Remove the Potential Ability from FM2015!

[Ackter]

If there was no such thing as PA in real life, why is Messi so much better than most footballers who have ever lived? Why isn't every top team filled with Messis?

[upthetoon]

my opinion. this thread clearly shows the CA/PA era has to come to an end. its very outdated and linear and not dynamic in any way.

but its 2014 and SI should have clearly developed a different model completely. not something they have been using for a decade.

most games have moved on and SI clearly must too. and i'd be interesting to see their new approach and coding system in judging players ability and potential.

[Wiitastic]

Please do not post anything like this ever again. You have shamed yourself big time.

Up there as 1 of the worst game ideas just like certain people suggesting it would be a great idea if we could also be owners of the clubs in Football Manager.

[Wiitastic]

How does that happen exactly?

Pretty obvious, that's what training is for, to re-train players in other positions.

[aderow]

my opinion. this thread clearly shows the CA/PA era has to come to an end. its very outdated and linear and not dynamic in any way.

but its 2014 and SI should have clearly developed a different model completely. not something they have been using for a decade.

most games have moved on and SI clearly must too. and i'd be interesting to see their new approach and coding system in judging players ability and potential.

Once again, that has to with the actual development curve of the players. That has nothing to do with CA and PA themselves. And this thread shows/proves nothing as far as issues to with CA and PA themselves. I've already stated that I'd like more volatile development curves, but at the end of the day they need to exist because there's a point where, no matter how hard you try, you will not improve.

[upthetoon]

Once again, that has to with the actual development curve of the players. That has nothing to do with CA and PA themselves. And this thread shows/proves nothing as far as issues to with CA and PA themselves. I've already stated that I'd like more volatile development curves, but at the end of the day they need to exist because there's a point where, no matter how hard you try, you will not improve.

ok yes the development curve has to be more dynamic and not too rigid.

but the concept and coding of CA/PA has to improve and move forward in time.

and i quite like your last line. and i'm glad your not with the SI team. Such a defeatist and loser mentality. Please don't apply that in real life.

either way, a 5 star potential youth will defintely be a superstar in the game. there's no room for mistake for wrong development and thus making him fail.

[flipsix3]

either way, a 5 star potential youth will defintely be a superstar in the game. there's no room for mistake for wrong development and thus making him fail.

A 5 star Potential youth for who? Where? A scout at a Conference side, with Conference players, is going to rate a lot of youth prospects as 5* but a scout at United or Barca is going to show many of them much much lower.

People need to shake this idea of absolutes - 5* isn't 5* outright, it's 5* relative to your club and your current squad.

Chances are a 5* youth, as judged by Barca staff, can become world class (there's no guarantee - been there, done that). There's no guarantee that a 5* youth, as judged by Wrexham, is ever going to be more than a lower league squad player.

[fabioke]

Once again, that has to with the actual development curve of the players. That has nothing to do with CA and PA themselves. And this thread shows/proves nothing as far as issues to with CA and PA themselves. I've already stated that I'd like more volatile development curves, but at the end of the day they need to exist because there's a point where, no matter how hard you try, you will not improve.

Completely agree, there is nothing wrong with CA or PA (you shouldn't be looking at them IMHO). I trained very hard as a football player but my PA was not good enough to achieve something meaningful.

As stated by Aderow the development curve is too linear at the moment, there aren't enough surprises like Luca Toni and Miroslav Klose. I'm quite sure that it could be solved within the current CA/PA system.

[Ackter]

my opinion. this thread clearly shows the CA/PA era has to come to an end.

All this thread shows it that most people don't understand what the CA/PA system is. People are attributing all kinds of things to it, that are handled by other modules.

The CA/PA model is fine. The development curve is where the problems lay. Once the development curve is made more realistic, it'll be safe to give youngsters higher PA in general, knowing that it'll take a very specific set of circumstances for them to reach it.

[CaptainPlanet]

I wouldn't limit it to the development curve. Other uses of CA and/or PA could use some improving too, AI squad building, transfers, awards, scouting etc.

[Kain]

and i quite like your last line. and i'm glad your not with the SI team. Such a defeatist and loser mentality. Please don't apply that in real life.

You really think if I try hard enough, I'll be as good as Messi? I don't know why I haven't been snapped up by a Premier League side already.

[aderow]

ok yes the development curve has to be more dynamic and not too rigid.

but the concept and coding of CA/PA has to improve and move forward in time.

and i quite like your last line. and i'm glad your not with the SI team. Such a defeatist and loser mentality. Please don't apply that in real life.

either way, a 5 star potential youth will defintely be a superstar in the game. there's no room for mistake for wrong development and thus making him fail.

Did I strike a nerve there? Hit a little too close to home there mate?

If you're gonna highlight something, highlight the entire sentence. You have a problem with what I said? Well unfortunately that's the reality of it. Sometimes the truth is harsh, but it doesn't make it any less true. By no means am I trying to put words in your mouth, but you realize what you are insinuating right? That if the likes of Conor Wickham puts his head down and works really really really hard that one day he'll the level of the likes of Thierry Henry? If Obertan works really really hard he'll one day be up there with Messi? If Cleverley puts all his effort into training he could one day become a playmaker that puts Pirlo to shame? Because that's what it sounds like you're insinuating.

A '5 star potential' youth. 1. That star rating is not the player's PA, it's his PPA. And for all we know your scouts could have gotten it wrong. 2. That is determined by the level you are playing at and by the talent you have in that position already. When I was playing as AFC Wimbledon, damn near everyone looked like 5 star talent to me. And. Not very many of them truly had the potential to be superstars.

I really having a hard time why you've taken such offense to what I said. Please. Explain to me what you take issue with. While you are at it, explain to me why Quaresma isn't what Ronaldo is today. Explain to me why Freddy Adu failed to live up to even the smallest expectations of him. Explain to me why Liverpool isn't pumping out 5 Raheem Sterlings a season out of their academy. Expain to me why so many players fail to make it at the highest level no matter how hard they try. Heck explain to me why Tim Tebow won the freaking Heisman (and then couldn't even last 2 seasons in the pros).

Explain to me why there aren't more players like Pele, Maradona, Eusabio, Zidane, Messi, and Ronaldo (both of them). Explain to me why everyday millions of lads are working their butts off trying to improve, trying to make it, and yet their names will never be added to this list.

PA exists. CA exists. In some way, shape, or form they exist. CA is what you are right now and PA is what you could be in the future. There's no way around it. There's no exceeding it. That's life mate.

Every single time someone has been described as a person who 'exceeded their potential' is someone who was underestimated in the first place.

[Kriss]

Very well illustrated aderow, people just can't seem to grasp the concept though

[Wully]

PA exists. CA exists. In some way, shape, or form they exist. CA is what you are right now and PA is what you could be in the future. There's no way around it. There's no exceeding it. That's life mate.

Every single time someone has been described as a person who 'exceeded their potential' is someone who was underestimated in the first place.

And this is probably the key issue, in my eyes. The PA basically states "This player can only be so good (overall, not in terms of training individual skills)" which is fine. Except that PA in FM2014 is at best a guestimate from either the SI team or scouts at clubs. And that's really the issue in my eyes. In AaB Aalborg, my team, we have a great and fairly objective scout doing PA's for our youth squads. Now, let's take Kasper Kusk, a player who until he was like 18 wasn't even in the 1st squad youth teams, and was never on any national youth teams either. His PA in the 3-4 years he was a youth player, would be set to maybe -5, meaning he would never become a prolific player in the danish league. In real life, he ended up being the key player in AaB Aalborg winning the double, and now moved to Twente, a top tier team in Holland. Basically, the fixed PA (even with intervals) would never have seen him do this in FM, simply due to the interval granted to him (rightfully so) by the volunteer helper hard-capped this. The game really doesn't help late-bloomers when it comes to setting the PA.

I think it is a bit of an issue that the negative values, even though they have an interval, never lets a player exceed this interval when deciding the PA. We have another youth player who is probably a -7, meaning he could maybe 1 in 20 games reach 140. However, with the glimpses we've seen of him, maybe he could reach 150 in 1 out of 50 scenarios. However, the game does not allow for this wider range, even though it's so incredibly difficult to effectively gauge whether a player will "just" be a good player in the danish league, or can become a profile in the Bundesliga. Maybe if the player had a time machine that would give him the chance to play his career a 100 times over, 80 of those he would stay in the best danish league, 10 he would go into the lower divisions, 5 he would take a step up and play in the dutch league, and in the last 5 he would take it even further. The game just doesn't provide with this, when the negative values that SI scouts and volunteers have fixed intervals of PA.

[Cougar2010]

The issue there Wully is that no-one has a crystal ball and can't tell what will happen in the future.

Is that a problem? Not IMO. The reason is, taking your example, when Kasper Kusk was say 15yo and you were playing FM10? no-one knew how he would turn out so were happy with the rating he had at the time. Now that he is 19yo his PA has been adjusted in FM14 to match his RL career. Is that a problem in FM14? No because his PA has been adjusted.

So you didn't have an issue with his PA when you played FM10, you don't have an issue with his PA when you play FM14 but looking back now you have an issue with how he was represented in FM10. Overall though this is a non-issue as you happy back when you were playing FM10.

Yes its not ideal but its the best we are going to get ATM. The system works even better with newgens where the coding is god so to speak and knows how good a player can be from the moment he is created.

[Wully]

The issue there Wully is that no-one has a crystal ball and can't tell what will happen in the future.

Is that a problem? Not IMO. The reason is, taking your example, when Kasper Kusk was say 15yo and you were playing FM10? no-one knew how he would turn out so were happy with the rating he had at the time. Now that he is 19yo his PA has been adjusted in FM14 to match his RL career. Is that a problem in FM14? No because his PA has been adjusted.

So you didn't have an issue with his PA when you played FM10, you don't have an issue with his PA when you play FM14 but looking back now you have an issue with how he was represented in FM10. Overall though this is a non-issue as you happy back when you were playing FM10.

Yes its not ideal but its the best we are going to get ATM. The system works even better with newgens where the coding is god so to speak and knows how good a player can be from the moment he is created.

Yeah I know, there's no real answer to the whole crystal ball of who gets good. Dzeko is a similar example of someone who just exploded IRL, despite not showing any significantly high PA early on in his career.

I'm thinking maybe the hard cap of maximum PA even with the negative intervals could be changed slightly? So, if you are a -6, where you would never go above 120, maybe once or twice every 50 games you would actually break your cap of 120, and reach 125-135? Or something similar?

[aderow]

And this is probably the key issue, in my eyes. The PA basically states "This player can only be so good (overall, not in terms of training individual skills)" which is fine. Except that PA in FM2014 is at best a guestimate from either the SI team or scouts at clubs. And that's really the issue in my eyes. In AaB Aalborg, my team, we have a great and fairly objective scout doing PA's for our youth squads. Now, let's take Kasper Kusk, a player who until he was like 18 wasn't even in the 1st squad youth teams, and was never on any national youth teams either. His PA in the 3-4 years he was a youth player, would be set to maybe -5, meaning he would never become a prolific player in the danish league. In real life, he ended up being the key player in AaB Aalborg winning the double, and now moved to Twente, a top tier team in Holland. Basically, the fixed PA (even with intervals) would never have seen him do this in FM, simply due to the interval granted to him (rightfully so) by the volunteer helper hard-capped this. The game really doesn't help late-bloomers when it comes to setting the PA.

I think it is a bit of an issue that the negative values, even though they have an interval, never lets a player exceed this interval when deciding the PA. We have another youth player who is probably a -7, meaning he could maybe 1 in 20 games reach 140. However, with the glimpses we've seen of him, maybe he could reach 150 in 1 out of 50 scenarios. However, the game does not allow for this wider range, even though it's so incredibly difficult to effectively gauge whether a player will "just" be a good player in the danish league, or can become a profile in the Bundesliga. Maybe if the player had a time machine that would give him the chance to play his career a 100 times over, 80 of those he would stay in the best danish league, 10 he would go into the lower divisions, 5 he would take a step up and play in the dutch league, and in the last 5 he would take it even further. The game just doesn't provide with this, when the negative values that SI scouts and volunteers have fixed intervals of PA.

That's an interesting argument and one I fully understand. The way I see it is when you buy a game and start a save with a particular database, you are creating a world unique to that save. Now the CA and PA values at the beginning of that save come from real world (or otherwise edited by people) and that is the only point it will resemble the real world. The further you progress in the save, the further the save moves away from the real footballing world. FM can't see the future, as Cougar stated, and should never be expected to as all it does is simulating a unique world based on the values that have been input into it. I get that fully.

The reason this is less of an issue is because, usually by the time a player has become far better than what his initial ingame PA said he could be, years have passed and we've moved on to newer versions of the game with updated CAs and PAs.

At the same time I do feel the same way somewhat. I played FM10 for 4 years. I spent a lot of the time playing as Manchester United and as Barcelona. I remember the likes of Keane and Icardi having such low PAs in the game, they were never destined for careers outside of league 2.

Yeah I know, there's no real answer to the whole crystal ball of who gets good. Dzeko is a similar example of someone who just exploded IRL, despite not showing any significantly high PA early on in his career.

I'm thinking maybe the hard cap of maximum PA even with the negative intervals could be changed slightly? So, if you are a -6, where you would never go above 120, maybe once or twice every 50 games you would actually break your cap of 120, and reach 125-135? Or something similar?

You raised an interesting suggestion; adjusting the way the negative numbers work. I wouldn't be against making the intervals bigger so there's more overlap between them. That way a -7 is less guaranteed to be 'doomed from the start' and a -9 is not a guaranteed top league player.

[forameuss]

You raised an interesting suggestion; adjusting the way the negative numbers work. I wouldn't be against making the intervals bigger so there's more overlap between them. That way a -7 is less guaranteed to be 'doomed from the start' and a -9 is not a guaranteed top league player.

But then you'd probably get people complaining when Bob Bobby Bobson ends up being terrible in their save, despite having the storied -10 PA.

Not that I disagree with what you're saying - in fact it's a good idea - but overall people will never be happy.

[Ackter]

Negative system is fine. Problem is yet again the development system. With that working more realistically, researchers can be more generous with their PA ratings without the risk of top class players turning up everywhere.

[RBKalle]

That's an interesting argument and one I fully understand. The way I see it is when you buy a game and start a save with a particular database, you are creating a world unique to that save. Now the CA and PA values at the beginning of that save come from real world (or otherwise edited by people) and that is the only point it will resemble the real world. The further you progress in the save, the further the save moves away from the real footballing world. FM can't see the future, as Cougar stated, and should never be expected to as all it does is simulating a unique world based on the values that have been input into it. I get that fully.

That's a fair point, but even in that unique world, a player who's been given a PA of 120 will never ever become better than that.

To me it's not a matter of having a crystal ball, it's a matter of lack of flexibility (for lack of a better word). I don't mind if Joe Bloggs, currently rated as -4 suddenly turns into a solid EPL player in real life, while in my save he's likely going to rot in the lower leagues or to retire at age 25.

As long as the ability assessment at the time of the db creation is fair, I have no problems with it. Sometimes players have unexpected and unforeseeable breakout (or breakdowns).

But the fact NO PLAYER in the game could ever be a truly late bloomer is a huge disappointment and a factor that IMO reduces the variety of the game.

If you have a 1.5* potential kid in your youth team, you already know he's not worth your time, regardless of how decent his attributes look. There's simply not enough points left to turn him into a good player. And if you can still occasionally see an "older" player (22 or something) with 4* potential, it's quite obvious he's not going to ever come close to the original value because as years go by, the growth slows down and his PA will be well out of reach, before eventually giving way to a lower PPA in scouting reports.

In real life we've seen plenty of Luca Toni or Drogba going from "decent at a mid-bottom table level" to "NT and Top Club material", and even some rare cases of lower divisions players establishing themselves in the top tier with virtually no "learning curve" (Moreno Torricelli, Dado Prso, even Miroslav Klose didn't have a great background when he signed for Kaiserslautern II)

FM's rigid "PA can only go down" system doesn't allow for that. The best you can do is finding a way to fit a subpar player into your tactic and hope the rest of the team will carry him or will make him look good despite his weaknesses.

But that more or less means the team is so good they can afford to have some deadwood, not that an average player is playing beyond his skills.

You raised an interesting suggestion; adjusting the way the negative numbers work. I wouldn't be against making the intervals bigger so there's more overlap between them. That way a -7 is less guaranteed to be 'doomed from the start' and a -9 is not a guaranteed top league player.

That's be an improvement, but still too rigid because it provides variety ONLY when you start a game. Today Joe Bloggs (-7) can have PA 132, tomorrow in a new save he can have 160, but in each save he'll never be better than that, only worse.

Which is something that in real life works two ways. You get your Jeffers and your Adu, but again, you can get your Drogba...

I know it's difficult, but the game should rework PA's like it does with CA and PPA, maybe on a yearly basis. Like, at the end of every season the game recalculates the (P)PA according to the players' performances, along with his mental traits and his training progress to better reflect his position in the gameworld.

The 21yo erratic kid who hasn't played much and has been disappointing in both match and training will rightfully see a part of his PA chopped, to reflect his stagnation (as it happens aleady in FM)

But the 24yo utility player who has performed well on all accounts should get a bit of a PA boost. Nothing major of course, unless we're talking about miraculous performances, but still something that reflect his solid effort.

[r0x0r]

They were all contracted to the same club, but they had a few 0 entries (personality, most of the hidden player attributes, all positions except their natural as STC). This was lazy of me, but I felt pretty confident it wouldn't make a big difference.

I have now redone it with these attributes filled in the same for all five, and the results are pretty much the same (650-950K, 7.5-9.75M, 17-23M, 31-41M, not for sale, going from the lowest PA to the highest).

If they are all identical with only PA itself varying, of course their perceived PAs correspond with their actual PAs, and so do their values.

Try making a 160PA player with a huge CA for his age, appearances for a top club, decent ratings and a high reputation. He will be given a 5 star pPA / star value even if you are at a top club. And his value will be sky high. Equally make a PA 200 player with the same CA as the others but playing for Local Village FC in Zambia, with no reputation. His pPA / star value will probably be around 3 stars and he'll be cheap. Without looking under the hood we'd say the high star / expensive player is someone the game has decided will make it (and he will indeed be a good premiership player, just not a megastar) while the Zambian player won't ever amount to anything (which staying there may be true, but if someone finds him...)

perceived PA should only vary if things other than PA itself vary.

All the above assumes a top scout scouting and assigning stars, and at a club big enough that 5 star = Messi but not at the level where even Pele is only seen as 4 and a half because he wouldn't be an upgrade so as not to muddy the water.

[Ackter]

@rbkalle, don't look at the pa numbers and you'll never know how good a player can or cant be.

Incidentally, I had a 2.5 star player come through but his attributes were in such good places I played him anyway. 2 seasons on and hes 4 star now.

[Smurf]

I had a left back that won world player of the year. He put in consistently high performances right into his late 30's.

No matter who I signed to replace the 3.5 star defender he could never lose his place.

After he retired* I looked up his CA PA on an external program and he was actually only at a PA of 145.

His work rate and team work were very high though and he made his mark on the world of football manager.

It's not all about CA and PA - it's about the mental attributes, the position, the style of play and all that jazz.

*after I retired

[Cougar2010]

If you have a 1.5* potential kid in your youth team, you already know he's not worth your time, regardless of how decent his attributes look. There's simply not enough points left to turn him into a good player.

The mistake you are making there is that you are presuming the PPA given to you by your staff is correct.

From what SI have said there is a reasonable chance your staff are wrong and that player could have a much higher PA. Instead of giving him a chance though you just see the 1.5* PPA and bin him instantly.

[RBKalle]

@rbkalle, don't look at the pa numbers and you'll never know how good a player can or cant be.

Incidentally, I had a 2.5 star player come through but his attributes were in such good places I played him anyway. 2 seasons on and hes 4 star now.

But stars are relative...

Even without looking at the PA numbers, it's pretty easy to notice when a player's progress has stopped (and he has likely peaked) regardless of his performances. That could be ok if it wasn't for the usual Reputation+CA issue that dominates the transfers.

In FM you could have young Drogba or Toni scoring for fun in your club but their potential would still be mediocre AND no Top Club would be interested in them despite their amazing stats, so you'd be "stuck" in a surreal situation...

A 3* (for you, likely 140CA-PA) topscorer with little or no interest from better sides, eventually coming up with laughable offers, while a random youngster with unbalanced attributes but high PA will still commend higher offers from everywhere.

Fixed PA is an interdependent issue and, while I agree the Reputation catch-22 situation should be addressed first, a bit more flexibility in players' development curve is long overdue as well.

[Ackter]

Yes, but a peak doesn't mean he's hit his PA.

The rest of you post has nothing to do with CA/PA.

[Smurf]

The mistake you are making there is that you are presuming the PPA given to you by your staff is correct.

From what SI have said there is a reasonable chance your staff are wrong and that player could have a much higher PA. Instead of giving him a chance though you just see the 1.5* PPA and bin him instantly.

Exactly

The PPA given by staff is based on your staffs stats to determine talent.

Unless you have the best staff for determining ability and potential ability - then there's going to be some deviation in what is displayed in the PPA stars that your staff give you.

[Ackter]

There's going to be deviation anyway.

[rand21648]

If they are all identical with only PA itself varying, of course their perceived PAs correspond with their actual PAs, and so do their values.

...

It was claimed that PA does not affect asking price for players. By making exact duplicates who only differ in PA, you can isolate the effect that PA actually has on it (and it turns out it is huge).

I have many times seen post that suggest that PA doesn't even affect PPA, that its only function is to limit CA growth and so on, but it seems that this isn't really the case.

Of course reputation has a huge influence on asking price, as does for example contract details and the database-set transfer values you can find for each country in the editor. I've never claimed that PA solely determines asking price.

To test some of your assumptions I made 3 duplicates of Denis Suárez, all with PA 200. One with his normal rep values and left in Barcelona, one with all rep values set to 1 and also left in Barcelona, and the last also with all rep values set to 1 but contracted to Mighty Barolles (a Liberian club). Scouting them with Ramón Martínez (HOYD of Real Madrid with 20 JPA/JPP), they all were rated as having 5 star potential (and 1.5 star ability). It does not seem that reputation plays a big role in the calculation of those numbers. Of course scouts in the game would have a harder time finding the Liberia based one and he would be way cheaper (free actually since it's an amateur club). =)

It's true that young players with very high CA will tend to have their PA overestimated by staff, but generally it seems that PA is much more important than CA in the PPA calculation.

Look at this for example:

These are 9 duplicates of Adnan Januzaj with CA's and PA's corresponding to first and last name, respectively. Of the PA 200 players, the CA 110 one has a slightly lower PPA, probably because the assman thinks that the 90 point gap will be hard to close. But otherwise, the link between PA and PPA is very clear, whereas there is no clear link between CA and PPA. (Although the 110/180 probably has a slightly lower PPA than the two other PA 180's, because he is claimed to be a potential PL star player, whereas the two others are seen as potentially world class.)

Sorry for the long and possibly sprawling post, and for not really being on topic. I think the CA/PA system is fine. =)

[Kojak123]

Sorry for the long and possibly sprawling post, and for not really being on topic. I think the CA/PA system is fine. =)

You don't happen to have the estimated transfer price for those examples at hand?

[Arel21]

Hi! (I'm from Portugal so sorry if i misspelled any word in english)

Since we're talking about transfers and their costs, i have a little problem on that xD

I hate it when i want to buy a certain player and the AI(club) asks too much money for him. For example: I have a save where i want to buy Hummels (Dortmund) and they ask me 85M€. It sure is a huge amount of money, that i can't even afford to it. But i have another save, which i'm the manager of Dortmund and i'm literally "knocked at my door" by all the major european teams asking for Hummels. Well since in the other save i must give 85M€ to have him, i asked for 85M€ in this save too. Guess what: not a single club gave me that amount, instead they offered me half of that money (in some cases less then is current market value and with an ultimatum).

Another thing that grinds my gears: having offers lowers than their market prices. Example: I had a player that was on loan to another club and he ended the season with a 7.07 general classification, scoring 11 goals. When he came back to my club he was worthing 21M€. Some clubs appeared to buy him and i thought "this is a good time to make a good deal". I asked for 25M€. Not a single club wanted to give me that, instead they gave me deals around 10M€-15M€. And i was like "Are you kidding me!?!? He worths 21M€!!! You think this is the supermarket with discounts? xD"

And the last but not the least: trying to buy a young player but his club wants 50M€ xD

I understand that nowadays the football players prices are overrated, but i think this FM14 simply pushes it further! Seriously in what universe a regen 16/17 year old boy with 4,5 stars on PA worths 50M€ xD

I mean, even18 year old Cristiano Ronaldo (at Sporting Lisbon) was selled to Man Utd for 17,5M€ ...

This is my opinion, have a good day!

[Cougar2010]

and the problem is Arel?

Stop expecting to buy any player you want. The AI teams are under no obligation to sell to you or buy from you which is the way it should be.

[Arel21]

Oh not a problem at all. And i agree with you! I just simply play the way AI "plays" with me: i ask for an absurd amount of money for my key players too and if i can't buy certain player i move along to another one.

I just think that the prices could be lowered, that's all.

[Cougar2010]

Oh not a problem at all. And i agree with you! I just simply play the way AI "plays" with me: i ask for an absurd amount of money for my key players too and if i can't buy certain player i move along to another one.

I just think that the prices could be lowered, that's all.

What prices?

They quote you high because they don't want to sell, you back off and go somewhere else, job done.

You quote high because you don't want to sell, the AI club back off and go somewhere else, job done.

These aren't intended to be selling prices they are quotes which make the approaching club back off which is what happened.

[Koki]

As stated earlier on by someone, the only problem I have with the CA/PA system is the evaluation of my scouts. Let's say I have two 15-year-old players with exactly the same attributes and a CA of 50. One has a PA of 200 and one of 120. In most of the cases my scout will be able to tell that one is a potential world class player and one won't ever be good enough - although the players are currently identical. We usually foresee a player's great future because they are more developed than other players of the same age or maybe their rate of development in recent years.

I could understand if scouts made an evaluation based on the current attribute distribution but I fear the current scouting system isn't educated enough for that. For example if a player has high physical attributes the scout could say that he has great physical preconditions and his mental attributes can still be developed. On the other side a player of the same CA with poor physical attributes is unlikely to become a very good player because physical attributes can only be increased very slowly.

[aderow]

But then you'd probably get people complaining when Bob Bobby Bobson ends up being terrible in their save, despite having the storied -10 PA.

Not that I disagree with what you're saying - in fact it's a good idea - but overall people will never be happy.

No matter what happens, someone will always complain

That's a fair point, but even in that unique world, a player who's been given a PA of 120 will never ever become better than that.

To me it's not a matter of having a crystal ball, it's a matter of lack of flexibility (for lack of a better word). I don't mind if Joe Bloggs, currently rated as -4 suddenly turns into a solid EPL player in real life, while in my save he's likely going to rot in the lower leagues or to retire at age 25.

Yeah I understand that. And I'm not talking about whether or not you would mind this. What I'm saying is that a lot of players, that I'm going assume aren't looked at as much by the researchers due to constraints on time, are more likely to end up with negative PA that puts them in a range that would essentially screws them over before your save even begins.

What I'm saying is, with scouting players irl being as difficult as it already is, with more overlap between the intervals, fewer players would be potentially doomed before you even create a save. And that might give some of us a reason to stick with their intial youth squad (without me realizing, my assistant just released everyone because he thought they were all crap). And that's something that would appease That plus a more volatile development system would lead to much more varied careers players could have between saves.

Just my thoughts. Let me know if I sound crazy

[mchbitil]

I disagree with this suggestion. Development is not that linear; people develop at different rates regardless of age. Regardless of attitude. There are countless professional, hard-working youngsters who came youth top academies with top training facilities who didn't make it.

And FM1000, there are plenty of players like that. Early bloomers happen all the time. Just because someone shows amazing flashes early on doesn't mean that he'll have what it takes to be a world beater.

Example: In America, there's a lot of attention paid to college sports. College baskeball and college football are multi-billion dollar industries. Because of this the level of training (facilities, coaching etc.) is at a better level than you'd see in most profession soccer teams anywhere in the world. Despite that, there are many players who are stars in college but are busts when they make it to the pros.

Just like there are many players who are stars in the youth leagues, and initially in their first team careers, but eventually fall off.

It seems you missed the word "RANDOM" in my post. I don't suggest linear same progression for everyone. I suggest that everyone should have a chance - and then randomly 1% of them will make it.

[mchbitil]

I do not know if this question is related to the thread but why do people want to know the PA of the player?

because they don't want to spend effort and money on worthless guys?

[mchbitil]

Nothing you've said there actually applies to the PA system.

sorry Ackter, your answers here are just completely non-informative. You go with "No" and "you are wrong" and so on. I would really appreciate if you provided more details with your answers.

tiotom92's post is very relevant, and he is describing obvious problem in the game. Reiterating the problem: guy1 has low CA but high PA, guy2 has high CA but low PA. Same age. guy1 costs tens of millions and guy2 costs pennies. This is FACT in terms of how things are in FM2014.

This is obviously broken and unrealistic on two fronts:

1. In real life no scout would say that "guy1 is going to be much better than guy2, ignore that currently guy1 plays half as good as guy2". In real life scout says "wow, look how well guy2 plays - if he continues, he might become world star".

2. In real life, no club would ever pay millions or tens of millions for a worse-playing guy1, when better-playing guy2 of the same age is available for pennies.

So, if you still say that "Nothing you've said there actually applies to the PA system." please explain why.

And yes, it could be PA or PPA, CA or PCA, but it doesn't change the situation at all.

[gunner86]

Can I just ask, what would you prefer to have instead of PA?

[mchbitil]

It is realistic because there no matter how hard a player can train, no matter how good his coaching is, how good facilities he uses, no matter how good his mentality is, there is a point at which he will stop improving overall. There will come a point where can't possibly get better overall. That's what PA represents; the limit that a player can reach in his overall ability as a footballer.

But in real life, no one, including best-ever scouts or managers, has a crystal ball to predict PA.

As I've said before, players develop at different rates. It is very possible that a player who is seen as the best of the bunch, CA-wise, in a youth intake might not have as high a ceiling potential wise as someone in the middle of the pack. It happens in real life too. I remember there was a time Quaresma was thought to have a higher potential than Cristiano Ronaldo. And look where those two are now.

And why was he thought so? Because at that time Quaresma had higher CA than Ronaldo. Bingo - remove PA and leave CA, and it's enough to predict.

For the same reason I disagree that PA and CA should be highly correlated in youngsters. Every player's development cycle is different. Sometimes youth stars become world class, sometimes they fizzle out and busts. And sometimes players come out of nowhere and become stars. Or at least surpass all previous expectations people had for him.

Sure. That's why development should be much more random, less linear, and less predictable.

The last bit you said has to do with development and not PA. Development is already set up that way (based on personality, playing time, facilities, injuries etc). But there will always be a limit to what that individual player can accomplish. Unfortunately currently it's a bit too steady for my liking; players with high PA reach it rather easily.

Yeah, this is a problem. But even bigger problem is that in FM2014 we can see very early that 16-year old or 17-year old has only so-so PA and we can fire him to focus on high-PA guys instead. If it was so in real life, we wouldn't see Tyler Blackett in MU shirt.

And I agree that scouts can be a little too accurate.

They are always too accurate in FM2014.

[mchbitil]

Once again, that has to with the actual development curve of the players. That has nothing to do with CA and PA themselves. And this thread shows/proves nothing as far as issues to with CA and PA themselves. I've already stated that I'd like more volatile development curves, but at the end of the day they need to exist because there's a point where, no matter how hard you try, you will not improve.

The point of original post is two-fold. We need more volatile development curves AND we need to not know in advance how good the player can become.

To remove this stupid limitation, I suggested to remove PA and then randomly any youngster can become world class, but very few will. And if PA is gone, the managers would still try to play guys like Blackett hoping to get something out of them, because in real life there is no known ceiling.

[mchbitil]

All this thread shows it that most people don't understand what the CA/PA system is. People are attributing all kinds of things to it, that are handled by other modules.

The CA/PA model is fine. The development curve is where the problems lay. Once the development curve is made more realistic, it'll be safe to give youngsters higher PA in general, knowing that it'll take a very specific set of circumstances for them to reach it.

You miss the problem. The problem is that even with the improved development curve, if PA system stays, the teams will fire all youngsters with lower than 3.5 PA because they are waste of time and money. Even if not all of 4.5-5 PA players will become stars, they at least have a chance; 3.5 PA are doomed, and this is obviously fake.

[gunner86]

And why was he thought so? Because at that time Quaresma had higher CA than Ronaldo. Bingo - remove PA and leave CA, and it's enough to predict.

Also because Ronaldo spent hours upon hours working in the gym and on the training ground. Quaresma by all accounts became a bit lazy/complacent.

The problem with not having PA i.e. no ceiling to ability is that it is not possible for ALL players to reach the same level. You can not look at a group of 15 year olds, or 8 year olds for that matter and say, with enough hard work and dedication they could be as good as Leo Messi. PA is essentially a marker, in my mind at least, of a footballers natural abilities and hence their limitations as a professional.

[mchbitil]

Yeah I know, there's no real answer to the whole crystal ball of who gets good. Dzeko is a similar example of someone who just exploded IRL, despite not showing any significantly high PA early on in his career.

I'm thinking maybe the hard cap of maximum PA even with the negative intervals could be changed slightly? So, if you are a -6, where you would never go above 120, maybe once or twice every 50 games you would actually break your cap of 120, and reach 125-135? Or something similar?

These two examples are great support for the idea of removing PA at all. If PA was removed in FM2010, then there would be 1 in 50 games that someone would notice that this Kasper Kusk became a star (and in other 49 went nowhere).

[mchbitil]

The mistake you are making there is that you are presuming the PPA given to you by your staff is correct.

From what SI have said there is a reasonable chance your staff are wrong and that player could have a much higher PA. Instead of giving him a chance though you just see the 1.5* PPA and bin him instantly.

if we just ignore what our staff says our youth team would have hundreds of players.

[mchbitil]

Can I just ask, what would you prefer to have instead of PA?

1. For scouting, transfer decisions and transfer price: use combination of CA, age, mental characteristics.

2. For development: use random, based on mental characteristics, facilities, first-team experience. So determined players in good team with 1st team exp will have better chance to turn stars, but even players in lower teams will have non-zero chance.

[Cougar2010]

if we just ignore what our staff says our youth team would have hundreds of players.

Why?

Because you can't make choices.

Also if your youth squad is full you should get a reduced intake while players will move on when they pass 18/19/20yo to another squad.

[mchbitil]

Also because Ronaldo spent hours upon hours working in the gym and on the training ground. Quaresma by all accounts became a bit lazy/complacent.

The problem with not having PA i.e. no ceiling to ability is that it is not possible for ALL players to reach the same level. You can not look at a group of 15 year olds, or 8 year olds for that matter and say, with enough hard work and dedication they could be as good as Leo Messi. PA is essentially a marker, in my mind at least, of a footballers natural abilities and hence their limitations as a professional.

yes, Ronaldo had better mental characteristics than Quaresma. Some scouts saw it IRL.

It seems people here can't grasp the idea of random.

See this.

1000 16-year old kids. All same CA (high for their age). All same mental. All in the top clubs of the same level as Barca/MU with top facilities and top coaches. No PA.

Random development will make it that 1 of them becomes Messi, 10 of them become world class (Ribery), 100 of them become top club regulars, 500 of them will be Premier League regulars, and 500 will go to lower leagues or retire early.

And then, 10 years later, the commenters would say that "sure only one of those kids had potential to become Messi, others didn't have a chance", but at the time of their 16 years it wasn't clear who this one is.

It's like "Half the money we are spending on advertising was wasted, the problem is we don't know which half it is". So here it is the same - half of the players we train will be not good, but we don't know which half.

To explain more.

If we are about to buy a 16-year old guy, we would prefer to choose a guy with higher CA and better professionalism, since he has higher chance to turn a star. But there is a random chance that this guy will go nowhere, but a guy who had lower CA and lower professionalism will become great. This would be fun!

[tiotom92]

It is realistic because there no matter how hard a player can train, no matter how good his coaching is, how good facilities he uses, no matter how good his mentality is, there is a point at which he will stop improving overall. There will come a point where can't possibly get better overall. That's what PA represents; the limit that a player can reach in his overall ability as a footballer.

As I've said before, players develop at different rates. It is very possible that a player who is seen as the best of the bunch, CA-wise, in a youth intake might not have as high a ceiling potential wise as someone in the middle of the pack. It happens in real life too. I remember there was a time Quaresma was thought to have a higher potential than Cristiano Ronaldo. And look where those two are now.

For the same reason I disagree that PA and CA should be highly correlated in youngsters. Every player's development cycle is different. Sometimes youth stars become world class, sometimes they fizzle out and busts. And sometimes players come out of nowhere and become stars. Or at least surpass all previous expectations people had for him.

The last bit you said has to do with development and not PA. Development is already set up that way (based on personality, playing time, facilities, injuries etc). But there will always be a limit to what that individual player can accomplish. Unfortunately currently it's a bit too steady for my liking; players with high PA reach it rather easily. And I agree that scouts can be a little too accurate.

Did you read my 2nd post that you quoted? I agree with the CA / PA system.

The problem is that if CA and mental stats come under player development and not PA, there is nothing a scout can judge to give an estimate on PA. I don't know why clubs / scouts therefore give their estimate on a players PA unless they can see in to the future!

Scouts / clubs should only give their estimations on CA and how likely / quickly a player will develop because nobody can predict PA.