[DISCUSSION] Are newgens too good?

[Weston]

This is one for which I'm especially curious to hear other people's thoughts and experiences. In real life, teenagers that can perform at the top level are exceptionally rare, and when one appears it's a big deal. (They also usually have been incubating a while in the lower tiers of youth football, which makes the sudden appearance of a fully formed 15-17 year-old even more jarring, but we'll assume this is merely a side-effect of not being able to include real kids that grow from younger in the game legally.) In FM, however, it seems there is often a disproportionate amount of highly skilled newgens being generated, resulting in a a disproportionately high amount of teenagers in the starting lineups of clubs and national call-ups in the seasons following your first.

I understand that there are talented youngsters appearing IRL all the time (and, some, like Donnarumma, might seem unrealistic if they had happened in a game but now seem understandable in real life, altering our expectations), but I can't be the only one who sometimes feels like the game hypes them up a bit - both in terms of frequency and specific attributes being impressively high from the start - to make hunting for them more fun and fulfilling, and make rebuilding your squad without names to go off of in the future a bit easier simply by improving the odds.

For the sake of realism, should newgens be toned down a bit, or maybe just made more rare, or is their current level a necessity for the game to run smoothly? What's the point of trying to grow the real life youth players you start with if you know someone better and far more evolved with inevitably appear soon after? Do other FM players have wildly different experiences than me and it's not always this way?

Here are some examples of really good newgens that maybe are a little too good (who has 20 attributes at 15???).

[Guest]

btw determination of is a trait rather than a skill based attribute, personally I'd prefer it to be one of the hidden attributes.

[Weston]

3 minutes ago, Barside said:

btw determination of is a trait rather than a skill based attribute, personally I'd prefer it to be one of the hidden attributes.

Okay but in general

[Guest]

I think it's a little too easy to turn a young player into a star before they turn 20 but I'e not seen anything to suggest that the ability is too high when they enter the game. Never dug that deep into it though.

[Adzke]

I think one of the key parts missing in FM is youngsters burning out or breaking mentally. Both happens in real life, but in a game that expresses ability through attributes, this might be hard to replicate. In FM there is no downside to playing youngsters early and often, whereas in real life this can place a very heavy burden on youngsters. Fiorillo from Sampdoria comes to mind as an example of a highly touted youngster who simply cracked under having some subpar performances in the senior side at a young age.

[Guest]

There is a downside to playing youngsters too soon, some can become less ambitious & driven if they achieve success too early while I have had a couple of players become mentally weak & unable to handle pressure after I played them in a playoff final that we lost due primarily to their individual errors in the match.

[Adzke]

2 minutes ago, Barside said:

There is a downside to playing youngsters too soon, some can become less ambitious & driven if they achieve success too early while I have had a couple of players become mentally weak & unable to handle pressure after I played them in a playoff final that we lost due primarily to their individual errors in the match.

Really? Never experienced that. So their personality will change from too much succes early on? That seems well thought of. How do you spot those changes?

[Guest]

It was a new addition to FM16 & I spotted it when reading my coach reports & noticed that both players were noted as dreading big matches when it had not been there before. Others have reported positive & negative changes in ambition, determination & professionalism during a player's development

[Adzke]

Just now, Barside said:

It was a new addition to FM16 & I spotted it when reading my coach reports & noticed that both players were noted as dreading big matches when it had not been there before. Others have reported positive & negative changes in ambition, determination & professionalism during a player's development

Thanks! Will certainly start looking for that from now on!

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.