Awful positioning in newgen DCs

I'm sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere already (it must have been, I consider this issue to be very important), but I couldn't find it via the search (well, first 3 pages of results showed nothing at least).

For the first time I made it into the year 2013 and while looking for a young centreback I realized that lots of really good young defenders have absolutely crappy positioning attributes

Patch 10.2 btw.

While the other defensive key attributes all seem fine (maybe jumping is too low for a DC in too many cases too), this one is regularly so bad that I stop considering a young player who is decent to great otherwise as a potential signing. This way I find myself ending up buying older DCs only as the real players way more often have more balanced key stats than the newgens.

I remember that positioning was flawed for newgen DMCs iirc, but this one I haven't seen mentioned yet. Maybe there too a connection between positioning and the DC position is missing like it was the cause of the DMC issue...

Am I the only one seeing this or have others spotted it already before (as expected but not found)?

Is there maybe even a statement that this will be fixed with 10.3?

I heard about this on 10.0/1 But not on 10.2, that must suck. All I get is bad jumping for CB Regens.

What counts as awful?

I can't say I've noticed positioning to be particularly poor for regen DCs. I'm in 2014 and have 6 in my squad, with the worst positioning being a 16 year old with 9, and the best being a 22 year old with 18.

I do seem to find that their influence is often very low though.

Some figures to mull over.

According to Genie Scout in my game which is in Sept 2013:

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position = 2712

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 15 or higher Positioning = 19 (0.7%)

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 10 or higher Positioning = 446 (16.5%)

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 5 or higher Positioning = 1885 (69.5%)

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position = 2004

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 15 or higher Positioning = 439 (21.9%)

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 10 or higher Positioning = 1765 (88%)

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 5 or higher Positioning = 1962 (97.9%)

Now obviously most of the regens will be young and the existing ones will be old, but this is a big difference.

Game was started using patch 10.2.

EDIT: Looking at age.

Players aged 23 and under with 15 or higher positioning:

Regen 19 of 2708

Non-regen 48 of 361

I heard about this on 10.0/1 But not on 10.2, that must suck. All I get is bad jumping for CB Regens.

This has happened to me with one or two very promising youngsters too.

Also, while managing in Wales, I found a very large number of flawed regens with very poor mental stats (e.g. off the ball, positioning). The players normally have to be moved on unless they are young and the potential is there for them to improve significantly.

By the way, for awful, I'm talking 5 or less.

What counts as awful?

I can't say I've noticed positioning to be particularly poor for regen DCs. I'm in 2014 and have 6 in my squad, with the worst positioning being a 16 year old with 9, and the best being a 22 year old with 18.

I do seem to find that their influence is often very low though.

Awful to me means very unlikely to improve beyond 10 for a ~140 PA player. Just not good enough to play on that level as it singlehandedly makes his other skills close to worthless.

The guys I looked at were between 18 and 20 years old and had defensive key stats (tackling, marking, jumping, pace, heading) between 12 and 16 and a positioning between 6 and 8. This was EVERY centreback newgen which was otherwise good enough to join me. I didn't check their PA but it must be around 140 (leading second div Germany to good first div Germany potential).

The positioning stats was always remarkably low, along with crossing or others which you don't expect to be high for a DC, and just didn't look like the game 'realizes' it as a key attribute for a DC. In a few cases also jumping was very low (like 3 to 5 even), but usually positioning was the one stat which was significantly lower than the other key stats, which leads me to thinking that something must be wrong here.

Some figures to mull over.

According to Genie Scout in my game which is in Sept 2013:

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position = 2712

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 15 or higher Positioning = 19 (0.7%)

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 10 or higher Positioning = 446 (16.5%)

Regen Players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 5 or higher Positioning = 1885 (69.5%)

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position = 2004

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 15 or higher Positioning = 439 (21.9%)

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 10 or higher Positioning = 1765 (88%)

None Regen players classed as able to play in Central Defensive position WITH 5 or higher Positioning = 1962 (97.9%)

Now obviously most of the regens will be young and the existing ones will be old, but this is a big difference.

Game was started using patch 10.2.

EDIT: Looking at age.

Players aged 23 and under with 15 or higher positioning:

Regen 19 of 2708

Non-regen 48 of 361

These stats are very remarkable, yet sad

Tbf some of this is indeed caused by the age issue as all the 14 to 16 year olds count towards that statistics too, yet no one expects them to be good enough to play yet.

That can however not be said anymore about guys aged 18 to 20.

Now we can argue that in fact the research is a bit flawed too as probably most defenders will be assigned with at least decent key stats, resulting in much more balanced values for non-newgen players which might be as unrealistic as the newgens values...

Still, if that one attribute keeps on being lower than the others, then I figure that something must be wrong here. Even if this attributes may improve with age more than others, most newgens don't look like it could ever reach the other key attributes.

@ Crouchy: As I said, I also noticed jumping a few times, but not as much as positioning. For wingers and strikers, OTB indeed seems to be the attribute which is the lowest key one very often.

This problem totally ruins long terms games. It is just makes the game not nearly as enjoyable.

There are very few DC that can jump.

There are very few DC with any sense of positioning.

There are very few DM that can mark anyone.

It is just really dumb. SI you make a game that is intended to be a long-term simulation, but yet your game has serious issues with as the years move on. How many years is going to take you fix this issue?

Can't say I've noticed this problem on my 10.2 game but those figures are pretty disappointing.

Can I put forward another argument into the "poor regen" debate?

Are too many current players are overrated perhaps?

I don't think so. If SI's view of world football is how the game starts, that's what they should be trying to simulate IMO. That means similar talents available consistently.

Not quite what I mean, but I'm trying to suggest perhaps even if the number of regen players with certain key stats at a world class level if too low, perhaps the number of players with similar at the start (ie. the base figure) is too high?

I mean, are there really 400+ players in the world with world class positional ability playing at centre back? I'd have my doubts tbh.

I mean, are there really 400+ players in the world with world class positional ability playing at centre back? I'd have my doubts tbh.

I get what you're saying and the view of SI (or the researcher, at least) is obviously that there is. If that's the case, shouldn't we see a consistent amount of regens up to this standard?

We should indeed (or similar, as obviously there'll be spells when there are more great players than at others, and a greater number in certain positions etc..), but I'm not sure SI can know what level they should be trying to achieve if the figures they need to be basing it on are potentially flawed.

Haven't worded that brilliantly. :o

I'm sorry, but you can't compare players who have only had between 0-5 years to develop against a survey of players who will have reached their peak. Young players start off with low mental attributes in comparison to technical attributes, and that's not something we will change because we believe it to be correct.

Positioning for DC's has been tweaked for a future patch though, and is now more inline with the starting DB.

Can I put forward another argument into the "poor regen" debate?

Are too many current players are overrated perhaps?

As I said, the research may be flawed here too. Maxbe many real players get decent key attributes although they actually don't deserve them, thereby making the gap even bigger.

Still, if once in a while some defenders have positioning as their lowest key stat then that's perfectly fine, but what I see is that most of them (even all in the sample size of around 20 when I scouted last night) are so bad in that respect that their positioning will always remain their lowest key stat.

I'm sorry, but you can't compare players who have only had between 0-5 years to develop against a survey of players who will have reached their peak. Young players start off with low mental attributes in comparison to technical attributes, and that's not something we will change because we believe it to be correct.

Positioning for DC's has been tweaked for a future patch though, and is now more inline with the starting DB.

Great to hear and exactly how it should be as long as their positioning will rise to realistic levels later on

KUTGW

I'm sorry, but you can't compare players who have only had between 0-5 years to develop against a survey of players who will have reached their peak. Young players start off with low mental attributes in comparison to technical attributes, and that's not something we will change because we believe it to be correct.

Positioning for DC's has been tweaked for a future patch though, and is now more inline with the starting DB.

Why the need for changing the positioning stat if it should increase anyway? I dont understand that.

Also to the person who ran the tests to get the initial figures, perhaps it would be possible to holiday your save for a number of years so that comparisons could be made when both sets of players are at their peak?

I'm sorry, but you can't compare players who have only had between 0-5 years to develop against a survey of players who will have reached their peak. Young players start off with low mental attributes in comparison to technical attributes, and that's not something we will change because we believe it to be correct.

Positioning for DC's has been tweaked for a future patch though, and is now more inline with the starting DB.

I completely agree with you, I can NOT compare the regen players with the original players as the age difference will make a huge difference, as well as the fact that a great number of these regens will be so poor that they are not even at a club.

A fairer way to compare the stat would of been to have took a snap shot at the start of a game and do the same ever year to see if the stat slowly decreases over time as more regens are added and more existing players retire.

I don't play the game enough to warrant doing this and don't see a huge problem if it does decrease over time, as every team will be in the same boat.

the problem would be that as defenders grew less suited to their position (low positioning seeing them out of position more and low jumping making them terrible in the air) the match engine would be warped as a consequence - strikers would find it easier to get chances, as defences would be easily split open and defenders would be unable to compete for crosses properly

having played through several seasons under the latest patch, their appears to be a bit of a problem with positioning, and a huge problem with jumping. the top regens in the world are lacking in key areas, and these are players who should be at or close to their peak, not still-improving youngsters

Maybe it's just as well I never play past the 5th or 6th season.

Here are some numbers to consider for those who don't believe that key attributes for regens are completely screwed in this game.

I am playing Dafuge's challenge, and my save is in 2023. I started a test database using the exact same setup and use FM Genie Scout to compare how many players exist with good attributes in what is typically must-have skills for their position.

DEFENSIVE MIDS

Max Age 30

Marking, Tackling, Positioning, Work Rate, Stamina, and Strength all equal to or better than 15.

In the starting database = 48 players

In the database year 2023 = 24 players

Central Defenders

Max Age 30

Marking, Tackling, Positioning, Heading, Jumping, and Strength all equal to or better than 15.

In the starting database = 40 players

In the database year 2023 = 12 Players

I would consider players with those ratings to be very good premiership type players.

In my save, there is 1/2 the amount of "very good" defensive midfielders, and 1/4 the amount of "very good" defenders compared to when the game starts. As the game progresses on you will see that the players your scouts start recommending are very odd looking for their position. For example you will see 4 star DM with less than 5 marking, but pace of 17? It just doesn't make sense.

Trust me I have looked for hours for players with better ratings until I finally clued into the fact that they just don't exist. Currently I am in the championship and the highest marking attribute for any of my central midfielders is 10.

For me it is ruining the game, because I have been training by SI over the years to look for good players with specific attributes. It's in your manuals and it is how I learned to play this game. But now....when I look for a good player in a position with the typical attributes I get nothing. It totally ruins long term games.

Tbh, the stats in regens are truly awful as you go along. My game is almost dead with the lack of talented regens - there are hardly any regen that are up to the standard of Ronaldo, Messi, Aguero etc.

two faults that i have noticed is

a) jumping attribute never increases.( promising DC regens i have bought at 15-16 have all their important attributes go up as they get to their 20s yet their jumping is the same as when they were 15-16....using default training.)

b) so i tried to change their training...put their set-piece learning to zero and the aerobic one higher,,,but guess what attributes go up all the time...long thorws and corners.

I've seen plenty of newgen DCs that lack the jumping to ever be effective, but have all the requirements to be among the best in other categories. So I retrain them as fullbacks and they do very well. Keep in mind that physical stats do not change very much so when looking for newgens know that.

so i tried to change their training...put their set-piece learning to zero and the aerobic one higher,,,but guess what attributes go up all the time...long thorws and corners.

That basically identifies another problem - you don't have much control over which attributes you wish / do not wish to improve on.

Say you have a defender who's decent in almost every attribute except tackling. In that scenario, you might go to your defensive coach and tell him 'Work on the lad's tackling. That's the priority.' So defending notches up to max, tactics notches down in training. Yet a couple of months later, the player comes back with no improvement in tackling, some in marking, and more in off-the-ball...

Or you could have a case where positioning gains = off-the-ball gains in a striker. Why would I want my striker to improve on positioning? Put all those points in off-the ball movement! The system needs to recognise that.

'Selective' attribute training is to a large extent, not within our control. There is no way where you can tell a player to improve a specific attribute in training.

In my save, there is 1/2 the amount of "very good" defensive midfielders, and 1/4 the amount of "very good" defenders compared to when the game starts. As the game progresses on you will see that the players your scouts start recommending are very odd looking for their position. For example you will see 4 star DM with less than 5 marking, but pace of 17? It just doesn't make sense.

Trust me I have looked for hours for players with better ratings until I finally clued into the fact that they just don't exist. Currently I am in the championship and the highest marking attribute for any of my central midfielders is 10.

I've seen plenty of newgen DCs that lack the jumping to ever be effective, but have all the requirements to be among the best in other categories. So I retrain them as fullbacks and they do very well. Keep in mind that physical stats do not change very much so when looking for newgens know that.

Again, this is exactly the issue which I wanted to point at and I'm amazed that this has not been a bigger topic before.

While the overall spread of CA and PA seems to be right, the allocation of attributes remains flawed.

Just too many good players are lacking so much in a key area that they cannot be considered good enough, like what's the use of a 150 CA defender if he has 4 in Jumping or 6 in Positioning? He'll still be okay of course for a side where you would expect a 130 CA defender, but not in the d-libne of a team where you (and he) would expect him to play.

edit: Thus I'm looking forward to see how this is improved with the patch.

Newgens are definitely broken but I have confidence that SI will sort it out with the next patch.