Can someone please explain what people mean by "He is a -9?" etc

I see it all the time on the forums, I know its something to do with potential and current ability, but can someone PLEASE explain it to me in black and white. Thanks

For older players researchers give players a fixed CA & PA between 1 & 200.

For younger players its more difficult to give an absolute PA as we don't know exactly how good they'll be so they are given a negative number. When you start a save the game will turn these numbers into a fixed PA within a given range.

So a player with -10 PA will receive a fixed PA between 170 & 200 when a save is started

-9 = 150-180

-8 = 130-160

-7 = 110-140

etc

etc

In addition a you can also set a PA of 0 which will give a random PA between 1 & 200.

Players who have a negative PA number in the database are assigned a random PA (Potential Ability) between two values (determined by the number) at the start of a game. Therefore these players do not have a fixed PA (as in, fixed in the database - but the PA that is assigned to them at the start of the game is then fixed for the duration of that game).

I think -9 is the highest so equates to a PA of 180-200 or something like that. There must be a list somewhere on here of exactly what range each number corresponds to, but that is the general idea behind them.

I always thought a 0 PA gave a random PA with range -10 to 20. Therefore potentially a zero rating could mean 200, however that requires first the 1/30 chance that it would be -10, and then a further 1 in 30 chance of it being 200 from the 170-200 range. Which theorically means that a zero PA could give anything, however the strong likelihood is that it will be 1-20.

I am pretty sure having a PA of 0 mean a random PA between 1 and 200 the minus PA's do not come into it.