Regens, some numbers on how bad they *still* are

Every iteration of FM, when I get 5 years into the game, I realise how messed up the regens are. And my enjoyment, and playing, of FM ends soon after.

This year is exactly the same. Using Genie scout I've been able to see how bad they are in black _for the first time_.

Doing a comparison of 20-year-olds in 2008 (all non-regens) v 20-year-olds in 2013 (all regens).

(The regen database actually having the benefit of 10% more players too)

JUMPING 17+ - 106 V 12

PACE 17+ - 83 V 25

CA 153+ - 14 V 0

CA 120+ - 225 V 62

VALUE 5.5k+ - 20 V 1

SALE VALUE 8K+ - 56 V 6

It amazes me how I've been posting about this as far back as 3/4 years ago, and it's the same as it ever was.

Two mistakes I can't edit here.

It's not 5.5K and 8K, it's MILLIONS of course.

Looking at a few more things the disparity apparent even in more unexpected places.

Free Kicks 17+ - 98 v 6

Off The Ball 16+ - 43 v 5

It seems the newgen system is something SI will just never get right as is. I think it's about time they used a process between the old regens and the 'better' regens. It should at least include some method of checking that newly generated players are similar to the original players, and balancing them if they are not.

And I've never understood why SI seem to take such a laissez-faire attitude to regens when they are the cornerstone of a career game. I'm certain I, and a number of other posters on this board, could make a dramatic improvement on this in just one year.

i don't pay much attention to regens really, i know you can keep tabs on retiring players ot see who they come back as

but that seems like cheating to me

Originally posted by ihateregistering:

i don't pay much attention to regens really, i know you can keep tabs on retiring players ot see who they come back as

but that seems like cheating to me

Thats not how it works, they're totally random, retired players are gone, they're not re-introduced in any form.

Originally posted by ihateregistering:

i don't pay much attention to regens really, i know you can keep tabs on retiring players ot see who they come back as

but that seems like cheating to me

No-one comes back as anyone.

Totally agree with this post, there needs to be some sort of regen structure implicated in order to keep a consistent flow of regens.

You will get alot of people saying they have plenty of good young regens, but the most important point you made is compairing players under 20 in 2008 to 5 years later, nowhere near the same amount and thats a fact that can't be defended

Its been well documented that regens aren't as good as they should be on the whole but all the other teams are in the same situation so it means that you just have to pick the best of a bad bunch really.

I do hope that they are improved for FM09 even if they make them slightly too good but not too good.

isn't that how it used to work?

i remember you used to be able on the older games?

i was able to see who arjen robben came back as

Originally posted by medo24:

Its been well documented that regens aren't as good as they should be on the whole but all the other teams are in the same situation so it means that you just have to pick the best of a bad bunch really.

Medo, that's a point people make all the time (the "everyone's in the same boat" defense) and I just don't think it is correct at all.

When there's a mix of regens and existing players the regens are getting dominated. Try an original Taget man striker (Toni, Caracciolo, etc) against the top CB regens a few years into the game. The strikers 20 jumping against a regen who will have jumping in somewhere around 12-15. He is going to get absolutely OWNED.

It gets so most of the "top prospects" you just have to write off because their lack of jumping/pace/OTB/whatever will mean they're useless against original Serie A/Prem players. Their 180 PA will not save them.

Even when all the originals are gone it's not good enough. I don't want be playing "Hobbit FM" thank you very much. If they all had stats like League 2, or women footballers, would that be fine because we're all in the same boat? Would it hell.

It's just not good enough.

Originally posted by medo24:

Its been well documented that regens aren't as good as they should be on the whole but all the other teams are in the same situation so it means that you just have to pick the best of a bad bunch really.

If you can spot the very very few good ones, which is normal for a semi-experienced cm/fm player, that is actually the real problem as it makes the game much too easy since the human player starts to own the only good-goodish players in the world. Why some people are so keen to defend and/or ignore anomalies with the game's coding, I simply cannot understand.

The most annoying thing about the regen situation is that it's really REALLY easy to check.

You'd think that you'd need to play umpteen seasons to see the fruits of the regens, but actually just start a game with fake players.

Besides the fact that there is an obvious "one Bulgarian in the Spurs squad" pattern to the nationalities, the actual quality of them is abysmal. And it's obvious to anyone who cares to glance.

Which obviously doesn't include SI

I'm really encouraged that there's others out there, who've been playing FM before it was FM, are as fed up with this situation as I am.

I'm really discouraged that year after year SI allow this problem not to be properly addressed.

Kerem makes a very good point I've made in the past in response to "the same boat". A few regens creep through with proper physical stats. Whoever ends up with them ends up with a dominant player compared to the others. You get them you win, you don't you lose. But it just feels like cheating. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

And the AI doesn't get the huge difference between the regen Drogbas, Toni's, Rio Ferdinands, Eddie Johnson's, and the normal "world class" regens with pace/jumping 10-12.

The thing is this issue should be well solvable. My top-of-the-head "solution" might not be watertight, but I'm damn sure it would produce regens of a much more comparable, and better, standard.

I'd use the youth players in the original database as a baseline to compare to when generating each new year of regens.

The SIMPLE way. Make sure that each attribute (eg. Jumping/Pace/Determination) is distributed across a similar range as the original youth. A graph of this attribute should produce a similar % of 20's, 19's, etc, etc.

IF IT DOESN'T TWEAK THEM UNTIL IT DOES.

The better way. Do the above. But compare POSITIONALLY. Compare a CB Newgens Jumping/Pace/etc with ORIGINAL youth CB's. That way we don't get wingers given as good Jumping as CB's thereby wasting it.

The best way. As above, but make sure that certain attributes are double compared. Jumping/Pace should be compared together for example, as players with top Jumping are likely to be slower (Toni, Klose) and players who are faster are more likely to be worse in the air (e.g. Owen, Messi).

(The crazy thing is I could do, and would do, all this myself for my current games if all the info was in say a MySQL database, just using simple queries and comparison. But no, it's all hidden away, and programs like Genie Scout don't even allow for mass editing, which would be a minimum requirement.)

And that there would be my solution. Even the second way would produce newgens of a very good standard for a career game, and the third way would see them near perfect.

Something, for some reason, SI has never come close to acheiving...

After what I know Si have confirmed that they are working on the newgen problems..

I made another post about this issue. I think SI don't really want people to have long term games, why would they. They lose money if you don't want to buy the next in the series. So why would they give a crap. SI isn't an EA type size of a company there a small business in this gaming industry. They may feel it better to grab your attention and release new features rather work on things they may not feel affect the game as much. Its sad that nothing has happened on this issue but thats business.

hauler,

i dont agree with you, if the new features are really interesting like this years people would rather the new than the old except for a the minority. Would a business rather satisfy the majority by fixing this problem and releasing better series the year after or disappoint the majority and satisfy the minority by not fixing this problem?

Originally posted by Veg:

After what I know Si have confirmed that they are working on the newgen problems..

Please can we have some news about this issue...

Just done a quick check on this major problem:

Players under 20 valued over £2.5m:

2007-71. Messi is worth £23m

2012-30.

2016-13! Top rated player £2.4m!

Its completed ruined my enjoyment of playing the game.

Originally posted by Veg:

After what I know Si have confirmed that they are working on the newgen problems..

That would be exactly what they've said for at least the last three years.

I think it was 2 years ago they had someone completely "rework" the regens and we were promised that they'd be "right" and a really big improvement.

What did we get? The same old rubbish.

I've outlined above a way regens could be probably 90% right no problem, where SI probably have them 50% right and with a whole raft of obvious problems.

As for believing them this year I'm sorry to say, on this issue, I now look at SI as "the boy who cried wolf".

Originally posted by BamBamBam:

2007-71. Messi is worth £23m

2012-30.

2016-13! Top rated player £2.4m!

Its completed ruined my enjoyment of playing the game.

Bam, exactly, it's what I posted above.

I found 20 original players with a value over 5.5M, and ONE regen. 20-to-1, great ratio huh?

I found 20 originals with a SALE VALUE of over 25M, and NO REGENS. 20-to-0.

It's just beyond flawed. It's killed me playing the game 5 years on. I just wish there was a way I could tweak it by editing the database, or at least if there was a program out there that allowed mass edits.

I did some fairly detailed testing with the regens on FM2007 and they were, in fact, far far too good. Maybe 2008 has overcompensated slightly, as it was just ridiculous.

Sale value is a reputation problem, not an ability problem.

Originally posted by pelicanstuff:

I did some fairly detailed testing with the regens on FM2007 and they were, in fact, far far too good. Maybe 2008 has overcompensated slightly, as it was just ridiculous.

Pelican, as good as they were in 2007 they are much worse imo in '08. I didn't notice them being much better last year. This year Stevie Wonder couldn't miss the terrible standard of them.

Quite simply the game HAS TO produce Ronaldo, Rooney, Bojan level talent. It's not doing that, and what's worse the *overall standard* of players is incredibly poor (especially in key areas).

And value also has a knock on effect from lack of talent, but it's a minor problem when compared to the standard of regens coming into the game, who quite simply are almost never good enough for Serie A/Premiership level.

I'd take last years regens over this ANY DAY.

Originally posted by JohnShaft:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by pelicanstuff:

I did some fairly detailed testing with the regens on FM2007 and they were, in fact, far far too good. Maybe 2008 has overcompensated slightly, as it was just ridiculous.

Pelican, as good as they were in 2007 they are much worse imo in '08. I didn't notice them being much better last year. This year Stevie Wonder couldn't miss the terrible standard of them.

Quite simply the game HAS TO produce Ronaldo, Rooney, Bojan level talent. It's not doing that, and what's worse the *overall standard* of players is incredibly poor (especially in key areas).

And value also has a knock on effect from lack of talent, but it's a minor problem when compared to the standard of regens coming into the game, who quite simply are almost never good enough for Serie A/Premiership level.

I'd take last years regens over this ANY DAY. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I haven't played enough 08 to be able to gauge how bad the regens are adequately. It would be nice to run some tests using scout with some fairly detailed criteria.

I found the overly good regens ruined 07 for me past about 2025 or so. If premiership strikers are so good that someone like Tevez would never have got a start, and if all the defenders are John Terry clones, life gets a bit silly. Seriously, Rooney would have been a very average player had he come through in 2025 on 07.

Finding a happy medium between the two would be nice, but to my mind, fixing the starting CA slightly more sensibly, as well as a complete overhaul of reputation, would be a priority as opposed to having large numbers of world-class players coming through every year.

Its the same argument for the MLS...after a few years, whether you want to accept it or not, you are all in the same boat, so if it affects your enjoyment of the game, its your problem.

Yes its an issue, I'm not blind to the problem, but a game breaker and 'ruins my enjoyment'...hardly in any description...then...

I've outlined above a way regens could be probably 90% right no problem, where SI probably have them 50% right and with a whole raft of obvious problems

So, we all wait with anticipation at your version of a football management sim, as you seem to have all the answers.

If it was really that simple, do you not think SI would have solved it by now???

While I'll agree with the premise that the player development curve (the system used to increase players stats via training) is flawed, and that SI haven't quite got the distribution of attributes right, I think that the thread is overstating the severity of the problem.

I'm at 2029 in my own game, and there are plenty of regens who are of "starting quality", if not higher.

The players come into their prime far later than in real life but they are there.

Originally posted by DaveRH:

While I'll agree with the premise that the player development curve (the system used to increase players stats via training) is flawed, and that SI haven't quite got the distribution of attributes right, I think that the thread is overstating the severity of the problem.

I'm at 2029 in my own game, and there are plenty of regens who are of "starting quality", if not higher.

The players come into their prime far later than in real life but they are there.

Can you check to see how many under 20's are worth £2.5m and tell us what database size you are running please...

Originally posted by BamBamBam:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by DaveRH:

While I'll agree with the premise that the player development curve (the system used to increase players stats via training) is flawed, and that SI haven't quite got the distribution of attributes right, I think that the thread is overstating the severity of the problem.

I'm at 2029 in my own game, and there are plenty of regens who are of "starting quality", if not higher.

The players come into their prime far later than in real life but they are there.

Can you check to see how many under 20's are worth £2.5m and tell us what database size you are running please... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

But value and ability are only tangentially related. Reputation is the principal ingredient in value. I rarely consider value as being important for anything.

On a related note, ambition seems to affect value for youngsters - i suppose this is either because reputation increases more quickly with higher ambition or because it also has a tangential effect.

Originally posted by pelicanstuff:

On a related note, ambition seems to affect value for youngsters - i suppose this is either because reputation increases more quickly with higher ambition or because it also has a tangential effect.

At a guess, ambition and determination will have an affect on the training of the player. Basically, they work harder in training and so their stats get better quicker.

Tactics and Training forum would probably be able to clarify that theory.

I'd agree with your original point: reputation (and thus perceived value) is no definate indicator of how good a player is.

Originally posted by BamBamBam:

Can you check to see how many under 20's are worth £2.5m and tell us what database size you are running please...

For the sake of answering, player search (so not a complete review of the database) reveals:

34 players valued at £2.5m or higher (max age 19)

Expanding the search to U21 players expands that to closer to 80.

49 players are rated at £20m or more

I'll add the caveat that value is not necessarily a reflection of ability.

For example, I'm tracking a 21 year old Croatian striker currently at Bordeaux. His stats would already get him a start at a top club at the start of the game, but he is only rated at £1.7m.

Originally posted by DaveRH:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by BamBamBam:

Can you check to see how many under 20's are worth £2.5m and tell us what database size you are running please...

For the sake of answering, player search (so not a complete review of the database) reveals:

34 players valued at £2.5m or higher (max age 19)

Expanding the search to U21 players expands that to closer to 80.

49 players are rated at £20m or more

I'll add the caveat that value is not necessarily a reflection of ability.

For example, I'm tracking a 21 year old Croatian striker currently at Bordeaux. His stats would already get him a start at a top club at the start of the game, but he is only rated at £1.7m. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I was interested by this thread so I figured I would check my player search and I found the following

6 players max are 19 rated at more than 2.5 million

31 players max age 21 rated at more than 2.5 million

7 players (with no criteria on age) rated at 20 million plus.

I am currently in July 2016 and of the 33 players within my squads (inc reserves and under19s) 26 of them are regens. This is clearly a vast majority and as such cannot be passed of as me stuffing my reserves etc with carp regens. They quite obviously are good enough for the first team or I'd have no team!

I have a policy (much like Arsene Wenger) of signing youngsters, in fact if you are over 21 you are to old to be a transfer target for me! As such if as is being suggested by the OP the quality of regens is poor I would be unable to produce 16 trophies in 9 years.

Value as DaveRH suggested is not a guide to ability (either current or potential). In fact as I see it if my values are lower it will mean I pay less for players and earn less by selling them. For example a player you buy for 10m maight be available on my game for 5 and where you can sell him for 8 I may only get 4. As such the only thing that is affected is the financial model.

Based on this I feel that all the teams in my game, be they Player or AI controlled are on a level playing field as the AI teams can only sign what is out there in terms of players. On this basis if as is suggested the quality of regens is poor (which I do not necessarily believe) it is indeed the same for everyone and as such provides no noticable advantage or disadvantage to either player or AI.

As such if as is being suggested by the OP the quality of regens is poor I would be unable to produce 16 trophies in 9 years.

Only thing is, the regens are poor for everyone, putting everyone at status quo. If every player in the world had a PA of 60, winning the Premiership with a team full of players with CA 55 would be plausible, doesn't mean those players aren't poor.

Originally posted by Kassien:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">As such if as is being suggested by the OP the quality of regens is poor I would be unable to produce 16 trophies in 9 years.

Only thing is, the regens are poor for everyone, putting everyone at status quo. If every player in the world had a PA of 60, winning the Premiership with a team full of players with CA 55 would be plausible, doesn't mean those players aren't poor. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

granted but as I am only in 2016 there are still a fair number of 'real' players in the game for my regens to compete with.

Originally posted by Celtic_1967:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Kassien:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">As such if as is being suggested by the OP the quality of regens is poor I would be unable to produce 16 trophies in 9 years.

Only thing is, the regens are poor for everyone, putting everyone at status quo. If every player in the world had a PA of 60, winning the Premiership with a team full of players with CA 55 would be plausible, doesn't mean those players aren't poor. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

granted but as I am only in 2016 there are still a fair number of 'real' players in the game for my regens to compete with. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well I'm not in your game to check out exactly how the stats are faring (thank god, as if FM wasn't hard work enough at times!) so I have no idea if for example the superior Positioning of a regen may counteract the existing superior Jumping of a real player. Of course, arguments could always be made that certain stats would cover for others, allowing for regens to play well despite lower Physical stats, but surely the mere fact hardly anybody can take a penalty or jump higher than three feet indicates that the regens are of a substandard, regardless of what you may be able to win with them?

they may well be substandard but they are substandard for every team in my game so basically in 5 or 10 years time when there are no real players left every team in my game will have to use the substandard regens and we will all be on a level playing field. As such if the regens are poor (and I'm not saying they are) every team is in the same position.

Manchester United and Arsenal for example don't have regens available to them that only they can sign that are not available to Southampton. Obviously having a higher Reputation will mean that you will be able to sign the better regens that may not wish to sign for Southampton. This however is not different to the current situation where a Manchester United will be able to sign Rafeal Van der Vaart, who would probably not want to sigh for Southampton.

As such if every player in the world has a PA of 60 as you suggest then all this means is that we will not see a screen full of '20' when looking at stats but will have to work with lower numbers. as such the best players in the world will look ordianry and the ordianry players will look poor.

It wont make any difference to the game because there will be players who are good and players who are bad and a whole range in between as there is now, the only difference will be the numerical display in stats.

Agreed with pretty much all you just said there

My only issue is you seemed to be claiming the lack of physical or set piece attributes wasn't an issue within the game, which imo it obviously is. However, it's late and I could well have missed the point

I'm not necessarily claiming that lack of physical or set peice attributes dont cause an issue. I am aware that this seems to be an issue for many people and as such across the game in general I just dont personally see it as a problem because if the best set piece taker is rated at 12 and everyne else is rated at 6 then surely this will have the same effect as him being rated at 18 and everyone else rated at 9.

I fully understand your point but I genuinely think that if every teams has the same problem then surely it is no longer a problem as I and not gaining an advantage or finding myself at a disadvantage because of it.

I would also like to say what a pleasure it has been having a well thought out and constructive debate with you this evening (or morning). It's so refreshing for a thread like this not to degenerate into nonsense as it usually would.

Ok so I've been playing the same game using patch 8.0.2 right up to 2028, I usually only buy every 3rd or 4th version of the game so didn't play 06 or 07. Since getting 08 I played 2 previous games past the 20 year mark and I think I've got to agree that somethings wrong with the regens.

First here are the numbers, Genie scout was used for all of this, I'm ignoring value as I agree that it has no bearing on how good a player is.

The lists are for all players 20yrs old and under. Database size in both cases set to large with English Italian and Spanish leagues. For ease of comparison they are side by side, the first column is from a 27 sept 2028 Saved game. The second from a start of game save July 2007. (So all the players in the database with PA values of -10/-9/-8 etc get given a randomly generated pa.)

CA 190-200 = 0 0

CA 180-189 = 0 2

CA 170-179 = 0 1

CA 160-169 = 0 3

CA 150-159 = 0 16

CA 140-149 = 4 39

CA 130-139 = 18 73

CA 120-129 = 48 144

CA 110-119 = 103 230

CA 100-109 = 200 251

CA 90-99 = 419 393

CA 80-89 = 611 575

CA 70-79 = 897 811

CA 60-69 = 1197 937

CA 50-59 = 1386 1031

CA 0-49 = 3620 3766

PA 190-200 = 8 3

PA 180-189 = 27 23

PA 170-179 = 79 112

PA 160-169 = 44 167

PA 150-159 = 242 526

PA 140-149 = 190 484

PA 130-139 = 585 838

PA 120-129 = 378 474

PA 110-119 = 1059 1101

PA 100-109 = 706 715

PA 90-99 = 1089 1079

PA 80-89 = 490 579

PA 70-79 = 905 791

PA 60-69 = 483 424

PA 50-59 = 860 545

PA 0-49 = 1356 510

Total - 8514 8271

Not really sure what to make of PA, I did not think there would be much of a difference really, i thought the regen issue was more about CA (and physical stats) than PA. However it shows pretty clearly that in my game a large quantity of the regens are rubbish, and will always be, and although there are a few more in the top 2 groups in the 2028 save, there are a lot less from 120 to 179.

Looking at the CA comparison, theres not a single player in 2028 thats 20 or under and has CA higher than 149. (highest is actually 145) You could change the 2028 players to give them 10 more CA each, and the result will still be that regens aren't as good. I think we can conclude that more younger regens need a higher starting CA. At the moment were getting no wonderkids at all from regens, and that cant be right.

Mind you this whole CA thing is only one issue that is fubar-ing regens in 08. The other one as a lot of people have said, is certain stats. Primarily the physical ones. The amount of 'world class' players in my 2028 game with god like technical and mental stats, but physical stats of a 30 stone chainsmoker is pretty silly. I will hopefully do the same comparisons with various physical stats, and post the results around here somewhere. But this was enough for one day i think.

Lastly i would agree with what Celtic said above, this has no real bearing on the game as its an issue the AI teams have to cope with as well, no-one gains or looses out because of it. But i don't think that invalidates the opinion that the regen system is flawed, and therefore needs tweaking. If all regens had for eg, a permanent hardwired stamina of 10, it would be fair... but would still need fixing.

Originally posted by Frank Dashwood:

i thought the regen issue was more about CA (and physical stats) than PA. However it shows pretty clearly that in my game a large quantity of the regens are rubbish, and will always be, and although there are a few more in the top 2 groups in the 2028 save, there are a lot less from 120 to 179.

Looking at the CA comparison, theres not a single player in 2028 thats 20 or under and has CA higher than 149. (highest is actually 145) You could change the 2028 players to give them 10 more CA each, and the result will still be that regens aren't as good. I think we can conclude that more younger regens need a higher starting CA. At the moment were getting no wonderkids at all from regens, and that cant be right.

I'm going to disagree with you on the "Higher CA" suggestion, mainly because I think that the problem isn't the CA's but rather the player development model.

Basically put - training doesn't work properly and players with high PAs seem to develop as quickly as players with low PAs, so don't hit their prime until later in their careers.

An example of what I tend to see now: two 15 year old regens are introduced, one with PA 100, another with PA 170. The two players will develop at roughly the same pace until the PA100 regen maxes out. The higher PA regen will continue to develop his stats.

This is patently wrong - the higher PA regen should be developing his stats quicker than the lower PA one. There should be noticable differences between them at 17 and 18 - after all we notice 'wonderkids' or youngsters of great potential because they are so much better than their peers.

The physical attributes - I agree 100% with you. The way that 'CA points' are distributed as players get better needs to be examined.

I have 3 very good regen's in my team, 5 still under 18 and have great potential.

I bought him for 2.5mill and 5 seasons later he has improved greatly

I dont really see a problem with regens.

Originally posted by DaveRH:

I'm going to disagree with you on the "Higher CA" suggestion, mainly because I think that the problem isn't the CA's but rather the player development model.

Basically put - training doesn't work properly and players with high PAs seem to develop as quickly as players with low PAs, so don't hit their prime until later in their careers.

An example of what I tend to see now: two 15 year old regens are introduced, one with PA 100, another with PA 170. The two players will develop at roughly the same pace until the PA100 regen maxes out. The higher PA regen will continue to develop his stats.

This is patently wrong - the higher PA regen should be developing his stats quicker than the lower PA one. There should be noticable differences between them at 17 and 18 - after all we notice 'wonderkids' or youngsters of great potential because they are so much better than their peers.

The physical attributes - I agree 100% with you. The way that 'CA points' are distributed as players get better needs to be examined.

Well i have to say, that idea of having different development models is a pretty good one. But after reading it a few times i think i'd have to say a compromise between the 2 would be better balanced. Mainly because regardless of your excellent suggestion im still of the opinion that the game should churn out some regens with a higher CA that it does.

To use your quote against you (sorry!) i would say that the reason 'we notice 'wonderkids' or youngsters of great potential because they are so much better than their peers.' is because they have a higher CA than their peers.

Im wondering why the idea you suggest isnt already implenented tho, its a good one, and similar to what they use on Pro Evo games.

Mostly all i can think of is that other factors have an effect on how a player gains CA - ambition, determination, simply getting 1st team games etc. However as you indicated, all youngsters do very much seem to train up at roughly the same speed so a bit of diversity here could be good. Only argument against doing it (aside from coding) i can think of is that some people wont like SI adding a stat that would quantify how well a player can gain CA. But lets face it, everything else has a stat so a few more probably wont hurt.

I think everyone agrees on the physical stats tho. Oh and Tyler42... good player, stats wise tho i think he's a bit short on physical attributes compared to todays top players. Penalty taking of 3 as well except since that particular stat NEVER increases, by 20 years in thats about an average score

Originally posted by Hauler24:

I made another post about this issue. I think SI don't really want people to have long term games, why would they. They lose money if you don't want to buy the next in the series. So why would they give a crap. SI isn't an EA type size of a company there a small business in this gaming industry. They may feel it better to grab your attention and release new features rather work on things they may not feel affect the game as much. Its sad that nothing has happened on this issue but thats business.

I think Hauler24 have spot onto the issue, why do SI want the customers to have a very healthy long terms game which they will happy to stick with forever?

Even we are not game programmers we can still think of many methods to produce quality regens with static attributes according with their positions. (jumping, pace, stamina etc...). So how could this be so difficult for the professionals in SI, who cant get this area right for all those years??

SI dont have to make a "perfect" or "classic" version of FM game in history, instead, they want every version of FM incomplete therefore you have to buy/renew it every year. (I am not making this up as there are other examples in the gaming industry)

Originally posted by Tyler42:

I have 3 very good regen's in my team, 5 still under 18 and have great potential.

I bought him for 2.5mill and 5 seasons later he has improved greatly

I dont really see a problem with regens.

Other than the physical and set piece stats being awful?

Originally posted by Rickooko:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Hauler24:

I made another post about this issue. I think SI don't really want people to have long term games, why would they. They lose money if you don't want to buy the next in the series. So why would they give a crap. SI isn't an EA type size of a company there a small business in this gaming industry. They may feel it better to grab your attention and release new features rather work on things they may not feel affect the game as much. Its sad that nothing has happened on this issue but thats business.

I think Hauler24 have spot onto the issue, why do SI want the customers to have a very healthy long terms game which they will happy to stick with forever?

Even we are not game programmers we can still think of many methods to produce quality regens with static attributes according with their positions. (jumping, pace, stamina etc...). So how could this be so difficult for the professionals in SI, who cant get this area right for all those years??

SI dont have to make a "perfect" or "classic" version of FM game in history, instead, they want every version of FM incomplete therefore you have to buy/renew it every year. (I am not making this up as there are other examples in the gaming industry) </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Don't believe this whatsoever. I know several FM gamers that were disappointed with 08 and thus have vowed not to buy 09. Would be extremely bad business sense.

I do know some FM gamers saying so but tbh it really doesnt matter at all.

As long as their selling figure keep growing, SI are doing very good business, even for long SI keep releasing series of FM which has never really improved in this regen area.

If less people buy the game, sales figures don't grow. Therefore, not improving the game = bad business.

The regens last version were actually too good, this version SI have gone too far the other way, it's a process that takes time to perfect.

I think if you're ever going to conduct any kind of study on regens, PA shouldn't even be a part of it. It's just not relevant in this scenario.

Originally posted by Kassien:

The regens last version were actually too good, this version SI have gone too far the other way, it's a process that takes time to perfect.

Kassien SI have had 5 years. FIVE YEARS. IMO they're actually further away from ideal this year than the previous one.

Five years to get them close to right is 3 years more than they should need. They obviously don't prioritise the issue highly enough. Which is why I genereally end up making posts about this deficiency YEAR AFTER YEAR.

I'm hoping one year it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

Long post guys, sorry.

Originally posted by JohnShaft:

Kassien SI have had 5 years. FIVE YEARS. IMO they're actually further away from ideal this year than the previous one.

Five years to get them close to right is 3 years more than they should need. They obviously don't prioritise the issue highly enough. Which is why I genereally end up making posts about this deficiency YEAR AFTER YEAR.

I'm hoping one year it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

That's a bit of an alarmist post really. If you try to imagine the number of different factors that will come into play in determining how much/when a player improves I'm sure you'll appreciate how complex a task it is.

Some factors off the top of my head: players mental attributes, players hidden attributes, club coaching staff, club coaching facilities, reserve games, 1st team games, how much time on field in those games, injury status, influence of other players

Change the model and impact for ANY of those things and you effectively change the impact it has on the development model too. Now imagine different coding teams working on those different elements.

Don't get me wrong - it's far from ideal - but to say that it isn't something that is continiously reviewed would be a case of unwarranted statements in my book.

(Also - the people who suggest that SI deliberately ignore the regens to promote future games, ask yourself why they bother having regens at all. It's a daft idea.)

Well i have to say, that idea of having different development models is a pretty good one. But after reading it a few times i think i'd have to say a compromise between the 2 would be better balanced. Mainly because regardless of your excellent suggestion im still of the opinion that the game should churn out some regens with a higher CA that it does.

To use your quote against you (sorry!) i would say that the reason 'we notice 'wonderkids' or youngsters of great potential because they are so much better than their peers.' is because they have a higher CA than their peers.

I should point out that I'm not suggesting two development models - but rather tieing in the amount of progession with their current distance from their PA.

I'd also simplify the development system considerably into a 'past the post' method - so when a certain amount of progression 'points' are reached, the player receives a "Level Up" which can be spent on increasing attributes.

The method of getting those 'progression points' could be any one of a shedload of factors (coaching staff, players own training etc).

The amount of progression they get could be tied into the difference between their CA and PA, so players with higher PA would get more points than their lower-potential peers.

This also would take care of your higher starting CA suggestion - as players who joined a club at 14/15 would be of higher ability when they hit 17/18, the point at which you tend to see youngsters making appearances in real life.

(Something to bear in mind, we don't know how the progression system works now - so some or all of these suggestions could already be there but need tweaking. SI, for obvious reasons, are not likely to share the specifics - but they can feel free to send it to me by email )

Originally posted by JohnShaft:

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Kassien:

The regens last version were actually too good, this version SI have gone too far the other way, it's a process that takes time to perfect.

Kassien SI have had 5 years. FIVE YEARS. IMO they're actually further away from ideal this year than the previous one.

Five years to get them close to right is 3 years more than they should need. They obviously don't prioritise the issue highly enough. Which is why I genereally end up making posts about this deficiency YEAR AFTER YEAR.

I'm hoping one year it doesn't fall on deaf ears. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I appreciate that they've had time to get this right, and I'm not defending SI stating that they are right, or that they shouldn't have gotten them right by now. I'm merely pointing out that stating that this is deliberate is moronic imo.

And although I may have missed your point here, the newgen system only came about in FM06 right? So they haven't really had five years to perfect this at all?

Originally posted by Kassien:

And although I may have missed your point here, the newgen system only came about in FM06 right? So they haven't really had five years to perfect this at all?

I think the FRED system actually only came about in FM07, but don't take that as gospel.

Either way, FM06 or FM07, it's obvious at this point in time that there was a major overhaul in the models used, and the way in which these things worked, so 5 years is an exaggeration. But then, I didn't come here to argue the merits of SI, merely to point out that suggesting they'd do it deliberately is plain wrong.

Originally posted by DaveRH:

I think the FRED system actually only came about in FM07, but don't take that as gospel.

I've got posts taling about the problems with them in FM06. So that's at least 3 iterations of FM.

My guess is they go back another year, maybe more. But I lost my old account in '05 and it's hard to find stuff from then otherwise.

Either way 3/4 iterations should be more than enogh to deal with things like:

"Top/World class" CB's with 10-12 jumping/pace combos. That should just NEVER happen, at minimum they should be Puyol level (and he's 13/18). Otherwise they are simply poor/average players, I don't care if they've got 190 PA, 20 tackling.

What's Drogba, Henry, Eto'o, et al with 10 Pace/Jumping?

I can't tell you how many of these hobbits my strikers have owned all over the pitch, because it's made worse by the CPU being oblivios to their terrible flaws.

What's worse this EXACT issue has always been there.

Dave you sound like a good guy, and I'm not here to butt heads. But I find I don't have the longest fuse on this issue because to me it is one that is very detrimental to career games, recurrent, and something a lot of people are willing to ignore (seemingly that includes SI).

I am not.