Fixed Potential - Biggest problem of the game

Thanks for the new game, so far it is great.

I have one thing though that have always nagged me about the game, and it is the fixed potential which sets a limit for any player of how good they can get - like your are able to look into the future and know what is going to happen (which is not realistic).

Potential shouldnt be a fixed attribute. There shouldnt be a limit and a "correct" answer to how good a player can get, because as far as i know - noone really knows - you can only make a qualified guess which will depend on the factors you already know.

It should be something that is "calculated"/judged by the person (your scout etc), by looking at their current ability, mentality / ambition, injury proness and the likes, compared to other players of the same age.

As the player gets older and not develop as good / fast as other players of the same age his potentiale should decrease, if he develop faster than other players it should increase.

It is about a fair share of luck, taking the right descisions, getting enough playing time and experience, and the training enviroment (and of course your own mentality / ambitions) - a whole lot of different factors.

There is no precise and fixed / predictiable limit for anyone.

Noone can look at a player which is really poor, and then rate him as having a high potential, which seems possible in the game and also happens (i have seen young players in the game which doesnt seem really good but still someone have rated them with a high potential - it should be supported by something you know). If they have a high potential it should be because of their ability compared to their age and other players of the same age.

There is no reason that researchers should guess about the future of a player and limit the game and make it predictable. Instead they should make sure that it is reflected in the players current ability to support the potential they think a player have.

As far as i see it would make the game more realistic and unpredictable every time your start a new game and it develops as you would have to keep an eye on different players and keep scouting them to follow how they progress.

Right now it seems like you can just scout a player and if he have a high potential you know he can be great and you can just keep playing him until he reach his potentiale because you know 100% for sure that he got it.

You never doubt if he was just in a "lucky" periode when you scouted him.

I dont know what is happening in the code and behind the scenes (and if this is really taken into concern - but it doesnt seem like it).

Hope your understand my post the right way - i just hope the game can get even better and more realistic.

It is just my thoughts of how i think it should work.

1) Not all young players have a fixed PA - most of them are -10 or -9 which means each time you play they WILL be different (and vastly different in some cases)

2) Not all players will reach their potential - you can have a PA of 200, but being at a crap club with no first team oppertunties and not playing regularly until that player is 22/23 and they may never go higher than 160.

3) If you dont look at the editor or a scouting programme you will never know just how good a player is.

True say

I think that CA doesn't fluctuate enough. Ronaldinho's CA was lowered 20-30 points over just a couple of years. Things like that just don't happen in FM.

Plus, I know my potential is not 200. Its probably not even 20. If I miraculously got signed for a Prem team and trained with quality pros every day on good money with the best facilities, other than being considerably richer than I am now, I wouldn't improve much as a footballer. I'd always be a slightly agricultural "go on then, since no-one else plays there I will" centre back. I won't be going to South Africa, put it that way.

The only unrealistic part of it is the "being able to see into the future and soo how good a player will be" ie using genie scout, or fmrte or whatever the hell its called now. You cannot do that irl, and its a matter of judgement and luck.

I know what angle you are coming at, but I think that this system works well tbh. First team opportunities and training facilities are important. I've seen players develop differently, even if they have a fixed PA (ie Guardado, FM 09, didn't use him much as Liverpool, didn't develop well. Used him lots as Man Utd and Man City, and he developed well). And I don't know the PA of players I sign, and since I can't use genie scout on FM 2010, because there isn't one, I have no way of knowing if my signings will be good or not.

The only unrealistic part of it is the "being able to see into the future and soo how good a player will be" ie using genie scout, or fmrte or whatever the hell its called now. You cannot do that irl, and its a matter of judgement and luck.

This. Your scouts at your club can only offer their own opinion as to a player's potential - one which will not necessarily be accurate too often. So you do never know for sure.

I do agree that CA should fluctuate more over the course of a player's career though, particularly with personal problems or the like.

The only unrealistic part of it is the "being able to see into the future and soo how good a player will be" ie using genie scout, or fmrte or whatever the hell its called now. You cannot do that irl, and its a matter of judgement and luck.

Dont look...

CA doesnt have to fluctuate for the players onfield ability to go up and down.

EG - rio ferdinand is not playing well at the moment. His CA has NOT dropped - his current ability hasnt suddenly deserted him, he is just comming back from an injury and hes not playing as well as he can.

The game simulates that by a whole range of factors (moral, fitness, personal issues etc) all of which influence how well or badly he is playing.

Dont look...

I think that was the point he was trying to make to the OP...

CA doesnt have to fluctuate for the players onfield ability to go up and down.

EG - rio ferdinand is not playing well at the moment. His CA has NOT dropped - his current ability hasnt suddenly deserted him, he is just comming back from an injury and hes not playing as well as he can.

The game simulates that by a whole range of factors (moral, fitness, personal issues etc) all of which influence how well or badly he is playing.

Indeed, but examples like Ronaldinho as mentioned, Adriano, etc - the kind of situation where top players lose it a bit rarely seems to happen later on during the game.

Indeed, but examples like Ronaldinho as mentioned, Adriano, etc - the kind of situation where top players lose it a bit rarely seems to happen later on during the game.

Do they ever get it back?

You very rarely see a player 'lose it' for no obvious reason and then later recover and go on to be a great player. Ill give some examples:

Henry/adabayor - he started to 'lose' it in his last season with arsenal - the game would show this by making him 'unhappy at current club' - when he moved to barca/man city things picked up and hes now playing well again - their CA does not need to drop to show this.

Alan shearer/ Michael Owen (possibly) - both these players had serious injuries that made them miss entire seasons - when they came back their CA had possibly lowered a bit (they had both gotten older as well) but not massively - what had happened was they had to come back from a serious injury and get back into the game. The game doesnt show this as well as I would like - but I have seen massive drops in long term injured players stats which slowly picked up afterwards.

Anelka - he has massive 'personal' issues throughout parts of his career. His CA didnt need to drop during this period, he would have had the 'personal issues' tag and until he worked out those personal issues he wouldnt play as well.

I hope you understand what I mean - most players who 'lose it' never get it back - those who 'lose it' for reason often get back when that injury/issue/sulk has been resolved. CA doesnt ever have to randomly go up and down to represent any of this.

one maybe slightly off topic point is that yes the players potential stats are capped in the game but even a player with a low potential ability can be brilliant if his stats are high enough in the correct atributes and you train and coach him well in a formation that he fits into

1) Not all young players have a fixed PA - most of them are -10 or -9 which means each time you play they WILL be different (and vastly different in some cases)

2) Not all players will reach their potential - you can have a PA of 200, but being at a crap club with no first team oppertunties and not playing regularly until that player is 22/23 and they may never go higher than 160.

3) If you dont look at the editor or a scouting programme you will never know just how good a player is.

1) -10 and -9 corresponds to a range of numbers. A fixed potential within the range is calculated when you start a new game, and will stay the same during the whole game, even when he is 32 years old and still not great his potential is still the same. The way potential is judged is wrong. When you say a player have potential it is because he is good of his age and you think he can improve even further (which mostly is based on his approach to the game / training, his mentality and the likes). People dont tend to look at a 32 year old and say they got a high potential.

If you scout a player once the potential stays the same, it doesnt change during the game.

2) Of course not all players reach their potential.

3) If you scout a player you will know how good he can be for the rest of the game. It doesnt changes during the game like in the real world (potential cant be precisly judged it is a estimated guess based on the current performance). If you take a player like Freddy Adu, when he was 16 or soo he was superior to other players of the same age, therefor he was rated with a high potential, but as he grew older and didnt improve his game and suddenly wasnt better than other players of the same age he suddenly wasnt rated with a high potential anymore. In the game his potential would have stayed the same for the whole game.

His real age have been questioned - i know, but i think it proves that you base potential much on how good he is compared to his age and other players of the same age.

Many times young players are hailed as the new xxx and future world star, and then later new turns out to be anything more than average. This is possible in the game, but even though they perform very bad and they dont progress and the same speed as other players and suddenly isnt very good anymore compared to other players of the same age, they will still be scouted with a high potential even though in the real world they would never be rated with a high potential because they dont show any signs of it.

Plus, I know my potential is not 200. Its probably not even 20. If I miraculously got signed for a Prem team and trained with quality pros every day on good money with the best facilities, other than being considerably richer than I am now, I wouldn't improve much as a footballer. I'd always be a slightly agricultural "go on then, since no-one else plays there I will" centre back. I won't be going to South Africa, put it that way.

Yes and that is most likely also reflected in your current abillity and therfore people wont regard your potential as very high.

But if you had a lucky strike in 3 matches in a row, performing above your "normal/average" level some people would probably judge your potential differently and too high. That happens very often in the real world and also very often for the researchers - because they are told to guess about the future, instead of letting the game itself calculate a current potential based on the players current abillity and other facts you know (just like you would do in the real world when judging a player).

If some research have judged a player to have a high potential he is going to stick with that potential the rest of the game. It will never fluctate.

I know what angle you are coming at, but I think that this system works well tbh. First team opportunities and training facilities are important. I've seen players develop differently, even if they have a fixed PA (ie Guardado, FM 09, didn't use him much as Liverpool, didn't develop well. Used him lots as Man Utd and Man City, and he developed well). And I don't know the PA of players I sign, and since I can't use genie scout on FM 2010, because there isn't one, I have no way of knowing if my signings will be good or not.

You can use your scouts and your assitant manager to tell you the potential of a player, and it will stay the same during the whole game.

The potential is not judged based on his current abillity compared to other players of same age, his current form, personallity, performance in training and the likes - like you would do in the real world. But it is just based on your scouts abillity to precisly determine a fixed value describing how good a player can get. A player performing very bad and/or with a poor current ability compared to other players of the same age should never be rated with a high potential as he would never be rated that way in the real world.

Scouts in the real world cant judge a player just by looking at his face, they usually base their scouting on what they already know and what he is currently showing ...

On my phone so can't go into detail, but i don't think it's a huge problem because many players never reach their potential ability even with great youth/traning facilities, good coaches and first team chances, when a player with low potiential ability can be much better. For example, fm09, martin galvan had one of the highest potential abilities. I did everything right training him and he never came close too his peak. Sold to barca, never hit his peak. I had a player with lower p.a who consistantly played better. I think you're ignoring hidden attributes and having stats in the right places. So i never view potiental ability as a 'problem' or a limiting factor. I mean, it is based on personality, performance, form like the real world. A player whos a model professional with high determination will exceed a player who has greater potiental in the long run. I agree a player should gain more potential ability the more he plays, but to be honest it's not a problem for me as you can't base f.m on pa or ca as every player has different stats,different hidden attributes,different ppms, different positions,different personalities, different players around him, just like real life.

Maybe SIGames should just get rid of fixed potential, at least for young players, and have all players with a -10, -9, -8 PA, so that every game would be different!

I agree with the OP , in my (long) 07 game i have some 18 year old guys with CA 117 and PA 135 .. even if you add the physical improvement someone gets in the transition from child to man 18 points are simply not enough , not to mention mental abilities .....

it would be nice if they did what they have done with FM Live. have a set potential for the people with fixed potentials, but allow a +/- 10 or so fluctuation randomly in every new game. Obviously people like Messi/Ronaldo/etc are exceptions to the rule.

As far I know potential is not a fixed value, it is more like the max value. I guess most of the players in the game never reach their max potential.

If they remove it completely and player progress just relies on training and such then the "natural talent" concept will be ignored completely. most of the stars of today were already hinted when they were 15,16 and that hint is reflected a high PA in FM, there must be some value to indicate that, otherwise any lucky kid who is trained in a good team without any major issue can become a star and obviously this is not the case in real life.

I'm not saying the the entire CA, PA concept works like clock for FM but I can see and agree most of the reasons behind it. Personally if I was asked to change it; I would seperate them into smaller chunks and have mental, physical and technical attirubetus use individual CA and PA values because I do not see a direct dependecy among them.

This allready included in the game: don't use real players names. Every game is a mistery

It makes only sense that when you play with real names that you expect "real" values. Players of Real Madrid unable to pass a ball would be quite silly.

I have always thought that PA should not be fixed. It should fluctuate based on many different conditions.

Some players at 14-16 do not look like they will make it at the top level and are cast out. Some of these players go on to make it via a different academy/team. It is often the case that the scouts and training staff need to make a decision based on their growth rate and improvements over a set period of time but it is not 100% accurate. People make mistakes with judgement calls and FM should be no different.

If this was the case in FM we would all be on our toes, constantly looking for the next gem and re-evaluating players (essentially keeping an eye on someone that may improve suddenly or show signs of potential not seen previously).

Plus, I know my potential is not 200. Its probably not even 20. If I miraculously got signed for a Prem team and trained with quality pros every day on good money with the best facilities, other than being considerably richer than I am now, I wouldn't improve much as a footballer. I'd always be a slightly agricultural "go on then, since no-one else plays there I will" centre back. I won't be going to South Africa, put it that way.

Are you Jamie Carragher?

When you start a game, all players get a fixed PA

so e.g. you have a -10 player that gets 172 for PA in one game, and 199 in another game...

it is stupid

the development of a player should be based on HOW GOOD you train him and on HOW GOOD he plays...

when your rookie of 21 reaches his PA of 172, he can't get better anymore, because his PA is fixed...

I'd like players PA to be decided by their training and performance

a fixed pa stops player development from getting out of control, which is what it would do if pa was removed

I think some people are misunderstanding the original poster's point.

As I read it, he is saying in the real world it is impossible to "Judge Player Potential". So in FM, scouts / coaches should not have a JPP stat: they should be able to judge current ability, sure - but that's it.

There's no problem with the game setting potential ability behind the scenes, where we will never know it unless we use an editor.

But as managers, we shouldn't have any access to a "Judging Player Potential" stat within the game itself.

And I reckon I agree with him.

***

{edit}: Actually, I now realise that it's me reading what I wanted into the original post. Apologies. But I'd still like to abolish scouts being able to give you a read out on a youngster's potential.

A future game would do away with potential ability (possibly even current ability, simply going on pure attributes as computation can restrict this), but letting players develop (and regress) with the understanding that unless you are professional and good enough, you won't reach the top.

Had a player of mine who is in this position. Promising youngster but started a couple of years late in his development as he was released and struggled to find a club. I later discovered his PA was 174 but he only reached 151 as he was late to develop and wasn't the most professional of players.

So every player would have the potential to become the next Messi but the chances of that happening are negligible - you'd probably need to find a match-engine exploit for him to average 10.00 every match and he would have to suffer no injuries for that to happen - possible, but negligible.

I don't really get the issue, I had a regen who's potential was to be 'a leading premiership midfielder' and arguably one of the best of his generation. Now at the age of 23, he hasn't developed anything past a good premiership midfielder and whilst solid, isn't a world beater. So it's not as though its fixed so as players always reach their PA.

I think some people are misunderstanding the original poster's point.

As I read it, he is saying in the real world it is impossible to "Judge Player Potential". So in FM, scouts / coaches should not have a JPP stat: they should be able to judge current ability, sure - but that's it.

There's no problem with the game setting potential ability behind the scenes, where we will never know it unless we use an editor.

But as managers, we shouldn't have any access to a "Judging Player Potential" stat within the game itself.

And I reckon I agree with him.

You seem to be assuming they can judge PA with accuracy which isn't true, they're asessments are subject to error and a players development is subject to many different things including but not excluding who he plays for and where, injuries during his career etc.

The potential in PA is just that, many many players in FM never fulfill it.

OK.... I guess I'm struggling with the concept that a youngster can have rubbish stats now - but my scout with JPP of 20 says he could be really good, even though there is no sign of this in the player's current stats

In real life, I imagine all a scout can do is make a judgement of current ability. So he might say 'Player X has the ability of a decent Premiership player right now - which is pretty good going, as he's only 17 years old'.

But if his current stats are rubbish, I don't see how anyone can make the judgement that he is a potential future superstar.

Why does there need to be an upper limit or potential at all? You don't see Alex Ferguson say. Oh Wayne Rooney has hit his peak of

now, so the player can no longer improve. It defies human logic, we are naturally built to keep learning and keep improving throughout our lives, it's only our physical limits (age, fatigue etc) that put a limit on an ability.

In real life, players are rated on how good overall they are at a certain age. For example people don't say "Anderson is going to be a future world-class midfieler because he has a high PA", they say it because he has all the raw abilities needed (Passing, Creativity, Dribbling, Tackling, Aggression) and just needs to develop his mental game (consistency, decision making etc), but on the game I don't think it reflects that.

IMO the best way to have it, is every player has a set of stats at the start of each game (set by the researchers as it is currently 1-20 etc) and then, depending on the age of the player, the manager/club they are at, and most importantly the personality of the player and other factors the player progresses or declines at a rate calculated by people much cleverer than me, so that there is never a fixed figure, it is always variable.

As players get older, the rate of increase/decline goes down, where as a 17 year old can fluctuate a lot.

Obviously different attributes will improve at different rates (you will very rarely see a player suddenly get faster in real life, but from working with coaches they can learn to cross/shoot with better accuracy etc) EG as Ronaldo did at United.

The only problem I can see with this is it would need a lot of processing power (as every player in the game would have to be constantly rated over and over by the computer, and initial setup time to get it so that you don't end up with 500 Lionel Messi's in the youth team etc.

Attributes would also have to be split into different types. Born stats (EG Pace, Acceleration, Flair, Technique, Jumping, Strength and probably more I've missed which can only be marginally improved) and Improveable Stats (all the others).

My final point, is this way you would also have a lot more control over shaping a young player into what you want them to be through training. (Who would ever have thought that the same gangly unsightly Thierry Henry who played on the left wing for Arsenal for a season and was pretty awful, would turn into the player he did? This is almost impossible to replicate in FM, even with the best coaching team on the game.

This is basically the only thing I see wrong with FM, so don't take this as a moan please.

PA is the method chosen by SI as the reperesentation of the future maximum to which a player can develop. There is a phyasical and techincal limit to which any player can aspire to in real life too, and most young players are judged on their potential development. In game players attributes develop based on game time, manager interaction, level of competition (club is in), level of training facilities, and personality (not laid out in that order), but if a limiter wasn't put on it you could (if you were a Man Utd etc.) develop a whole youth team to all 20s by the time they were 23 thus making a mockery of the whole thing.

The manager has masses of control over how a player develops already in-game, he or she just has to know how to implement that control to the best effect.

Finally on scouting, a scout report is very subjective based on the scouts JPA/JPP stats, and how well the player has played in the scouted matches. Sometimes scouts can give you two massively different reports on the same player (it's the reason why I always re-scout recommended players). Please note that the star ratings are in comparison to your own team so a player can look very good on these if your own players in the same postition are weak, or look very weak if your players are strong.

I have no problem with PA it's a good system to limit the amount of development a player can achieve over the course of a career in game.

P.S. re Henry, watching him on the left wing for Arsenal I was thinking "what weed is Wenger smoking, that lad is a centre forward not a winger". You see I had caught glimpses of him playing for Juve the previous season, and for Monaco the 4 seasons before that. But then that is Arsenal's "youth development" programme, buy a player when he is ready for 1st team but still young and then pretend you had a big hand in developing him.

As regards players developing at different rates at different ages, and the development of physical stats the game simulates this already so that is covered.

CA and PA help SI in generating regens. CA is a weighted sum of the attributes which means Football Manager can generate regens they feel are of a certain level - it will be harder without CA. PA is similar - it is difficult to test all scenarios to ensure youngsters who deserve it will make it to become world-class scenarios so an artificial barrier is needed.

In the future faster processors will allow SI to remove these barriers.

The reason I think it's bad is because PA between versions of Football Manager is variable but season-to-season in-game it is not. The second-top scorer in my game's Under-20s league last season has a CA of 77 and PA 79 at 19. In reality the Parma researcher (the club he's at) would have seen this and bumped his CA, PA and reputation. In-game the poor lad will struggle to find a club at Serie C2 level in the future.

There's also the Didier Drogba problem. Not his diving. At Marseille, he would never have been rated as highly as he would have been today - but the problem is, the Marseille researcher would never have seen this although he always had that ability in him. Unfortunately we do not have this re-rating in-game. I'd like to have this but then it begs the question: Why bother with PA in that case?

The people who argue against limited potential and different potential for all players seem to want to wish away the reality that people absolutely do NOT have unlimited potential.

To remove limits on potential is to render all players identical. You can't say everyone should have the same potential without saying they should all be identical in every way, down to the molecule. To remove limits on potential is to argue that every human is stamped out of a mold in a factory and experiences the exact same life.

The first and most obvious factor this ignores is DNA. As basketball coaches say, "You can't teach height." The precise physical structures of our bodies define our athletic ability. Even those hard-working scrappy types who seem to make it on "the mental aspect" are still exceedingly good natural athletes in comparison to the general population. And what's more, "the mental aspect" is largely genetic, too.

PA also models the many aspects of ourselves and our lives that are beyond our control, beyond genetics. Maybe someone was sick as a baby and has some scar tissue in his lungs. Maybe he broke his leg and it healed a few millimeters short. Maybe he has a crazy wife and never gets enough sleep. Maybe a billion things that go into making everyone's life different.

This is, essentially, just another round in one of the oldest philosophical debates: are we born or made? Nature or nurture? Where does one stop and the other begin? Are they even separate things or are they just abstractions we use?

All the smart fellows with no jobs through history have tried to ponder this out. Nobody knows how to answer the question, really. To expect SI to solve this ancient riddle and model it in a game so that "potential" remains a mysteriously unknowable thing is an impossible request.

As someone who has played sim games since the olden days of hexes and dice, I've seen every way imaginable to try to model humans using numbers. We are trying to quantify what is (to our current knowledge) utterly unquantifiable.

I think SI's CA/PA system does as good a job as any I've ever seen. We all have limits, whether we understand them or reach them. The real-world effect is only destroyed if you make yourself omniscient and look. This omniscience is not possible in real life, but it has to be possible in a game. The game must be quantifiable and knowable in order to work.

Untrue. We do not have a physical limit in reality. We will simply never reach a certain limit, just as, for example, dividing a number by 2 again and again will never yield zero but will get pretty darn close.

We are not assigned PAs at birth or at any time restricting what we will never do. We will simply never do certain things - we don't need a "PA" to tell us this.

Removing limits does not make everyone equal. Making everyone the same makes everyone equal. Everyone starts off differently so everyone will develop differently - i.e. not equal.

When you get down to the molecular and physical values of things, you are considering the concept of a super-human - the best a human being can be. Assuming said limit exists, yes, this is the ultimate limit and for jumping for example will be highest aerial reach of everyone in this world. This limit is never constant as people always improve.

The whole point about abolishing CA/PA is that you cannot guarantee that Player X will become the next Messi, but you can pretty much say that X is highly unlikely to do so. A PA violates this in a way.

Abolishing PA would mean that all players could reach the level of Messi but SI could use statistical analysis to balance their game such that on average, a Messi only appears every 10 years or something. It certainly doesn't guarantee that every regen won't be a Messi but then again considering those scenarios means you may as well start buying lottery tickets are you are more likely to win it!

Personally, I dont see the issue with a fixed potential.

In the real life, everyone does have a 'fixed' potential - we dont know what that is, and we dont know when we reach that.

I dont see what the game does that doesnt replicate real life.

1) Players have a 'potential'

2) We dont know what that potential is (Without cheating)

3) Players dont always (ever?) reach their potential within the game

4) A good potential doesnt mean a good player (could have too wider spread stats - eg, heskey)

5) A bad potential doesnt mean a bad player (Very precise stats or his position - eg david healy)

6) Scouts often get it wrong

Having said that - I dont think ANY player under the age of 21/22/23 should have a fixed PA - I think all of them should have a range rating (like the -9/-10 - but a bigger range - eg -8 = 150-200/ -9 = 160-200/ -10 =170-200) I really dont know how anyone can look at theo walcott and say - your potential is fixed at XXX (go look it up, I dont want to fall foul of the 'dont post people stats brigade) - but its not even remotely where I think it should be.

If we do not know what our potential is, should we try and predict it and hard-code it in? Or should we know better and allow for anything to happen including extreme circumstances albeit with extremely low probabilities?

The problem is that the perceived PA of a player is never constant over any timeframe and therefore to code it in is questionable (see my Drogba example).

You only know your potential on your deathbed, as you will know your "peak". Until then you can always get better. In the game PA is placing this ceiling way before a player's deathbed so immediately removes the assumption they will get better - something possible between iterations of Football Manager but impossible in-game.

Whether potential is fixed or not - without cheating in the game there is no way of ACTUALLY knowing a players potential. Also, because some players have fixed potential and others dont - if you dont cheat, you dont even know from game to game who is going to be good. You would have to play 5+ long games before you could determine who had a fixed potential and who didnt, and thats a lot of replayability.

Also - late developers (drogba, arseshaving) ive seen this all the time in FM - normally a player who didnt get many first team games when they were younger and sold on, only to develop loads between 23-26 and become a world beater.

As for having to wait until you die.. how bleedin stupid are you being? Ill give a great example - ill chop your legs off - I know for a FACT that you were a better footballer before I did that.

There are a few flaws with the PA system. However, there needs to be a cap there. I can tell you now that Angus MacDonald and James Rowe will not be the next Ferdinand and Vidic. In fact, I bet Bobby Convey's left leg that they won't. They both have "caps", and those caps will be about the CA 100 area if they are very very lucky.

(None of you have heard of Rowe or MacDonald, have you? They're rubbish)

Theo Walcott will never be Maradona, he lacks the extra control and technique and he will never gain it. If he had the chance to be a CA 190 player, there'd be something wrong. CA 180, perhaps, if he's very lucky, and that's where I'd like x42bn6's ideas to come in- say he has a 5% chance of reaching 160CA at his peak, 10% chance of reaching 162, 30% chance of reaching 165, 20% chance of reaching 167, 10% chance of reaching 170, 7% chance of reaching 172, 6% chance of reaching 175, 4% chance of reaching 177, 3% chance of reaching 178, 2% chance of reaching 179 and a 1% chance of reaching 180, 181 and 182.

As for the Drogba example, you can get world class performances out of a player similar to the one Drogba was at Marsaille. The CA isn't necessary.

Whether potential is fixed or not - without cheating in the game there is no way of ACTUALLY knowing a players potential. Also, because some players have fixed potential and others dont - if you dont cheat, you dont even know from game to game who is going to be good. You would have to play 5+ long games before you could determine who had a fixed potential and who didnt, and thats a lot of replayability.

Knowing a player's potential is immaterial and not relevant. The idea that there is a potential at all is a problem, to me. I do not believe that it is worth trying to figure out with a crystal ball who will be good or not - simply to let circumstances decide.

Also - late developers (drogba, arseshaving) ive seen this all the time in FM - normally a player who didnt get many first team games when they were younger and sold on, only to develop loads between 23-26 and become a world beater.

That's not the point. The PA model is flawed for Drogba as he always had the possibility to become the world's best striker at Marseille - but was not given a PA good enough back then

As for having to wait until you die.. how bleedin stupid are you being? Ill give a great example - ill chop your legs off - I know for a FACT that you were a better footballer before I did that.

As CA and PA are weighted sums, disability could mean that I could pursue another activity and be good at it - and perhaps the weighting of the attributes of this activity means I was better than before!

You can't chop legs off in the game anyway.

But serious injury can also be worked into the game. A serious injury results in a temporary loss in CA which may never be recovered. At an early age a player loses all those "development points" at a young age but it is possible that the correct career moves and a bit of luck could see him recover and resume his development as if the injury had never happened. A serious injury could see a nippy winger, say, turned into an excellent defensive midfielder due to the fact he lost his pace and was forced to think more about his passing instead of running around like a headless chicken.

If there was no fixed potential, then by a accurately judging personality, you could make every player a Messi by tutoring because eventually if you caught them young their personality attributes would be very good, especially personality and then your team's youngsters could be all 'Messi's'. In reality you don't know potential and never will but in a game you have to fix potential otherwise the game becomes too easy and boring because any good youngster will become amazing if you tutor them in a system, thus making raising youngsters extremely easy and removes the fun side of it. The CA and PA means that a player that looks promising stat-wise doesn;t always become good, for example one of my regens looked very good for a 19 year old but upon arriving at my club he just remained promising and by the time he reached 22 he was pretty much the same. My only criticism of the current system is that the scouts are too accurate because a promising stat-wise youngster with a relatively low PA, will most of the time be shown to have a low PA rather than being shown to have a higher PA. The scouts should pay more attention to important stats so that a young player with very important stats can appeal more to a scout. Also scouts should say things like, player X seems to have boundless potential but we have caught him late or but has a poor personality and can be good at best but if trained well and with a bit of luck could be better than Messi for example.

There are a few flaws with the PA system. However, there needs to be a cap there. I can tell you now that Angus MacDonald and James Rowe will not be the next Ferdinand and Vidic. In fact, I bet Bobby Convey's left leg that they won't. They both have "caps", and those caps will be about the CA 100 area if they are very very lucky.

(None of you have heard of Rowe or MacDonald, have you? They're rubbish)

My argument is that in the future, computational power allowing, we won't need to say "PA 100" to ensure they won't become the next Ferdinand or Vidić. They simply will never be able to perform as well as possible to move to bigger teams and develop quick enough to do so.

Theo Walcott will never be Maradona, he lacks the extra control and technique and he will never gain it. If he had the chance to be a CA 190 player, there'd be something wrong. CA 180, perhaps, if he's very lucky, and that's where I'd like x42bn6's ideas to come in- say he has a 5% chance of reaching 160CA at his peak, 10% chance of reaching 162, 30% chance of reaching 165, 20% chance of reaching 167, 10% chance of reaching 170, 7% chance of reaching 172, 6% chance of reaching 175, 4% chance of reaching 177, 3% chance of reaching 178, 2% chance of reaching 179 and a 1% chance of reaching 180, 181 and 182.

As for the Drogba example, you can get world class performances out of a player similar to the one Drogba was at Marsaille. The CA isn't necessary.

With a model like mine, it's more like a 0.001% chance of reaching 190 and 0.0000000001% chance of reaching 200, the idea being that you are more likely to win the lottery than Walcott hitting CA 200.

Having a model like this will also allow players from rubbish leagues to get to the top through sheer grit (i.e. Jimmy Bullard). Rubbish CA and not great career prospects at a semi-professional side, but a lot of work and luck means he's a Premier League footballer today.

If there was no fixed potential, then by a accurately judging personality, you could make every player a Messi by tutoring because eventually if you caught them young their personality attributes would be very good, especially personality and then your team's youngsters could be all 'Messi's'. In reality you don't know potential and never will but in a game you have to fix potential otherwise the game becomes too easy and boring because any good youngster will become amazing if you tutor them in a system, thus making raising youngsters extremely easy and removes the fun side of it. The CA and PA means that a player that looks promising stat-wise doesn;t always become good, for example one of my regens looked very good for a 19 year old but upon arriving at my club he just remained promising and by the time he reached 22 he was pretty much the same. My only criticism of the current system is that the scouts are too accurate because a promising stat-wise youngster with a relatively low PA, will most of the time be shown to have a low PA rather than being shown to have a higher PA. The scouts should pay more attention to important stats so that a young player with very important stats can appeal more to a scout. Also scouts should say things like, player X seems to have boundless potential but we have caught him late or but has a poor personality and can be good at best but if trained well and with a bit of luck could be better than Messi for example.

Of course, SI will balance the game to ensure that this is very rare indeed, just as the odds of an amateur side beating Barcelona are very low indeed. Of course, SI cannot guarantee this amateur side will thrash Barcelona 10-0 but allows for it to happen with a stupidly low probability.

I think I see the flaw - and its not with the PA - its with the researchers.

You wouldnt have an issue with PA, IF the researchers had crystal balls and KNEW how good the players were going to be.

The problem is - you are swapping one 'error' for another.

On the one had, you are saying that it was wrong to under rate drogba years ago, but, at the same time, you want all players to have the possibility of being great.

You cant have both - you are complaining on the one had that one thing wasnt realistic (drogba having a low PA) whereas you are promoting the possibility that 100s of players could have 'random' PAs that turn out to be utterly off the mark.

How ever you work it out - you cant have utter randomness so there has to be some weighting going on (by leagues, by clubs? Player reputation?) infact, without total randomness (which utterly makes no sense because you could have world greats at conferance teams and donkeys in the premier league) you still wouldnt have gotten drogba with a good potential appart from in that 1% of games where the 'random' influence kicked in.

You can do this now if you want. Just replace all PA with ZERO. Good players wont get worse - their CA will prevent this - and then you have truely random potentials across the board.

MartinF-, very well said. At last someone had the bottle to criticise the senseless problems with CA/PA.

There is no 'potential'. It's a word we all use, describing a player's capability to become a world/continent/league/club star, but it doesn't exist in reality. What exists, is a limit to just some abilities. There are attributes, which may be changed unlimitedly (especially the technical ones). Some other are the matter of genetics - such as reflexes, natural strength, fitness, stamina, maximum speed, character/personality. I reckon, that the PA should only include the genetical attributes and have no influence upon the non-genetical skills. For example, if you are 18, you have strength on the level of (e.g.) 10. Then, you grow up (well, at least some of you;) ) and gain some muscles. At the age of 25, after years of training, you have 16 strength and can hardly get any further. That's limited by your genetical inheritance. The same goes with many mental attributes, which you may improve only partly.

If the SI had enough balls to destroy their PA system, then there would be no serious reason for keeping CA, about which I have no other concerns than you, guys.

I think I see the flaw - and its not with the PA - its with the researchers.

I have no qualms with the researchers except Nick who won't make Nani better than Ronaldo. I know they work hard and try their best and the database is generally good.

You wouldnt have an issue with PA, IF the researchers had crystal balls and KNEW how good the players were going to be.

Other than the fact that there's a logical fallacy here (crystal balls don't exist)...

To me, a player's PA will always be incorrect as it is impossible to say for sure what a player's PA is.

The problem is - you are swapping one 'error' for another.

On the one had, you are saying that it was wrong to under rate drogba years ago, but, at the same time, you want all players to have the possibility of being great.

I don't follow. I'm saying "it was wrong to under rate drogba years ago" but this wouldn't have happened if "all players to have the possibility of being great".

all players to have the possibility of being great.You cant have both - you are complaining on the one had that one thing wasnt realistic (drogba having a low PA) whereas you are promoting the possibility that 100s of players could have 'random' PAs that turn out to be utterly off the mark.

It is possible but improbable, like Ebbsfleet United 10-0 Barcelona (possible but highly unlikely). Let's just say a player has a 50% chance of getting PA 190-200 (obviously incorrect, but this is immaterial) - the probability of 100 players having PA 190-200 is 0.5 to the power of 100 which happens to be a very small number indeed. If I got this scenario I'd run off to buy lottery tickets - it's that unlikely.

all players to have the possibility of being great.How ever you work it out - you cant have utter randomness so there has to be some weighting going on (by leagues, by clubs? Player reputation?) infact, without total randomness (which utterly makes no sense because you could have world greats at conferance teams and donkeys in the premier league) you still wouldnt have gotten drogba with a good potential appart from in that 1% of games where the 'random' influence kicked in.

Which oddly enough corresponds to the low number of true world-class players in this world!

All mathematical models can be improved and this comes through advanced computation. It's not yet available today but in the future the PA barrier will be removed as it will be unnecessary thanks to better mathematical models, and the CA restriction will be removed too. It is inevitable because of probability.

all players to have the possibility of being great.You can do this now if you want. Just replace all PA with ZERO. Good players wont get worse - their CA will prevent this - and then you have truely random potentials across the board.

Wrong. Giving them 0 gives them a PA value. I'm advocating no PA value whatsoever, including a randomly-assigned one. No artificial ceilings but a pure stochastic simulation which through mathematical analysis may allow Joe Pathetic to become the next Messi but you'd need to replay the game a couple of billion times for this scenario to show up.

MartinF-, very well said. At last someone had the bottle to criticise the senseless problems with CA/PA.

[snip]

If the SI had enough balls to destroy their PA system, then there would be no serious reason for keeping CA, about which I have no other concerns than you, guys.

The CA and PA windows are purely computational things which help SI in developing the game. Two players with CA 100 should be roughly equivalent in terms of "value" as in if they melted down their "ability" into gold, they would be worth roughly the same. It saves them from having to compute a player's "ability" every time they do a calculation. PA stops them from having to run a mathematical simulation with billions of variables to predict how good a player will be when you ask for a scout report. It should be abolished but certainly not any time soon - our computers aren't good enough for that - yet.

The thing is, if you remove PA - what do you replace it with?

Replace it? I hear you cry - well yes - you HAVE to replace it with something.

1) Without something like it every player is random which is patently not real life accurate.

2) What do you replace it with?

-Do you go down the route that each starting skill increases by X% - too basic and it would be too predicable.

- Do you give each player a small percentage of being the next messi (0.0000001% as x42bn6 said). Hang on - thats just random PA - no different to the current system of regens.

- Do you weight it by club? So better clubs get players who develop faster - but what stops them all being world beaters?

Basically - There HAS to be a cap introduced when a player is 'created' by the game or else it just doesnt make any sense and everyone can be a great player in the right circumstances - which is rubbish - I cant kick a ball straight and no circumstance will ever change that.