Potential ability rating reduces after signing pro contract, Irritating!

I sign a 3 star youngster, for him to turn 2.5 star upon signing a pro contract. Makes me lose all desire in nurturing him into a real player. This also happens in FM2009.

It's like the game has played a trick on me. Has that player's potential reduced? Was it exaggerated before turning pro? Why does this consistently happen? Is it only temporary and will he become a 3 star "good player"?

The reverse happens if you win competitions at the end of the season, everyone's rating balloons up, but why? Surely your staff are measuring the players at close quarters in training and not based on the competitions they have won.

I like the star system since it was introduced, but the behaviour I've described above makes me think I can't trust the ratings, which is making me frustrated!

i agree with your first thing and it is highly annoying and unrealistic. in the game though players get ca or pa boosts if they win a competition is what i heard

You might not have scouted him for long enough, or your scouts suck.

um i think youll find its for players already at his club and hes talking about staff reports not scout reports

The player's potential has not reduced.

Reputation affects the stars iirc.

The player's potential has not reduced.

Reputation affects the stars iirc.

I hope that this is incorrect, a player's reputation and a player's ability should be separate. This would make the star ratings a much less useful tool. I don't care what a player's reputation is, just tell me if he is a good player or not!

A player's PA does not reduce in the game, what has happened is that either your scouts have an different JPA/JPP stats from your assistant manager (usually higher), and the rating has changed because of that, or your scout only saw him once (this is the case when the scout comes back to you with reports from their assignment) and has not seen the player properly. I would suggest that you either scout your targets more thoroughly (at least 2 scouts 3 match reports), sack your scouts and get better ones (if their JAP/JPP stats are low, over 13 for each at the very least if you are a top club), or get a coach or ass man with good scouting attributes.

Most of scouts have good JPA/JPP and I'm Europe/Top Prem quality for a few seasons and I have to say, the star ratig is partially based on club abilty. Certainly player signing ability is based upon club stature. Only SI can tell us if I'm correct, but, certain staff assessments take into account club stature, hence, star young players join your much bigger club and their PA/CA diminishes. I've seen this for a couple of years, although, I've also seen the opposite which makes me assume that either a)the game takes into assumption human error) or that b) however you want the opposite, some players never progresss to the level you assume, damn it!

As Golaxi helped clarify earlier, I'm referring to "staff reports". The pre-17 year old player plays for the U18s and maintains a 3 star PA rating for months/years in the "reports" tab, upon receiving the news item that they have signed professional terms as agreed, their PA rating drops to 2.5! The potential description changes from "potential to be better than Almunia" to "potential to play at a similar level to Almunia". Why should the act of signing a contract have this effect on a player's reported potential? The key seems to be when they turn 17 and sign the contract.

All my staff regarded the player as 3 stars before signing the pro contract, they all change their opinion to 2.5 stars after signing. I'm at Arsenal, I believe Pat Rice is one of the best Assistant managers in the game.

As I say, this happens without fail when I deal with youngsters turning pro. So it feels like a bug or just a cruel trick when it happens. You think you've signed a potential first teamer, but suddenly you are told that they are destined to be just a "fairly good" player. What a load of rubbish!

I'm beginning to think the stars don't mean a thing. There is a certain player with a PA of -10 and the most I have ever seen for him in terms of PA or recommendation is 3 stars. That's in the second season and I'm pretty sure in the first season it never went over 2.5 stars. In some ways it is counter productive as basically there's no reason you would think this player would become good unless you've read a spoilers thread, checked his stats in the editor or played the game for 10 season before. Even in the latter case you might not have known anyway.

As Golaxi helped clarify earlier, I'm referring to "staff reports". The pre-17 year old player plays for the U18s and maintains a 3 star PA rating for months/years in the "reports" tab, upon receiving the news item that they have signed professional terms as agreed, their PA rating drops to 2.5! The potential description changes from "potential to be better than Almunia" to "potential to play at a similar level to Almunia". Why should the act of signing a contract have this effect on a player's reported potential? The key seems to be when they turn 17 and sign the contract.

All my staff regarded the player as 3 stars before signing the pro contract, they all change their opinion to 2.5 stars after signing. I'm at Arsenal, I believe Pat Rice is one of the best Assistant managers in the game.

As I say, this happens without fail when I deal with youngsters turning pro. So it feels like a bug or just a cruel trick when it happens. You think you've signed a potential first teamer, but suddenly you are told that they are destined to be just a "fairly good" player. What a load of rubbish!

i think what is more than the proffesional contract may be the changing of age of a player as i have noticed the game changes it based on that. the game fails to recognize the players date of birth, it will only recognize his age in years.

the staff wont recognize 363 days worth of development time over 2 days of development time till his age moves up a year. they rate his potential on how old the player is in years but fail to take into account his birth date or any amount of days. it can be very misleading as predictions suddenly JUMP as soon as the player hits a birthday milestone.

no doubt some mons will still try and defend this miscalculation

Just like to point out something it could be, If your talking about the coach reports within the player's profile rather than assistant reports.

When a player is on a youth contract he is, rather obviously, looked after by the youth coaches, however when he signs a pro contract it becomes the senior coaches responsibillity.

It could be that a youth coach was the one conducting the coach report, and when the player signed a pro contract a senior coach would then be the one conducting the coach reports, said coach's Potential Judging abillity maybe better or worse than the youth coach, thereby explain the variation when a player signs a pro contract.

No, the same coaches that gave the 3 star rating before the player turned 17/signed pro contract are now giving a 2.5 star rating. I don't have any youth coaches, I try to have just standard coaches. I only have one 1st team coach (Primorac) who refuses to take the standard coaching role.

I'm a little surprised nobody else has had this problem. Try signing a talented 16 year old, I'm certain his staff report PA rating will drop when he signs the pro contract.

I'd go as far as to call this a bug, it's irrational behaviour on the part of the game engine.

I think CA also plays a part here. Let's say you have player with a PA of 180 and a CA of 130 at the age of 22. Based on his PA, you would expect great recommendations like 3,5 or 4 stars (or even higher if you're not a top team). But given his age he'll only be able to develop into a not so fantastic player, more a 160 CA player at his best. I think the game recognizes this and therefore your coaches give him a lower recommendation. If this same player had CA 130 at 18 and then closer to 165-170 at 22, his recommendation would be much higher. CA fluctuations can cause coach reports to be off at times. It's often on a player's birthday that this happens, because his CA at that point is the same as it was earlier but he's a year older. Given some time, it's likely that his CA will continue to rise and at some point he might get that higher star rating back. So tutoring and developing the player is extremely important at this point!

I reckon the game deliberately throws us a curve ball! If every player achieved PA then all of us *cheaters* would be at a massive advantage, instead, I think player development is quite complicated and that a very complicated series of events needs to occur in order for a player to reach their PA. More over, I think this complication has affected even SI as many people have noted that regens regularly fail to reach levels achieved by start-game players (hence, a lot of over-aged players compared to real-life).

I'm 8 seasons into FM09 and have noticed, in this particular game, that it almost seems random which players will 'make-it' and which players won't. I see this as a positive, and realistic, although their has to be some game mechanic, it cant be random, that we havent worked out yet. I've tried work rate, ambition and professionalism as course of a regular game and can't make head nor

tail of it!!

Could be that the pro-contract rates them against first team? And youth contract rates them against youth team?

i think what is more than the proffesional contract may be the changing of age of a player as i have noticed the game changes it based on that. the game fails to recognize the players date of birth, it will only recognize his age in years.

the staff wont recognize 363 days worth of development time over 2 days of development time till his age moves up a year. they rate his potential on how old the player is in years but fail to take into account his birth date or any amount of days. it can be very misleading as predictions suddenly JUMP as soon as the player hits a birthday milestone.

no doubt some mons will still try and defend this miscalculation

I am pretty sure that this is the reason why this happens. The rating changes regardless of signing a new contract or remaining on a youth contract.