How much do position ratings matter?

It's been suggested that the penalty for playing someone out of position is negligible. (Cant provide link cause writing from phone)

So often it is better to use a good striker on a winger position, ditching average natural wingers. But the winger doesnt actually understand that he is worse than the striker.

To the wingers eyes he is the best player for the position and he is being a victim.

My suggestion would be to either further penalise out of position or enhance and improve the unhappiness of a victimized player

To an extent you seem to be grasping the wrong end of the stick here. If that winger has a first team/key player squad status, it doesn't matter if the worlds greatest winger is keeping him out of the side he'll still become unhappy because he's expecting to play. Another player and the team in general being in blistering form may delay the complaint but ultimately it will still happen if a supposed first team regular, isn't regularly in the first team.

There are issues with playing people out of position but they aren't immediately obvious because the game is more subtle than that. There's never going to be the "if you played a winger here instead of striker, X/Y/Z never would have happened" moment. It's the subtle things like possibly being not as well positioned in a natural in that position, or making the wrong movement from that starting position.

To an extent you seem to be grasping the wrong end of the stick here. If that winger has a first team/key player squad status, it doesn't matter if the worlds greatest winger is keeping him out of the side he'll still become unhappy because he's expecting to play. Another player and the team in general being in blistering form may delay the complaint but ultimately it will still happen if a supposed first team regular, isn't regularly in the first team.

There are issues with playing people out of position but they aren't immediately obvious because the game is more subtle than that. There's never going to be the "if you played a winger here instead of striker, X/Y/Z never would have happened" moment. It's the subtle things like possibly being not as well positioned in a natural in that position, or making the wrong movement from that starting position.

My brother-in-law used to play for Dunfermline way back in the Bertie Paton era - at the time he was just breaking into the first team - to sum him up best you'd call him Ball Winning Centre Midfielder (Neil Cooper once called it "Controlled Aggression and for anyone who knows the area he's fae Valleyfield") - anyway the pars signed Derek Ferguson - an absolute master in the craft of the side or backwards pass and once upon a time claimed to be Souness's protege at Rangers. So Fergie signing resulted in Jock (Bro) being played Right-Midfield - in this reserve game - he had a shocker, I said to him after singing my solo as they left the field - what happened - he said, I dinnae play right-mid - he hadn't a clue where he should be and when and where he should be moving to during play.

Still learning the game then - now, as his career very much winds down, he's spent seasons at Left-Back, Sweeper all over the place or any position that requires the player to be "uncompromising" in the tackle - crazy bar steward.

It's been proven that the penalty for playing someone out of position is negligible. (Cant provide link cause writing from phone)

So often it is better to use a good striker on a winger position, ditching average natural wingers. But the winger doesnt actually understand that he is worse than the striker.

To the wingers eyes he is the best player for the position and he is being a victim.

It would surely depend much more on the how much action the winger is expecting to get. If he is First Team or Key Player, he is going to expect to start a large number of games regardless of if you have better players than him available. Thus, complaints in this situation would be down to poor squad management on your part. If he is no longer a First Team player, change is squad status, or if you do not want him, sell him.

I'm also interested in seeing this proof that positional familiarity doesn't matter, I'm sure the ME dev team would too.

Based on deep player development history analysis using big data techniques and statistics (collected data from over 15 years of game history on over 100k players and over 54k matches from top-12 leagues) positional ratings adjusted based on FM16 suggestions and on the statistical analysis of collected matches history

I cant format text on the phone but the above was copied from the description of a famous third party utility. In practise it drastically increased the positional ratings when using a player out of position compared to previous years releases.

You'll need to explain a bit more I expect here Methos, but a lot of players are capable of performing in more than 1 position. Are you referring to the differences between a natural & competent player in a position? Or the difference between saying playing a natural vs unconvincing or lower. But how this analysis is done is very likely to be telling, because its not something that statistics itself can really measure. Judging how well a player does in a position is more than the sum of the metrics they achieve, there's no stat that can track if a player is 4 or 5 yards out of position at the start of opposition move.

When you get access to a more compatible device I'd be interested in getting a link to that analysis.

Barside they dont go into detail regarding their methods of analysing/testing

Barside they dont go into detail regarding their methods of analysing/testing

Then how do they support their conclusions?

^^WHS^^

Without a detailed methodology & data set their claims are no better than those who believe the ME is biased towards AI managers to rubber band user dominance.

Unless supporting evidence or at the very least a reasonable analysis exists I'll have no choice but to close this thread.

I am not them. That said personally i would be interested of a methodology (because i cant think of one) to support or reject that claims instead of locking the thread.

I've changed the thread title & made one minor change to your OP to remove claims of proven behaviour & results, if you or anyone else can elaborate upon & evidence the theory you're good to go.

In the back of my mind I'm reasonably sure I've seen SI comment on this saying only the decisions attribute is affected.

Certainly from playing and using players in various positions there doesn't seem to be much of a penalty for using a player in a position where he has zero familiarity.

Apart from the annoying assistant chatter and ugly graphics on the tactics screen there's no good reason to care about positional familiarity too much.

If a player's attributes fit the role you want them to perform it's a non-issue in terms of performances.

If i was about to save load one particular game, with the only difference being using natural lesser wingers first and unfamiliar wingers with better attributes afterwards. And try that 10 times for each case using instant result would noticing the success of the team in terms of win lose and goals scored conceded and the average ratings of the wingers or unfamiliar wingers, hint anything?

My best player at the moment doesn't even play in the central midfield position awkwardly, & is listed as an AM & AMR. As I don't play with an attacking midfielder, and need a central midfielder he does the job really well. I would add this is lower leagues I am playing, where you are limited for choice early on. I used to rigidly play players in their correct position, but over the years from playing & reading the boards, realise you don't need to, & it is amazing how many players play really well in an unfamiliar position.

I'm also interested in seeing this proof that positional familiarity doesn't matter, I'm sure the ME dev team would too.

No proof, just anecdotal, but my best performers are often people with no familiarity whatsoever in the position I play them in.

In the back of my mind I'm reasonably sure I've seen SI comment on this saying only the decisions attribute is affected.

I recall this, too. I don't know how severe the penalty is, but I have always rationalized it in my mind to be:

If a player is rated as a 20/20 familiarity for a position then his decisions attribute remains the same.

If he is a 15/20 then his decisions attribute drops by 25%.

If he is a 10/20 then it drops by 50%.

And so on...

So if you had a player with zero familiarity in a position then he would be playing with the bare minimum for his decisions attribute. I'm sure he can still do lots of good things due to his other attributes, but ultimately, he is a ticking time bomb that could make a crucial mistake to cost you a match.

In the back of my mind I'm reasonably sure I've seen SI comment on this saying only the decisions attribute is affected.

Certainly from playing and using players in various positions there doesn't seem to be much of a penalty for using a player in a position where he has zero familiarity.

I likewise remember reading something similar -- the detriment was only to decision making. Now maybe it has changed since then, but I remember this being unequivocally stated at some point years ago.

I'm always wary of information that comes from "years ago", especially when there was a major ME re-write for FM13 & the usual raft of updates since then.

Plus there always the small matter of bugs that modify the intended behaviour & I'm sure we can all agree that there will be bugs that as as yet unidentified, especially when dealing with under the hood code as the behaviour of that code is not immediately obvious.

At the end of the day I trust what I see with my own eyes, as I rarely use players out of position I don't have much experience to draw on so that I can come to a conclusion either way.

I recall this, too. I don't know how severe the penalty is, but I have always rationalized it in my mind to be:

If a player is rated as a 20/20 familiarity for a position then his decisions attribute remains the same.

If he is a 15/20 then his decisions attribute drops by 25%.

If he is a 10/20 then it drops by 50%.

And so on...

So if you had a player with zero familiarity in a position then he would be playing with the bare minimum for his decisions attribute. I'm sure he can still do lots of good things due to his other attributes, but ultimately, he is a ticking time bomb that could make a crucial mistake to cost you a match.

How much the Decisions attribute is reduced will also be influenced by the player's Versatility attribute. A very versatile player shouldn't see much change in his performance levels anywhere on the pitch.