Regens are too good. Making the game too easy

[dking]

I see these threads popping up every year with countless amazing newgens but they never seem to appear in my games!

[Nidis]

yes they are too good!I thought this game is about simulating the real life football world,isnt that why all the research is done.

IRL you dont see 10-15 players with skill and talent like lets say like mario balotelli or gotze poping up all over the world every year straight from the youth teams.

It should be 1 or 2 of them a year,and even then their level should be attached to real top players.lets say messi retires so now the game can make a new one.

[Nidis]

yes they are too good!I thought this game is about simulating the real life football world,isnt that why all the research is done.

IRL you dont see 10-15 players with skill and talent like lets say like mario balotelli or gotze poping up all over the world every year straight from the youth teams.

It should be 1 or 2 of them a year,and even then their level should be attached to real top players.lets say messi retires so now the game can make a new one.

[tat501]

Holy Crap. Abeni is better than Maradona.

[Ackter]

Holy Crap. Abeni is better than Maradona.

It's because of his Right Only footedness.

There will be better players out there who look slightly worse just because they have a better footedness distribution.

This guy literally looks like he has 1 for Left Foot ability.

[Deisler26]

The question I'd raise is why do you have so much money?

I don't understand why you say regens are too good when you have to pay that much money for them.

That was gonna be my comment tbf...

[big_bob]

I always dream of finding 16 years old as good as this one. This is from FM10 though.

[Ashley_Phoenix]

If you think about it, you've probably signed all them players from different clubs, so it's not surprising that some clubs will get a gem of a player. In my opinion, it's the scouting system that is too good, being able to automatically see how good a player will be if trained right, at the click of a button is laughable.

A stat range would be a much better system, for example: Dribbling 13-18, Finishing 14-17.

[Ranquelme]

A stat range would be pretty good actually. Depending on how good the scouts how are the range varies.

[ima92]

man... this post made me realize I really suck at looking for regens..

[benallen002]

It's because of his Right Only footedness.

There will be better players out there who look slightly worse just because they have a better footedness distribution.

This guy literally looks like he has 1 for Left Foot ability.

This is so true. I posted some testing I did with the IGE regarding the Weak Foot attribute. Thought it was too "spoilerish" for GD, but it's there if anyone is interested in seeing my results of the testing.

[Wyer]

Isn't the idea of the game to have the best team?

I don't see the point in complaining that you have bought some of the best players in game.

Would you complain if you could buy Messi and Ronaldo?

[tat501]

This is so true. I posted some testing I did with the IGE regarding the Weak Foot attribute. Thought it was too "spoilerish" for GD, but it's there if anyone is interested in seeing my results of the testing.

Its very interesting. I have seen a lot of good fm managers say theyd rather have a two footed player than one with better stats and one right foot. I'm not so sure. In real life yes - but would you (or Ackter or anyone else) think that this player would be more effective in game with two feet and a corresponding stat reduction?

[Ackter]

A player with either feet but reduced attributes will be more useful a lot more often.

But when the one-footer gets the perfect chance, he'll be better with it than the either-footed guy would be.

With an Either Footed player, you get more of those chances.

[dan99]

One issue I saw on another forum is the newgens with 20 for free kick taking... http://www.fm-base.co.uk/forum/attachments/football-manager-2014-discussion/426169d1385485029-free-kick-specialists-tom-harris_-search-players-2.png

[Welshace]

I'd happen to agree on this point to be fair... for many iterations of the game now I've found the amount and frequency of world class generated players to be too high.

I've always found that young real talents are pushed out even before they get a chance to develop correctly due to 16 year old world beaters coming in already better than they are at say 20 years old...

Case in point on this version of the game... Will Hughes.. top talent.. top potential, but hardly gets a look in for club and country once regens come in.

Case in point 2... Look at Messi and Ronaldo's stats .. no-one should or will come close to that realistically in today's football.. give or take 1 or 2 for lea-way sake. And yet, in game after 3-4 seasons, you'll have a team full of player's as talented and more quite easily.

It has been one of the reasons I haven't been able to carry on my games for long long careers frankly.

[Nidis]

exactly,I am forced to play 2 season careeres becouse of that mess.but now saw some of these beasts born in winter of the first season so what am I supposed to do now?

if I wanted to play fantasy football I would have stayed with fifa manager.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

It is a bit high. I've sped through a United file to the regen date and to be fair I only got to the 19th March and out of all there was about 15 star players but only 1 World Class player (according to the scouts).

I've no reason to dispute the scouts, from my own look at those players the World Class one was really something special. To be fair, most of those 'stars' will be rubbish due to low determination or professionalism. Personally, if I'm at a big club, I only sign the 'world class' ones, because they're the more rarer breed. You should be able to get stars from the youth academy in any case.

[Auqakuh]

Er, that Abeni guy is unfeasible.

Strong, fast, technical, and good mental stats? That would put him in the 190+ ability range. At 20? He has all the most expensive attributes way too young. At least he's not two-footed, that would really give it away...

Fishy!

It is a bit high. I've sped through a United file to the regen date and to be fair I only got to the 19th March and out of all there was about 15 star players but only 1 World Class player (according to the scouts).

I've no reason to dispute the scouts, from my own look at those players the World Class one was really something special. To be fair, most of those 'stars' will be rubbish due to low determination or professionalism. Personally, if I'm at a big club, I only sign the 'world class' ones, because they're the more rarer breed. You should be able to get stars from the youth academy in any case.

You should not get stars from the academy on a year-to-year basis. Instead, expect maybe one to three good (as in, first team potential) players from a top academy every two to four years. Which is wholly realistic. Occasionally you may do better, but that's a pretty special and unusual event. Bear in mind that the best youth systems worldwide (Barcelona included) import about half of their players from elsewhere (Messi, Iniesta, etc), and although they bring them through and they are "academy products", they weren't sourced "from" the local catchment area. Hence why the youth recruitment network needs to be as good as possible, plus signing young players from other clubs once they're beyond the junior level (and appear as actual players). Junior coaching should also be as good as possible, to ensure they "arrive" with maximised CA for their age-group.

Also, determination does not affect a player reaching their potential. It only factors into their mentality on the pitch.

[Defensive]

If people are buying all the fantastic regens and then moan that the game is too easy, then they are stupid to be honest. No one forces you to do that. I think good regens are great. It makes the game harder or (if the AI fails to buy them) it changes nothing. So i have no problem with that.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

Er, that Abeni guy is unfeasible.

Strong, fast, technical, and good mental stats? That would put him in the 190+ ability range. At 20? He has all the most expensive attributes way too young. At least he's not two-footed, that would really give it away...

Fishy!

You should not get stars from the academy on a year-to-year basis. Instead, expect maybe one to three good (as in, first team potential) players from a top academy every two to four years. Which is wholly realistic. Occasionally you may do better, but that's a pretty special and unusual event. Bear in mind that the best youth systems worldwide (Barcelona included) import about half of their players from elsewhere (Messi, Iniesta, etc), and although they bring them through and they are "academy products", they weren't sourced "from" the local catchment area. Hence why the youth recruitment network needs to be as good as possible, plus signing young players from other clubs once they're beyond the junior level (and appear as actual players). Junior coaching should also be as good as possible, to ensure they "arrive" with maximised CA for their age-group.

Also, determination does not affect a player reaching their potential. It only factors into their mentality on the pitch.

I'm not asking for the advice there, I'm saying a way of limiting the amount of stars is simply to sign the world class ones and use your youth academy to fill out the rest. You don't need 11 players a season, that's a given, one or two a year is far more than need be to build up a team, because you 'bleed out' the old for the youth and in theory you'll have a youth product in the pipe line for each position.

[forameuss]

I'd happen to agree on this point to be fair... for many iterations of the game now I've found the amount and frequency of world class generated players to be too high.

I've always found that young real talents are pushed out even before they get a chance to develop correctly due to 16 year old world beaters coming in already better than they are at say 20 years old...

Case in point on this version of the game... Will Hughes.. top talent.. top potential, but hardly gets a look in for club and country once regens come in.

Case in point 2... Look at Messi and Ronaldo's stats .. no-one should or will come close to that realistically in today's football.. give or take 1 or 2 for lea-way sake. And yet, in game after 3-4 seasons, you'll have a team full of player's as talented and more quite easily.

It has been one of the reasons I haven't been able to carry on my games for long long careers frankly.

But how do we know who is going to come forward in future? I understand you're saying in a 3-4 season timescale, which is fair enough, but who is to say in ten to twenty years we're looking back at Messi/Ronaldo and saying they're not as good as another player who has come through?

That's all getting very meta though. In the context of FM, the quality of regens probably is a bit high, but then it often becomes uniform, so I don't see it ruining any saves. I went on an FM13 save to 2120, and did see my fair share of amazing players, but I didn't go out of my way to dredge up every high rated youth player like some do, and never really found a problem with anyone overpowered. If opposition players were overpowered, it just made it more satisfying when I beat them.

[Uwextreme]

Personally I think the regens are great and can't wait for them to get into the game however I do have issues with how easy it is to identify and then sign them aswell as the way the AI builds their squads. This for me makes the game easier the longer I get into a save game as I find I get stronger while the other teams can get worse.

Therefore I picked up the In Game Editor to allow me to tweak things as I go to keep the other squads more competitive, I don't make huge changes but just maybe add one key new player here and there to an AI squad if I think they need it.

[Auqakuh]

I'm also not sure how some people can afford all these highly-rated regens. Playing as Man United, with quite a hefty transfer budget in my second season, I signed six players of superb to good quality to build for the future because the youth squad was quite poor.

It cost nearly 90 million, because the transfer demands are fairly absurd for such good players (and arguably rightly so - it was still less than I'd have paid if they were fully developed. Indeed, I doubt I could've signed them at all by that stage, except maybe over three or four years (towards the end of which I'd be looking at that outlay again to build a new squad), due to the cost.

And these weren't overpowered super-amazing regens, either - they will be about the same quality as my current squad.

What's more, adding to my suspicion that something a little odd is going on, all the long-holiday sims I've ever read about in FM see tiny increases or decreases in average PA/CA over fifty years, with a small initial spike in PA because of the high number of older players that inevitably retire and need to be replaced.

[oneronaldo]

Either that Abeni is the most one-footed player in the world, or he is most OP regen I have seen.

[Fond Foat]

So are there some things we agree would be good for SI to look at?

1. Slower progression of skill development

2. Scouting is made more difficult

3. Clubs fight harder to keep their best young players

4. Possibility that a players PA can change depending an in-game events.

Be good to come up with some suggestions if we think they are needed.

[oneronaldo]

3. Clubs fight harder to keep their best young players

4. Possibility that a players PA can change depending an in-game events.

3. Try buying youngsters from Athletic Bilbao, you be very very lucky to steal one on the cheap from them. Never managed to get any of their players for less than 20m (the ones worth buying anyways).

4. Massive injuries that put the player out for several months will knock down the PA of the youngster, assuming he hasn't reached it. If he has his CA will suffer as well.

[DavidPengilley]

4. Massive injuries that put the player out for several months will knock down the PA of the youngster, assuming he hasn't reached it. If he has his CA will suffer as well.

It won't change their PA, that is fixed, but their 'star rating' can change

[milnerpoint]

No, very bad injuries can affect PA.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

It's because of his Right Only footedness.

There will be better players out there who look slightly worse just because they have a better footedness distribution.

This guy literally looks like he has 1 for Left Foot ability.

This. It was my first thought when seeing him.

[pigfacemonkeyman]

No, very bad injuries can affect PA.

Is that a recent addition to the game?

[daylight]

There should always be the risk of turning a prospect into Nile Ranger by giving him too much money and exposure too soon.

The media reports would need a whole new rework, could you imagine some of the reports?

"Liverpool striker Paride Abeni has had his first name tattooed onto his forehead, reports claim it is in case he ever forgets his name he can look in the mirror, only problem is he thinks he is now named Edirap"

Not sure SI would be willing to go down that route.

[Ackter]

Is that a recent addition to the game?

No, has been in about 5 years I think.

[Ackter]

The media reports would need a whole new rework, could you imagine some of the reports?

"Liverpool striker Paride Abeni has had his first name tattooed onto his forehead, reports claim it is in case he ever forgets his name he can look in the mirror, only problem is he thinks he is now named Edirap"

Not sure SI would be willing to go down that route.

They could with regens - it's only real players where they'd have to avoid that kind of thing.

There's already small amounts of it happening. You get players frequenting night clubs before matches and stuff, but it's far, far rarer than it should be.

[benallen002]

Its very interesting. I have seen a lot of good fm managers say theyd rather have a two footed player than one with better stats and one right foot. I'm not so sure. In real life yes - but would you (or Ackter or anyone else) think that this player would be more effective in game with two feet and a corresponding stat reduction?

I think it is still subjective enough that people will pick differently, but IMO I will always look for one-foot-only players, even in central positions. The "problem" is that they use too far a spread on the foot attributes. There will be no visible difference between a right side winger with a 6 left foot and 1 left foot, but those 5 foot points could be use to boost Pace/Acceleration by an easily-noticeable degree.

[barnsey22]

Er, that Abeni guy is unfeasible.

Strong, fast, technical, and good mental stats? That would put him in the 190+ ability range. At 20? He has all the most expensive attributes way too young. At least he's not two-footed, that would really give it away...

Fishy!

I'm also not sure how some people can afford all these highly-rated regens. Playing as Man United, with quite a hefty transfer budget in my second season, I signed six players of superb to good quality to build for the future because the youth squad was quite poor.

It cost nearly 90 million, because the transfer demands are fairly absurd for such good players (and arguably rightly so - it was still less than I'd have paid if they were fully developed. Indeed, I doubt I could've signed them at all by that stage, except maybe over three or four years (towards the end of which I'd be looking at that outlay again to build a new squad), due to the cost.

And these weren't overpowered super-amazing regens, either - they will be about the same quality as my current squad.

What's more, adding to my suspicion that something a little odd is going on, all the long-holiday sims I've ever read about in FM see tiny increases or decreases in average PA/CA over fifty years, with a small initial spike in PA because of the high number of older players that inevitably retire and need to be replaced.

Fishy? Suspicion? Really? Spit it out, what are you suspicious of?

So in your second season you spent £90m on 6 future players, then you question how some people can afford these players? If you have already spent that amount of money on they players, why the need to question anybody else?

And why do you doubt you could've signed them at all at that stage when you admit you signed them in your 2nd season?

[WormboY]

Well on my save is only **** regens.

I'm on Barça, and have a lot of scout with 20/20 on skills of potential and current hability, and they give me 4/5 stars to this players:

And if i want i could post some more, and all like them.

[stokes_83]

Same thing every year with regens. They are all one footed which causes their attributes to appear higher than the two footed players who start in the game as real life players. This is one of my long standing pet peeves with this game and with SI. How haven't you fixed this yet? It forces you to look for higher attributes as the years go on, say 18 or 19 as compared with 15 or 16 when you start the game. If you play a long term save, and have become normalized to the types of players 10 years into the game, start a new game just for fun and look at the attributes of real-life players. You notice two things, they are significantly lower and there are alot more two footed players around.

[Guest]

I'm seeing a decent mix of newgens in my save, but I'm having real trouble finding quality centrehalves. Forwards, defensive midfielders and fullbacks are ten a penny, but finding a really good central defender (who can actually jump) is proving really tricky, even with trawling through international squads.

[Nidis]

Exactly.I have experimented with the game editor,removed second leg ability(didnt touch anything else) and the players attributes increased dramaticly.

Already existing talants have some sort of second leg ability or its genrated.so existing players often turn out weaker than newgens.

It should be very easy to fix.

[Ryknow]

Exactly.I have experimented with the game editor,removed second leg ability(didnt touch anything else) and the players attributes increased dramaticly.

Already existing talants have some sort of second leg ability or its genrated.so existing players often turn out weaker than newgens.

That's not true. They aren't weaker, it just looks that way because you're putting too much of an emphasis on the attributes.

Ackter said, and been said by many others:

A player with either feet but reduced attributes will be more useful a lot more often.

But when the one-footer gets the perfect chance, he'll be better with it than the either-footed guy would be.

With an Either Footed player, you get more of those chances.

I'd take a two footed AMC over the same player with one foot. They'd both have the same CA, yet the one footed player would have higher attributes. Being able to pick out a pass with both feet is definitely worth it.

[Nidis]

ryknow in turms of CA they might be similar but the attributes are more important(for most positions at least).one footed player with all the relevant on field skills higher than his two footed coleague will be much better.

you cant say for example that a striker with finishing 16 and composure 15 will be the same as 14-13 striker with 2 strong feet.cos this attribute gap is the diffrence between a good player and a very good one.

besides I havent seen much of these advantages of two footed players in 3d match people write about.

[scott MUFC]

this one i picked up, scored for Uraguay in the international break a couple of months later.

every FM i play, always Croatian L/RWBs of the highest order

you can see what has been said yourself though, if you ever get the chance to buy Llorente, he an score 35-40+ goals for you, yet there are better strikers with better stats.

[jeoe]

Finally!!!

Love the new beast regens.The low quality of the regens was by far, for me, the only thing i didn't like on previous versions.

TY SI

agreed, good to see

[Kawee]

The problem is two fold. AI is still not that good at developing teams in the long run as well.

I agree with most that house-rule is the only way to keep long-term career at top clubs interesting.

For example, I only sign u-18 players (anyone 19 or older is out) and I must sell anyone who's older than 23. Players usually only get 2-3 full seasons with the first team with me. Playing with different players keep things fresh, and releasing world-class players to other clubs make them challenge you better as well.

[lpichette]

So are there some things we agree would be good for SI to look at?

1. Slower progression of skill development

2. Scouting is made more difficult

3. Clubs fight harder to keep their best young players

4. Possibility that a players PA can change depending an in-game events.

Be good to come up with some suggestions if we think they are needed.

1. I would agree its easy to develop newgens quickly, but why is that bad? Gives you options to sell an older player and move on. The older player bolsters another team making them better.

2. Scouting isnt terribly easy...Your scout picks out a "possible" 4-5 star and tells you to sign him, however, that player might not be all that good. Many hidden attributes could make the player far weaker than you think(ie big matches consistency etc) The players I have signed only about 50% work out on my squad the other I try and sell for no loss.

3. I find it difficult to get a newgen for less than 15 mill. at least a good one. Brazil or argentina dont fight, but you dont get them until they are 18 and they could get injured by that time possibly decreasing pa/development.

4.I like this idea, but not sure how SI could make that work. Far too hard to code I imagine.

[ExeR]

1. I would agree its easy to develop newgens quickly, but why is that bad? Gives you options to sell an older player and move on. The older player bolsters another team making them better.

2. Scouting isnt terribly easy...Your scout picks out a "possible" 4-5 star and tells you to sign him, however, that player might not be all that good. Many hidden attributes could make the player far weaker than you think(ie big matches consistency etc) The players I have signed only about 50% work out on my squad the other I try and sell for no loss.

3. I find it difficult to get a newgen for less than 15 mill. at least a good one. Brazil or argentina dont fight, but you dont get them until they are 18 and they could get injured by that time possibly decreasing pa/development.

4.I like this idea, but not sure how SI could make that work. Far too hard to code I imagine.

First would be a good "self-control" option to make game more challenging for yourself, but it doesn't work out. Only handfull of teams will have enough money to buy your good, fast developed regens. But most of the time they'll end up wasting their money on them, spending 10+mil on a bench guy. And with Central Defenders and Forwards arriving at insane rate, any deal you make actually make you cheat for money. Difference between quality of top regens at these positions is very small, and there are ton of new guys coming every year.

So example would be: I sell CD to Juve for 18m, they sell to Chelsea for 35m. Regen is great but only 180cm height for CD and is injury prone. He didn't get enough time, since Chiellini was still playing and was better. By the time he arrived (2-3 years) Chelsea have their own stronger youngsters, world has 10+ guys in his quality range and with injuries and slowed development he is a bust. So it's not only abusing unrealistic potential and development speed, but also making a fool of AI opponents. We got their money, there are 10 regens with same or better potential which we can buy, and they got a now mediocre player in increased talent pool.

Main problem is bad balance of positions/ability among regens. In 2013 wing backs were very hard to find. I had trouble playing "locals only" team, because in 10+ years I haven't got 1 decent GK regen. The guy I used was 10th in country when I started, and I ended up playing him till he retired. But even with flukes like this, there's no way to have "challenging" game untill talent level is decreased, and improvement is slowed down. I'm in 2016 now, never improved my facilities. Signed for nothing (amateur contract) CD went from being in 2nd tier amateur team to playing well in Champions League without any problem. He's 18 and by 19 he's gonna be better than Real's Varane. Just another local kid.

So reducing youth potential for most countries is definitely a good option. I gonna do it for second straight year, and will try to mess around with clubs youth facilities too. Having 22 wonderkids aged 16-21 produced in 3 years, while there are 37 aged 22 or older (with just 5 being old or fading), is not right. Same math as in 2013 version, by 2020 CL is going to become joke again, with all top clubs loaded with geniuses at every position.

[sheldonleecooper]

4.I like this idea, but not sure how SI could make that work. Far too hard to code I imagine.

This, even if SI want as much as realistic game, in these kind of games, the logic/algorithm of how often a situation comes is hard to formulate. I am a programmer, and i do game programming as a hobby. Even the pokemon catching do a lot of algebra..

[oneronaldo]

This, even if SI want as much as realistic game, in these kind of games, the logic/algorithm of how often a situation comes is hard to formulate. I am a programmer, and i do game programming as a hobby. Even the pokemon catching do a lot of algebra..

The PA can change if the player suffers a severe injury that puts him out for several months. To use an example I saw with my own save, James Rodriguez's career with me was ruined by 3 seperate injuries that each put him out for several months at a time. This was in FM12 so IIRC he was a -9(150-180) PA, in the end before I finally let him go I checked his PA using FMRTE and his CA/PA (developed fully by this point) was only about 145. So yes, the PA of a player can change and has been so for several versions at least.

[upthetoon]

This is because the Scouts get their ratings for PA when they scout a player 100% accurate and right. Which should not be the case and reflect real life.

Not all scouts even in big clubs get all their feedbacks to managers correct. SI has to include feedback accuracy for scouts. A better scout gets 75% of his predicted feedback correct etc.

So let's say there's a guy who has PA 200. But maybe your scout reports him back to you as 3 stars. And you trust his judgement and do not make a move for him and many years down the road he becomes a superstar for another AI club.

It's a very simple solution. It makes the game harder as we have to make our own judgements regarding youngsters. Now, we know the scout reports are 100% accurate and just swoop in once we see 5 stars.