[Suggestion]"Floating" potential ability

[Psycho.]

The PA should remain fixed indeed, but there should be changes to the CA imo.

A player with a low CA and a high PA should improve his CA faster if he's playing good in a team surrounded by better players.

Take Coquelin as example. He was a highly rated talent when he was young but hasn't really developed on his loans. He's being recalled from Charlton due to injuries, otherwise he would not even be close to the first team of Arsenal. In a few months he's proven himself to be a good player for Arsenal. In FM this can never happen because his CA will not grow that much in such a short time.

PA should also not be downgraded when a players has not developed well over the years, but CA should remain the same or be downgraded.

[eriktous]

1 hour ago, russianorphan7 said:

significantly outperforming his CA

There is no such thing.

[enigmatic]

2 hours ago, russianorphan7 said:

I think the problem with your last paragraph citing Ronaldo is that people actually do attribute his amazing growth to work ethic, and not just some nebulous and inevitable potential. See statements by Sir Alex Ferguson and others about how hard he trained to grow from an initially raw talent to a world class player. He became the player he is today through tireless dedication to his craft, in addition to some physical gifts (that required personal development, as well, I might add) that he might have been born with. Now, I agree that PA is an okay assumption for a player growth model, but at the end of the day it is an oversimplification that leads to some less than ideal outcomes (which have inspired this thread). 

In real life, potential is just a vague word people throw around as a way of projecting a player's future ability based on what they see now. In truth, there is no hard cap that dictates what a player will become. It is a player's work ethic, personality, and environment that largely dictate how he develops.

You miss the point here. We didn't actually know much about teenage Ronaldo's work ethic when he first appeared in the game. We just knew that he was highly skilled for his age and regarded as having massive potential by some of the best clubs in the world. An assessment of his potential which turned out to be absolutely correct, just like the researchers correctly assessed that many other teenagers starting to break into their first team - many with apparently great attitudes - would be squad players at best. How on earth do you realistically represent that for the next generation of teenagers which we have a reasonable idea are future Premier League players but don't actually know that much about their personality quirks (or whichever other non-PA variables suddenly become the only factor stopping every young player in the database becoming Ronaldo? Or for that matter, how do you create an Anelka with immense potential but a horrible attitude?

One way you definitely don't do it is to assume players just continuously get better if they happen to be playing well (which will of course make them play better still...). That's less realistic than what's currently have in place.

[enigmatic]

3 hours ago, Psycho. said:

The PA should remain fixed indeed, but there should be changes to the CA imo.

A player with a low CA and a high PA should improve his CA faster if he's playing good in a team surrounded by better players.

Take Coquelin as example. He was a highly rated talent when he was young but hasn't really developed on his loans. He's being recalled from Charlton due to injuries, otherwise he would not even be close to the first team of Arsenal. In a few months he's proven himself to be a good player for Arsenal. In FM this can never happen because his CA will not grow that much in such a short time.

PA should also not be downgraded when a players has not developed well over the years, but CA should remain the same or be downgraded.

All of this already happens in game.

[russianorphan7]

1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

One way you definitely don't do it is to assume players just continuously get better if they happen to be playing well (which will of course make them play better still...). That's less realistic than what's currently have in place.

I think you're oversimplifyng my position, or perhaps I didn't phrase it as clearly and completely as I had hoped. My general argument is that the growth system as it is now is far too predictable, particularly for us intelligent human folk (as opposed to the AI) who can optimize everything for surefire outcomes. Therefore, I think SI should find ways to make the growth system more dynamic, with one of the principle problems being the hard PA cap IMO, in addition to the far too precise scouting star system (a suggestion I pose in another thread).

I advocate that, instead of a hard PA cap, they switch to a more fluid PA system, which can actually change based on things like personality, team quality, competition, playing time, facilities, and coaching. Yes, all of those things already influence growth, as they should, but I'm arguing that they should also have an actual effect on potential, as well. Maybe not radically, but at least some drift effect on PA, both in the positive and negative direction. Now, obviously you would have to optimize it to ensure players don't all become OP. Nonetheless, it would make the growth process more flexible and realistic IMO. In real life, players don't have a hard potential cap, it's more of a range that can fluctuate based on experiences and the environment they grow in. 

[Psycho.]

11 hours ago, enigmatic said:

All of this already happens in game.

Well, not fast enough then. As I said, my example can never happen in FM.

[Jean-Luc]

My impression is that the discussion if real life players have developed this or that way, and if the potential has been there or not, or was just not recognized is misleading.

The discussion about the PA is not, in the end, about "realistic" or "not realistic".

The discussion about PA comes from the frustration that player development in FM is too forseeable. You scout a player with a high PA, you apply all the tactics and methods to let him prosper, and he will become a superstar. The only exception is if he's injured. It does not even matter if he reaches his "full potential" or not - the player with a "five star PA" will definitely shine.

So I think in the end what this is all about is not about realism (or only partly), it's about game mechanics and the feeling of the game. There is a certain group of people who want more mystery in player development. Or maybe more challenge, more ways where the "super talents" waste their talent and never shine (we all know those guys) or where the "late bloomers" suddenly get a boost in their career at 30. And why? Because it's fun.

It's fun to have a solid, reliable back-up, who suddenly gets a big, surprising attribute boost while training. As an FM manager, you would look at this and shout "hooray, I knew it, I always loved you, chap, but I feared I have to sell you!" And it's equally fun to train and nurture a "super talent" that suddenly ends up in the wrong circle of friends, or gets distracted or thinks too highly of himself, and his attributes drop. Because it gives those players who are ultimately just columns of numbers, character. It turns numbers and figures into flesh and bones. You get a connection to them, because you can label them ("the late bloomer", "the talent who wasted his career", etc.).

[jazzyboy]

How about PA being fixed but unknown to user and ai ? The idea is to be more like real life where pa exists but no one knows the value. So when you scout a player, the scout will focus more on the intangibles (work ethics, ambition, etc) and will rate the player based on how likely he is to achieve certain level of attributes, lets say 15 for epl (i.e if he needs 150 att points to be decent then the scout will say something like 'Based on the player's age and progression history I dont think he will be a decent player', but then since the scout doesnt know the PA, the player might progress a lot next season and he will have different opinion).

TL,DR : no one in game knows the PA values, scouts rate wonderkids like they do in real life by comparing their current abilities with other players in the same age group and how far along they have to improve to be considered decent players. And of course hidden attributes still play important role.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.