlighted parts in the run up to demo/relese will be the bits they want to say look we have done lots of work on this and this is why it is better etc... Yet there has been no official press release regarding this aspect of the game which imo is one of the most important parts of this type of game.

ANy links to official comments on this subject as admittedly I don't find myself in this forum.

Stuart- there was a long post about long term playability from one of the SI staff ( it might have been Riz) that was posted in the middle of one of the big threads that were opened when the demo came out but I cant find it because this isnt what the thread was about. I have looked for about 30 mins so far but will have to give up- sorry but it was quite specific.

Stuart- there was a long post about long term playability from one of the SI staff ( it might have been Riz) that was posted in the middle of one of the big threads that were opened when the demo came out but I cant find it because this isnt what the thread was about. I have looked for about 30 mins so far but will have to give up- sorry but it was quite specific.

I'd love to read this post - can anyone else locate it?

I got frustrated 8 years into FM08 and FM09 because the standard of players just dropped. Simple searches (for, say, CB with 16 for heading, jumping, marking and tackling) would through up about a lost less (well over half less) in 2016 than 2008 or 2009

Yes, I remember a post too FrazT, in particular talking about how this aspect of the game is always being worked on and how members of SI have been carrying out changes and undertaking soak tests. There was more specific information than this but the general point was that this is something SI are constantly working on and that work never stops on this aspect of the game.

Regards,

C.

Here is one post by Riz Remes regarding regens: http://www.community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=4027071&postcount=2

I think the regens in 09 were fine much better than in 08 so I see no major reason for much of a change really

It has been stated numerous times here on the forums that we've worked on improving this specific area of the game again. However since most of the work related to player progress/newgens is fairly low level adjusting of the factors that affect long term player progress and level of newgens and it's not really a media-sexy topic on which you can write up press releases.

Just because some area of the game is not hyped all over the place, does not mean it has been ignored

I hope for this, I knew it would be very boring for most non-FM addicts to read about improved newgens

I'd just like to ask specifically whether GKs are now produced to a better standard and if newgens are better produced for inactive leagues (cause in previous games only the active leagues would have reasonable newgens and therefore had the only decent national teams)

I found one Wonderkid in my long-term game at Fafe in Portugal (20 seasons), well I actually found 5, but only 1 willing to come to my club, he is playing on my left wing at 19 and is already one of the stars. I think the biggest long term playability problem is not the regens, but the fact that the big clubs play the superstars well into their mid to late 30s, this means they are not developing the youth players they have and then not selling them either, so it means the Youth for a few years just languish in reserve squads and do not improve enough.

I think there was no real problem with the Regens in FM09, the problem to me was a problem with the old foogies not getting tired quicker, it seems that their Physical attributes didn't drop off enough.

Thnks guys, sorry about the replies I posted thus far in this thread which were deliberately meant to be a little controversial in order to get what I was looking for which apart from the thread Fraz and a few others have mentioned I am satisfied with.

I understand Riz that there is a smaller group more interested in this area of the game and releasing media statement and bumming it up ain't going to work for the majority of the potential buyers out there. It has always been my main concern throughout the series which so far has been hit and miss but look forward to hopefully positive views and playabiliy regarding it this year.

Was really just looking for official owrd on this as it does not seem relevant ot the majority of player/posters for some reason. Hopefully it'll be a little closer to perfection this year even if not atall possible.

cheers guys:thup:

Sir Stu - I know over in the challenges forums where I generally hang out that a lot of us are greatly interested in long-term playability as unlike a lot of players who play 3-5 seasons then start again, we have games going on for decades staying at one team. I actually enjoy the game a lot more once the known players start to disappear, and I have to say I thought FM09 regens were an improvement on FM08, but of course they can always be worked on. I was just worried when I realised that Messi had played til his 41st birthday in my game before he retired from football, thought that was a little obscene, and when I looked around there were other cases. Thought other clubs trainings don't seem to produce stars, they like to steal from my reserves as I sell them and use these players, kinda weird, but the players play again once I let them go.

Thanks for this thread as I am always interested to hear about the long-term games.

I think there was no real problem with the Regens in FM09, the problem to me was a problem with the old foogies not getting tired quicker, it seems that their Physical attributes didn't drop off enough.

I agree, to a point. I think that their natural stats drop at a reasonably convinvcing rate save for one: natural fitness.

Giggs is still a great player, and he is proving to still have enough pace to play down the wings in a 4-4-2, and to beat his opposite man. He managed to hold off a couple of Bolton defenders in the corner on Saturday, so he's still got strength.

However, no one's expecting to get a full season out of Giggs (or Scholes); it's always iffy as to whether they can be played twice in the week and still perform: these are natural fitness issues, and natural fitness needs to have its own degenerative rate, I think, so that older players have to be gradually phased out with increasing rest periods, or injuries will give them enforced rest. Giggs won't play 50 games this season, but when he does play, he'll still be physically able - FM doesn't reflect this.

Of course I'm commmenting on 09, not FM10.

I agree, to a point. I think that their natural stats drop at a reasonably convinvcing rate save for one: natural fitness.

However, no one's expecting to get a full season out of Giggs (or Scholes); it's always iffy as to whether they can be played twice in the week and still perform: these are natural fitness issues,

I actually think you may have made the point better than I did I agree with you whole-heartedly.

If you guys wanna see how are the regens for fm10 just load the brazilian quickstart and wait until Jan 2nd.

I was disappointed to see that still there are way too many regens (almost all of them) coming with extremely low mental stats (i mean those that don't improve with time, like aggression etc), and i mean REALLY LOW, like 1-3 low. Can't you at least fix this? Those stats never change (if anything they get even worse as the time pass in the game) and there's nothing you can do about them when you have a good defender (or any other kind of player actually) but ridiculous bad at those attributes that are indeed important. I see no problems of you guys programing it so that those attributes will come higher than the others when regens show up at the game.

To summarise, regens are still very bad, but i can accept a little bit when let's say a fullback come with 8 for marking, because when that's the situation i can at least train him so when gets older he'll have like 12 for marking, but when he comes with 7 for aggression and 1 for bravery for example, he's screwed for the rest of his career and there's nothing you can do about it, nor training or tutoring will save him, unless you use a save game editor.

I agree, to a point. I think that their natural stats drop at a reasonably convinvcing rate save for one: natural fitness.

Giggs is still a great player, and he is proving to still have enough pace to play down the wings in a 4-4-2, and to beat his opposite man. He managed to hold off a couple of Bolton defenders in the corner on Saturday, so he's still got strength.

However, no one's expecting to get a full season out of Giggs (or Scholes); it's always iffy as to whether they can be played twice in the week and still perform: these are natural fitness issues, and natural fitness needs to have its own degenerative rate, I think, so that older players have to be gradually phased out with increasing rest periods, or injuries will give them enforced rest. Giggs won't play 50 games this season, but when he does play, he'll still be physically able - FM doesn't reflect this.

Of course I'm commmenting on 09, not FM10.

Got to say I agree with you I was away to post something similar.

I don't see any reason why mental attributes should decrease as a player gets older, I feel they should continue to increase as a player ages. To a lesser extent I also feel that techical attrbutes shouldn't fall as dramatically as they do.

IMO only physical attributes should decrease due to a players body deteriorating and not being able to cope at the highest level anymore.

Take Maldini as the perfect example. He played at the highest level till the age of 41(?), naturally as he aged he lost his pace and acceleration but this was compensated by an increased reading of the game, in game I would say this would relate to his positioning and anticipation attributes, meaning that he was able to know where the ball was going before it has even been played.

Like dekker2 has said Giggs and Scholes at Man. Utd. are other examples and i'd add Pippo Inzaghi to that list as he is still popping up with important goals for Milan. In FM none of these players even get a game which I think is highly unrealistic.

I don't see any reason why mental attributes should decrease as a player gets older, I feel they should continue to increase as a player ages. To a lesser extent I also feel that techical attrbutes shouldn't fall as dramatically as they do.

IMO only physical attributes should decrease due to a players body deteriorating and not being able to cope at the highest level anymore.

I do wonder if each attribute should have its own decay function.

Mentally, I can imagine that attributes like Aggression and Bravery might decrease for older players; that feeling of immortality which characterizes the teens and early twenties gives way to a more mature approach.

On the other hand, one's Anticipation of the game and Positioning might continue to increase even into one's forties. I've often heard retired baseball players say that one of the biggest ironies of the game is that, by the time the mind has really begun to understand the art of it, the body no longer has the ability to perform.

Technically, I could imagine Technique leveling off, neither improving nor decreasing .. but Flair might decay as one becomes less likely to try overhead kicks and other spectacular moves.

Physically, I would certainly imagine Injury Proneness increasing, with both Stamina and Natural Fitness decreasing. (In game, Stamina = rate of condition loss during a match, and Natural Fitness = rate of condition recovery between matches.)

On the other hand, though you often hear a player has "Lost a step", it isn't like Pace and Acceleration both peak at, say, 28, and then decline steadily thereafter. My observations are that its much more step-ladder like: a player with a 20 might come back from one offseason with a mere 14-15 ... but thereafter would probably never drop below a 10-12. (At least, not until well past retirement age.) A lithe speedster at age 40 may no longer be as quick as he once was, but is still likely to be faster than a lumbering hulk at age 24.

If you guys wanna see how are the regens for fm10 just load the brazilian quickstart and wait until Jan 2nd.

I was disappointed to see that still there are way too many regens (almost all of them) coming with extremely low mental stats (i mean those that don't improve with time, like aggression etc), and i mean REALLY LOW, like 1-3 low. Can't you at least fix this? Those stats never change (if anything they get even worse as the time pass in the game) and there's nothing you can do about them when you have a good defender (or any other kind of player actually) but ridiculous bad at those attributes that are indeed important. I see no problems of you guys programing it so that those attributes will come higher than the others when regens show up at the game.

To summarise, regens are still very bad, but i can accept a little bit when let's say a fullback come with 8 for marking, because when that's the situation i can at least train him so when gets older he'll have like 12 for marking, but when he comes with 7 for aggression and 1 for bravery for example, he's screwed for the rest of his career and there's nothing you can do about it, nor training or tutoring will save him, unless you use a save game editor.

Glad to see someone who notices this, 2 brazillian quick league starts just to see regens and the stats are shocking. The players who I think are good have terrible potential but the ones with terrible mental stats(Bravery) have 3 star potential.

Absolute disgrace, I believed you guys when you said it has been improved

I still don't get why people liked the regens in FM09.

DON'T YOU GET THAT THEY WERE UNREALISTIC ??? !!!

I saw 5 Messi's being produced every year.Really ? Since when did we start seeing A new Messi every year.

It's only potential - and of course if you didn't use 3rd party software I bet you wouldn't have noticed it in game.

These are really a series of questions for people at SI as I see they have replied to post in this thread.

Having played numerous versions of CM/FM since the first I have always found verisimilitude is lost after a few seasons and the game is an unsatisfying simulation after about nine seasons with all the top teams being full of thirty year-olds and all the best young players being those that were manually entered into the database.

Are the stats values created first and positions assigned based on the stats?

Are stats values created, a position assigned then the stats modified?

Do you use archetypes? e.g. generate a player as a ball winning midfielder and make sure all necessary attributes meet a minimum specification?

Have you done statistical analysis on the real players in an initial data base, e.g. what percentage of players have jumping of 15 or better, what percentage of these have strength of 15 or better what positions does these stats correlate to?

I ask because as others have said it’s common to find newgens who are undermined by key attributes being low. E.g. After a few season you might find a lot of defensive midfielders with low (sub 12) bravery but in the initial database I bet such players make up a tiny fraction of defensive midfielders and the majority of those will be deep playmakers whose skills lie in passing and building attacks.

jap, good thread..

thats really one of the major issues for longtime playability in fm10..

in patch 9.1 or 9.2 it looked just fine, but at patch 9.3 it was absolute horrible..

to much bad newgens.

at about 2025 there are just a handful of high class talents with PA about 176+

but everyone of it had worse attributes (key or not, mental, physical)

and that in every savegame i started.

there are a lot of old players, playing till 35 years and all the young talents

rest there carrier in the reserve teams.

and there is no change, i gave more than 100 teams a youth acadamy and set it up to 20.

still the same bad thing...

It's definitely an area we spend a lot of time looking at and tweaking to get right. It's unfortunately not just a case of saying 'all defenders should be good at x,y and z', because all players are slightly different. However forward steps have most certainly been made in regards to the Newgen system. Thanks.

Wohoo!

Agree with the poster - this has been a problem for years and why I haven't played a game past 5 seasons for a long time.

EDIT - After reading about the Brazil quickstart, I'm worried...

I agree with Amaroq, one thing I have thought is that in many cases defenders and midfielders etc should actually become somewhat stronger as they get older. Even strikers do it, once they start getting into their 30's. One of the more high profile examples recently is Beckham, he has over the last couple of years developed a bit more muscle and is better suited to playing more holding roles.

Dennis Bergkamp is another I can think of, he didn't lose his technique, but he became stronger to play deeper and feed others in. Many players do this as they get older, to compensate for that lack of pace. It's all things we can look forward to in the future I suppose, where things like this are refined.

It's very rare these days, but look at the likes of Sir Stanley Matthews, still playing for England at 44, playing in the top flight until 50 and played his last match age 63. At 50 he was still an excellent crosser and dribbler of the ball, able to beat his man. He didn't have pace, but he had technique. On FM, it would be entirely impossible for a player to keep on with the way stat decay currently works. In 20 years time you'll be able to give Beckham a ball and he will still be able to hit it well, Pele was at Stoke's ground a few years ago and he was given a ball and you could see that the instinct of a player is still there, in black polished shoes he could still hit a ball better than many of us on here could.

I'll let the community decide and I would like to hear a reply back from SI regarding this please. Let us commence, just ran two test sims and these are the VERY BEST players from each newgen crop.

Regens were amazing in 09, if they've been toned down in 10 i'm sticking with 09 (i'm a career gamer).. would be a "game breaker" for me

aweful mental stats

wow the newgens look as bad as 08. anticipation 1? some key stats are almost the lowest possible! hardly anyone would ever have "1" stats. especially in key areas, no matter how young :-(

This is depressing viewing, hope that its not representitive of regens

I thought newgens where fine in FM09 until the last patch. In saying that I only went to 2020 so I'll defer to more knowlegable players.

Hopefully, judging by the above posts, the Mental stats of newgens will be improved in the first patch.