[Guide and Discussion] The Fastest way to develop player ability

Hello everyone, this guide aims to help (hopefully) people to achieve fast CA-increasing and Attributes Shaping for their players, especially their youngsters. Conclusive remarks will be given first with key information highlighted, and supporting test data are presented in the next post for some conclusions which may seem new or unconvincing to people. Any discussion or argument is welcome. (Abbreviation: CA=current ability, PA=potential ability)

Training is the way you distribute player CA to his Attributes

In FM09 player attributes are progressively affected by Training and CA-change, but training itself has only tiny effect on the CA-improvement which is mainly determined by other factors (the details will be given later).

As we all know that player attributes are restricted by his CA in some algorithm. There is a Cycle of Attributes-CA Adjustment in this game to synchronize the attributes and CA every month, and this synchronization considers training schedule in attribute-distribution. For example, in a player's training schedule Shooting is under intense training while other training categories are set to medium or light. When the Attribute-CA synchronization happens, some attributes in Shooting category (Finishing, Composure and LongShoot) will increase, and the other attributes may either decrease, remain unchanged or increase less depending on CA-change. This brings the concept of biased improvement of player attributes through training: During the CA-increasing and training, attributes in the high-workload training categories will gain more share in CA-spending and thus improve fast, whereas attributes in those categories with light or zero workload will increase slowly or even decrease. This process is called player attributes shaping, which is the main role of training schedule in FM09.

How to shape the attributes distribution fast

Player attributes distribution is important, which distinguish good and bad players having the same CA. A good specific training schedule is key to shape your player to what you want fast. The strategy for designing a schedule is simply to give high or intense amount training to desired attributes, and to set light or zero amount in the category you do not want much improvement for you player. One training schedule can be used for a group of players of the same position, but to achieve the best result individual schedule for every player will be brilliant. As some attributes like Acceleration and Pace improve very slow for adult players, I suggest giving high or intense aerobic training to your teenagers if you want them to have high speed.

High training amount and 7-star coach in a particular category means fast and effective attributes shaping. However high training amount brings two concerns: (1) High injury rate, in which case you need to keep the balance between effective attributes shaping and low injury rate for your players. (2) Possible player unhappiness. Reduce the amount if you want to keep your players happy. But my personal experience says that this doesn’t matter too much.

People often talk about how to maintain some attributes at their current levels, no increase or decrease. To achieve that you need to keep adjusting the notch of the corresponding training category to find a suitable position. You can start by a training amount and if the attribute decreases, adjust the notch to right by one or two clicks, or if the attribute increases and you don’t want that, do the opposition. There is no such rule that how many notches will be enough to ensure an attribute won’t drop.

How to boost the CA of your players

CA-boost simply means fast CA-increasing of a player, which is 20-40 CA increased per season or even more. This is important for young player development especially for those with huge PA-CA difference. There are several factors determining the speed of CA-increasing and they are necessary conditions for the fastest development of your players (The record in my tests is a player who increased his CA by 39 points in only 6 months). These factors are listed below:

(1) Young age. Players over 24 can hardly have their CA increased significantly.

(2) Match practice. Enough amount and quality of match practice is vital for player CA improvement. Give enough amount of match experience to keep your players 100% match fit. The match quality is also important: competitive matches are obviously better than friendly matches. Ideally 20-30 first team competitive matches per season are best for your young players to increase the CA, but if there are only limited opportunities of this kind, friendly matches can also help those players with low CA (say below 145 in Chelsea first team) a lot. In addition, better on-pitch performance helps CA-improvement, and fatigues resulting from too much matches for under-18 youngsters seems a negative factor.

(3) high Professionalism. The most important factor in a player’s trait which heavily determines how fast a player can improve his CA. Players with high Professionalism can grow his CA 5-10 times faster than those with poor value.

(4) High Workrate and Ambition. Although not as important as Professionalism, these two factors can make considerable contribution to CA-boost if combined with a decent Professionalism.

These key factors must be combined together to achieve the optimal effect because they appear to function together in a multiplying way. Therefore they are important in choosing youngster to build. Not only considering their PA or attributes, bring those with high Professionalism plus adequate Workrate and Ambition to your squad to avoid huge waste of time and energy (of course you can also have your youngsters tutored by a matured player to improve their Professionalism and Ambition, and trained to improve Workrate). Even for adult players over 24 who still have some PA-CA gap, high Professionalism plus high Workrate and Ambition also help them a lot to improve further, although not as fast as for youngsters.

Other notes

In general you cannot increase a player’s CA significantly when his CA is close to PA even if he combines all the key factors. For a developed adult player (which means a first-team regular with matured CA), Determination is an important attribute which helps his on-pitch performance. Determination can be improved gradually by either tutoring or by spontaneously growth if the player has high Professionalism. Professionalism can aslo help on-pitch performance, at a more significant degree.

Team Reputation is also an important factor influencing the CA-improvement of its own players. Players in a top club tend to grow their CA faster than in teams with low reputation. Therefore when you plan to send your players to other clubs (e.g. feeders) on loan to develop them, do take these clubs' reputation into account. On the other hand, the reputation of your opposition do not affect the CA-improvement of your players.

Overall Training Amount is also a factor affecting CA-improvement. However because there is only tiny difference in CA-improvement if the overall training workload is set between Medium and Heavy, unless you put your players in very low training amount (<40 notches), this factor will make basically ignorable impact in CA-improvement. In addition, Training facility and Quality of Coaches do not contribute to player CA-improvement; they may just help effective attributes-shaping.

For those who don’t use third-party tools like GeineScout, player’s Professionalism and Ambition can be revealed by his personality description. An excellent personality guide by Lyssien is here: http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=16356.

A related article featuring an overview of player development and close view of training and coining training amount and workrate as factors in player development by SFraser is here:http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=70803

Thanks for reading

These tests aimed to see how much impact the possible factors like Determination, Professionalism, Ambition, Workrate, Training Workload, Training facility and Team Reputation can make on player’s CA-improvement in a fixed period.

Common Conditions

The followings conditions are constant for all the tests unless specifically mentioned:

Start a new game with Chelsea. Fill the first-team with 24 players, and edit them to have the same birthday (all 18 years old), CA (=140), PA (=200) and hidden attributes (the constant attributes during the tests are 0 for Injury-Proneness, Controversy and Adaptability, 20 for Sportsmanship, Loyalty, Pressure and Temperament). Edit the assistant manger to have 20 in all attributes. Overall training workload is maximum medium (109 notches) and Team Reputation is default (9200). Give all players a fixed set of [Determination, Professionalism, Ambition, Workrate] and then go on holiday for 180 days.

Results

As the players have different appearances and ratings over the 6 months, the sum of CA-increase for all of them was recorded as the index. Data are enclosed in quoting format for clarity.

A general set of tests to check the effect of various factors in CA-improvement

(I1) Determination=1, Professionalism=0, Ambition=0, Workrate=1

Sum of CA increased = 0. (The team is ranked 11th in the league table)

(I2) Determination=20, Professionalism=0, Ambition=0, Workrate=1

Sum of CA increased = 0. (9th)

(I3) Determination=1, Professionalism=20, Ambition=0, Workrate=1

Sum of CA increased = 177. (1st)

Sum of CA increased = 177. (5th)

(I4) Determination=1, Professionalism=0, Ambition=20, Workrate=1

Sum of CA increased = 9. (9th)

(I5) Determination=1, Professionalism=0, Ambition=0, Workrate=20

Sum of CA increased = 3. (14th)

(I6) Determination=1, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=20

Sum of CA increased = 583. (2nd)

(I7) Determination=20, Professionalism=0, Ambition=20, Workrate=20

Sum of CA increased = 35. (6th)

(I8) Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=20

Sum of CA increased = 572. (1st)

Sum of CA increased = 556. (1st)

This set of tests show that if working individually (I1-I5), only Professionalism makes a huge impact on CA-increasing, while Ambition and Workrate have a small effect, and Determination and other possible factors do nothing. With the combination of these factors all in maximum value (20), the total CA-increase could reach about 570 points. Again Professionalism plays the biggest role because if it is taken off from the combination the rest only result in about 35 points of CA-increase. Determination still contributes nearly nothing even if combined with other factors in high values.

Therefore Professionalism is the vital factor in CA-improvement and other factors appear to only function as additional modifiers. Besides, Professionalism can significantly improve players’ on-pitch performance.

Tests for the effect of Professionalism in CA-improvement

Constant condition in this set is Determination=0, Ambition=0, Workrate=1.

(P1) Professionalism=5

Sum of CA increased = 21.

(P2) Professionalism=10

Sum of CA increased = 56.

Sum of CA increased = 57.

(P3) Professionalism=15

Sum of CA increased = 99.

Combined with (I1) and (I3) (see above), a figure could be drawn as:

It seems that the function of Professionalism to CA-improvement is not linear. The higher Professionalism is, the more extra effect it brings to CA-improvement.

Tests for the effect of Workrate in CA-improvement

Constant condition in this set is Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20.

(W1) Workrate=1

Sum of CA increased = 301.

Sum of CA increased = 304.

(W2) Workrate=5

Sum of CA increased = 337.

(W3) Workrate=10

Sum of CA increased = 442.

(W4) Workrate=15

Sum of CA increased = 467.

(I8) Workrate=20

Sum of CA increased = 556.

Sum of CA increased = 572.

It seems that the function of Workrate to CA-improvement is linear, and the increasing speed of CA is ~15 points per Workrate in this case.

Tests for the effect of Ambition in CA-improvement

Constant condition in this set is Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Workrate=20.

(A1) Ambition=0

Sum of CA increased = 347.

(A2) Ambition=10

Sum of CA increased = 439.

(I8) Ambition=20

Sum of CA increased = 556.

Sum of CA increased = 572.

It seems that the function of Ambition to CA-improvement is linear, and the increasing speed of CA is ~10 points per Ambition in this case.

Tests for the effect of Overall Training Workload in CA-improvement

Common condition for this set is Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=20.

It is interesting that CA-improvement speed is not linearly dependant on Overall training workload. After the notch reaches medium amount, total training workload only has tiny effect in CA-improvement.

Tests for the importance of Team Reputation and Training facility in CA-improvement

(R1) Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=16, No reputation is modified, training facility is default (20).

Sum of CA increased = 442. (1st in the league table)

(R2) Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=16, No reputation is modified, training facility is set to 1.

Sum of CA increased = 467. (1st)

(R3) Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=16, Reputation of the other 19 Premier Clubs is set 1. Chelsea Reputation remains unmodified (9200).

Sum of CA increased = 442. (1st)

(R4) Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=16, Chelsea Reputation is set to 1 and no other reputation is modified.

Sum of CA increased = 162. (1st)

The above set of data concludes simply two points:

(i) Training Facility has no impact on CA-improvement. It may just help effective attributes shaping like 7-star coach.

(ii) Team Reputation is also a very important factor in CA-development for its own players, whereas the reputation of its opponents seems to have no effect.

Tests for the importance of Coach stars in CA-improvement

constant condition is Determination=20, Professionalism=20, Ambition=20, Workrate=20, maximum medium training (109 notches).

(S1) 1-star coaching in all category

Sum of CA increased = 582. (1st in the league table)

(S2) 6-star coaching in all category

Sum of CA increased = 579. (1st)

Summary:

(1) For CA-improvement, Professionalism is the essential factor.

(2) Workrate and Ambition make considerable impact on CA-improvement when combined with high Professionalism but make very limited contribution if the Professionalism is poor. The importance of them is W:A=3:2.

(3) Overall training workload only affects CA-Improvement significantly below 40 notches. Generally people give their players at least medium amount of training (69-109 notches), therefore the total training load contributes at a tiny degree to CA-improvement.

(4) Training facility and Coach stars make little impact on CA-improvement. Their job may be involved in the effectiveness of attributes-shaping.

(5) Team Reputation is also an important factor for the CA-improvement of its own players. However the reputation of opponent teams do not matter.

Have you done tests to se how much training facilities influences this? I.E. do another two test, one with training facilites set to 10 and the last one with training facilites set 1. Just to see what kind of difference training facilites has on developing youth.

Is there a point in trying to develop youth players if you dont have good training facilites?

The fastest way to develop player ability is to buy young players with high Ambition and Professionalism and play them? Although your results are accurate your analysis seems flawed.

The faster way for the manager to develop X player is to train X player hard, mentor X player, redistribute attributes and motivate X player to achieve high ratings in the matches he plays. This is the logical conclusion of your post.

The fastest way to develop player ability is to buy young players with high Ambition and Professionalism and play them?

I never said that, did I?

What I mean is those key factors (young age, high Professionalism and high ambition, match practice) are necessary conditions for a player to growh in the fastest way. But logically speaking the reverse statement does not stand. These key factors are not sufficient conditions to garantee the fastest development of course. As I've mentioned before, some other factors also help , like match performance.

Cheers

Have you done tests to se how much training facilities influences this? I.E. do another two test, one with training facilites set to 10 and the last one with training facilites set 1. Just to see what kind of difference training facilites has on developing youth.

Is there a point in trying to develop youth players if you dont have good training facilites?

Fortunately I keep the saved files for the tests so it is easy to add another one regarding training facility. Given training facility=1, the players developed as well as training facility=20 (new data added in the test post), which means training facility has no impact on CA-increasing speed and top training facility probably means effective training, i.e. effective attribute shaping.

For your question poor training facilities alone will not impede the CA-development speed of your players. However if you are managing a low-league team the match quality your players are given may limit the CA-increasing speed.

Cheers

Well thats good news for lower league managers. If you get youngsters who scouts rate highly make sure they have a personality that is ''Perfectionist'' (According to Lyssien's guide they have Ambition > 17 & Professionalism > 17 & Determination > 17.) or somewhat similar to that and they will develop even though you have crap facilities. And there is no point asking the board to improve the training facilites, you're better of spending them on players until you are at the top level and have alot of cash stashed away.

Good work, catafan!

I never said that, did I?

You talked about nothing else in any depth. You provided the basic outline of the factors that determine natural development but did not explain how to get X player to achieve his maximum rate of development.

For a manager of a Lower League Club or one that does not use 3rd party applications, what advice do you have to offer? A basic outline of the factors involved in development certainly, but definatly not a guide to "the fastest way to develop player ability".

What I mean is those key factors (young age, high Professionalism and high ambition, match practice) are necessary conditions for a player to growh in the fastest way. But logically speaking the reverse statement does not stand. These key factors are not sufficient conditions to garantee the fastest development of course. As I've mentioned before, some other factors also help , like match performance.

The Fastest Way To Develop Player Ability requires an indepth analysis of how to achieve match performances for your "necessary conditions" are inbuilt values that cannot be easilly altered.

This thread does not explain how to get players like Wayne Rooney to improve, nor does it explain how to achieve maximum rates of CA development in teenagers. It is an interesting and apparently accurate study of the attributes involved in basic natural CA progression but it is completely devoid of information regarding the methods available to a manager to increase CA gain.

You talked about nothing else in any depth. You provided the basic outline of the factors that determine natural development but did not explain how to get X player to achieve his maximum rate of development.

For a manager of a Lower League Club or one that does not use 3rd party applications, what advice do you have to offer? A basic outline of the factors involved in development certainly, but definatly not a guide to "the fastest way to develop player ability".

Of course it's not a Bible to garantee the players to achieve the fastest development as I am not the God of FM. It's a guide and discussion to help people develope their youngsters' CA and attributes-distribution faster (I think I have emphasized these on the top). Guide is something pointing out a direction but not necessarily sending people finally into their seats.

The Fastest Way To Develop Player Ability requires an indepth analysis of how to achieve match performances for your "necessary conditions" are inbuilt values that cannot be easilly altered.

Sure! How to achieve the best possible match performance is important not only for CA-development but also for winning the game! If you want to guide people how to achieve that you are welcome to post some details for people to follow and I am sure everyone including me will be very interested to know that.

it is completely devoid of information regarding the methods available to a manager to increase CA gain.

Wow I can't agree. Let other readers say!

Cheers

Catafan,

Very interesting results! Especially the results on training facilities, Professionalism and Ambition. It would have been nice to have similar test results on Work Rate. It is also not out of the question that club reputation affects player's development, but I have never actually tested this.

As far as your testing method is concerned, I would have preferred that you had not used "0" values for the "attribute not under test". Setting it to "10" or "1" might have been a better choice to avoid this random factor, imo.

Another interesting consequence of your results is that training facilities should not be a factor at all when we decide where to loan out our youngster. The borrowing team will not try to "shape" our player anyway, so first team plaing time is what we should be concerned about (possibly, along with club reputation).

Let me add here that tutoring is the way to improve a player's Professionalism and Ambition. What the gamer needs to do is find tutors with good such attributes and have them tutor the youngsters.

Catafan and SFraser,

Please, stop arguing you two and start collaborating. Let's face it, you two are the ones who do all the work on training research right now and the community hopes are on you. You are both interested in the same thing, so I hope this means you like each other. I know I like you both because you are interested in what I am interested in. Otherwise, this forum is soon going to look like a university, where people who work on similar stuff all hate each other! Only joking...

Catafan,

Very interesting results! Especially the results on training facilities, Professionalism and Ambition. It would have been nice to have similar test results on Work Rate. It is also not out of the question that club reputation affects player's development, but I have never actually tested this.

As far as your testing method is concerned, I would have preferred that you had not used "0" values for the "attribute not under test". Setting it to "10" or "1" might have been a better choice to avoid this random factor, imo.

As you've seen WorkRate=16-17 (oringally all set 15 but after Attribute-CA adjusting CA=140 gives 1-2 points increase on workrate and most other attributes) does not give significant CA-increase when Professinalism=Ambition=0, so I don't think it plays a significant role in CA-developing.

I believe reputation is a factor which should be included in 'match quality' I assume. High quality match could mean competitive match between huge clubs. Anyway I will see that later (giving Chelsea reputation=1? )

The attributes not under tests are originally set as: InjuryProne=Controversy=Adaption=0, Sportsmanship=Loyalty=Pressure=Temperament=20

Work Rate=Nature Fitness=15 (Added in the test post).

Catafan, when I talked about "attributes not under test", I meant from the ones in the triplette. E.g. in the test with the triplette [Determination=1, Professionalism=0, Ambition=20], I 'd rather have Professionalism set to 10 or set to 1.

.

I believe reputation is a factor which should be included in 'match quality' I assume. High quality match could mean competitive match between huge clubs. Anyway I will see that later (giving Chelsea reputation=1? )

The results seem a little bit different from my expectation.

Club Reputation does have an impact on the CA-development of its own players, the higher reputation the club has, the faster its players increase their CA.

However the reputation of the teams you are playing against appear to have no effect.(see the result data in the test post)

Cheers.

Catafan, when I talked about "attributes not under test", I meant from the ones in the triplette. E.g. in the test with the triplette [Determination=1, Professionalism=0, Ambition=20], I 'd rather have Professionalism set to 10 or set to 1.

Oh I see. My concern is if the difference of the key attribute is not big enough between tests, the errors may make the results not that clear. Say if one player could fluctuate its CA-increase by plus or minus 1 point, the sum of CA-increase for them all could be plus or minus 24, quite a big number. To avoid that error we need to repeat the same test 5-10 times which is too time-consuming to me. Maybe I could do that later if I've got enough time. I guess you may want to find the formula of how Professinalism and Ambition work together as their effects are not simply sum-up?

Cheers

Good job catafan! Now I know that determination can be developed naturally, albeit at a slower rate but that's a great find.

Seems like my haphazard guess that professionalism seems a bit more important than ambition is right on!

Tutoring your youngsters is the way to go! One tip is to scout Italy, which has plenty of model professional and perfectionalist personalities around!

Brilliant research catafan!

I think the game try to use a club's reputation to determine the match qualities, as clubs with higher reputation should be in the better league. (England, Italy, Spain etc...)

It makes sense to me.

I just get a question tho...

If the quality of coaches only matter on attributes shaping, instead of CA development, then what is the different between a bunch of 3 stars coaches in all area, compare with 7 stars coaches?

Lets say my youngster gain 20 CA in 6 months, under the same train schedule and intensity, a bunch of 3 stars coach will just shape the attributes as same as 7 stars coach??? [both get 20CA points for distributing)

Training facilities are useless, then? Who would have imagined! If this is the case, this is a bit illogical, I would say? But it is indeed a good tip, when deciding where to send youngsters. I always try to send them to the clubs with better facilities. If this doesn't matter, this will open up the possibilities.

What I do think is that top leagues are better than lower leagues, e.g. it's a lot better for players to go to the Spanish first division (BBVA league) than to the second division (Adelante league), right? That's how it looks like anyway. A good deal of players, sent to lower divisions, when returning, complain that they didn't learn anything and would be better off if they had stayed at my club.

Training facilities are useless, then? Who would have imagined! If this is the case, this is a bit illogical, I would say? But it is indeed a good tip, when deciding where to send youngsters. I always try to send them to the clubs with better facilities. If this doesn't matter, this will open up the possibilities.

What I do think is that top leagues are better than lower leagues, e.g. it's a lot better for players to go to the Spanish first division (BBVA league) than to the second division (Adelante league), right? That's how it looks like anyway. A good deal of players, sent to lower divisions, when returning, complain that they didn't learn anything and would be better off if they had stayed at my club.

Surely it will be better to send player to a team in higher league, but only if you can make sure he will play first team football there.

More data and findings have been updated in both OP and the tests post, a big expansion to the original test.

Questions and discussion are welcome.

I just get a question tho...

If the quality of coaches only matter on attributes shaping, instead of CA development, then what is the different between a bunch of 3 stars coaches in all area, compare with 7 stars coaches?

Lets say my youngster gain 20 CA in 6 months, under the same train schedule and intensity, a bunch of 3 stars coach will just shape the attributes as same as 7 stars coach??? [both get 20CA points for distributing)

It is the training amount that matters tiny on CA development. And 7-star coachs matter on attributes shaping, centainly. But I didn't say 7-star coach has no impact on CA development. Good point Rickooko anyway, I will test that part later.

Cheers

I just get a question tho...

If the quality of coaches only matter on attributes shaping, instead of CA development, then what is the different between a bunch of 3 stars coaches in all area, compare with 7 stars coaches?

Lets say my youngster gain 20 CA in 6 months, under the same train schedule and intensity, a bunch of 3 stars coach will just shape the attributes as same as 7 stars coach??? [both get 20CA points for distributing)

Well. The stars of coach have no impact on CA-improvement (data updated in the test post). So 7-star coach may just help more effective attributes shaping.

For your example, if your youngster's training schedule has no bias in any particular category (i.e. the defaut schedule), I would like to say there is no difference between 3-star coaches in every category and 7-star coaches in every category.

Cheers

so professionalism is the key attribute in 09, is it your opinion that 08 is the same?

excellent work btw

so professionalism is the key attribute in 09, is it your opinion that 08 is the same?

excellent work btw

i believe that determination is more important for growth than proffesionalism

It appears true that Training Facilities do not have effect on CA gain, but that doesn't mean that they still shouldn't be upgraded for several reasons:

(1) Players consider the level of your facilities when choosing which club to join. I frequently see players I'm selling choose between multiple contract offers on the basis of training facilities.

(2) Training facilities (like coaches) should have an impact on your shaping of a player, which is very important. There's a significant performance difference between a CA=PA=200 player who has the right attribute distribution and one who does not; this performance gap becomes even more exaggerated as the player has less PA to go around.

so professionalism is the key attribute in 09, is it your opinion that 08 is the same?

Sorry mate, no comment on this. I've never done the tests for FM08.

(2) Training facilities (like coaches) should have an impact on your shaping of a player, which is very important. There's a significant performance difference between a CA=PA=200 player who has the right attribute distribution and one who does not; this performance gap becomes even more exaggerated as the player has less PA to go around.

I do agree.

Catafan,

Just thinking outside the box here a little.

Do you think that perhaps Ambition and Workrate effect the 'speed' at which a player learns?

The reason I am thinking this is because there has to be something that dictates how quick a player will learn.

Working on this assumption, then it stands to reason that the two above attributes would have no effect on someone who was incapable of learning.

High scores in Ambition and Workrate but low scores in Proffessionalism and Determination means that player X whilst be capable (PA) of so much, just couldnt be bothered, he worked hard, but didnt 'want' to learn new things, therefore he hit is max learning potential very quick (simply because he learning potential was limited). This would explain why there was growth, albeit very small.

Alternatively, with high scores in everything, this player would hit his potential very very quick indeed.

If you work with this information then it may guide you as to which players you want to sign in any given scenario.

Example. You are a fairly wealthy club, therefore you can afford to purchase that promising youngester from QPR, that has a high work rate and Ambition

, though he is going to cost you £2,500,000 which is alot for a 17/18 year old. HOwever, you are the type of club that will train him hard and sell him by the time he is 21 for £25,000,000 to Barcelona/Real Madrid.

Alternatively, you are a smaller club, that doesnt have anywhere near £2.5mill to spend on a youngster, however you find one with potential that has a lower work rate and Ambition. This means that you have to invest your TIME in this player. He will develop, but it will take him till he is 24/25 to do it. So there will be no quick sale, no huge profit. But there will be a quality player at the end of it.

I think I moved quite a bit off topic there, but its how I would view your results.

LAM

Catafan,

Just thinking outside the box here a little.

Do you think that perhaps Ambition and Workrate effect the 'speed' at which a player learns?

The reason I am thinking this is because there has to be something that dictates how quick a player will learn.

Working on this assumption, then it stands to reason that the two above attributes would have no effect on someone who was incapable of learning.

High scores in Ambition and Workrate but low scores in Proffessionalism and Determination means that player X whilst be capable (PA) of so much, just couldnt be bothered, he worked hard, but didnt 'want' to learn new things, therefore he hit is max learning potential very quick (simply because he learning potential was limited). This would explain why there was growth, albeit very small.

Alternatively, with high scores in everything, this player would hit his potential very very quick indeed.

Sorry I'm not quite sure what particularly you mean by "Learn".

IMHO in the game those factors (Professionalism, Workrate, Ambition..etc) are just modifiers to CA-improvement in a set of dead codes. Certainly you can interpret them reasonably like in real life football and I think that does make sense.

If you work with this information then it may guide you as to which players you want to sign in any given scenario.

Example. You are a fairly wealthy club, therefore you can afford to purchase that promising youngester from QPR, that has a high work rate and Ambition

, though he is going to cost you £2,500,000 which is alot for a 17/18 year old. HOwever, you are the type of club that will train him hard and sell him by the time he is 21 for £25,000,000 to Barcelona/Real Madrid.

Yes it could be the case, which is what I have been doing. Just remember to choose youngsters with high enough professionliasm as priority, before considering their workrate and ambition. In addition, to sell him by 21 for a price of £25,000,000 (which I think needs CA>150 at least), it may have to cost you much first-team football on the player.

Alternatively, you are a smaller club, that doesnt have anywhere near £2.5mill to spend on a youngster, however you find one with potential that has a lower work rate and Ambition. This means that you have to invest your TIME in this player. He will develop, but it will take him till he is 24/25 to do it. So there will be no quick sale, no huge profit. But there will be a quality player at the end of it.

If his Professionalism, workrate and Ambition are not too low and there is enough amount of first-team football for him, the player will be of good quality when he is 24/25.

Cheers

Hi Catafan, I think you are the one who can help me, could you go to this thread of mine, and give a solution to my "youth doesn't improve" problem:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=113934

Excellent thread, you saved us the frustration. thank you

Unfortunately, AI managers don't develop their young players if they are not first teamers. AI does not loan out players to get experience, it only happens by coincidence.

I found that so many hot talents in big teams in the game don't develop because they don't play competitive matches nor loaned out.

Sort it out SI for FM10..

Can I just say, although this thread provides a fantastic insight into the mechanics of CA development, the title is misleading, as the results do not show how to ensure a given player (ie personality more-or-less fixed) develops in CA quickly.

Nonetheless well done on the research,

Interesting thread and brilliant read. I've long suspected professionalism had an important part to play and you just confirmed that. KUTGW!

Interesting findings. That ambition and work-rate only have a linear affect, whereas professionalism is quadratic, it makes sense to seek out professional players in preference others. It makes sense that work load would be a function of arctan(x) (that graph is, roughly, 127*arctan(0.5x - 17.5) + 350 + 0.25x; for anyone who cares) - it implies a number of things:

- Players with great character will improve (albeit minimally) regardless of training supplied, they are autodidacts.

- There is a tipping point with training workload whereby the player improves much quicker, for perfect characters this is very early in the workload, I would imagine its x position on the graph be inversely proportionate to character.

- There is a law of diminishing returns - the difference between 35 workload and 120 workload yields a much smaller ability improvement than the difference between 20 workload and 35 workload. This gives you a lot of breathing space significantly to improve ability even if the player is injury prone. Again, this may not be the case with respect to various other characters.

A few more graphs of workload to improvement with different character types would be useful to complete the picture.

Nice work, catafan!

Like ZdlR, I'd be interested to see the training workload graph with different personality types, to see how that interacts.

Interesting findings. That ambition and work-rate only have a linear affect, whereas professionalism is quadratic, it makes sense to seek out professional players in preference others. It makes sense that work load would be a function of arctan(x) (that graph is, very roughly, y = 140*arctan(0.2x - 5) + 330 for anyone who cares) - it implies a number of things:

- Players with great character will improve (albeit minimally) regardless of training supplied, they are autodidacts.

- There is a tipping point with training workload whereby the player improves much quicker, for perfect characters this is very early in the workload, I would imagine its x position on the graph be inversely proportionate to character.

- There is a law of diminishing returns - the difference between 35 workload and 120 workload yields a much smaller ability improvement than the difference between 20 workload and 35 workload. This gives you a lot of breathing space significantly to improve ability even if the player is injury prone. Again, this may not be the case with respect to various other characters.

A few more graphs of workload to improvement with different character types would be useful to complete the picture.

Nicely done on the mathematics front, I greatly miss my mathematics abilities, they left me when I started university ironically enough

as the results do not show how to ensure a given player (ie personality more-or-less fixed) develops in CA quickly.

I think this has been mentioned. Competitive match experience in the first team of a big club is all you can do for a given player with fixed personality. If his personality is really poor (poor for CA-development), then I'm afraid there is no way to ensure a quick CA-development, and you may only wish good luck for him.

Like ZdlR, I'd be interested to see the training workload graph with different personality types, to see how that interacts.

Thanks for pointing out this issue and I would like to see that also. But this work is terribly time consuming and hopefully I could do it later as I'm quite busy recently. May I make a guess that for players with poor personality and low workrate the significant diminish return would occur at higher training amounts, or maybe remain the same as the current result.

Cheers

I just notice this thread have been updated, thanks for your great work catafan!

As i had post in the bug forum, there is a problem in workrate of regen GK, as the majority of them born with 5 or less, and hardly improve at all.

If now we prove that workrate do take a part in CA development, then i think there will be an issue to develope good GKs for long term game??

(I am only in my 8th seasons and most real GKs are still working so i dont know about the regen GKs quality)

So am I right in assuming there's no point in training a young player (beyond a minimal level) on his "free" attributes until CA is maxed out? (I.E. because you may as well concentrate the overall workload on the CA-boosting attributes first, and worry about the rest later because you won't have to re-apportion CA ones to get the non-CA ones up?)

You made some interesting conclusions concerning the speed of CA improvement, but how about people not actually reaching their PA? What is the key stat for that? I have Nicholas Millan with a professionalism attribute of 15 and genie says he will eventually be 39 points away from his maximum PA, and a Regen GK with prof=5 that reaches his Pa eventually. What's up with that?

Thanks in advance...

Professionalism is Zero. What does that mean? Do I need to get rid asap?

just a point on how club reputation may effect training from my own experience, although this hasn't been tested in any way, club reputation itself doesn't seem to have any effect beyond a certain point. For example if you edit a club in a poor footballing country e.g. india or similar, players will still only develop to a certain 'ceiling' which i personally think must be linked to the league standard attribute for each nation. id be interested to hear what anyone thinks about this or has experienced themselves? it could perhaps be tested by running the chelsea tests in conjunction with creating a club in another country with identical reputation and facilities etc.

I've just read your thread and i find it quite interesting. Let me get this straight:-

When buying youngsters (15-17) with high PA (180)

I coming to the conclusion that if a youngster has 13 in Professionalism, ambition, workrate and determination then it's vital he gets lots of first-team football to push him along. And maybe being tutored as well. So by the time he is 24 he should

I have a player called nick bryan:-

Now he's just broken into my first team and he will be a key member of my side. With his mentality and professionalism he could become a very good/world-class player. One question, i've put everyone on default training, does this do more harm than good in your opinion?

This player i got on a free transfer 5 years ago:-

Now as you can see, his professionalism is only 7 yet he has become a world class player. As soon as he came, he was straight into the first team and he hasn't looked back. Are you saying, if he had been on the fringes of my first team squad then he wouldn't of become the playing he is today?

And lastly, i have this youngster who has come through my ranks:-

Now i know his pa is only 164 but he's also got all the key elements to be a really good player. So the question is, do i keep him in my long term plans or do i just get rid of him because he only has 164 PA which is only very good? By the way i'm trying to spend less in the transfer market and bring my own players through.

Another question:- What do you do with players that have reached their pa's? Do you put them on specific training regimes or on general? Thanks

ron: For me that depends on the individual player. If I'm happy with their attributes as they are and don't wish to change anything, they go on a general schedule. If I feel they have a weakness that could be improved, say a central defender with 15 tackling where I'd like 17+, I'll keep them on a custom schedule and in that example would set defending to high or even intense, dropping something like shooting to light if needed to prevent the overall intensity becoming too high - and if the player was at their max PA where an improvement in one area means a drop in another it would definitely be shooting, and possible attacking too, that drop to light or none to try to focus the lost points in the least required areas with those I want to maintain left at a medium setting.

Ok thanks for the advice. If a player has reached his pa and is exactly the way you want him to be, are you saying to put him on a general training regime and everything on medium setting? and when you say maintain do you mean first notch of medium to maintain the stats? Also that would mean creating schedules for every player right? Thanks

I have the General schedule (increased overall intensity a little to the highest end of Medium) for players I feel have reached their full potential and I don't want to reshape their attributes. Slight changes can still happen over time but generally, for me, having them on General is like saying "continue as you are" and nothing much will change. Players can still develop on the General schedule too, so if their CA is still a bit below the PA you can see some more gains. You're just not emphasising one area over another and they'll naturally develop based on their position.

I only use custom schedules for a player if I want to try to change attributes in a certain area. Players will still gain attributes in areas based on their position as natural development but a schedule with low or no defending and high or intense shooting has a bit higher chance of some marking/tackling dropping to be redistributed into finishing or composure.

As I believe catafan and SFraser have both said, attributes during player development mostly get distributed naturally based on their position, so defenders naturally tend towards increasing defensive attributes while strikers tend towards finishing etc. Custom schedules are more a way of fine tuning a player over time, rather than directing where all the ability gain goes. No training in an area doesn't mean they'll start losing it, it simply means no focus on increasing it so where ability is maxed out and there is no more potential to increase attributes, CA has to be maintained when attributes change. If one attribute increases, another has to fall so CA stays the same. This has different effects based on the weighting of the attributes - a striker gaining finishing would need to lose more attributes in return to cover that increase than if he gained marking, as finishing is valued higher than marking for a striker. Similarly an increase in pace needs other attributes to drop quite a bit, as pace is a high value attribute.

That's why sometimes you'll have a world class player with, say, 1 green arrow and 4 red arrows. You might see this and think "damn, he's got worse" but if that green arrow is in a high value attribute (like pace), it just means other attributes had to drop sufficiently to reach the same value as the pace increase so the player still has the same overall ability.

Attributes are also actually on a 1 - 100 scale, which gets scaled down to 1 - 20 on their profiles. This means attributes can always be changing by small amounts but not become visible changes until they reach certain values on the 1 - 100 scale which in turn become visible changes on the 1 - 20 scale.

But anyway, yes... personally I use a General schedule (on the highest notch of Medium overall intensity) for players I'm happy with and want to maintain/don't want to change while I use Custom schedules for players I want to try to change things with. Players can still see attributes naturally redistributed on a General schedule even though all training areas are at the same level but a custom schedule where you set your own levels gives a higher chance of seeing change in the areas you want.

That's my take on training anyway

Another interesting thing I've found out is that players loaned out to inactive leagues (in my case, first divisions of Scotland and Germany) generally improve massively even if they seem to get no actual match experience (i.e, even if they're given back up status in their temporary clubs), and always have their CA increased much more as opposed to when they're loaned to other feeder clubs in the active lower leagues, for instance Championsip teams in England. I've had players gaining 30+ CA over a season at Scotland while all of the youngsters loaned to Championship sides have failed to achive two-digit CA rises.

So the best thing to do according to my experience is: while they're under youth contracts, tutor them, maximize their mental attributes (yes, professionalism the most important, you have to increase that as much as you can). When they get full-time contracts at 18 and already got what they can from their tutors, loan them out to the foreign feeder clubs, pay no attention if they are being played or not. In a couple of years you'll have your wonderkids ready for the action in the first team.

Very nice thread indeed. It widened my view on youngsters' training. Good job catafan.

Another interesting thing I've found out is that players loaned out to inactive leagues (in my case, first divisions of Scotland and Germany) generally improve massively even if they seem to get no actual match experience (i.e, even if they're given back up status in their temporary clubs), and always have their CA increased much more as opposed to when they're loaned to other feeder clubs in the active lower leagues, for instance Championsip teams in England. I've had players gaining 30+ CA over a season at Scotland while all of the youngsters loaned to Championship sides have failed to achive two-digit CA rises.

So the best thing to do according to my experience is: while they're under youth contracts, tutor them, maximize their mental attributes (yes, professionalism the most important, you have to increase that as much as you can). When they get full-time contracts at 18 and already got what they can from their tutors, loan them out to the foreign feeder clubs, pay no attention if they are being played or not. In a couple of years you'll have your wonderkids ready for the action in the first team.

That has worked with me as well to be honest. I had this 18 year old striker. I loaned him out to hibs for two seasons now he's a wonder-kid with CA 155 PA 189. He's 20 now.