A Football Manager 2008 Experiment: The Quality of 8.0.2 Regens

Objective #2 results

The second objective is see if we can increase the quality of regens that the system produces. To do this almost all playable clubs will be given the best training and youth facilities. Hopefully this will show if it is possible to create better quality regens.

Current Ability

Unlike the last game, the DB didn't increase by so many players, it remained around 51,000 (Why is this?). So that immediately makes this comparison a little bit harder.

The number of players above 150 CA increased. On the default DB we had 330 players above 160 CA, in the edited DB we had 523. So quite a good difference there, especially as the DB is 30,000 players lighter. Again though, the amount of wonderkids decreased. Of all those 1023 players only 4 were under 21.

Potential Ability

It hard to compare lower PA players but looking at the players with 160 and above is where we see a massive difference. 1114 players in the original DB had over 160 PA, in the edited DB a massive 1877 players had 160 PA or more. Again, considering that we have 30,000 players less - that is very encouraging news that the better youth facilities are creating much better potential. Good news, at least something worked in this test We also double the amount of players with 190 PA and above. Lots of potential talent in the world now.

Attributes

Now I'll take another look at the attributes and see if the better training facilities produced a better rounding of figures.

Numbers in physical attributes remained consistent when compared to the 2030 game on the default db.

The Natural Fitness levels aren't so good. Players with 14 or more for this att dropped by around 5,000. We are comparing to a bigger DB though, so it's hard to tell wether these are good figures. But something I can say is that compared to the start of the default game, the numbers are down so this isn't a great indicator. Still no regen with a 20 in this att though.

Stamina was better. An extra 80 players had Stamina of 16 or higher but that is still very low compared to the original db in 2007. Again, no regen with 20 for this att.

A similar pattern is followed for Strenght and jumping. A decent increase but nothing that matches the original 2007 figures.

Fast Players

To determine a 'fast player' I searched for players who have both Accelleration and Pace at high levels.

These figures remained very consistent with the default 2030 game but again, just doesn't compare to the original 2007 game. An extra 14 players existed with 17 or higher than in the 2030 default db.

Fit Players

To determine a 'fit player' I searched for players who have all physical stats at 12 or above.

An extra 9 players existed.

Again, this is a massive problem with the regen system.

Strong Players

To determine a 'strong player' I searched for players who have 15+ for Stamina, Strenght and Natural Fitness.

743 of these players existed in the 2007 save.

52 of these players existed in the 2030 save.

60 of these players existed in the 2030 edited save.

Set Pieces

These are the numbers from Objective #1.

Players good at (15+) corners and free kicks went from 4 figure amounts to 3 figure amounts.

Players good at (15+) Long throws dropped from around 6,000 to 2,000.

Players good at (15+) Penalties dropped from almost 2,000 to 25

The numbers from the edited save are very similar, a very tiny increase in each of these, except for Long throw which, dropped by around 1,000.

I decided to search for players who are good at Set Pieces in general. I decided that 15+ for corners, free kicks and penalities would be a good starter.

In the 2007 save, 211 of these 'set piece' specialists existed.

In the 2030 save? none

In the 2030 edited save none

Quick conclusions

[0]CA is better all around.

[0]Same as before, players U-21 are definately not world class!

[0]The better youth facilities definately had a big impact on PA.

[0]Physical attributes are still terrible

[0]Set Piece attributres are worse!

So what did our editing achieve?

Nothing

Actually, the better youth facilities create much more potential so in 10 or 15 years I would imagine that there would be even more world class talent available but they would still have worryingly low physical stats.

Also the key thing here is that the numbers for 203o default db and 2030 edited db remained pretty consistant but the edited db had 30,000 less players. So editing the training facilities probably did have a decent impact in terms of players reaching potential but because the db was much smaller, we didn't see that much of an impact. Had the edited DB increased by 30,000, who knows how many more world class players we would have seen?

Wow - a truly enlightening post.

I'm very interested to see what happens in Objective 2.

My predicitons? Technical stats go through the roof, but physical stats remain in line with option 1.

I wonder what happened to the relative abilities of the coaches in objective 1 - are less good coaches being made?

Nice idea this, I've had a quick look on my game (2026) and it mirrors your findings very closely. There definitely seems to be something not quite right with the development of physical attributes, it will be interesting to see what difference the second test makes.

I'm very much in the same boat. Its poor form too, because it means the odd player with outstanding physical stats usually dominates games.

Great work Neji.

Yeah well played on this. I've also seen this 'anecdotally' in that it becomes harder and harder to find 'fast' players or decent set piece takers as you go on. This seems to provide a lot of evidence to back up these things more solidly, and is hopefully useful in the development of the game. You can see how it might have been overlooked if the testing focussed on CA's/PA's.

Out of interest - was this an issue on 07 or anything prior, or is it something that's crept in?

Also, is the point regarding the number of players in the game world in total sharply increasing a significant issue in anyone's opinion?

This is definitely not a fitness trainer problem (the game has no problem regenerating these) and I don't believe it's a training facility problem either. Most likely a game engine problem users have no way of fixing. Could also be that all teams use the default training setup and that this is too low to fully develop physical stats. Would be interesting to see what effect changing the Game Importance of all nations to Very important would have btw.

I assume you intend to give all teams Youth academy's as well...?

And in regard to your question bermybhoy, Yes It can slow down the game in the long run. Most of the re-gens would apparently be useless to the player anyway, and the number of unemployed players in the game must have skyrocketed.

Interesting read. I'm super curious about the second objective .

Wow - a truly enlightening post.

I'm very interested to see what happens in Objective 2.

My predicitons? Technical stats go through the roof, but physical stats remain in line with option 1.

I wonder what happened to the relative abilities of the coaches in objective 1 - are less good coaches being made?

I was actually going to put in a predictions section but totally forgot. I pretty much agree with you, I think there will be an influx of top top players (according to ca/PA) but physical stats remain similar, probably a slight increase in the number of better athletes though.

Out of interest - was this an issue on 07 or anything prior, or is it something that's crept in?

I never noticed the issue as bad on FM07. There always seemed to be good players around on a long term game. I think physical stats were a bit lower than at the start but not quite as bad.

I assume you intend to give all teams Youth academy's as well...?

Yes, should have mentioned that. All edited teams have been given youth acadamies aswell

Updated objective #2.

This is probably impossible to answer, but what is the 'cumulative PA'. ie, if you were add the PA of every player, what would it come to?

My thinking is that maybe the game does this - it knows the total PA available in the world; if that's the case, if you have a lot of players with higher PA, you would have fewer players in total; if you have less players with high PA, you'd have more bad players to compensate. Make any sense?

Still, really interesting - I thought the facilities would just increase the chance of getting a good player 'assigned' to a club, not the actual number.

The whole issue with physical and technical attributes though is clearly massive. If thats's sorted out for the next version, it's going to improve the experience for long-term gamers a whole lot.

A very interesting thread, highlighting some of the frustrations with regens. I've every confidence this will be fixed in the new version. It takes the shine off my career game slightly.

This is probably impossible to answer, but what is the 'cumulative PA'. ie, if you were add the PA of every player, what would it come to?

Not impossible but very time consuming!

My thinking is that maybe the game does this - it knows the total PA available in the world; if that's the case, if you have a lot of players with higher PA, you would have fewer players in total; if you have less players with high PA, you'd have more bad players to compensate. Make any sense?

I understand what you're saying but then there could be a chance that the db would start to decrease aswell?

A very interesting thread, highlighting some of the frustrations with regens. I've every confidence this will be fixed in the new version. It takes the shine off my career game slightly.

I think it will be much better too, I'm in a long term game an have found some decent regens but they are few and far between, good job I have been sucessful and have alot of money to buy them!

Just read this in conjunction with the all improvment thread, in the experiment are we forgetting 1 thing. if new players dont develope as they should, how much of this is down to poor coaching staff.

is it possible to use FMM and increase some clubs coaching staff so they are nothing short of super coaches, may be there development could be enhanced by training?

What bothers me, is the total randomnes of person data attributes. In the original db world class players were world class because they were professional, ambitious, determined, etc..

in 2030 they are bunch of extremly ambitious, unsporting, unloyal freaks with no control of their temperament, doesn't like important matches and doesn't handle pressure well. But somehow they ended as world class players...

Neji, would you please check how many players in 2030 have good person attributes >10, and bad<10? In my experiments there were 0 in whole db @2026.

Out of interest, did you find anything different with regen GKs?

Maybe footballers will not be as good in 2030, just a thought.

Maybe footballers will not be as good in 2030, just a thought.

Seems unlikely to me, but in any case why on earth would that be deliberately programmed into the game?

Wonderful.

Are there any plans to repeat this once FM09 is released? It would be interesting to see what improvements have been made.

I think I can put two and two together and bring up the problem, CA for most positions does not include a huge bias to physical attributes. And Set-Pieces are not counted in CA at all, so when the players increase these generally don't raise much from their standard, now I think if you went to 2008 or 2009 and picked a range of regens and then slowly projected their CA out vs the increase in their Physical and Set-Piece stats you would slowly see the problem, I don;'t think the game is 'training' enough into these attributes as it increases their CA if this makes sense?

Are there any plans to repeat this once FM09 is released? It would be interesting to see what improvements have been made.

I was thinking about this a few days ago and will probably set-up the same thing to see the improvements. Hopefully I'll try and get it started on release day.

I don;'t think the game is 'training' enough into these attributes as it increases their CA if this makes sense?

Amaroq came up with a possible reason for the set pieces and physical stats which is the same as you are saying (I think ). Basically that the AI isn't focussing the training on making these stats better?

I'm not entirely convinced that is the problem though, because even when I've played the game - I've never really noticed great stats even when specifically trying to increase someone physically. I never really tested into that though, it was just my experience from my own games.

Running the same simulation (Exactly the same experimental set-up) on FM09 would be a fantastic idea Neji.

I mean, you've pretty much summarised your results as concisely as possible, and as such the room for discussion is fairly small, and is more so limited by the fact that very few people will care about the FM08 in a month's time. But to compare these results to the regens in FM09 will generate MUCH discussion. It will provide a very direct method of determining whether the regen system has been tweaked at all, and if done early, will allow us all to know what to expect rather than getting 40 years into a game and realising that all the regens are fat.

I was thinking about this a few days ago and will probably set-up the same thing to see the improvements. Hopefully I'll try and get it started on release day.

Amaroq came up with a possible reason for the set pieces and physical stats which is the same as you are saying (I think ). Basically that the AI isn't focussing the training on making these stats better?

I'm not entirely convinced that is the problem though, because even when I've played the game - I've never really noticed great stats even when specifically trying to increase someone physically. I never really tested into that though, it was just my experience from my own games.

I can't wait to see the results, especially if they are going to be released soon after the release of the game.

I was thinking about this a few days ago and will probably set-up the same thing to see the improvements. Hopefully I'll try and get it started on release day.

Amaroq came up with a possible reason for the set pieces and physical stats which is the same as you are saying (I think ). Basically that the AI isn't focussing the training on making these stats better?

I'm not entirely convinced that is the problem though, because even when I've played the game - I've never really noticed great stats even when specifically trying to increase someone physically. I never really tested into that though, it was just my experience from my own games.

Very good idea, I think knowing the regen information would be very interesting.

Anyway, I agree that the computer training schemes are problematic and its one of the main reasons behind weird developments. If you train a youngster with high PA intensively physically in ages 17-21/22 you can raise the physical attributes 6-8 points, the record I've seen is Stamina from 2 to 13 over 5 years but that was in an exceptional case. I've done something similar with set pieces as well.

The AI can't make a judgement of how to train players and have everyone on general training which obviously wastes potential. It should rather have either 4 set schemes (gf/def/mid/att) or one for each position and put players according to which position they are Natural at.

Maybe, the AI coaches prefer big bruisers?

Vey Intresting. I do find the regen system frustating and is in fact worse than FM07 if i remember correctly

Does any1 know how to find CA and PA attribute numbers instead of the stars??

Vey Intresting. I do find the regen system frustating and is in fact worse than FM07 if i remember correctly

Does any1 know how to find CA and PA attribute numbers instead of the stars??

You'll need to use an unofficial tool to find them, the editors forum will probably have details about one.

Just to let you know that I've started the holiday game now so hopefully, some scout tool will come out soon so I can compare with 08.

Just to let you know that I've started the holiday game now so hopefully, some scout tool will come out soon so I can compare with 08.

Cool, I'd like to see how much effect the changes have.

I can't wait to see the results, especially as I've started what I'm hoping will be a long term game.

I can´t wait, too. Hope to have an improvement this year

I Also seem to see that on FM08 and 09 all the great regens on the game are all greyed out. Im In 2016 on my game and i looked into argentina under 20s and i found a 15 year old DMC and most of his mental attributes were above 15 - amazin for a player that age. His technical and physical attibutes we also quite sound in almost evry department. Yet He's greyed out and it will seem to stay that way.

It detrimental to a long term game that players that could have amazing potential abilty is greyed out while c**p players are able to go through and play and in year to come they end up at medicre at best clubs.

I Think Si should stop greying out players as those are the players that actually have great abilty and quite realistic attibutes as wel.