*SPOILERS* Distribution of PA in the database

I have just downloaded the editor and I was curious to see the potential ability assigned to the liverpool youngsters who are regarded as having a bright future, especially Raheem Sterling. I was a little disappointed to find that none of them were given a -10 (180-200 PA) rating. The highest value was a -9 (150-180 PA). Meaning that it is unlikely that any will go on to be a world class player. That's fair enough, if that is the researchers opinion, I'm OK with that.

But, I was then interested to know how many young (under 18) players in the database were rated at -10. So I checked.

There is one.

One player in the entirety of world football that is predicted to be a world class player! Can't be right. Can it? Maybe I made a mistake in searching the database and somebody could confirm for me.

So, there is one player under 18 predicted to be potentially world class. How does this compare to older players? I checked the database for all players (regardless of age) with a PA >180. There are 54, ranging from age 19-39.

Of course not all of these are currently world class, but there are 54 potential world class players (pa >180) in the database that are over 18. Surely there should be a similar number of players under 18 that are potentially world class. But there is only 1!

Seems a little unbalanced to me.

This isn't really the place to discuss and i'm sure it'll be closed, but surely your points back up only having a low amount of -10s in the game.

You say theres 54 players from the ages of 19-39 with a PA +180, so over a 20 year period if we take those ages into account theres been 54 players who have reached or have the potential to reach those numbers.

That's 2.7 players a year, having only 1 in the database doesn't seem awfully wrong

EDIT: I do realise that the flaw in this logic is that some players with a +180 PA will have retired in those 20 years and won't be included in the database, but even doubling the amount isn't going to give you a vast amount of players on average every year

What constitutes a young player getting a PA of -10 or -9? Say for a regen?

Seems like a player with a bright future could be world class, even at 15 or 16, technically their potential should be unlimited shouldn't it?

Seems a bit weird to pigeon hole certain players into a category of 150 - 170 or 170 - 200... where it could in reality be 150 - 200 as a broader category.

I know that would leave it up to the game to decide where the PA finally lands when the roulette stops spinning, but it PA could increase/decrease depending on players stats and performance at youth and reserve team football.

Currently I don't think the CA increases at all when the youth players are playing Youth or Reserve games. It's only when they make it to the first team that the CA goes up.

In fact I am sure of it going on FM11. I often bought players using FM Scout to find the best young players. But they're CA rarely increased while playing reserve team football. Which seems wrong to me. The only way was to give them 15 or 16 games a season, or try as you may to loan them out (where it was near impossible, to the point I had to take over other clubs to put in loan bids for them! Yes, the AI would refuse my offers to loan other players with very high potential! I'm sure a nPower team would love a player like that!)

What I'm saying is that new gens at 14, 15, 16 automatically get a PA. But it shouldn't really be like this. There should be a broader category where they could be 150 - 200 or similiar, and depending on their performances in youth level it would determine their PA at say 17 or 18.

But some players don't peak or show any of their potential until much later, example would be Ian Wright. Blossomed very late in his career. If it was FM he'd have had a PA of -10 until he was 21. Perhaps the same with David Platt.

Also, -9 allows for players to potentially become world class.

Not like a Rooney, Ronaldo, Iniesta, Xavi, Messi or someone of that caliber

Not like a Rooney, Ronaldo, Iniesta, Xavi, Messi or someone of that caliber

If a -9 players reaches the top of their potential, they'll be one of the best players in the world. I'll spoiler this bit just in case

If a -9 players reaches the top of their potential, they'll be one of the best players in the world. I'll spoiler this bit just in case

The CA of the likes of Rooney, Xavi and Iniesta are about the top range of a -9 player

I know wat a -9 gives a player for potential, but it limits him because he can't get over 180 while all the players I named are already (CA) or have PA set over 180

Next to that, the possibility a player with a -9 reaches that 180 is in most cases 1/30.

I posted this in another thread but will repost here with spoilers removed.

Take a 16 year old in the game who is a real player, lets call him John Smith, and he is given a PA of -9, which is really good but it limits them to a random PA no more than 179. Why this limit when nobody knows how good he will be. How do we know that in 10 years time John Smith won't be as good as Messi is now. I know that this is an extreme example but my point is it *could* happen IRL. It may be a very small probability but there is a possibility. In FM there is none.

Will it happen IRL. Nobody knows. But is it a possibility IRL. Yes, definitely. The game is supposed to reflect real life. I think in this respect it certainly doesn't.

I posted this in another thread but will repost here with spoilers removed.

Take a 16 year old in the game who is a real player, lets call him John Smith, and he is given a PA of -9, which is really good but it limits them to a random PA no more than 179. Why this limit when nobody knows how good he will be. How do we know that in 10 years time John Smith won't be as good as Messi is now. I know that this is an extreme example but my point is it *could* happen IRL. It may be a very small probability but there is a possibility. In FM there is none.

Will it happen IRL. Nobody knows. But is it a possibility IRL. Yes, definitely. The game is supposed to reflect real life. I think in this respect it certainly doesn't.

Right. Let EVERY PA be random then.

Cheers!!!

Right. Let EVERY PA be random then.

Cheers!!!

I don't think that would work

I am just trying to explore other options for PA than what is currently used. For a start I think at the start of any new game the players PA should not be fixed. It should adjust depending on current ability, attributes, personality, training, training facilities, coaches etc.

Maybe we could do away with PA altogether and allow a players CA to increase as much as it can based on the above criteria. That way a players PA would be more directly linked to his CA. So a player with a CA of 30 might eventually be able to increase to 90 or 100 he will never be much more than that. Whereas a young player with a CA of 130 might eventually get a CA > 180 depending on his training, attitude etc.

I just don't see how you can cap a 15-21 year old potential.

Truthfully - I don't see improvement in youth players when playing youth leagues, or reserve leagues. The amount of coaches don't seem to have an effect. And the training facilities don't seem to matter.

The only that helps them increase to reach their "potential" is getting first team football.

I don't see a need to cap a youth players potential. Some are better than others. Could be reflected with -11 (150 - 200) -12 (120 - 170) - 13 (80 - 130)

And then their Potential would eventually cap depending on performance, coaching, training, etc., meaning the more their CA goes up, the more PA they have, if they're performances aren't good enough, not enough games due to injury, etc. then the PA starts dropping.

And I don't see why a youth player can't transcend to another category of PA. Perhaps they were marked with PA of -12 and they have a storming 2 seasons in the U18s and they could transcend to a PA of -11.

Going back to the OP.

I don't agree that at the start of the game that there is only 1 player with -10 for PA! *edit* there should be more*

Well if you look at the past versions, players with a -10 have included:

Theo Walcott

Carlos Vela

Andres Guardado

Guillermo Ochoa

etc

Would you prefer it that way where players who will never reach those kind of levels were given -10, just so there's more -10s?

Nope that's not what is being said at all.

If they had a wider PA of 150 - 200 then it would be more realisitic.

Instead of lumping them into a potentials category. The training, coaching, u18's, reserves, etc. should all have an affect on how the players potential is decided. Not assigned a random number from a -9 or -10 category.

Their potential should be performance based.

Not a data issues thing, so im going to move this to GQ -

Yeah this is far more appropriate going into the Handheld forum Powlay

Maybe PA's should be increased from -10 to -20, with overlaps. So for instance, a -20 player would be PA 180-200 and a -19 player would have a PA of 170-190, while -18 would have a PA of 160-180 and so forth.

This way some players could possibly become world class, or they could just be very, very good.

That's still putting a cap on youth player potential.

Why should a 16 year old be capped at 180? In Fm they will never be as good as someone like Messi or Ronaldo. But in real life they can actually reach that level, albeit unlikely.

I'm saying if a 16 year old that is constantly getting 8.0 and above should be able to transcend that 180 mark and push up the potential. Whether they reach that is another story.

Conversely if they are getting constant 6.0 to 6.5 then it could be that they go below 180, perhaps only ever having potential of 170 or 160. But it would be performance, training, coaches, etc. that influence the potential in a player.

I do think it should be very hard to transcend to a higher level, so top coaches, top training facilities, top performances etc. from the youth player would be required. And a constant high level of performance.

And with this, it should attract loan bids from clubs in a league below, where the player can go on loan. I shouldn't have to offer out my reliable reserve league striker. The AI should bid for him to loan automatically.

I know that when I'm a nPower team I scour the reserves of the Prem league for a consistent youth player playing well and put in loan bids for them.

SI are going to have to let the researchers set manual "bands" at some point. I'm pretty sure the Arsenal researcher doesn't believe Ramsey is going to be better than Messi but he thought -9 was too low, letting him set it to say 170-185 would have been much more convenient and I'm amazed they haven't adopted it yet.

PA itself is the problem - it is impossible to put a bound on it as nothing is really impossible (although some things are very unlikely, of course).

Which is why, of course, I propose that PA be abolished.

Careful now

<spoiler>There's 102 players in the entire game with a PA of -9</spoiler>

PA itself is the problem - it is impossible to put a bound on it as nothing is really impossible (although some things are very unlikely, of course).

Which is why, of course, I propose that PA be abolished.

I agree. I was thinking of maybe a system where a player, under optimum conditions, can increase his CA by 10 points a season. As he gets older this gets harder to do and will eventually start going backwards. Then young players with a high current ability will have the chance to go on to be legends if they are able to work hard enough and are given the right opportunities, facilities etc.

I agree. I was thinking of maybe a system where a player, under optimum conditions, can earn increase his CA by 10 points a season. As he gets older this gets harder to do and will eventually start going backwards. Then young players with a high current ability will have the chance to go on to be legends if they are able to work hard enough and are given the right opportunities, facilities etc.

But in this system players will have limits. The limit would be set by his starting CA.

If a player has a starting CA of 30 at age 16 and can earn 10 CA points a year under optimum conditions then by the time he is 26 his CA would be 130. Obviously it's unlikely that any player would gain the max 10 points a year and if it is a player in the lower leagues with poor facilities and coaches he would be lucky to increase by 3 or 4 points a season.

So to be a world legend a player would have to have a starting CA of about 100 at 18 to have any chance of being 200 at his prime. By limiting the CA you limit their potential. And current ability is something that a researcher can judge whereas PA is a wild guess!

People don't like this idea as they claim that "everyone has a limit!" But players in a no-PA DO have limits - we just don't know what they are. And oddly enough, we don't know what people's limits are in reality either...

I agree completely with this

It still doesn't mean anything in that way though as it is still hard-coded - it implies that we know that under optimum conditions a player gains 10 CA every season. In reality, we don't know what the optimum conditions are and whether 10 CA is indeed the maximum. So it really solves nothing.

I think a lot of you are forgetting that at the age of 16, a lot of coaching and scouting and playing experience will have accrued on these players and they therefore have to have abilities and potential assigned to them to reflect this.

Saying any 16 year old should be able to become a Messi is extremely naive, Messi himself was infact scouted and signed by Barcelona based on his potential at (if I recall correctly) the age of 14. As an other example if I had been in the game at 16 the scout would have said "2 left feet, couldnt hit a barn door", I didn't have that potential in me as simple as that.

Assigning bands is the games system to show the unpredictability of the potential and make each game played slightly different, however you would never want the next Jack Wilshire given a PA of 150 (using your band of 150-200) just as I would have never been assigned more than 10!!

Well, I just thought of it and haven't really considered all the details to be fair.

It wouldn't be hard-coded though. The players CA, his personality, his mental, physical and other attributes would be though. The amount that his CA increases would be based on these factors and external ones such as the club he is at, their facilities, their coaches, the amount of first team football he is exposed to etc.

It would mean that players of a very low CA would never be world class players but I think this is realistic. If at 16 you are not good enough to compete within a league of your peers then u shouldn't be able to ever get to a world class level. But if you look at players like Messi, Rooney, Fabregas etc. they were all exceptional at a young age and would therefor have had higher than average CAs for players in their agegroup.

-10 isn't just "world class," it's legendary. That's Messi, Pele, Maradona. Besides, there are a few young players with nonvariable PA's in that range.

And the fact that Vela, Walcott and Ramsey have had -10 in the past just tells me the Arsenal researchers have been habitually overrating their prospects.

Assigning bands is the games system to show the unpredictability of the potential and make each game played slightly different, however you would never want the next Jack Wilshire given a PA of 150 (using your band of 150-200) just as I would have never been assigned more than 10!!

Jack Wilshere is 19 now and has a set PA based on his performance over the past couple of seasons, but a few seasons ago his PA would have been -9 meaning that he could have been stuck with a PA of 150. At that time the researcher couldn't judge his potential because he is not a fortune teller.

So there are a lot of players in the game now who are in the same boat as Jack Wilshire a few years ago. They have been given a -9 rating so they could have a PA of 150 and go on to be an average premier league player or a PA of 180 and become world class. There is a bit of a difference there.

Giving a youth player a -9 ability means they will never be legendary. But all players with a -9 ability that are U18 should have the potential to go beyond this and pass that threshold give the correct scenario of training, coaches, rating in U18 and Reserve games.

Similarly someone with -8 should have the ability to go past this up to the -9 category etc.

There are players in real life that didn't make a name for themselves until they were 21/22, completely off everyones radar.

In my opinion -10 is totally unrealistic, for any player... too bad that there is actually 1 -10 in the database (if im correct).

i cant find the data editor, where is it located? i bought the game on steam

-10 isn't just "world class," it's legendary. That's Messi, Pele, Maradona. Besides, there are a few young players with nonvariable PA's in that range.

And the fact that Vela, Walcott and Ramsey have had -10 in the past just tells me the Arsenal researchers have been habitually overrating their prospects.

-10 does not mean legendary lol

I prefer the way SI have done it this time. It was a little silly to see players like Lukaku eclipse genuine world class players before he hit 23 on previous games.

-10 has a place in the game because there are players that show such potential. Rooney, Fabregas, Messi etc

-10 does not mean legendary lol

I prefer the way SI have done it this time. It was a little silly to see players like Lukaku eclipse genuine world class players before he hit 23 on previous games.

You have to be very careful with -10s.

-9 players can be amongst the best in the world, even the odd -8 player can become top class. PA as a number means very little its more about the attributes that a player has. Obviously a higher PA gives a player a higher chance of being better but it doesn't guarantee it. There are countless examples over various editions of fm where a player with a CA of less than 180 can perform consistently better than some players with a CA above 180.

I remember back on about fm 07 there were about 10-15 young players with -10 PA which is just ridiculous when you think about it. I much prefer they way it is now particularly with how many quality regens can come through if your database is large enough.

It is "legendary". On average, they will be roughly as good as the likes of Xavi, and are potentially better than Messi and Ronaldo today.

You have to be very careful with -10s.

I never said you don't have to be careful. However I see -10 as the player has a chance to be top, top class. Being legendary is something entirely different.

I never said you don't have to be careful. However I see -10 as the player has a chance to be top, top class. Being legendary is something entirely different.

A player who has a very high CA and PA but isn't "legendary" would be very unusual, as it would be difficult for him to reach that PA in the first place.

Hmm, Ramsey has -10 and he will never be legendary. He has the potential to be very very good though. But he will never be legendary (IRL).

-10 encompasses "legendary" as -10 has the chance of a player getting a PA of 200. Which, oddly enough, is higher than any other player in the (real) database at the moment - i.e. "legendary".

A player who has a very high CA and PA but isn't "legendary" would be very unusual, as it would be difficult for him to reach that PA in the first place.

Sorry, but you just don't get it.

Im sure i read that Ramsey was given the -10 because of his long term injury which made researching him very difficult, im sure by either the january patch or next year he will have a fixed PA.

Sorry, but you just don't get it.

I'm afraid he understands it much better than you appear to. Any player in the game who has a -10 and a good enough CA to begin with will become a legendary player in FM baring any major disasters.

This same conversation comes around every year. FWIW I think SI are improving their modeling every year. I was watching Liverpool kids v Everton kids on Sky last week - there were no kids - Raheem Sterling included - who showed anything like the potential of Messi at that age.

As always, if you are poking around in the editor and find things you personally aren't happy with, you are always at liberty to change them.

When and where did you see Messi playing when he was 16?

He made his league debut against RCD Espanyol on 16 October 2004 aged 17 years and 114 days. So unless you were watching Barcelona C and B when he was 16?

I can't find any of Raheems Sterlings stats at U18 to compare to Messi's.

But I've seen him play for Liverpools U18s and he's a frightening prospect. Don't forget he has been playing U18s football since he was 14. A lot like Messi, in fairness.

These are the sort of players that have the ability to transcend to from -9 to -10 in the game. I'm not saying it should always happen. But on merit, performances, coaching, etc.

Currently they've put him in a category and there's no way to know what category he belongs in. The fairest way is to say he's a bright tallent so PA of 150 - 200. And let the training, coaching, performances in U18s and Reserve, Loan etc. determine if he reaches a level of potential.

This would add more realism to the game.

What exactly has Aaron Ramsey done to justify being the only -10 in the whole game?

What exactly has Aaron Ramsey done to justify being the only -10 in the whole game?

Like i explained he has a -10 because he has had a long term injury and as such the researchers are unable to make a more definative decision on him, there is very little chance he will reach the 190-200CA mark and i would imagine he will be re-evaluated come january when the researchers have had a good look at him.

Wouldn't it make most sense if there was slightly larger PA groups and they crossed over? IE 140-170, 155-185,170-200. So a top player in a lower group can become better than a bad player in a higher group. We still have a reasonable estimate of how good they might be. Obviously not saying the 30 gap is the best one, and a closer one may be more successful. Just an example.

What exactly has Aaron Ramsey done to justify being the only -10 in the whole game?

Exactly. Neither he nor Sterling come anywhere near close.

Wouldn't it make most sense if there was slightly larger PA groups and they crossed over? IE 140-170, 155-185,170-200. So a top player in a lower group can become better than a bad player in a higher group. We still have a reasonable estimate of how good they might be. Obviously not saying the 30 gap is the best one, and a closer one may be more successful. Just an example.

I think the minus ratings do cross over. Someone will produce the table!

What are the boundaries for minus potential?

*Spoiler*

They are as follows:-

-10 = 170-200 PA

-9 = 150-180 PA

-8 = 130-160 PA

-7 = 110-140 PA

-6 = 90-120 PA

-5 = 70-100 PA

-4 = 50-80 PA

-3 = 30-60 PA

-2 = 10-40 PA

-1 = 0-20 PA*Spoiler*

Yeh the - ratings do overlap. But you can't transcend those. Which is unrealistic.

Exactly. Neither he nor Sterling come anywhere near close.

Yeh and Sterling will never have the chance to get to -10. He's been pigeon holed into -9 like so many other players.

At 16 - the potential for a bright star of the future shouldn't be pigeon holed.

Take Messi for example. He was banging in the goals for Barcelona C and B. Now forget about Messi.

Let's swap him for Sterling. Now imagine Sterling playing in the Reserves, or on loan to a nPower team.

Sterling will never progress past the PA of 180. Even though he is HOT on the pitch.

This shouldn't be the case.

In my opinion anyone that is under the age of 18 and has a potential of over 165 should be able to have that increase depending on performances.

Of course, conversely it can decrease if they aren't performing.

This is where your Youth Facilities would kick in, the coaching ratings of the youth coaches, the performances by the player in the u18, reserves leauges, and on loan.

As I've noted before there's barely an increase in CA when a player is playing u18s or Reserves... why?

It's only when they go on loan that the CA increases... why?

And why should a 16 year old have a predetermined CAP on their potential?