What's the point of hiding certain Attributes?

Is there really any sensible justification for making certain attributes hidden? Is a player's Dirtiness really that much more difficult to determine than their Composure or Determination? Is a player's really Consistency any less obvious than their Influence or Creativity?

I could understand hiding all Mental attributes, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just hide a few of them, especially since the wildly inconsistent hidden stats of regens make squad-building in the long-term game such a crapshoot.

i dont know but you can disable it when you start a new game

Is there really any sensible justification for making certain attributes hidden? Is a player's Dirtiness really that much more difficult to determine than their Composure or Determination? Is a player's really Consistency any less obvious than their Influence or Creativity?

I could understand hiding all Mental attributes, but it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to just hide a few of them, especially since the wildly inconsistent hidden stats of regens make squad-building in the long-term game such a crapshoot.

Only if you don't put the effort in.

I can see the argument for making all the attributes visible, but I actually quite like the unknown ones that give me a bit of unpredictability in my players.

Only if you don't put the effort in.

Spare me the fanboy apologetics unless you can control your emotions long enough to respond to my actual argument. While it's certainly possible to determine if a player is a total psychopath based on Personality description and Scout Reports, minute differences in stats like Consistency are a big deal, and I don't see the reasoning for why some mental attributes are always hidden while others are definitively quantified by a single scouting report.

I can see the argument for making all the attributes visible, but I actually quite like the unknown ones that give me a bit of unpredictability in my players.

But is there a justification for it other than taste. I don't like using third-party utilities (as I do like ambiguity regarding Potential Ability), but I would like the option to make all mental attributes visible.

I can see the argument for making all the attributes visible, but I actually quite like the unknown ones that give me a bit of unpredictability in my players.

I agree.

I would like a bit more detail on my player's personalities through coach reports though.

Spare me the fanboy apologetics. Yes, it's possible to determine if a player is a total psychopath based on Personality description and Scout Reports, but especially in high level competitions, the difference between Consistency 9 and Consistency 14 is the difference between a team that loses every other match and a team that dominates the league. This wouldn't be as big a deal if hidden attributes for regens were linked to overall skill as consistently as they for real players in the starting database.

Grow up FFS

As you have pointed out personality, media handling & scout reports all give indications of hidden attributes. You can also view a player's injury history as well as his form. Aside from that looking back at a player's recent matches can also indicate how consistent he is.

If you don't want to put the effort in when looking at potential signing you only have yourself to blame.

If might surprise you to know that some of us actually like not having all the answers pushed in our faces and enjoy figuring it out for ourselves.

I always assumed, and I could be wrong, that these sort of attributes make up essentailly the personality of a player, and as they are not trainable this is why they are hidden.

I always assumed, and I could be wrong, that these sort of attributes make up essentailly the personality of a player, and as they are not trainable this is why they are hidden.

But again, why is the essential personality of a player less obvious than the incidental aspects of their personality? Wouldn't the specifics of a player's core personality be even more obvious to his manager?

you only have yourself to blame.

Yes, I'm aware of how snotty fanboys perceive anything that might be construed as mildly critical of the game, but I'm not looking to cast "blame," I'm looking for a rational justification for a specific game design decision. If you can't discuss game design decisions without acting like a flagellant discussing scripture, just refrain from commenting.

Anyway, all the things you list can, at best, only give a vague sense of a player's hidden attributes and, even then, there would be no way to tell the difference between a prospect playing for a great team whose manager is good at managing morale and a prospect playing for a mediocre team with a mediocre manager... though other aspects of their personality will somehow be readily obvious even if their performance is largely a reflection of their teammates' assistance and their manager's morale handling.

But again, why is the essential personality of a player less obvious than the incidental aspects of their personality? Wouldn't the specifics of a player's core personality be even more obvious to his manager?

Yes, I'm aware of how snotty fanboys perceive anything that might be construed as mildly critical of the game, but I'm not looking to cast "blame," I'm looking for a rational justification for a specific game design decision. If you can't discuss game design decisions without acting like a flagellant discussing scripture, just refrain from commenting.

Anyway, all the things you list can, at best, only give a vague sense of a player's hidden attributes and, even then, there would be no way to tell the difference between a prospect playing for a great team whose manager is good at managing morale and a prospect playing for a mediocre team with a mediocre manager... though other aspects of their personality will somehow be readily obvious even if their performance is largely a reflection of their teammates' assistance and their manager's morale handling.

Welcome to ignore

I would be interested to know from SI why some attributes are hidden and others are not.

Ego Scriptor, you're not coming across very well. If I were you, I would try to stick to the issue rather than attacking a fellow user.

To use a football metaphor, play the ball and not the man. People will respect you for it and your points of view or arguments will come across in a much better and more valid way.

Just a friendly word of advice from a fellow forum user.

Bad tempered little thread this, stop the insults or it'll get closed.

I've always understood the hiddens are those you'd need time with a player to discover with any degree of certainty, if true the reasoning is obvious.

I've always understood the hiddens are those you'd need time with a player to discover with any degree of certainty, if true the reasoning is obvious.

I agree with this.

Some things, like an ability to handle pressure or turn up for the big matches, or a player's consistency etc., would be things you would only find out after a period of time working with a player in training and watching him perform on the pitch. They would also be things that you wouldn't know for sure, as in a definable attribute, but instead they would be conclusions that you had reached yourself in different footballing scenarios.

As Dafuge said above, it's more interesting to have the unknown factor with some players. It gives you the chance to manage them, to find out what they are like, and then to make real footballing decisions about their future in your team.

I thought the hiddens were to do with player personality as someone mentioned up thread. If this is the case there is a clue to these in the player personality box on their profile. If they're sporting, bad-tempered etc. I guess this is done (as Dafuge and Crouchy have alluded to) in order to make the one on one interaction and the personal level of interaction more life like. You are able to quantify to some degree people's ability to shoot and score or their technique or even their fitness which is why those numbers are available to you. With personality it's a bit different and a bit more than numbers (or this is how it should be) so we don't see those hidden attributes which add to it. That's my understanding of it anyway.

I will now wait for someone from SI to blow my silly theory out of the water..

Surely a decent enough scout could give you an idea of an inconsistent performer and any older player would not need to be scouted. I can understand the rest but certain players in real life are known to be inconsistent and for me that is a stat that should be seen. I think the others like people have said make up the players personality so serve no real purpose in being viewable.

Surely a decent enough scout could give you an idea of an inconsistent performer and any older player would not need to be scouted. I can understand the rest but certain players in real life are known to be inconsistent and for me that is a stat that should be seen. I think the others like people have said make up the players personality so serve no real purpose in being viewable.

Except that an ambitious, determined, temperamental, unsporting, disloyal, ultra-professional will probably get his personality condensed into one single word (professional), with maybe an adjective - in other words, 6-7 invisible attributes plus a couple of others that are visible (i.e. influence, determination, bravery, etc.) get crammed into a couple of words as a personality and media-handling style - this is inaccurate. A manager who has been at the club for years should know their players' personalities relatively inside-out.

There is an argument for a new manager to not know it (i.e. a bit like attribute masking on your own players) but I would argue that no attribute should be hidden, because a long-term manager will know his squad really well.

Extreme attributes all the more - attributes that are extremely low or extremely high should be easily seen, whilst those in the middle are harder to distinguish. Mr. Average could simply be average or the little nuances about his personality (i.e. 8 or 12) are harder to gauge and hence take longer to judge. But then again, the difference between 8 and 12 is very different between 1 and 20 - it is understandable why it will take longer to gauge.

I would argue that pretty much all of them should be visible as a result - including inconsistency, adaptability and big games, although there may be certain caveats on how quickly they are revealed (i.e. adaptability should only be revealed quickly for nomadic players, and big game mentalities are only visible after, well, you play big games).

If anything, it suggests that we should have some form of being able to see a number that is uncertain - a blur number perhaps, where a sharp, crisp number represents near-perfect knowledge? In addition, this could apply to scouting, where instead of no attributes, you see lots of blurs, some sharper than others (i.e. attributes that are extremely high or extremely low - representing that perhaps this youngster is a showoff and hence has dribbling 20, flair 20 - this is easy to know) - so you can "sharpen" up the numbers to be more sure, or take a gamble when they are blur.

Maybe instead of using stats, you could show us using words like inconsistent, feels pressure, media-shy, disloyal etc.

Do people really want to see these attributes? I think they are off putting at times. I used to use Genie scout on FM09 and there was a player I nearly didn't sign because he had awful consistency, he was temperamental and unsporting. I took a chance and signed him I had him for two years until I left the club he never got a rating below 7.2 and averaged 7.8 for the season, he never complained about anything and sportsmanship didn't seem to have that much affect on anything he did. He had 4 for consistency if he had 20 does that mean he would have constantly played an 8 all season?

Do people really want to see these attributes? I think they are off putting at times. I used to use Genie scout on FM09 and there was a player I nearly didn't sign because he had awful consistency, he was temperamental and unsporting. I took a chance and signed him I had him for two years until I left the club he never got a rating below 7.2 and averaged 7.8 for the season, he never complained about anything and sportsmanship didn't seem to have that much affect on anything he did. He had 4 for consistency if he had 20 does that mean he would have constantly played an 8 all season?

It means that you managed to manage his inconsistency very well. And perhaps it does mean he would have been more consistent with his ratings.

It is very similar to a temperamental never getting sent-off because you never put him into such a scenario, or a temperamental player getting sent-off frequently because you constantly put him under pressure and other players wind him up more, or where your player who has rubbish crossing actually does quite well despite his attributes, or a player who can't finish is a lethal goalscorer anyway because he fits so well into your tactic. Yet there are no arguments for hiding finishing, for example.

If we see more attributes, the true skill shifts towards being able to adapt to this new set of knowledge, and in some sense, the game becomes deeper.

Very good point.

Especially consistency, injury proneness and consistency.

No reason at all why we shouldn't know these. They tell us vaguely, but what is the point? Might as well tell us exactly.