Veteran players get crazy bonuses to technical and mental attributes

The general idea that as players age their technical and mental attributes rise, while their physical attributes decline is logical. However, I can't help but feel that it's been a touch overdone in FM10 - to put it mildly. Take a look at this bunch of nobody (apologies Iceland fans ) players from Iceland in their late 30s:

Gudmundur Benediktsson, age 37

Bjarki Gunnlauggsson, age 38

Hjortur Julis Hjartarson, age 37

Stefan Thordarson, age 37

Raymond Kvisvik, age 37 - apparently, he's better than Kaka

So, am I being unreasonable and should Raymond Kvisvik be playing for Real Madrid ? Or is it a bug? Discuss!

Wonder what Kvisvik was like in his prime!

You're right he could play for Real Madrid ..... for about 5 minutes and then would be on the floor out of breath.

Wow, they do look a bit crazy. Pace & acceleration are weighted extremely high for most positions, so them mostly having 1s for pace will free up a lot of points, but that still looks really daft.

Any idea what their respective CAs are?

Yes it seems to have been slightly overdone!

o.O lol if we only had players as skilled as this....

care to share where u got the Icelandic player photos and club logos?

If you can manage to play with the lowest tempo possible and players like that, you'll own. But in a top league? They'd die from a heartattack due to trying to keep up with a way too high tempo for them.

Your in 2012 in your save, im at 2010 and they actually seem to get better with time cause they aren't that good in my game:

Actually, by my quick calculation, your 37 yr old Kvisvik from the OP with the technical/mental stats on a par with Kaka probably doesn't have a CA of any more than 90. Bump his pace and acceleration up to 5 each, and his CA would go up by about 25pts. If he had Kaka's physical stats, he'd need a CA of pretty much 200

I guess it just shows you how heavily the physical stats are weighted in the game.

However.... the main problem here seems to be the way these guys have been rated in the original DB. My suspicion is that the responsible researchers have either over-rated their CAs, or seriously underplayed their physical stats compared to their CA, which results in their apparently excellent technical/mental stats. Their tech/mental stats have only gone up by about 1 point each, 2 max, from the way they actually start off. You shouldn't really have players of 100CA with physical stats of <5s across the board.

Bottom line is, this is a research issue, not really a coding one. It's seriously unlikely you'll get many regens looking like that at 37.

I agree with all the points made here. One observation though - compare Kvisvik in 2010 with him in 2012. His match stats and average rating have deteriorated, and by 2012 his performance on the field is barely mediocre. It suggests that a player with such awful physical attributes doesn't actually get much chance to use his technical ones.

It could be how the AI is managing them?

The CPU might be training their Technical Attributes more and neglecting the physical side. I'm not an expert on this matter, but I've read that training is all about distributing CA points (hope that's right), so maybe the CPU has just distributed their points in this way intentionally.

woody: I don't think it's down to training.

Kvisvik's CA has dropped by about 20 points between the way he starts the game and his 37 year-old picture.

However, his pace, acceleration and agility have gone down from roughly 7s to 1s. 6 points of agility, pace and acceleration for a winger = more than 20CA points. So those spare points have just been shared amongst the tech/mental attributes, by default.

Maybe their original stats haven't been toned down in the DB?

their mental and tech attributes increased, becouse phisical decreased becouse of age. and their CA didn't drop enough, that's why those attributes needed to go up (they had too good CA for those phisical attributes)

just shows how unstable CA and weighting system is...

CA does drop with age, but because of the weightings, when the key physical attributes drop, the net result is beyond the reduction of CA, so it's compensated by redistributing elsewhere. Riz has acknowledged it's not as it should be, so thumbs up to endtime for an excellent spot and let's await SI's tweaks for FM11. It's no gamebreaker. after all.

It is kind of true in real life, I really like signing old players. Their mental attributes as well as their experience are great additions to the team.

i like the way its done on this version. its very realistic. as older players lose their physical attributes they have to learn how to use their other attributes better. just look at beckham and giggs and sheringham.

please dont change this in a patch!

I think Golaxi might have a point there.

I think the "fine tuning" will make the more established stars on the world stage keep the same mental uptake in their old age, whilst the more mediocre players won't see such a drastic upturn in their footballing knowledge. That'd make sense to me.

Yes its fine that a veteran players mental attributes would continue to improve but technical attributes probably shouldn't.

Someone brought up Paul Scholes and Teddy Sheringham as examples but both those players were technically very strong in their late 20's and didn't show significant improvement, if any, into their 30's. It would be rather absurd if Scholes' tackling starting to rise as a 35 year old to compensate for his deteriorating physical stats.

Not really CPS - especially given that the tackling attribute is linked to the mental attributes. As he gets older, he'd learn to time his interventions and get into the relevant positions.

It wouldn't be a drastic increase, but there's no denying that technical ability does improve with age and that technique is closely linked to mental development.

exactly tubey, and you have to remember that attributes like tackling and dribbling are only really greatly effective if they have the physical attributes to match, which the older players don't.

I think for 2011 onwards; CA and PA values should be seperated into physical CA/PA, technical CA/PA and mental CA/PA so drop/raise in one section will not have to compansated by others.