Footdness bug still present

really nice

more a player can use his weak foot, stats will drop but his general performace will be better, right?

this also means a player with poor weak foot will apear stronger, faster, more creative, better at passing...but it's interesting that his general performances will drop becouse of his poor week foot??!

Although I'm not a big fan of the way this works, just translate it as follows:

A both footed player can dribble to 17 off both feet. When he gets the ball he will be a nightmare to stop as he can go in either direction, and force the FB to try and tackle on his wrong side. A one footed player might be able to dribble to 20 with his left foot, but to 1 with his right foot. Forcing him onto the wrong foot will usually inhibit the move and win back possession, meaning that 20 + one foot is, overall, worse than 17 plus two feet, as long as you take the necessary precautions.

Its a strange one isn't it!

I can't understand the logic behind it. Why is a player less technically good just because he is good with both feet? Pele had two legs didn't he? Or was the reason why he was so good was because he only had one leg?!?

It screams work-around to me, I bet two footed players were superb in the match engine, so their skills had to be toned down to compensate.....

(equally daft, but why is a very professional player less technically good than an unprofessional one? Or why is the player with the perfect mental attributes never going to be as technically good as the player with the worst possible mental attributes?? Its the limitations of the PA system! SI should get rid of PA forever!)

Wow, Neb, it feels to me like you put the cart before the horse.

Assume a finite, limited, amount of time to train.

Assume two identical players.

The first spends all of his time training his dribbling, shooting, flair moves, etc, with his right (dominant) foot.

The second spends an equal amount of time training his dribbling, shooting, flair moves, etc, with both feet.

Whose right-footed dribbling is going to be better?

It seems logical, to me, that the one who trains right-foot-exclusive would be able to do better things *with his right foot* .. than the player who trains both feet .. but that the player who trains both feet will be more valuable in match situations.

Although I'm not a big fan of the way this works, just translate it as follows:

A both footed player can dribble to 17 off both feet. When he gets the ball he will be a nightmare to stop as he can go in either direction, and force the FB to try and tackle on his wrong side. A one footed player might be able to dribble to 20 with his left foot, but to 1 with his right foot. Forcing him onto the wrong foot will usually inhibit the move and win back possession, meaning that 20 + one foot is, overall, worse than 17 plus two feet, as long as you take the necessary precautions.

But why should how good a player is with his left foot limit how good he can become at dribbling with his right foot?

Its seems artificial to limit a players development (or use CA points) just because he happens to be good with both feet. The player that can use both feet should be equally as good with his right foot, as exactly the same player who can only use his right foot.

Even if you do have to limit other attributes developing, due to the player being too good with both feet, you shouldn't still let the game think that he's as good as another player with only one foot. (if that makes sense!) The game shouldn't just use CA to determine how good the player is. I had a centre back that was supposed to be superb, I couldn't understand how all the coaching staff/scouts thought he was excellent, as I thought he was rubbish, 2-3 points lower across the board on his attributes compared to the other players in his position. It was only when I noticed that he was equally good with left and right feet that it made sense... but the logic amazed me. Where's the common sense in that!

I can see your point, but all people are born ambidextrous to a degree, I know I'm better with my left foot than my mate, I always have been, always will be. that doesn't mean that I can't be as good with my right foot.

The kind of thing you use your other foot for doesn't effect all attributes anyway. Why should how good the fact I'm good with both feet affect:

my positioning?

my pace?

my jumping?

my decisions?

thow ins!!

Handling

gk punching ability

etc..

By taking available CA points, it does just that. Fair enough reducing training time on, passing, shooting, tackling, kicking....

It just doesn't seem logical

I do agree with Neb to some point in that you shouldn't be limited with PA to how good you can be with your weaker foot. For example, Morten Gamst Pedersen used his right foot more when he was young therefore being more predominantly right footed. Don't ask how I know this, it was in the paper with a quote from his Dad saying that he was a right footed youngster but I told him that left footed players are more rare and therefore he has a better opportunity of being a professional if he plays and trains with his left foot more. So he did and it paid off and now he has one of the best left foots in the game. It just shows that you aren't born one footed sort of speak when, obviously you have to make a choice when you are child maybe 12 years old or under as if you decide this at 17/18 it's not going to work for obvious reasons, but the fact that the PA stat limits how good a player can be with one foot, imo is not the best way to portray the player in questions, footedness. I haven't got a solution to how SI can do this, I just wanted to put this side across because as soon as I read the OP and the other posts this example came into my head straight away. Maybe if there's an option to change this if a player is 14/15/16 at a push, when they come into your youth academy.

It's not a bug and completely makes sense to me - Amaroq has already summed it up well so there's no point in me repeating the logic.

It's not a bug but it makes little sense to me.

The only reason Marcelo's scoring so much for me is because he's got a large degree of one-footedness.

When I signed Leandro Grimi, who had roughly the same technical attributes but was probably much more one-footed, Marcelo had problems keeping up with him in terms of scoring.

One-footed. One shot.

The thing I hate, though, is the fact that it's impossible to tell how good a two-footed player really is.

Whether it's a bug or not, how are we supposed to tell who's better? A two footed player with 17 dribbling or a single footed player with 20 dribbling?

It was proven that ambidexterity uses up CA points. Unfortunately, the user has no idea how much CA it consumes. Worse, there's no way to characterize the usefulness of ambidexterity. Is it important for my aerial targetman? How much CA is taken away for his ambidexterity? Needs to be re-evaluated. Shame that it won't make it into FM09.

It's not a bug and completely makes sense to me - Amaroq has already summed it up well so there's no point in me repeating the logic.

Have I got the wrong end of the stick? I thought that two footedness takes an accross the board drop on most attributes... (Correct me if I'm wrong!) Thats the reason it doesn't seem right to me. Correct me if I'm wrong!

If it was just the attributes where two footedness was an advantage, I could see a bit of logic (poorly implemented though) but my understanding was that most attributes drop as a result of a player being two footed.

A player might train twice in skills such as first touch, passing, dribbling, tackling, finishing - once for each foot. so the logic that because they are training their weaker foot, they aren't as good with their preferred foot, makes sense. But I don't see what impact a player being two footed would have on his training for positioning, pace, strength, throw ins, off the ball or heading.

If beckham was two footed in real life, do you think his passing would be worse than it is now? - Fair enough, it might be a little

Would his dribbling be worse? - Fair enough, might be a little worse

First touch? - Definately worse

Pace? - no change

strength? - No change

Crossing? - Worse

Determination? -

Throw ins? -

heading? -

Can you see how the logic doesn't fit?

Why does this affect a keeper? What advantage does a two footed keeper have exactly? Why should his attributes be less good than his identical twin that is just right footed?

Wow, Neb, it feels to me like you put the cart before the horse.

Assume a finite, limited, amount of time to train.

Assume two identical players.

The first spends all of his time training his dribbling, shooting, flair moves, etc, with his right (dominant) foot.

The second spends an equal amount of time training his dribbling, shooting, flair moves, etc, with both feet.

Whose right-footed dribbling is going to be better?

It seems logical, to me, that the one who trains right-foot-exclusive would be able to do better things *with his right foot* .. than the player who trains both feet .. but that the player who trains both feet will be more valuable in match situations.

I agree with you!

But why should the players heading be affected? his pace? his positioning?

It should just be the attributes that need to be trained with a left foot that are affected, not them all.

fantastic. so again too low stats for Kaka, C. ronaldo, etc...

When are they going to understand that the two are separated from each other (except for dribbling maybe?) it's not because i can write with two hands for xample, that i write a novel that is less good than some one who only writes with one hand.

I'm not a fan of it, but I don't see the big deal. Whether the stats are low or not, the players ability is still represented and it doesn't affect their ability in any way. It's a bit strong to call something that was implemented on purpose a bug, or are we just calling everything we don't like, bugs.

I'm also not a fan of this foot-ambidexterity penalty. The rationale that some of you suggested above makes sense on marginal terms. I.e. A player who practices one foot extensively may be MARGINALLY better with that one foot than another player who splits time between feet. This I can agree with. Where this train of thought breaks down is for the extremely good players (e.g. C. Ronaldo and Kaka). It's just not right that someone like Kaka can never be as good (mental, technical, physical attributes combined) with one foot as a one-footed player with the same CA.

On the subject of heading, shouldn't a player who's good at heading be penalized in a similar way as foot-ambidexterity, then? After all, that player must've spent practice time heading the ball instead of kicking it with his feet. So his foot skills shouldn't be as good as some player who didn't practice heading much? This foot-ambidexterity penalty is awkward, for sure.

i know it's not a bug, but there are many problems this issue brings:

- how can we know which player is better without knowing his CA?

can you give us some tool to calculate attributes vs weak foot ability? if two players with same CA, stats bla bla bla....the one with weak foot 1 will look twice the player with WFA 20.

- how can WFA influence mental, physical or any other stat, which hasn't got anything to do with foot ability?

so a plyaer with WFA 1 will run faster, make better decisions, his anticipation will improve...just becouse he's not good with his weak foot? come on we are talking about stats changing in +/- 2 manner. that's insane... i would stay quiet if this change was happenening only to attributes which deal with foot ability, like shooting, passing and dribbling for example.

- do atttributes play any role than?

the player with +2 stats in all departments, should be much better than the one with -2. it's a gap of as much as 4 points in almost every attribute. how can 2 footed player be better? if i see a player with off the ball 18, i'll assume he's better in movement than a player with 14. how can WFA influence off the ball, for example, is beyond me.

- what is the real life thinking behind this?

ok, being able to use both is a great plus. but WFA influences only a couple of attributes not almost any. shooting, passing, dribbling and few more come to my mind. composure, positioning, heading, teamwork, stamina??? can someone explain this to me please...

Imagine there are two Kaka's. Twins. One is right footed, but his left foot is functional at best. The other is two footed. Aside from that they are identical.

Which one would have the higher CA?

Basically, having a good "other foot" is worth a fair few CA points. Think of it as all attributes contribute to the final CA.......

fair enough. but i assume the strong foot kaka would still be able to run as fast as his weak foot brother

this is what i'm going to do. i'll decrease WFA for all more important players with WFA 1-5 and 16-20 to balance the database

I can see your point, but all people are born ambidextrous to a degree, I know I'm better with my left foot than my mate, I always have been, always will be. that doesn't mean that I can't be as good with my right foot.

The kind of thing you use your other foot for doesn't effect all attributes anyway. Why should how good the fact I'm good with both feet affect:

my positioning?

my pace?

my jumping?

my decisions?

thow ins!!

Handling

gk punching ability

etc..

By taking available CA points, it does just that. Fair enough reducing training time on, passing, shooting, tackling, kicking....

It just doesn't seem logical

But by the same token, why should your crossing ability affect your positioning? Crossing takes CA points too, so it's doing just that, and the same for any other attribute.

Basically, you're thinking about this all wrong. Footedness doesn't reduce the attributes - they aren't worse players because they are two-footed, they have higher CAs than just their attributes would indicate because they are two footed. The example of two identical players one 1 footed, the other 2 footed is the best demonstration of why this is the correct approach to take.

it seems like the number of CA points taken up by two-footedness has been reduced a fair bit though, which is exactly what I wanted to see. two-footed players are now worth having, unlike in the last game

But by the same token, why should your crossing ability affect your positioning? Crossing takes CA points too, so it's doing just that, and the same for any other attribute.

Basically, you're thinking about this all wrong. Footedness doesn't reduce the attributes - they aren't worse players because they are two-footed, they have higher CAs than just their attributes would indicate because they are two footed. The example of two identical players one 1 footed, the other 2 footed is the best demonstration of why this is the correct approach to take.

researchers don't calculate that. just go to data forum, they' re all amazed? did you see srna or palombo? monsters...they play **** becouse they're one footed...fair enough. what about those thousends of FM gamers that don't come to these boards?

Researches are able to see how much all attributes are worth in the editor. Its actually not a "bug" - but poor current ability distributions by the people involved.

What is so hard to understand?

The player's CA is determined by all of his attributes as well as his footedness.

He doesn't miss out on CA points because they're used up by being two-footed. That's completely the wrong way to think about it.

If he wasn't two-footed he would have less CA points. Regardless of his attributes.

Researches are able to see how much all attributes are worth in the editor. Its actually not a "bug" - but poor current ability distributions by the people involved.

maybe there could be a thread in data forum for all the players who's CA distribution wasn't accurate, so we can easily find those players, what do you think?

I didnt know about this before, and its very interesting. I can understand both point of view, and i think this is something that will lead, before or after, to a different way to characterize a player.

Technical, physical and mental stats are, in my opinion, absolutely different; this means:

-) in lower leagues there are players with strong mentality, and they cant play at higher level because their technique and/or physic (fitness? uhm sorry english is not my language, not sure) is too low..

-) or maybe there are great physical players who plays at relatively high level even if their mental e/o technique is so good..

-) ...and so on.

Maybe, as a suggestion, in future version a players should have 3 different "abilitiy levels" (technique, mental and physics) and the combination of the 3 determines how good a player is. Obviously the more uncommons are technical ones (there are relatively few technical gifted players, and this explain why they are so expensive..). And, again, maybe less attributes will be enough.. i mean, i.e., why there is a "corners" attribute? If a player has good crossing and technique, he is a good corner taker, etc.

And the ambidexterity should afflict only the technical attributes (i agree with neb).

No matter how good their attributes are, one-footed players are always rubbish in the game. So how well a player can play with his weaker foot is one of the most important things i always consider when buying a player.

And to Neb at post #4, the reason why Pelé was so good is because he was technically excellent AND could play with both feet.

Maybe, as a suggestion, in future version a players should have 3 different "abilitiy levels" (technique, mental and physics) and the combination of the 3 determines how good a player is. Obviously the more uncommons are technical ones (there are relatively few technical gifted players, and this explain why they are so expensive..). And, again, maybe less attributes will be enough.. i mean, i.e., why there is a "corners" attribute? If a player has good crossing and technique, he is a good corner taker, etc.

And the ambidexterity should afflict only the technical attributes (i agree with neb).

But wouldn't this make the job harder for researchers?

It's just like Bigdunk said, WFA taking points away from mental attributes make as much sense as, for example, Dribbling also taking points away from mental attributes for a winger, as both cost alot CA. But WFA takes even more point from CA than any other attribute i guess.

No matter how good their attributes are, one-footed players are always rubbish in the game. So how well a player can play with his weaker foot is one of the most important things i always consider when buying a player.

I agree when they play in a central position. But a left back with 5 in right foot it not that bad for hes performance - he will still be able to make some great cross and direct passes if he have lets say 18 crossing 17 passing..

A central midfielder with a weak foot will make a lot of mistakes under pressure ..

No matter how good their attributes are, one-footed players are always rubbish in the game. So how well a player can play with his weaker foot is one of the most important things i always consider when buying a player.

that's becouse you've been told so.

just for example, messi's using his right, only for running and he's quite good...

No matter how good their attributes are, one-footed players are always rubbish in the game.

That's not true, i've had plenty of players who only use one foot and have been very good.

But by the same token, why should your crossing ability affect your positioning? Crossing takes CA points too, so it's doing just that, and the same for any other attribute.

Thats my argument against the PA limit. It restricts improvement in one attribute unless another attribute reduces. daft!

I personally think that only the attributes that twofootedness (is that a word?!) should affect are those that are affected through training (which are the attributes that benefit a player who is two footed). Ie, passing, tackling, first touch, finishing, crossing, dribbling, long shots, technique. Shouldn't the Wrong foot modifier to reduce skills be based on the attributes, not CA?? instead of a reduction in CA points, should it not be a reduction in the attributes?? Instead of Ronaldo 'using' 20 CA points up because he's two footed, should he not have a 3 point reduction in passing, finishing, first touch. A 2 point reduction in dribbling, long shots and a 1 point reduction in tackling and crossing? dependant on position

Just out of interest, how does SI think their customers view the attributes of a player? I thought they were definitive. I thought that player 'A' with 15 passing but 'right foot only' was just as good at passing as player 'B' with 15 and 'both feet'. I then thought that the match engine used wrong foot ability in the game. So player 'A' had an effective passing of 15 on his good foot, and say 5 on his weaker foot, player 'B' had effective passing of 15 on both feet.

This would mean that when I was looking for a striker, I'd look at his finishing first, then his feet and think that he's a good finisher, but his weak foot lets him down.

If I was looking for a winger, I'd check his crossing, then check his feet and think that because I want him to play down the wing and put crosses in, the abscence of a left foot doesn't actually matter that much.

Basically, you're thinking about this all wrong. Footedness doesn't reduce the attributes - they aren't worse players because they are two-footed, they have higher CAs than just their attributes would indicate because they are two footed. The example of two identical players one 1 footed, the other 2 footed is the best demonstration of why this is the correct approach to take.

So why does the game think that two players with the same CA are of the same ability? when the attributes quite clearly show that they aren't. The player who is better with his wrong foot is slower, weaker, can't judge the game as well, doesn't work as hard, is less agressive, can't jump as high, can't throw as far, can't head the ball as well...etc...etc.

If the game aknowledged the fact that the CA isn't an appropriate measure of ability and didn't use it to rank/rate players, it wouldn't be so confusing.

I agree when they play in a central position. But a left back with 5 in right foot it not that bad for hes performance - he will still be able to make some great cross and direct passes if he have lets say 18 crossing 17 passing..

A central midfielder with a weak foot will make a lot of mistakes under pressure ..

But when a left back is left-footed only, the AI manager will tell his players to show onto his left foot, and he'll have to rush his crossing making it less accurate.

Even for a left back it's important to have skill on both feet sometimes, just take a look at this goal by Maxwell, who's a both footed player (eventhough he's left-footed only in the db :/) :

Even for GK's it's important, one the things i noticed the most from Cech is how he can use both feet to kick the ball.

Anyway, i might be wrong, but i think WFA costs less CA for a LB than for a central midfielder for example.

I know that LeoViera . Im just saying IF hes not under pressure on the flanks, he will still be able to make good crosses and passes from deep with hes left foot..

A central MC will find it much harder to distribute passes around the field with a weak foot.

Are some people not born ambidextrous? the're two footed, two handed all the time. They learn to write with their right hand and by doing so learn to write with their left hand.

I'd be interested to know how often a two footed player practices with his other foot.... I'd think very little (outside of crossing, corners, free kicks (even then, he'd just use his good foot)). A player with no wrong foot ability might practice most of the time to improve his wrong foot, meaning he wouldn't improve much with his good foot. What I'm trying to say is that its the change that should use up CA points because someone who can use both feet wouldn't dedicate much time at all to practicing both feet individually.

There's no such thing as a "Wrong foot modifier to reduce skills", skills are not reduced because a player is two footed. A player has a total ability (CA), this ability is distributed amongst the various attributes, including two footedness. It can be distributed differently for different players. As I understand it, a player with 15 passing is as good as any other player with 15 passing at passing with his strong foot, but having a higher weaker foot rating means he is better at passing with his weaker foot too. The fact that that player can pass with both feet makes him clearly better, so this takes up some of his attibute points. I really don't see why people are strugging with this.

CA is a measure of ability, but it's only a rough guidline. You could have for example, an AM with passing 15/finishing 5 and another AM with passing 5/finishing 15, both with possibly the same CA. Now depending on what you do with these AMs, they could play well or play badly. One will be better as a playmaker, the other will be better as a goalscoring midfielder. It's exactly the same with footedness. If you make use of the fact that the player is twofooted, he will play better. A two footed winger who is just told to hug the touchline and whip crosses in will make far less use of his twofootedness, whereas if he is given license to come off his touchline and run at players, his twofootedness will be a massive advantage.

I don't especially like this method - I like to be able to look at two player's attributes and compare directly, but that is just because I am old-fashioned. In real life you can't assign exact numbers to how good a player is at all these individual attributes anyway so there is no reason why, in game, you should have an absolute way to compare a one-footed player and a two-footed player.

You can look and compare directly. You just need to look at his footedness aswell. A 15 passer is a 15 passer, regardless of footedness. Short of giving ratings for both feet (i.e. passing with left foot 10, passing with right foot 15), there's no other way to do it.

You can look and compare directly. You just need to look at his footedness aswell. A 15 passer is a 15 passer, regardless of footedness. Short of giving ratings for both feet (i.e. passing with left foot 10, passing with right foot 15), there's no other way to do it.

the problem is that game adds points not researchers. if he thinks a player is strong 15 he should be strong 15, not 13 or 17. it makes big difference when you take into acount that almost every stat changes that way. if you don't see it as a problem, i do.

If you can't get one-footed players performing then you're really not very good at the game.

I can see your point, that being good with the wrong foot is just the same as any other attribute. That it depends how you are using the player.

My bugbear with the game is that it is impossible to directly compare one CB,with two good feet and one CB with one good foot. The game uses CA to compare them, I can only use the attributes I see. So more often than not, the game tells me the CB with two good feet is better, even though he isn't as good a defender as the other CB. There is more to being a defender than having two feet. positioning, anticipation, strength, jumping, marking play a much bigger part than the ability to tackle or pass (which are the only things being two footed affects)

My point is that the game rates two footedness too highly (certainly in some positions, CB/Keeper especially)

I'd also like to see wrong foot ability in number form (1-20) on the attribute page. That way it'd be easier to see why my ass man really rates one of my players even though he's not very good technically, mentally or physically......

I know that LeoViera . Im just saying IF hes not under pressure on the flanks, he will still be able to make good crosses and passes from deep with hes left foot..

A central MC will find it much harder to distribute passes around the field with a weak foot.

I'm not a dev or a researcher, so i just guess how things are or could be. I'm also not very good at explaining things and english isn't my first language, but anyway.

In the new researcher's tool, the researchers are able to see how many points each attribute will take from the player's CA, depending on his position.

For example, let's say that a LB has 30 CA points left, and the researcher needs to fill those 30 points with the players crossing ability and WFA. Let's imagine that each Crossing "point" costs 1 point on the player's CA and each WFA "point" costs 2 points on the player's CA. And the researcher thinks that this LB's crossing should be 15 and his WFA 5. Do the math ... the result is that only 25 points on the player's CA was filled, so the researcher reduces the player's CA by five points so that when you start a new game, the AI doesn't change the player's crossing ability to 20!! (obvsly that's not exactly how things work, but if i explained right you should probably understand what i'm trying to say).

Now let's say that you have a world class CM, but he's one-footed only. He needs to have a high CA, so how will he compesate his lackness of WFA to not lose so much possesion when with the ball? With high mental and physical attributes. For example, good acceleration, agility, anticipation, off the ball and positioning so he'll now how to move on the pitch and get away from defender's pressure. A high composure, creativity, decisions and flair to trick defenders and act fast. And so on.

It does seem strangely implemented. A brief glance at an attribute page always used to be enough to tell you how good *in general* a player is, but now a load of 14s next to "Either" (which, by the way, isn't even signposted so new users would have no idea what this panel means) is somehow superior to a load of 20s next to "Right Only". It makes the game far less user friendly.

I can see your point, that being good with the wrong foot is just the same as any other attribute. That it depends how you are using the player.

My bugbear with the game is that it is impossible to directly compare one CB,with two good feet and one CB with one good foot. The game uses CA to compare them, I can only use the attributes I see. So more often than not, the game tells me the CB with two good feet is better, even though he isn't as good a defender as the other CB. There is more to being a defender than having two feet. positioning, anticipation, strength, jumping, marking play a much bigger part than the ability to tackle or pass (which are the only things being two footed affects)

My point is that the game rates two footedness too highly (certainly in some positions, CB/Keeper especially)

Seems like your only complaint with the footedness issue is

1) You can't see it. In FM08 you can estimate by the categories of very weak, weak, reasonable, strong, very strong, not sure how it's done in 09. But 5 categories give you a pretty decent breakdown to estimate.

2) It has varying value for different positions. Think in 09 they are weighing it by position.

Footedness is like any other stat, don't think of it as a penalty for positioning, etc. As long as you have a CA/PA system, ANY stat is a penalty for other stats. If your striker's pace goes up by 5, the other stats have to go down to compensate. The only issue with footedness in 08 was that it is perhaps weighted too highly, especially for certain positions like GK. A completely two-footed GK would probably be pretty worthless as his key GK skills will suffer too much from it. This goes for every other stat too - they have to be weighed in terms of CA points for their position.

Basically, the degree of strength in the weak foot is a stat like any other, don't think of it as a penalty!

I'd like the Ass man/scout to say more about a player that can use both feet.

So if I've a player that has 'both feet' I'd like my ass man to make a statement in the coach report about how good the player is because he can play with both feet. That way, it makes it more obvious that the reason the ass man rates the player is due to his ability with his weaker foot.

Seems like your only complaint with the footedness issue is

1) You can't see it. In FM08 you can estimate by the categories of very weak, weak, reasonable, strong, very strong, not sure how it's done in 09. But 5 categories give you a pretty decent breakdown to estimate.

2) It has varying value for different positions. Think in 09 they are weighing it by position.

Footedness is like any other stat, don't think of it as a penalty for positioning, etc. As long as you have a CA/PA system, ANY stat is a penalty for other stats. If your striker's pace goes up by 5, the other stats have to go down to compensate. The only issue with footedness in 08 was that it is perhaps weighted too highly, especially for certain positions like GK. A completely two-footed GK would probably be pretty worthless as his key GK skills will suffer too much from it. This goes for every other stat too - they have to be weighed in terms of CA points for their position.

Basically, the degree of strength in the weak foot is a stat like any other, don't think of it as a penalty!

You are right, I was thinking about it slightly wrong. (it might not be so bad in FM09 anyway, I've not got the demo yet)

I still feel that it isn't obvious enough to new and old (me!) users. If I made that mistake I'm sure many many other people will have as well.

I always thought a good player had good attributes. But a good player can have average attributes but be two footed. It isn't explicit enough on the player profile, scout reports or coach reports. This is partly because its not a number, so you don't associate it with a players attributes.

It does seem strangely implemented. A brief glance at an attribute page always used to be enough to tell you how good *in general* a player is, but now a load of 14s next to "Either" (which, by the way, isn't even signposted so new users would have no idea what this panel means) is somehow superior to a load of 20s next to "Right Only". It makes the game far less user friendly.

Like I said before, short of giving every one two separate ratings for e.g. passing with left foot and passing with right foot, what other method is there?

And it's always been like this. A striker with finishing 15, composure 15, decisions 15 is superior to a striker with finishing 20, composure 1, decisions 1. You have to look at the player as a whole, and with regard to the way you are going to use him.

Imagine there are two Kaka's. Twins. One is right footed, but his left foot is functional at best. The other is two footed. Aside from that they are identical.

Which one would have the higher CA?

Basically, having a good "other foot" is worth a fair few CA points. Think of it as all attributes contribute to the final CA.......

Of course the two-footed Kaká is better. But that's not the point. It's the fact that a one-footed Kaká will do much, much better with one foot than a two-footed one will.

A one-footed Kaká might be better in the air due to the fact he might get an extra 1 Jumping or something. Which makes no sense - Kaká has apparently grown a second foot at the expense of being weaker in the air.

I can see your point, that being good with the wrong foot is just the same as any other attribute. That it depends how you are using the player.

My bugbear with the game is that it is impossible to directly compare one CB,with two good feet and one CB with one good foot. The game uses CA to compare them, I can only use the attributes I see. So more often than not, the game tells me the CB with two good feet is better, even though he isn't as good a defender as the other CB. There is more to being a defender than having two feet. positioning, anticipation, strength, jumping, marking play a much bigger part than the ability to tackle or pass (which are the only things being two footed affects)

My point is that the game rates two footedness too highly (certainly in some positions, CB/Keeper especially)

Yeah, it's a well known issue, a lot of this and other stuff you can find here. As far as I'm concerned it was the best topic here, too bad it's dead now. http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=18848

Of course the two-footed Kaká is better. But that's not the point. It's the fact that a one-footed Kaká will do much, much better with one foot than a two-footed one will.

Problem is that we don't know how much 2ft attribute is important in game, we can't see it from ME.