Is 1-20 enough?

The database now contains so many players, is the range of attribute points enough to show the difference between players? Especially with people creating league pyramids that go 10+ down. Obviously it's not going to happen overnight but maybe just doubling them to 40 would make it easier to represent the gulf in class between amateur players and world class. For example an international striker like Iivica Olic has 11 finishing which is ok for about Blue Square Premier, now there is no way his finishing can be considered that poor compared to non league players. Wayne Rooney has long shots 13, Ashley Cole crossing 13, now these are fine compared to the best players but the lower league players compare too well and dropping all stats of poor players to 5 would make it almost impossible to differentiate between them.

13 and 9 might seem close, but they are poles apart. No need to change the current setup imo.

Well you've over forty seperate atributes each with a range of 1-20, so that gives a possible choice of 1.099511627776e+32 different types of footballer. Now the CA/PA system limits that somewhat but even if we take only 10% as being the possible range that's 10,995,116,277,760,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible different footballers available. I think it will be a while before we see that exact amount of people alive never mind footballers.

Yeah i think so, i'm happy with 1-20.

Although i don't play any lower than the Blue Sqaure North/South.

I played CM10 not long before FM10 came out, and the 1-100 attributes were very hard to get used to, and a real off putter for me.

Especially when for the past 10 years(since CM 2000/01) i am used to playing with 1-20 attributes.

I agree with the OP. I think you other fellas are missing the nuanced point here. It is not the mathematical range of possible permutations (sp?) that is being argued here; it is the tiny differences over a number of different attributes that separates great from exceptional, good from great, average from good and below-average from average. I, for one, always prefer the 100-point scale (please read on before flaming my post). I think it makes a huge difference when a player of 91 acceleration must defend a player of 98 acceleration. By the 20 point scale, that is most likely a 19 v 20 match-up. To the naked eye, it should be a crap-shoot. The real-life player with 98 acceleration that uese good pace-control should blow by even a player with 91 acceleration. Think of Damarcus Beasley. He has balzing speed--but little else. He can blow by players, which is awe-inspiring in its own right. However, where Beasley struggles is when he has to work the ball around a player in traffic. He loses most of these battles and looks poorer for the effort. I would probably rate him in the 40s (out of 100) in agrressiveness and physicality. That needs to be expressed rather than the 8 or 9 he would receive on FM. Beasley is NOT a world class player. He is not even a top-class American player. He makes the squad on his speed alone, yet this needs to be able to be expressed because it does happen IRL. From the countries (like mine) who do not have HUGE talent pools of incredibly gifted footballers, decisions have to be made to field players who have world class attributes in one or two categories, but nothing else. Also think of Eddie Johnson. He is another American speedster who can do little else. The bottom line is that this kind of change for FM will not make a dramatic difference in the top-flight leagues of the world (EPL, Serie A, La Liga, etc.) but it could dramatically effect the 2nd and 3rd tier leagues of the world, thereby making them more fun to play.

It's enough. It ain't broke, don't fix it.

20 is easily enough to make a significant judgement. For instance, you can decide whether or not a player is a 18 or a 17 much more easily than you can for instance rate a player as 90 or 91.

In reality the small differences are not infact to do with minor discrepancies in the attributes themselves, but with the whole picture (ie other attributes of a player). Two players may both be 18 for passing, but the one with higher creativity and technique will probably perform better.

I agree with the OP. I think you other fellas are missing the nuanced point here. It is not the mathematical range of possible permutations (sp?) that is being argued here; it is the tiny differences over a number of different attributes that separates great from exceptional, good from great, average from good and below-average from average. I, for one, always prefer the 100-point scale (please read on before flaming my post). I think it makes a huge difference when a player of 91 acceleration must defend a player of 98 acceleration. By the 20 point scale, that is most likely a 19 v 20 match-up. To the naked eye, it should be a crap-shoot. The real-life player with 98 acceleration that uese good pace-control should blow by even a player with 91 acceleration. Think of Damarcus Beasley. He has balzing speed--but little else. He can blow by players, which is awe-inspiring in its own right. However, where Beasley struggles is when he has to work the ball around a player in traffic. He loses most of these battles and looks poorer for the effort. I would probably rate him in the 40s (out of 100) in agrressiveness and physicality. That needs to be expressed rather than the 8 or 9 he would receive on FM. Beasley is NOT a world class player. He is not even a top-class American player. He makes the squad on his speed alone, yet this needs to be able to be expressed because it does happen IRL. From the countries (like mine) who do not have HUGE talent pools of incredibly gifted footballers, decisions have to be made to field players who have world class attributes in one or two categories, but nothing else. Also think of Eddie Johnson. He is another American speedster who can do little else. The bottom line is that this kind of change for FM will not make a dramatic difference in the top-flight leagues of the world (EPL, Serie A, La Liga, etc.) but it could dramatically effect the 2nd and 3rd tier leagues of the world, thereby making them more fun to play.

I see what you are saying but I could see this being a researchers nightmare. It must be hard enough already to decide whether a players aggression is 19 or 20, without having to choose 98 or 99 or something. I could see a lot of the subtle differences in attributes just being assigned pretty much randomly.

Just my opinion

Maybe a 1-30 system? I think it would be just right.

It's enough. It ain't broke, don't fix it.

20 is easily enough to make a significant judgement. For instance, you can decide whether or not a player is a 18 or a 17 much more easily than you can for instance rate a player as 90 or 91.

In reality the small differences are not infact to do with minor discrepancies in the attributes themselves, but with the whole picture (ie other attributes of a player). Two players may both be 18 for passing, but the one with higher creativity and technique will probably perform better.

The problem is that in the depths of the lower leagues, all players have 1s and 2s for their attributes, and it's impossible to distinguish between them.

I think a 1-30 scale could work. Just add 10 to all current attributes, except the very low ones, and use the extra 10 attribute points to rate very low players. Likewise, the CA scale could do with being expanded to 300.

I'm just throwing it out there, I'm not even particularly sure I agree with myself but mainly due to the hassle sorting it out and the fact there would be so much more room for error in stats. However I think having just maybe 12/14 points really of a difference for finishing as nobody would consider a striker in any league currently below 6, is not enough to represent the differences between the best strikers who can range from 10-20 depending on style and the rest going down to Northern Irish Amateur Premier Division or something

The database now contains so many players, is the range of attribute points enough to show the difference between players? Especially with people creating league pyramids that go 10+ down. Obviously it's not going to happen overnight but maybe just doubling them to 40 would make it easier to represent the gulf in class between amateur players and world class. For example an international striker like Iivica Olic has 11 finishing which is ok for about Blue Square Premier

I think that's pretty good for Blue Square Premier level, especially if combined with other attributes.

now there is no way his finishing can be considered that poor compared to non league players. Wayne Rooney has long shots 13, Ashley Cole crossing 13, now these are fine compared to the best players but the lower league players compare too well and dropping all stats of poor players to 5 would make it almost impossible to differentiate between them.

You need to watch lower-league football, there's cracking long shot goals there too.

As a whole, it's a combination of things which differentiate lower-league and top-tier players. Xabi Alonso's not just good at shooting from distance but knows how to find time and space, knows when to shoot (and when to pass) and has good technique. Joe Lumpit in the Blue Square North is OK at picking out the top corner with a lot of time and space but has no technique whatsoever, nor knows when to pass or shoot, so he'll never be as good as Xabi Alonso although Lumpit is by itself not a bad shooter from distance at that level.

At a lower level I'd say it's pretty accurate that most players are much of a nothing, and thus those that are better than that stand out. 2 players may both be crap at passing, but one may perform so much better than the other due to other attributes, and I can't see what a bigger scale would really add.

I think of ratings as being percentages of ability, 20 is world class and 100%, with 1 being rubbish and 5% (as there's no 0 value). Thus, each increase of one point is an increase in ability of 5%. So an increase of 2 points, which doesn't look like much when you compare two players, is actually an increase of 10% in ability, which actually seems quite a lot.

Personally, having played Madden and FIFA extensively, both with a 1-99 rating system, the FM ratings are infinitely easier understand. Do you really need to know that Lionel Messi (at say 98) is 1% better at passing than Ronaldo (at a 97)? Not really, it just gives you a headache when making decisions. A 1-20 system means that every difference in 1 point is a worthwhile increase.

1-30 would be great and would make perfect sense I have been thinking this for a long time now. For example if a player has a stat of 1-10 for poistion this would be poor 10-20 would be average and 20-30 would be world class and this would make it much easier for si to make the world class players look much better than the poor and average players.

The biggest problem I have with 1-100 scales is that the human mind is very bad at distinguishing the difference between two large numbers, an example would be thinking 5 is a lot larger than 1 whereas the mind cannot easily comprehend that in a linear system the difference between 95 and 91 is the same. we tend to think geometrically when we talk about differences so we automatically assume that as 5 is a multiple of 1 and 95 is not a multiple of 91 then the differences are greater at 5 and 1 than at 95 and 91. You get a bit of that in the current scale, but twenty is a manageable number.

The other problem is the sheer range of different postitions that could be generated by a 1-100 scale when talking about 40 different numbers. It comes out at 1.6069380442589902755419620923412e+160 and even if we limit it with CA/PA (which would have to be done to a much higher scale to work right) down to 10% (like I said above) of the original range thats still 1.6069380442589902755419620923412e+159 variables.

I agree with the OP. I think you other fellas are missing the nuanced point here. It is not the mathematical range of possible permutations (sp?) that is being argued here; it is the tiny differences over a number of different attributes that separates great from exceptional, good from great, average from good and below-average from average. I, for one, always prefer the 100-point scale (please read on before flaming my post). I think it makes a huge difference when a player of 91 acceleration must defend a player of 98 acceleration. By the 20 point scale, that is most likely a 19 v 20 match-up. To the naked eye, it should be a crap-shoot. The real-life player with 98 acceleration that uese good pace-control should blow by even a player with 91 acceleration. Think of Damarcus Beasley. He has balzing speed--but little else. He can blow by players, which is awe-inspiring in its own right. However, where Beasley struggles is when he has to work the ball around a player in traffic. He loses most of these battles and looks poorer for the effort. I would probably rate him in the 40s (out of 100) in agrressiveness and physicality. That needs to be expressed rather than the 8 or 9 he would receive on FM. Beasley is NOT a world class player. He is not even a top-class American player. He makes the squad on his speed alone, yet this needs to be able to be expressed because it does happen IRL. From the countries (like mine) who do not have HUGE talent pools of incredibly gifted footballers, decisions have to be made to field players who have world class attributes in one or two categories, but nothing else. Also think of Eddie Johnson. He is another American speedster who can do little else. The bottom line is that this kind of change for FM will not make a dramatic difference in the top-flight leagues of the world (EPL, Serie A, La Liga, etc.) but it could dramatically effect the 2nd and 3rd tier leagues of the world, thereby making them more fun to play.

Yes I do agree with alot. I like the 1-20 attributes but I think that it is more down to sentiment and not wanting change even though it may be for the better. Having played since CM96/97 the attributes have always been 20 and have just got use to them so they have become synonymous with FM.

But from a detail point of view a mark out of 20 is not enough (I wonder why CM/FM used 20 in the first place - i feel to see the logic?) becasue the current system IMO does not do justice the varying levels of abilities in World football from world class to the lowest of non league football.

Maybe a 1-30 system? I think it would be just right.

Maybe - when I played the CM demo the players were marked out of 100 i think and i hated it - not becasue it did not make sense but becasue I was so used to FM'S out of 20 system . I mean when we sign young prospects e.g. a CB and we are Barcelona (a top club for this example) he has 12 for heading, marking, and tackling a few key CB attributes) its not unthinkable to assume with the correct training, tutoring, first team action that my the time they are 21/22 then each of tose attributes will be at least 17 (an increase of 5 points - less then 1 point each year) this for me is too much of an increase given their starting attributes and to a degree makes a bit of a mockery of the out of 20 system. I'm not saying the sytem is bad I just think that the abilites of players cannot be truely shown in the 20 point method. I mean if Messi has 20 for Flair for example then there should not be like another 50 players in the game who have 20 for flair which would seem to be the case.

From the top end of world football the spread is just to narrow and does not allow a truely great player in one attribute to truley excel becasue of the parameteres of the 20 system that is in place at the minute.

I don't know what Brian means with the different types of combinations? Yes of course there are many combinations - but given one attribute the differences are very small between each level of footballing ability and thus surely a greater degree of marking gives us the manager a better scale of judging a players ability?

To the people who think the 20 scale is fine - why is it fine? What benefits does it have over a bigger scale to seperate the men from the boys!

Yes Hershie talks about dont try and fix something that is not broken - I dont think the current system is broken but if you can improve something IMO then its better to change to make something better then leave something that is not as good as the potential change.

I don't know what Brian means with the different types of combinations? Yes of course there are many combinations - but given one attribute the differences are very small between each level of footballing ability and thus surely a greater degree of marking gives us the manager a better scale of judging a players ability?

To the people who think the 20 scale is fine - why is it fine? What benefits does it have over a bigger scale to seperate the men from the boys!

read my post above re understanding differences in a linear scale, the human mind (when educated) can grasp a 1-20 scale, whereas the 1-100 scale is way too complex. Personally I think the 1-20 scale is a good compromise between needed complexity and understandinbility. I've played a few of the post split CM games and one of my problems was always the 1-100 scale they adopted. I also remember them bringing back the 1-20 as an option, clearly if this is the case it was something the fans demanded and the developers realised they were right about.

On the different number of combinations, unless you were going to have whole (large) groups of attributes tracking each other you would end up with an extremely complicated algorithm to work everything out, not alone in assigning attributes, but also in how the players interact.

Better still its more about the comparisons that can be made between differenet players at the top of the game and thus with the 20 point system you get so many similar players that have similar levels of ability that IMO is not a true reflection of football at the top of the game. The increase attributes points system would bring bigger scrunity across the board and would maybe make more players who were special in a few attributes - such as a speed demon who was a tank or a really gifted technical player - yes these can be seen in FM I am not questioning that but you would decrease the level of repatition of the current players in FM and more so newgens. A greater diversity of player if you like - so players can really stand out and do a specific job that you want doing and taylor them to your needs.

read my post above re understanding differences in a linear scale, the human mind (when educated) can grasp a 1-20 scale, whereas the 1-100 scale is way too complex. Personally I think the 1-20 scale is a good compromise between needed complexity and understandinbility. I've played a few of the post split CM games and one of my problems was always the 1-100 scale they adopted. I also remember them bringing back the 1-20 as an option, clearly if this is the case it was something the fans demanded and the developers realised they were right about.

On the different number of combinations, unless you were going to have whole (large) groups of attributes tracking each other you would end up with an extremely complicated algorithm to work everything out, not alone in assigning attributes, but also in how the players interact.

Oh yes I see your point and from where you are comming from but it seems I am comming from the feel factor and you are comming from the scientific/mathamatical approach. Not that I am saying there is anything wrong with that - two different perspectives - and maybe a bigger points system is not practical at the end of the day.

I really don't like the idea of 1-100 myself definitely 1-30 or maybe 1-40 as a maximum. I don't think it should be changed just for the sake of it either, only if a good system that does work and significantly better than currently. But I do think for FM 12 perhaps it could massively increase the enjoyment for lower/lowest league management where there is a large enough difference in stats to make it sensible

yes! please don't ever change the 1-20 scale, it's perfect for this type of game. on a football -playing game like pes the 1-99 scale is good but on this game there is no need to have such a wide scale. 1-20 is perfect

Well you've over forty seperate atributes each with a range of 1-20, so that gives a possible choice of 1.099511627776e+32 different types of footballer. Now the CA/PA system limits that somewhat but even if we take only 10% as being the possible range that's 10,995,116,277,760,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible different footballers available. I think it will be a while before we see that exact amount of people alive never mind footballers.

Hmmm... I've always wanted a 1-100 system on FM to see if I prefer it. On reading this post, I'll forget about it.

Oh yes I see your point and from where you are comming from but it seems I am comming from the feel factor and you are comming from the scientific/mathamatical approach. Not that I am saying there is anything wrong with that - two different perspectives - and maybe a bigger points system is not practical at the end of the day.

Even from the feel factor the only way such a large scale would be of any proper use to a suer, unless he wanted to put an inordinate amount of time into scrutinising numbers is if the number of attributes were drastically reduced, say to 10, or that the atributes were grouped together into a small number of tied groups where all the atributes were at the same level. Do you want to spend half the night trying to decide whether one player is better than another.

At the moment a normal person can tell fairly quickly (just about) the differences between two players.

It's more than enough. The game is already extremely complicated for casual or new gamers.

No need to change it at all IMO. It's just right.

Even from the feel factor the only way such a large scale would be of any proper use to a suer, unless he wanted to put an inordinate amount of time into scrutinising numbers is if the number of attributes were drastically reduced, say to 10, or that the atributes were grouped together into a small number of tied groups where all the atributes were at the same level. Do you want to spend half the night trying to decide whether one player is better than another.

At the moment a normal person can tell fairly quickly (just about) the differences between two players.

Yeah thats was a bit of a problem on the CM demo - I could not tell who was good or not! But some of that was due to my familiarity to FM aswell I guess.

Im probally the only one, but I feel like a 1-99 system would make it feel too "gamey". I like 1-20 partly for the reason it feels less precise then other games ive played in the past using the 1-99 system. Someone above said CM had both which i guess would be the ideal solution.

I wonder what effect it would have on the size of the databases? I dont know how data is currently stored but i would guess the minimum ammount of bits to store a 1-20 number are used for each attribute- 5, with 1-100 they would need 7, small thing but could impact the size when you consider all the attributes of all the players

1-20 allows for people who judge abilities to have a bit of room for error, it's much more difficult to measure something on a 1-100 scale than a 1-20 scale, and you have to remember the abilities (at least for the real players upon creating your database) are not exact, they are determined by people who have to use their best judgment in assessing them, and the smaller the scale the easier it is for them to do their job effectively.

How do you really determine who crosses the ball better? Based on a few good crosses, every cross they have ever made, their 'average' cross, etc? It's incredibly subjective, as every circumstance has changing variables that make it nearly impossible to assign a number to in terms of value, and if a larger scale were used it would compound the difficult and make it hell for the researchers.

1-20 is more then enough. It works pretty well for players in all the offical leagues. I don't want it changed just because it doesn't work that well for editor added lower leagues, it has to improve the supported parts of the game.

As it is it's often hard to tell if a player with 19 finishing is better then a player with 20 finishing, especially as technique, composure, decisions, etc... all play a part in finishing off a chance. How would you tell the difference between a 99 and 100, even without taking into account the other stats that might be somewhere in the 50-70 range.

I like the 1-20 system because I am often looking at lots of numbers at the same time, and for some reason it is easier for my brain to take in and compare 9s, 16s, 17s, etc. than it would be to look at 45s, 78s, 84s, etc.

Sometimes less is more.

Maybe - when I played the CM demo the players were marked out of 100 i think and i hated it - not becasue it did not make sense but becasue I was so used to FM'S out of 20 system . I mean when we sign young prospects e.g. a CB and we are Barcelona (a top club for this example) he has 12 for heading, marking, and tackling a few key CB attributes) its not unthinkable to assume with the correct training, tutoring, first team action that my the time they are 21/22 then each of tose attributes will be at least 17 (an increase of 5 points - less then 1 point each year) this for me is too much of an increase given their starting attributes and to a degree makes a bit of a mockery of the out of 20 system. I'm not saying the sytem is bad I just think that the abilites of players cannot be truely shown in the 20 point method. I mean if Messi has 20 for Flair for example then there should not be like another 50 players in the game who have 20 for flair which would seem to be the case.

Just to address this part of your post, the reason Messi stands out is not only because his Flair is 20. It's because he has the skill and decision making to make the most of it. Most other players with as much flair can't use it right.

I think 20's good, it seems as intuitive as 100, and smaller numbers are more readily digested by our brains.

1-20 works just fine...

1-99 is way too confusing and dispersive for a game like FM, which is already flooded with numbers.

With the current system, once you're familiar with the 1-20 scale, it's quite easy spotting the difference between a 10-player and a 12-player.

The 1-99 scale would be just too much and it would make the job of researchers pure hell... We are already debating whether Player X should have 14 or 15 Acceleration, just think of what would happen with a larger scale...

FM has too many attributes to support a 1-99 rating

Yeah and I wonder how CM do it when they cut the CA/PA down to 100. The only way I can think of is grouping attributes, so that some rise and fall together with changes in the CA.

Personally, I agree with extending it, but only for the sake of lower leagues (same with reputation ranges as well... or at least have it recalculated, but thats for another topic), since once you go too low into a league pyramid the numbers are so close all form of match consistency goes out the window

But in all fairness (putting personal feelings aside a moment), it's more a case of the match engine itself needing to be changed, and allow better reflection of lower league football

After-all, the flaw of the ME lower league handling has been exposed on a major level with Lvl10 being modded in, and tbh the flaws had already started to appear prior to FM10 in lower reputation leagues

Concerning allowing for being able to tell the difference easier... well, sure, it'll be nice, but would it really be worth the effort?

Right it's clear to see no-one is in favour of 1-100 so getting back to my original post and opinion what about a smaller increase? It seems quite a few people agree it isn't great for lower league management and even disregarding editor files down to blue square north and south for example the stat range is tiny. So llm's in particular who's in favour of a slight increase or any other way to increase the difference between the best and useless players?

1-20 system is excellent in my opinion. CM's 1-100 scale is a joke frankly, would be a nightmare researching it and the difference between a 50 and a 52 for example would be so little that going to the effort wouldn't be worth it.

1-20 is perfect. Not too simple not too confusing.

Right it's clear to see no-one is in favour of 1-100 so getting back to my original post and opinion what about a smaller increase? It seems quite a few people agree it isn't great for lower league management and even disregarding editor files down to blue square north and south for example the stat range is tiny. So llm's in particular who's in favour of a slight increase or any other way to increase the difference between the best and useless players?

I wouldn't say no one is. Didn't you read my post?

At a lower level I'd say it's pretty accurate that most players are much of a nothing, and thus those that are better than that stand out. 2 players may both be crap at passing, but one may perform so much better than the other due to other attributes, and I can't see what a bigger scale would really add.

That is ridiculous to call lower league players "nothings." They are still professionals or semi-professionals. This makes them better than me and probably better than you. I have coached high school soccer for seven seasons and sent a handful of players to play in college. Not even D-1 (which is the highest college division in the U.S.) but just local or regional colleges. I have worked with a handful of former professionals in the coaching ranks. They were "nothings" according to your judgment and wouldn't rate as much as 7s or 8s on FM. I can assure you that the 1-20 scale does them no justice. No offense, we are "nothings." If you are good enough to get your likeness into a game like this, you are a "something" in football. Having said that, lower leagues get screwed by the 1-20 scale. For example, the lower league U.S. teams have players with basically the same ratings as 2nd tier European teams. Even as an American, our 2nd tier shold not compare to your 2nd tiers...

The biggest problem I have with 1-100 scales is that the human mind is very bad at distinguishing the difference between two large numbers, an example would be thinking 5 is a lot larger than 1 whereas the mind cannot easily comprehend that in a linear system the difference between 95 and 91 is the same. we tend to think geometrically when we talk about differences so we automatically assume that as 5 is a multiple of 1 and 95 is not a multiple of 91 then the differences are greater at 5 and 1 than at 95 and 91. You get a bit of that in the current scale, but twenty is a manageable number.

The other problem is the sheer range of different postitions that could be generated by a 1-100 scale when talking about 40 different numbers. It comes out at 1.6069380442589902755419620923412e+160 and even if we limit it with CA/PA (which would have to be done to a much higher scale to work right) down to 10% (like I said above) of the original range thats still 1.6069380442589902755419620923412e+159 variables.

I appreciate your point. However, it is predicated on two fallacious assumptions. The first is that since the current set-up can produce such an inordinate amount of player variations, it can therefore cover the range of known player abilities in the professional ranks worldwide. The second (and this one is more implicit) is that the current system is actually correct in giving some players 1s and other players 20s. The problem with this is that the logic does not hold up. The player with a 20 in a category is not twenty times as great/effective in that attribute as the player who has a 1. Let's take a former American international, Jimmy Conrad as an example. He is a player for the Kansas City Wizards in this game. Not having the game open in front of me, I believe his acceleration is an 8. Now take a player who has an acceleration of 20. The player with the 20 can be thought of as having the fastest 40-time. (40-times is the 40-yard dash to the non-American and it is the gold standard for speed/acceleration) A truly amazing 40-time (using the NFL system of a 10-yard head start before hitting the laser starting point) is 4.2 seconds. Using a linear relationship where 0 is 0% and 20 is 100%, if an acceleration of 20 equates to 4.2 seconds in the 40-yard dash, then Jimmy Conrad's acceleration of 8 equates to 2.5 times that of the 20 acceleration (because is speed/acceleration, lower 40-times are better). 2.5 times a 4.2 seconds is a horrible 10.5 seconds. This is more of a 100-meter dash time. At that rate, he could never catch an opposing player. These underlying assumptions simply do not hold up under testing.

First, I thoroughly disagree that soccer/football players are less in-need of a rating scale of 1-100. There is no basis whatsoever that one sport is more or less deserving of being rated on one scale versus another.

Second, I also understand that I am in the minority on the 1-100 scale. I get it. I doubt SI changes it because of me or the other few who see the value in a 1-100 scale.

Third, we have to try to identify then understand the underlying assumptions that SI used when creating their 1-20 scale. I would be bemused if the scale was strictly linear with a starting point of 0 equaling 0%, 10 equaling 50% and 20 equaling 100%. If this is the logic they used when programming, then it has serious flaws (as demonstrated in my previous post). If this is not the logic used when programming, then we have to assume that 20 is still 100% but a 0 is more like an 80%. This would allow for the 1-20 to satisfy the changes we recognize as attribute differences among players. Using the example I did in my previous post, with a 0 being equal to 80% the player with a 20 for acceleration (4.2 seconds in the 40-yard dash, in my example) then the player with an acceleration of 8 would actually have 88%f the acceleration of the 20-player. This means a 40-time of 4.2 v 4.7. This is much more realistic and would explain the differences. I would lean towards SI using the second type of programming logic I described here. If that is the case, then we can assume that SI also buys into the concept of whatever the top number is in the scale, it must equal 100%. If SI has already made that leap-in-logic, then it is a short step to understanding that widening the scale to say 1-40 (at least) with a 0 being 60% would better describe the variance seen among players across all levels of leagues.

Sorry, you guys have me all fired up here. I reread a few posts and have simply got to say this. If you think a 1-20 scale works, apply the logic of it to your own experiences. This can work with some attributes where it is subjective-at-best to determine the difference between a 19 or 20 or 5. Try and apply this to acceleration (speed). Do you know anyone who plays soccer at any level (and is in at least decent shape) who is twenty times faster than his competition? This is what the 1-20 in acceleration suggests. Let's be generous. We will give our first competitor a rating of 10 in acceleration and the second a rating of 20 in acceleration. They will race at full-speed from one end-line to the other. Player 1 would only make it to the midfield-stripe by the time Player 2 made it all the way across the field. Using the same 'do you know anyone...' litmus test, tell me of one player you know who is that much faster than his competition. Using this attribute alone, the 1-20 scale is NOT a consistent measure of player ability...

Sorry, you guys have me all fired up here. I reread a few posts and have simply got to say this. If you think a 1-20 scale works, apply the logic of it to your own experiences. This can work with some attributes where it is subjective-at-best to determine the difference between a 19 or 20 or 5. Try and apply this to acceleration (speed). Do you know anyone who plays soccer at any level (and is in at least decent shape) who is twenty times faster than his competition? This is what the 1-20 in acceleration suggests. Let's be generous. We will give our first competitor a rating of 10 in acceleration and the second a rating of 20 in acceleration. They will race at full-speed from one end-line to the other. Player 1 would only make it to the midfield-stripe by the time Player 2 made it all the way across the field. Using the same 'do you know anyone...' litmus test, tell me of one player you know who is that much faster than his competition. Using this attribute alone, the 1-20 scale is NOT a consistent measure of player ability...

Who said player with pace 20 is 20 times faster than player with pace 1. Perhaps he is two times as fast.

Who said player with pace 20 is 20 times faster than player with pace 1. Perhaps he is two times as fast.

Thank God you said that!!! Completely agreed! I actually said in a previous post that I would be stupified if SI actually used the 1-20 system to be 0% - 100%. I am trying to point out the absurdity of the 1-20 scale. The example I used was that a 0 equaled 80% and a 20 equaled 100%. I could see SI using that, but I would still challenge that SI should at least go to a 1-40 scale, where 0 equals 60%...

Heh, second-guessing the abstraction level of a scale system that is an abstraction itself is a bit of a pointless exercise...

Also, aren't we forgetting to take the CA into account?

Unless I'm mistaken [and it can as well be so], shouldn't a 120CA player with Acceleration 5 be faster than a 20CA player with 5 Acceleration?

Or, anyway, a mediocre Tier-6 player will be worse than a Tier-2 player, despite both maybe having a couple of similar attributes.

Also, the option of having additional lower leagues is a bonus, and it's up to the creators of the add-on giving a realistic reflection of the players he creates.

FM is designed to "support" players who can play at a semi-professional level [be it England's Conference or Swedish 2nd division], so the 1-20 scale is used to define said levels.

An "all 2s player" is someone who's barely able to make it to a semi-pro club, but still he'd be ok for Sunday League.

But even using a 1-40 or 1-100 or 1-1000 scale, we would STILL have the problem of additional amateur players being "too good" or "not poor enough" if compared to the original db ones.

The lower end of the scale will always be the problem, unless SI will just "reserve" the hypotetical 1-10 range [out of a 1-40 or 1-whatever scale] for user created lower leaguers.

But yet again, if the poorest Conference player would get Dribbling 10, many would still complain it being too much compared to Messi's 40 [or any other highest value], and too little compared to the user-created Tier-10 player who'll have 3 or 4...

I really don't see the problem with 1-20, its what were all used to now and if it got changed alot of you would come on here moaning about it.

a 100 point system? .. just multiply the 1-20 scale by 5 in your head..

my point is the problem lays with your perception of the 1-20 scale..

the difference between a 15 and a 18 in say finishing is huge...

i imagine it would be fairly easy to implement a change to it with a .xml skin file to a 100 point system.. but it would be purely cosmetic of course

'Yes' is the short answer, 'yes it is' is the long one .

a 100 point system? .. just multiply the 1-20 scale by 5 in your head..

my point is the problem lays with your perception of the 1-20 scale..

the difference between a 15 and a 18 in say finishing is huge...

i imagine it would be fairly easy to implement a change to it with a .xml skin file to a 100 point system.. but it would be purely cosmetic of course

Spot on.

5 point system would be better. Just divide by 4. I can't wait to see how my 3.5125232325 striker's shooting does

That is ridiculous to call lower league players "nothings." They are still professionals or semi-professionals. This makes them better than me and probably better than you. I have coached high school soccer for seven seasons and sent a handful of players to play in college. Not even D-1 (which is the highest college division in the U.S.) but just local or regional colleges. I have worked with a handful of former professionals in the coaching ranks. They were "nothings" according to your judgment and wouldn't rate as much as 7s or 8s on FM. I can assure you that the 1-20 scale does them no justice. No offense, we are "nothings." If you are good enough to get your likeness into a game like this, you are a "something" in football. Having said that, lower leagues get screwed by the 1-20 scale. For example, the lower league U.S. teams have players with basically the same ratings as 2nd tier European teams. Even as an American, our 2nd tier shold not compare to your 2nd tiers...

I appreciate your point. However, it is predicated on two fallacious assumptions. The first is that since the current set-up can produce such an inordinate amount of player variations, it can therefore cover the range of known player abilities in the professional ranks worldwide. The second (and this one is more implicit) is that the current system is actually correct in giving some players 1s and other players 20s. The problem with this is that the logic does not hold up. The player with a 20 in a category is not twenty times as great/effective in that attribute as the player who has a 1. Let's take a former American international, Jimmy Conrad as an example. He is a player for the Kansas City Wizards in this game. Not having the game open in front of me, I believe his acceleration is an 8. Now take a player who has an acceleration of 20. The player with the 20 can be thought of as having the fastest 40-time. (40-times is the 40-yard dash to the non-American and it is the gold standard for speed/acceleration) A truly amazing 40-time (using the NFL system of a 10-yard head start before hitting the laser starting point) is 4.2 seconds. Using a linear relationship where 0 is 0% and 20 is 100%, if an acceleration of 20 equates to 4.2 seconds in the 40-yard dash, then Jimmy Conrad's acceleration of 8 equates to 2.5 times that of the 20 acceleration (because is speed/acceleration, lower 40-times are better). 2.5 times a 4.2 seconds is a horrible 10.5 seconds. This is more of a 100-meter dash time. At that rate, he could never catch an opposing player. These underlying assumptions simply do not hold up under testing.

I think you completely missed my point here, I wasn't arguing that the system currently does best represent players, I was arguing that the current system gives the best compromise between complexity and usability which are both needed in the game. And on your point the scale used by baseball scouts (commonly held as the most analysed sport there is) is a 2-8 scale. To properly represent things like speed and acceleration you are going to need actual split times, something no game will be able to get, and things that are variable. Also what scale could possibly replicate a player like Messi or Maradona accurately.

My other point was that the numbers of the 1-100 scale would be so vast as to make it almost impossible to code the system in the way it is currently coded, thus actually simplifying the whole process tremendously (and thus actually decreasing the differences).

On the matter of people getting into the game it's not that hard, I've played with and against a number of players over the years who I've seen getting into the database, some who made it professionally, some who should have made it, and some who were only at a level that they would be reperesented because they were too stupid to give up on something that was way beyond them. Myself I only ever played at underage level for the local parish club but I know enough about the game to know that you don't need to be actually good to play at a decent level, fitness and application are often far greater determinants than skill (or how else do you explain the careers of the likes of Crouch and Kilbane).