My views on player development.

I know there have been some threads on this over the months, and at the moment there is a particularly good one about having variable PA or no PA at all.

However my view on this is different so thought I'd add a new thread.

Firstly, I firmly believe that the PA should exist mainly as it currently does in the game. I firmly believe that PA exists in real life (i.e. every person has a point where even with the best coaching etc in the world they are as good as they're ever going to be). Many people believe that young players in the game should not have a set PA but again I disagree. I do agree that a persons potential is shaped by both a genetic natural ability and their surroundings and experiences as they're growing up. But with this in mind I believe that by the time the majority of people reach 15 (the point at which they enter the FM game world) there potential is pretty much 'set' and experiences from that point on will not affect their potential but will just affect the speed in which they fulfil that potential. And this is what I want to focus on here.

So please, no arguments with the above view that potential does exist in real life, I don't want this thread to be another thread that just argues whether PA does or does not exist in real life, and therefore should or should not exist in the game. I want it to be a thread that accepts that PA is in the game and discusses the ways in which a players development can be improved if this remains to be the case.

What I would like to see is more variation in the speed at which players reach their potential, and a lot more factors to have an effect on this. Firstly I'd like certain mental attributes to have more of an effect on a players development:

Determination - I think this should be the main mental attribute that will have an effect. For me a more determined player will be more willing to put in the effort in training and therefore reach their potential at a faster rate.

Hidden attributes such as Professionalism - Again I think these should have more of an effect on how players develop, more professional and determined players should improve at a noticeably faster rate than unprofessional, non-determined players.

However, instead of players who have low determination and professionalism just having to be written off, tutoring should be even more important for these players. A professional and determined tutor may be able to influence the attitude of a young player making him more determined and professional himself (of course this shouldn't work every time). This would certainly add another exciting element to the tutoring system, instead of just looking to get young players to learn PPM's.

Other factors that affect the actual speed in which a player develops towards their PA should also be more important. A long term injury should be a massive setback, and in some cases should prevent a player from reaching their potential altogether. This is one area where I'd like other peoples feedback. What other events do you feel should slow down or speed up development?

All in all what I'd like to see the above ideas achieve is a much more varied development system. No longer would top class facilities and coaches be enough to guarantee a player reaching their potential. The players own attitude and outside factors would matter and mean that the development model would be much more fluid and realistic. What this would also mean was that there could be a lot more players generated in the game with higher PA's (this would remove the problem that some people have of conference players never being able to improve if suddenly thrust into a top class club) but the likelihood of these players actually reaching those PA's would be a lot lower as a their development would depend on many more factors than it does currently.

In the next section I'll discuss how I think the three areas that make up a players attributes; technical, mental and physical, should develop.

I know there have been some threads on this over the months, and at the moment there is a particularly good one about having variable PA or no PA at all.

However my view on this is different so thought I'd add a new thread.

Firstly, I firmly believe that the PA should exist mainly as it currently does in the game. I firmly believe that PA exists in real life (i.e. every person has a point where even with the best coaching etc in the world they are as good as they're ever going to be). Many people believe that young players in the game should not have a set PA but again I disagree. I do agree that a persons potential is shaped by both a genetic natural ability and their surroundings and experiences as they're growing up. But with this in mind I believe that by the time the majority of people reach 15 (the point at which they enter the FM game world) there potential is pretty much 'set' and experiences from that point on will not affect their potential but will just affect the speed in which they fulfil that potential. And this is what I want to focus on here.

So please, no arguments with the above view that potential does exist in real life, I don't want this thread to be another thread that just argues whether PA does or does not exist in real life, and therefore should or should not exist in the game. I want it to be a thread that accepts that PA is in the game and discusses the ways in which a players development can be improved if this remains to be the case.

What I would like to see is more variation in the speed at which players reach their potential, and a lot more factors to have an effect on this. Firstly I'd like certain mental attributes to have more of an effect on a players development:

Determination - I think this should be the main mental attribute that will have an effect. For me a more determined player will be more willing to put in the effort in training and therefore reach their potential at a faster rate.

Hidden attributes such as Professionalism - Again I think these should have more of an effect on how players develop, more professional and determined players should improve at a noticeably faster rate than unprofessional, non-determined players.

However, instead of players who have low determination and professionalism just having to be written off, tutoring should be even more important for these players. A professional and determined tutor may be able to influence the attitude of a young player making him more determined and professional himself (of course this shouldn't work every time). This would certainly add another exciting element to the tutoring system, instead of just looking to get young players to learn PPM's.

Other factors that affect the actual speed in which a player develops towards their PA should also be more important. A long term injury should be a massive setback, and in some cases should prevent a player from reaching their potential altogether. This is one area where I'd like other peoples feedback. What other events do you feel should slow down or speed up development?

All in all what I'd like to see the above ideas achieve is a much more varied development system. No longer would top class facilities and coaches be enough to guarantee a player reaching their potential. The players own attitude and outside factors would matter and mean that the development model would be much more fluid and realistic. What this would also mean was that there could be a lot more players generated in the game with higher PA's (this would remove the problem that some people have of conference players never being able to improve if suddenly thrust into a top class club) but the likelihood of these players actually reaching those PA's would be a lot lower as a their development would depend on many more factors than it does currently.

In the next section I'll discuss how I think the three areas that make up a players attributes; technical, mental and physical, should develop.

I feel that within the new development model the three different sets of attributes should develop slightly differently than they do now, well actually just one of the attribute sets - mental.

I believe Technical and Physical attributes should continue to develop as they do and be tied in with CA. I also think the following mental attributes should continue to be tied in with CA and developed through training alone:

Composure.

Off The Ball.

However I feel the following mental attributes should not change at all through training but should be set when the player enters the game and only increase/decrease through tutoring from older players (if at all):

Aggression.

Anticipation.

Determination.

Work Rate.

Creativity.

Flair.

Bravery.

The main point I have is about the rest of the attributes. These I feel should only increase depending on a players experience. I feel this would be an excellent addition to the game, in real life the experience of a player who has played in champions league campaigns, world cups etc is vital to teams, and clubs will buy players because of this experience. In FM at the moment older players with a lot of experience are under-rated and not as useful as they are in real life. So these are the attributes I'd like to see develop solely through experience:

Concentration - I feel a player who has had years of experience playing at the top level would have improved their concentration, particularly in the big matches.

Decisions - Again experience helps a player to make better decisions in most cases.

Influence - This should definitely be affected by experience. A player who's seen and done it all could make a better leader than a les experienced player. I'm not saying every time, a player with a low influence attribute and the wrong personality to start with is never going to make a good captain. But I do think influence should increase solely based on experience and a player who starts with a decent influence attribute should become a very good captain given the right experience.

Team-work - I think this should increase based on experience but in a slightly different way than the other attributes. I think it would be great if this depended in some way on how long a player was at a club. A player playing with the same group of players for a long time may increase their team-work attribute at a faster rate than a player playing in a lot of different clubs with a lot of different players.

Positioning - Again I feel an experienced player would have better knowledge of positional play and this attribute should increase solely depending on the players career experience.

The level and rate of these increase would depend on the type of experience a player has had. As mentioned before, a seasoned Champions League or World cup campaigner should see a very noticeable increase in certain mental attributes that you just can't get simple from training.

So what do other people think of these ideas, do you think they'd improve the game?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">

However, instead of players who have low determination and professionalism just having to be written off, tutoring should be even more important for these players. A professional and determined tutor may be able to influence the attitude of a young player making him more determined and professional himself (of course this shouldn't work every time). This would certainly add another exciting element to the tutoring system, instead of just looking to get young players to learn PPM's.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can change personality via tutoring, actually it happens about 50% of the time for me depending on their original personalities. 2 of my most promising young players were both balanced/fairly determined to begin with, i got diego and lulinha to tutor them, now they are spirited and improving faster. Stange things have happened sometimes, i had a player who was unambitious and got someone who was fairly determined to tutor him, now he is temperamental. I think it all depends on which tutoring option you use.

As for the rest of your post, i do agree that the development needs to be changed significantly. Its far to slow and basic. Although maybe its basic as to not slow down game too much

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

You can change personality via tutoring, actually it happens about 50% of the time for me depending on their original personalities. 2 of my most promising young players were both balanced/fairly determined to begin with, i got diego and lulinha to tutor them, now they are spirited and improving faster. Stange things have happened sometimes, i had a player who was unambitious and got someone who was fairly determined to tutor him, now he is temperamental. I think it all depends on which tutoring option you use.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can change their personality to some extent but you can't change a players determination attribute through tutoring, which is what I was getting at mainly here.

Sorry misread your post. yeah agree if you can change the presonality then why not the determination attribute. As for professionalism, are you sure that the hidden stats are not changed by tutoring?

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

Sorry misread your post. yeah agree if you can change the presonality then why not the determination attribute. As for professionalism, are you sure that the hidden stats are not changed by tutoring? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually yes I think they are now that you mention it. I don't use things like Genie scout so haven't been able to moniter changes in hidden attributes. So if that is a case then its a start, if it was expanded on and combined with development then the tutoring would become much more important and an excellent game feature.

good writing I must say.

Come to think about it, it must be very hard to significantly change someones determination, whereas professionalism i would have thought could be easily changed depending on the general personality of the squad.

I think that the personality of the most expeienced, most successfull and most popular players in a squad would very likely have a bigger effect on the young players than single player tutoring.

I thought about starting a similar thread and thought i had som much to say but writing this i have realised how compelx this subject is IRL. Its based on the whole nature or nuture debate where are humans born a certain way or do they learn to be a certain. It would seem to be a bit of both, but by the time they are 15 it might not be.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Team-work - I think this should increase based on experience but in a slightly different way than the other attributes. I think it would be great if this depended in some way on how long a player was at a club. A player playing with the same group of players for a long time may increase their team-work attribute at a faster rate than a player playing in a lot of different clubs with a lot of different players. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Great idea, i think also that captaincy and playing for his home club might increase this.

Another thing that needs to be changed in development but is often overlooked is the end of the players carear. It is far to systematic, all the players seem to decrease and become unplayable at almost the same time. It seems like it is impossible for a player to play his best football at the age of 32/33 which does sometimes happen (beardsley at newcastle) and also forgets the players which decrease in ability before the age of 30 (owen perhaps?)

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by chopper99:

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

You can change personality via tutoring, actually it happens about 50% of the time for me depending on their original personalities. 2 of my most promising young players were both balanced/fairly determined to begin with, i got diego and lulinha to tutor them, now they are spirited and improving faster. Stange things have happened sometimes, i had a player who was unambitious and got someone who was fairly determined to tutor him, now he is temperamental. I think it all depends on which tutoring option you use.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can change their personality to some extent but you can't change a players determination attribute through tutoring, which is what I was getting at mainly here. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually Determination is one of the attributes that changes the most by tutoring. In many cases the tutee ends up with the same determination of the tutor. In fact if you chose a tutor with a lower determination the tutee's will decrease. I had players improve determination by 6 or 7 points with the right tutor.

I'd go through all of your points but I would only say the same thing everytime.... I agree completely with you.

The basic idea behind player development IMO is right, it is just the bricks and mortar around that which can do with some alterations. At the monet it is too rigid and similar for everyone. It needs to be more dynamic and variable to reflect real life where players will change/improve at different speeds and times.

Good post

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Actually Determination is one of the attributes that changes the most by tutoring. In many cases the tutee ends up with the same determination of the tutor. In fact if you chose a tutor with a lower determination the tutee's will decrease. I had players improve determination by 6 or 7 points with the right tutor. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I didnt notice this, im scared of some of the mistakes i might have made

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

Actually Determination is one of the attributes that changes the most by tutoring. In many cases the tutee ends up with the same determination of the tutor. In fact if you chose a tutor with a lower determination the tutee's will decrease. I had players improve determination by 6 or 7 points with the right tutor. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

If this is true I haven't noticed it yet. But I'll definitely keep an eye out for this. If it is true then that's a good start. However, determination and all the other factors I mentioned do not affect development anywhere near enough, meaning that even if you do improve a players determination through tutoring it has little real effect on that player.

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

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by chopper99:

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

You can change personality via tutoring, actually it happens about 50% of the time for me depending on their original personalities. 2 of my most promising young players were both balanced/fairly determined to begin with, i got diego and lulinha to tutor them, now they are spirited and improving faster. Stange things have happened sometimes, i had a player who was unambitious and got someone who was fairly determined to tutor him, now he is temperamental. I think it all depends on which tutoring option you use.

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

You can change their personality to some extent but you can't change a players determination attribute through tutoring, which is what I was getting at mainly here. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually Determination is one of the attributes that changes the most by tutoring. In many cases the tutee ends up with the same determination of the tutor. In fact if you chose a tutor with a lower determination the tutee's will decrease. I had players improve determination by 6 or 7 points with the right tutor. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, in my current game I have seen that determination really changes with tutoring. in fact I tried to improve a young gk giving him a PPM but his determination dropped from 12 to 10 and all my staff dropped their guesses for his future. Luckily my 33 yo GK had determination of 13 and could improve my young keeper determination to 12 again.

BTW a good idea chopper, and I agree with you about mental attributes changing.

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

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Actually Determination is one of the attributes that changes the most by tutoring. In many cases the tutee ends up with the same determination of the tutor. In fact if you chose a tutor with a lower determination the tutee's will decrease. I had players improve determination by 6 or 7 points with the right tutor. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I didnt notice this, im scared of some of the mistakes i might have made </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, be careful with the suggestions that your staff gives you regarding tutoring a young player because they look only at the technical part and suggest a similar player. So if you don't pay attention to the determination attribute of the 2 players you could end up with a youngster that gains a lot of PPMs but loose some points of determination.

Cheers.

I think that, if a player is at a club he really doesn't want to be at, his PA should, if he is there too long, start to stagnate. This would match real life, and would stop people hoarding youngsters with high PA, if they knew that keeping them there against their will would stop them from developing into the player they have the potential to be. Certainly, unhappy players should improve less than happy players - I'm not sure whether that's in the game already, but if it isn't, it should be.

Flair, I would suggest, could be improved, as, possibly, could Creativity. I'd think that, as players gain experience, they would become more creative and flamboyant, and would gain in confidence with their moves, so they should still be linked in to CA.

I agree that more professional, determined players should reach their potential early (like 19, 20, so that there can be youngsters playing first-team Premiership football), but some other players with these stats lower should also be able to reach an early peak, but start to decline early (as SiDolman said about Owen). This would lead to a more well-rounded game, with not all players peaking and troughing at roughly the same ages, or at least range of ages.

Top, top post, though, chopper.

Excellent points. I particularly like the point relating to development of stats. At them moment i'm having to mostly guess which stats will improve, whilst you can influence them, i feel user input with reagard to individual stats is minimal.

Likewise linking how achievable a PA is to the players determination etc seems so much like common sense i can only wonder why SI don't already do it that way?

A pity there hasn't been any SI input yet. Although that is becoming distinctly less frequent in general

(except for ter of course)

Good idea chopper. I was thinking about PA and it never seemed right to me that when a player is near his PA any increase of some attribute means something else has to decrease.

We basically have three main groups of attributes:

Mental: They should be changed with experience like chopper said and not be part of some predefined PA.

Physical: This should be defined by the PA. A young player should be weak and slowly gain strength with age. When the player ages he should slowly loose pace and acceleration and to some degree also strength.

Skill: Again something that should be defined by the PA. What i propose is that this PA is separate from PA that defines physical attributes. What this means is that we could have players that have incredible physical stats yet are unable to properly kick the ball.

Does any of this make any sense?

Intersting article, chopper.

I've been thinking that high PA should be a bit more common, in the game and in the initial DB, but that only works if the development model is less predictable: if high PA doesn't guarantee high CA at some point in his career.

I'd really like to see the development model made a lot more sensitive to "Playing at the right level".

For example, if I take a 16-year-old with low CA - even if he has 198 PA - and play him in the Premiership, I don't think he should learn much from that experience. He's being asked to play "in over his head", and he'll be in "survival mode" - hardly conducive to learning. The resulting poor performances and media pressure may also do permanent harm to his confidence - but I want the experience to do nothing for him.

Likewise, if I play him in my Reserves, he'll learn up to a certain point .. but shouldn't be able to reach Premiership quality without regular competitive football. I'd need to send him on loan or sell him before he could grow into the rest of his potential.

In that way, you'd be a lot more likely to see "late bloomers", the 23-year-old who never could break into the first team at X, but once given the chance at Y, matures into a starter.

In particular, I'd like to see Champions League / Euro / World Cup performances being almost a requirement to reach "elite" level.

* * * * *

On specific attributes:

Anticipation - anticipating the run of play seems like a clear experience-linked trait in my mind; its one I'd expect to increase over time, not be static/tutored.

Creativity - since this tends to be "Ability to spot the killer pass" in FM terms, I think its probably also one which should be learn-able. I just don't see a 16-year-old having Beckham's ability to spot a pass.

Flair - yeah, we love videos of kids doing amazing tricks, but the ability to apply flair in a match? Again, I'd say Cristiano Ronaldo's got more Flair now than he did at 16.

Both of those two, you might want to put in a "change resistant" category: in other words, making sure that the most you could really gain in them would be 5-7 points. A kid with 3 Creativity will never learn into a 20, and maybe you can't train it at all..

Decisions - I can see the argument that Decisions shouldn't drop precipitously when a player gets old, but on the other hand, I've also seen players IRL who make Decisions based on what they would have been able to do three years earlier, not what their aging body is capable of doing now. So I can see it both ways.

Composure - I'd have added this to your list of experience-based attributes. How do you train composure-under-pressure? Maybe its tutorable...

Team Work - I might almost have linked that one with the club's mentality. A team of guys who "Would Die For Each Other" should teach and train Team Work in the younger players who are thrown into the mix ... but a group which is at each other's throats might actually harm Team Work in each other, learning to be selfish because your teammates won't have your back.

* * * * *

The other thing I'd like to see on the "aging" model is the ability for a player to drop deeper. For example a "Natural" AM might drop back to MC by age 30 and close out his career as a DM at age 34 - still able to contribute on experience, but no longer really an attacking midfielder even if that was his childhood position.

* * * * *

To your idea of having Determination and Professionalism impact development, yeah I can certainly see that. Work Rate would join that list, too, if you look at it as "How hard he's willing to work at training" as well as "How much he runs on the pitch."

The same traits should probably also provide some resistance to aging; the guys who are working their tails off tend to last longer than the guys who rest on their laurels.

However, I'd worry about it getting too predictable.

I think you'd need to make sure that those three were factors, but not the determining factor, in development.

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

I've been thinking that high PA should be a bit more common, in the game and in the initial DB, but that only works if the development model is less predictable: if high PA doesn't guarantee high CA at some point in his career. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is one of the main things I'd like to see. Bringing young players through the ranks is, I believe, one of the most enjoyable parts of the game and having more variation in this area would be a massive step forward for me.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">I'd really like to see the development model made a lot more sensitive to "Playing at the right level".

For example, if I take a 16-year-old with low CA - even if he has 198 PA - and play him in the Premiership, I don't think he should learn much from that experience. He's being asked to play "in over his head", and he'll be in "survival mode" - hardly conducive to learning. The resulting poor performances and media pressure may also do permanent harm to his confidence - but I want the experience to do nothing for him.

Likewise, if I play him in my Reserves, he'll learn up to a certain point .. but shouldn't be able to reach Premiership quality without regular competitive football. I'd need to send him on loan or sell him before he could grow into the rest of his potential.

In that way, you'd be a lot more likely to see "late bloomers", the 23-year-old who never could break into the first team at X, but once given the chance at Y, matures into a starter.

In particular, I'd like to see Champions League / Euro / World Cup performances being almost a requirement to reach "elite" level. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Interesting ideas, and I agree to an extent. I agree that for many youngsters playing at the top level too early could be more detrimental than beneficial, and care should be needed to slowely bring them into the team. However I think this should be tied in with personality. A very professional and determined youngster with the right personality should not be affected as much by this and could even benefit (eg a Rooney type player).

This would again give more variation and would add something else for the user to consider. Currently I don't worry at all about a youngsters personality when deciding whether to put them into the first team.

I definitely agree with the last part completely though, for a player to reach his absolute peak he should need to play at the very highes level, be that world cup finals, champions leagues or whatever.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Anticipation - anticipating the run of play seems like a clear experience-linked trait in my mind; its one I'd expect to increase over time, not be static/tutored. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I'll agree it should be able to be improved to some degree with training but for me this is one of those 'natural ability' type attributes that you can't just learn.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Creativity - since this tends to be "Ability to spot the killer pass" in FM terms, I think its probably also one which should be learn-able. I just don't see a 16-year-old having Beckham's ability to spot a pass. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Good point, perhaps creativity is an attribute that can be improved through training.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Flair - yeah, we love videos of kids doing amazing tricks, but the ability to apply flair in a match? Again, I'd say Cristiano Ronaldo's got more Flair now than he did at 16. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I disagree. I think Ronaldo still had as much flair when he was 16, for me flair is the desire to 'show off' and use your natural skill as much as possible. I think Ronaldo now just has the abilities that he didn't have when he was 16 to turn his flair into an end product, i.e pace, crossing, passing, technique etc.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content"> Both of those two, you might want to put in a "change resistant" category: in other words, making sure that the most you could really gain in them would be 5-7 points. A kid with 3 Creativity will never learn into a 20, and maybe you can't train it at all.. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Totally agree for creativity, but as I said, I think flair is something you have naturally and rarely increases at all.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Decisions - I can see the argument that Decisions shouldn't drop precipitously when a player gets old, but on the other hand, I've also seen players IRL who make Decisions based on what they would have been able to do three years earlier, not what their aging body is capable of doing now. So I can see it both ways. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I see your point, perhaps this again should be linked in with personality and determination in some way. An intelligent player (I'm not sure how you would represent intelligence in the game) would quite comfortable adapt the decisions they make based on their age and ability. Whereas a player with lesser attributes in certain areas may suffer as you have pointed out. As a general rule though I feel many top players decisions improve mainly due to experience. So if the ability was lacking in the game to have decisions affected by personality etc I think I'd rather accept all players decisions being influcened by experience rather than the way it works now.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Composure - I'd have added this to your list of experience-based attributes. How do you train composure-under-pressure? Maybe its tutorable... </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Agree. I think I was looking at this attribute incorrectly. I was picturing a striker practicing shot after shot in training but in effect this would only improve his finishing. As you rightly point out composure-under-pressure is entirely different and should indeed be affected positively or negatively by the players experience.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Team Work - I might almost have linked that one with the club's mentality. A team of guys who "Would Die For Each Other" should teach and train Team Work in the younger players who are thrown into the mix ... but a group which is at each other's throats might actually harm Team Work in each other, learning to be selfish because your teammates won't have your back. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I like this idea and I think coupled with the idea I put forward (i.e having this also linked with the amount of time spent with the same group of players) would make team work improvements/decreases much more realistic.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">The other thing I'd like to see on the "aging" model is the ability for a player to drop deeper. For example a "Natural" AM might drop back to MC by age 30 and close out his career as a DM at age 34 - still able to contribute on experience, but no longer really an attacking midfielder even if that was his childhood position. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Another very good idea, a good example of this is Dwight Yorke at the team I support, Sunderland. He used to be a very successful striker for Man Utd but is now playing at CM for us. He's also an excellent example of a player who's experience is very useful despite his age. In FM currently a newly promoted team would rarely look to sign this type of player as their experience really doesn't count for much.

All in all I think many of these ideas would make the development model much more realistic, exciting and impressive.

for the original two posts + Amaroq's points.

Very well thought out and put together - particularly the five attributes that should change with experience. Decisions is one of the most important stats and it should be the key to a young player developing - i.e. players like C. Ronaldo that had the skills, but made poor decisions, until he matured. For players like that we should be able to see that maturing happening over a season, rather than the slow and steady rate it happens now.

I've recently been informed that mental attributes actually inmprove mainly with age rather than training and wondered what other people thought about this?

I think this is definitely a step forward if it's the case, but was wondering if anyone had really noticed it? Can a player who's reached their PA still improve certain mental attributes with experience, or are they still limited by PA?

Also, does anyone have any idea how true my initial information is? Do mental attributes improve more with experience than training? If so, does training have any effect on mental attributes at all?

Tutoring makes a difference to mental attributes. You get a kid to be mentored by an older legendary role-model and he'll pick up on some of his mentor's mentality.

If you think about it, this is much more likely than increasing mental attributes by dribbling round cones!

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

Tutoring makes a difference to mental attributes. You get a kid to be mentored by an older legendary role-model and he'll pick up on some of his mentor's mentality.

If you think about it, this is much more likely than increasing mental attributes by dribbling round cones! </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

This is what I thought but I wasn't entirely sure if tutoring actually affected attributes other than the hidden ones.

So do you think, for example, a players determination can be improved by tutoring?

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by chopper99:

Can a player who's reached their PA still improve certain mental attributes with experience, or are they still limited by PA?

</div></BLOCKQUOTE>

I saw kaka's teamwork go from 15 to 17 after he reached hes PA. Hes workate has also gone up - but that is after criticizing him for a poor performance.

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by chopper99:

So do you think, for example, a players determination can be improved by tutoring? </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, absolutely it does. DET is the first attribute I look for when lining up a tutor. You need to be careful that the tutor's determination is higher than the tutee, otherwise it could go down!

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by chopper99:

You can change their personality to some extent but you can't change a players determination attribute through tutoring, which is what I was getting at mainly here. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes...u can. I got Gattuso and Ambrosini to tutor Hamsik. His determination grew from 14/15 to 20 in 2 seasons. His personality changed from ambitious to spirited.

Simple truth is, in real life, everything changes.

As for football talents, we know the only thing from the very beginning that differs is the natural gift of touching the ball and the vision on the pitch and flair of course. So many huge stars like Messi and many other young kids that big clubs like ManU are chasing nowadays show their talents from very young age. From a natural and real life angel of view, we know this is what predetermined and set to make a kid different from others. It's the initial status and condition of every kid. So progressing from this point, some kid choose or be chosed to play football and some others not. Therefore some kids talents are noticed and exploited and some are never to be seen if they don't play football at all.

The rest part is the future road for these football kids to walk on. I think that is not very controversial as to all the aspects that might influence every step of those kids development. And thus determines what kind of level of football they might gonna be at. I hope that shows how I understand a football players ability and capability to promote his level. The initial things are set and all the rest are variables. If you still insist there is a certain PA, then it must an ideal point/number that is deduced from his given talent and ideal football circumstances/training/coachin everything. And for other attributes, during the progress of growing from a teenager to a 30 year old man, all attributes could change slightly or hugely, physically and mentally. Right? Hope that makes things clear.

Maybe it is more important to look at the way people and footballers learn. A few posters have mentioned that personality can and should be changed. In my experience it is near impossible to radically change one's personality: it is only possible to control, to manipulate, to surpress or to express. What use is it to change a person who gets his quality from his technique and his rare but utterly brilliant moments of initiative, into a hardworking gritty tackler?

To get the best out of a person his/her personality needs to be taken into account. The mind of a keeper is absolutely different then the mind of a striker: A keeper needs to derive his motivation from saving goals, while the striker gets it from scoring them! Furthermore, a structured, waiting personality will not easily be able to make a creative and unexpected run to score a goal, like an unstructured, initiating personality would. Vice versa, the latter will not be able to effectively defend: he won't wait for the attacker to make a mistake and he won't have a plan ready to stop the attack.

So: how many personalities are there and how should that be tied into the learning process (with other words, the process of getting more CA)? Many kinds of distribution can be made and have been made on this subject, and I will only show you one of them. As hinted on above this system works like a compass: with the attributes structured - unstructured and initiating - waiting. A structured person will tend to think things over, will analyse and forsee problems and will look for ways to solve them. An unstructured person will tend to "feel" things, will allow sudden illuminations to lead his way, will try to use special and creative things to solve problems. An iniating person likes work and doing things, will try to take the iniative, will want to produce or to perform as much and as good as possible. A waiting person likes to perfect things, likes to take his time to see how things go, wants to conserve energy for when it is truly necessary.

Well, this leaves us four basic types of people: Structured/Initiating, Structured/Waiting, Unstructured/Initiating and Unstructured/Waiting. Now, interestingly, from these types follow four kinds of footballers -> S/I are hardworking midfielders, S/W are dependable defenders, U/I are dangerous strikers, and U/W are brilliant wingers. Please take your time to understand this: Every person falls somewhere between these four types, and most fit in one or two of the four types. For example, Goalkeeper Edwin vd Sar is a structured, waiting person, while striker Didier Drogba is an unstructured, initiating person. C. Ronaldo is U and W, while Makelele is S and I. Interestingly Evra seems to fit in two types: he is a waiting personality, but inbetween structured and unstructured; perfect for a fullback!

Tying this in with the main point of the thread's topic: these four types have four _different_ ways of learning! Where a S/I would like to repeatedly perform an action untill perfection, a U/W would rather watch an example in detail and try to learn from that. A U/I likes to get the feel of an action by performing it in different situations as perfectly as possible, while a S/W rather would listen to a complicated explanation that highlights all possible situations and the logical way to use and to perform the action. Therefore, it is important to note that while the widely regarded way of becoming better is hard work, professionality and determination, it might only be the case for only a part of the sports men! Sure, structured, initiating personalities will only get better through a lot of hard work, but the other personalities will only get better through completely different ways of learning!

Managers like Mourinho or Ferguson know this, and train and coach their players accordingly. Of course it is rare to see top players who give up easily or who don't live completely for football (or any other sport). But that's not the reason why they are talented players, not at all, it is the reason why they are _succesful_ players! I'm certain that while determination, hard work and professionality are important attributes to be a top player, they more often then not won't influence the talent and the speed by which it develops. With other words: a high CA does not make a brilliant player, without the defining "top" attributes, a good manager and a great team.