suggestions to SI from a veteran player

[iamsth831]

I have been playing the game every year since CM 01-02. But every year, I spent a little less time on the game because there is little change to the game every year. Most of the folks would start the game by finding a good tactic, and then start buying some high-PA players and wait for results to come. It becomes quite boring from that perspective. Things have to change otherwise the game will be dead eventually.

1. variable PA system.  In reality, PA is never fixed. C. Ronaldo for example, started his career at Sporting, showing very good potential (I would probably rate his PA around 170-180 at that time). He then transferred to Man Utd and becomes one of the key players with consistent performance. I would rate his PA to be around 185-190 at that time. But then he transferred to Real Madrid and starts breaking all sorts of records. I would now rate him among the best players in history with a PA 195-198 range. To me, it is the career path which made him great, not when he was born! so it is very important to have a variable PA system. Let's think what PA means in the game. For young players, it represents the highest ability one may reach. For veterans, it represents the "golden" time of the player. So PA must be equal to the max CA the player had for an old player. In the game, many things should affect PA, such as age, appearance, performance, the strength of the league he plays in, the reputation, performance of the team etc.  With a variable PA system, the user would not just buy high-PA players and enjoy the victory. If they do not perform well or do not have enough appearance, their PA should drop with little increase on the CA.  Actually SI spent huge effort every year to adjust the database and change the CA/PA of every player. Why not make it an automated system in the game?

 

2. Experience. one of the major issue I face with FM is you can win with 11 players under 20 if they are good enough. This is ridiculous in reality! There are consistency and important match parameters in the system, but it is far from enough to reflect the importance of experienced players. I would suggest to include a new parameter called experience, which should consider the number of games they played, the quality of the games they played, etc. Experience should directly influence consistency/important match and performance directly! This way, one would not be addicted to buying young players only.

 

FM has been making little little adjustments every year. I actually like the Hierarchy  idea in this year version, but it barely changes how people play. I look forward to seeing more interesting changes to the game. 

 

 

[CFuller]

1 hour ago, iamsth831 said:

1. variable PA system.  In reality, PA is never fixed. C. Ronaldo for example, started his career at Sporting, showing very good potential (I would probably rate his PA around 170-180 at that time). He then transferred to Man Utd and becomes one of the key players with consistent performance. I would rate his PA to be around 185-190 at that time. But then he transferred to Real Madrid and starts breaking all sorts of records. I would now rate him among the best players in history with a PA 195-198 range. To me, it is the career path which made him great, not when he was born! so it is very important to have a variable PA system. Let's think what PA means in the game. For young players, it represents the highest ability one may reach. For veterans, it represents the "golden" time of the player. So PA must be equal to the max CA the player had for an old player. In the game, many things should affect PA, such as age, appearance, performance, the strength of the league he plays in, the reputation, performance of the team etc.  With a variable PA system, the user would not just buy high-PA players and enjoy the victory. If they do not perform well or do not have enough appearance, their PA should drop with little increase on the CA.  Actually SI spent huge effort every year to adjust the database and change the CA/PA of every player. Why not make it an automated system in the game?

Potential Ability cannot be variable because you cannot be any better than your best.

Cristiano Ronaldo was always an exceptional talent destined to reach the top of world football, even while at Sporting CP. The only difference is that if he'd stayed at Sporting until he was, say, 23 instead of 18, he would probably never have reached his maximum PA.

Moving to a better club should not increase a player's PA, but rather the chances of them reaching that upper limit. Manchester City could theoretically sign Charlie Wyke (25) from Bradford next month, but that wouldn't mean he would suddenly have the potential to be a Champions League striker. Training at better facilities with better players and coaches would just affect his current ability.

An older player's PA cannot be equal to their highest obtained CA, because wasted talents do exist in professional football. Michael Johnson (Manchester City) could genuinely have become a fantastic midfielder had it not been for injuries and attitude problems. Just because he wasn't a ~170 CA player doesn't mean he wasn't a ~170 PA player.

'Variable' PA has been discussed to death on these forums, and I don't really want to ramble on about it much longer, so I'll leave it at that.

[XaW]

This has been debated back and forth, and I still think my suggestion would appease everyone. Make PA fixed, but at a much higher level than today. Then make it much, much, MUCH harder to reach said potential. This will also open better for the "late bloomer", "early maxed" and other type of players than we have today. Training, facilities, game time, personality (professionalism, determination, ambition) and a lot of other aspects would be more important than today. At least for the long term games.

Yes, it would be a rather big rewrite of a lot of things, but I think it would make the future versions more enjoyable.

[iamsth831]

On 2017/12/15 at 15:52, CFuller said:

Potential Ability cannot be variable because you cannot be any better than your best.

Cristiano Ronaldo was always an exceptional talent destined to reach the top of world football, even while at Sporting CP. The only difference is that if he'd stayed at Sporting until he was, say, 23 instead of 18, he would probably never have reached his maximum PA.

Moving to a better club should not increase a player's PA, but rather the chances of them reaching that upper limit. Manchester City could theoretically sign Charlie Wyke (25) from Bradford next month, but that wouldn't mean he would suddenly have the potential to be a Champions League striker. Training at better facilities with better players and coaches would just affect his current ability.

An older player's PA cannot be equal to their highest obtained CA, because wasted talents do exist in professional football. Michael Johnson (Manchester City) could genuinely have become a fantastic midfielder had it not been for injuries and attitude problems. Just because he wasn't a ~170 CA player doesn't mean he wasn't a ~170 PA player.

'Variable' PA has been discussed to death on these forums, and I don't really want to ramble on about it much longer, so I'll leave it at that.

I agree with the definition of PA but disagree with FIXED PA. A very simple question: why do we have a new database every year with every player's PA changed?  You can say PA does not change but we cannot determine it accurately. It is mostly based on career path and performance, not just born fixed!  If C.Ronaldo stayed in Sporting for his entire career, no one will ever know he has such potential. No one is god and we do not need to act like one by knowing everyone's exact potential! 

[Cougar2010]

32 minutes ago, iamsth831 said:

I agree with the definition of PA but disagree with FIXED PA. A very simple question: why do we have a new database every year with every player's PA changed?  You can say PA does not change but we cannot determine it accurately. It is mostly based on career path and performance, not just born fixed!  If C.Ronaldo stayed in Sporting for his entire career, no one will ever know he has such potential. No one is god and we do not need to act like one by knowing everyone's exact potential! 

We have a new database every year because human researchers can't accurately predict the future and as no-one has found a way to accurately predict the future its something we have to live with.

Having a variable PA wouldn't fix that problem either because you still have no way to accurately predict the future.

In terms of newgens its a none issue because the game is god in that respect.

[oddspam]

The main problem isn't the PA in the database. The main problem is the scouts ability to find it.

 

Ronaldo didn't suddenly increase his potential. That's just theoretically impossible. The problem was that it was impossible to say that he had the potential to be a 5x Ballon d'Or, not just a "regular" Real Madrid player and Portuguese international. Probably, you couldn't really see the difference of the potential of him and, let's say, Nani. 

And then you have those players that "everyone" think has the potential. Ganso (Paolo Henrique) is an example. He was highly rated at FM some years ago, but he never peaked. (Maybe it was because of career choices?) No scouts were able to see that coming. And you have players hailed as potential stars (Freddy Adu..) that becomes absolutely nothing. In a way, I wish my scouts more often would recommend me to splash out money on someone who doesn't make it. As it is now, buying a youngster with high scouted potential is kind of a safe investment.

 

[Gangor]

PA can't change, but what might be nice is the perceived PA changing a bit more. I think it would be good if it was a bit more opaque for your scouts, but have scripted events that could change it - maybe a youth coach spots something in a youngster or a player turns a corner in his career with a special performance in a cup game. 

An easy change to fix the youth>all problem could be to make younger players start by default with (in most cases) poor consistency and big games and have it increase over time and with match experience more than it does at the moment.

[iamsth831]

9 hours ago, oddspam said:

The main problem isn't the PA in the database. The main problem is the scouts ability to find it.

 

Ronaldo didn't suddenly increase his potential. That's just theoretically impossible. The problem was that it was impossible to say that he had the potential to be a 5x Ballon d'Or, not just a "regular" Real Madrid player and Portuguese international. Probably, you couldn't really see the difference of the potential of him and, let's say, Nani. 

And then you have those players that "everyone" think has the potential. Ganso (Paolo Henrique) is an example. He was highly rated at FM some years ago, but he never peaked. (Maybe it was because of career choices?) No scouts were able to see that coming. And you have players hailed as potential stars (Freddy Adu..) that becomes absolutely nothing. In a way, I wish my scouts more often would recommend me to splash out money on someone who doesn't make it. As it is now, buying a youngster with high scouted potential is kind of a safe investment.

 

I agree. That's kind of what I hope to get from the game. The game does not need to act like God, who knows exactly how much potential every player has. It has to be a rather random and varying process depending on every player's career development path.

One of the main issue with the game I see is that the young players are often "born" to be reliable and consistent in performance. You can gather a team of high potential players under 20 and just wait for their development. That's not realistic at all. There are also very few who fails to reach potential, which is obviously not true in reality.

I really like parameters like experience, which would effectively limit the use of young players in the game. It would provide a good solution to the "collection of high PA player" mode. 

[iamsth831]

 

8 hours ago, Gangor said:

PA can't change, but what might be nice is the perceived PA changing a bit more. I think it would be good if it was a bit more opaque for your scouts, but have scripted events that could change it - maybe a youth coach spots something in a youngster or a player turns a corner in his career with a special performance in a cup game. 

An easy change to fix the youth>all problem could be to make younger players start by default with (in most cases) poor consistency and big games and have it increase over time and with match experience more than it does at the moment.

I like oddspam's example of Ganso: everyone thought he had a very good potential at the age of 20 but now he has a potential of 158 at the age of 30 in the game.  If PA should be fixed, why is it changed? Does it mean he was born without such potential?  I disagree. With a different career path, he may reach a much higher potential.  Coming back to C. Ronaldo, he had a potential of "-9" in the game when he was very young, a peak PA of 180 only. Through the years, we now acknowledge him as at least one of the greatest players in the world. We just CAN NOT KNOW!  We should not expect the game to be GOD either! Make it a variable system and it would make a lot more sense! We just cannot look for a 190+ player and expect him to grow into another Messi. It does not work that way in reality and it should not either in the game!

[iamsth831]

12 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

We have a new database every year because human researchers can't accurately predict the future and as no-one has found a way to accurately predict the future its something we have to live with.

Having a variable PA wouldn't fix that problem either because you still have no way to accurately predict the future.

In terms of newgens its a none issue because the game is god in that respect.

No one can predict a player to be the next Messi at the age of 16. But in the game, it is only a matter of scout ability. It DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! There is no such scout! 

Potential is highly dependent on career path. Just like in other domain, Steve Jobs is a genius but he is recognized now because of his career path and choices! He would not be who he is if he sits at home and play FM every day.  Anyone's potential is depending on a lot of choices, not born fixed!

[CFuller]

6 hours ago, iamsth831 said:

Potential is highly dependent on career path. Just like in other domain, Steve Jobs is a genius but he is recognized now because of his career path and choices! He would not be who he is if he sits at home and play FM every day.  Anyone's potential is depending on a lot of choices, not born fixed!

You are basically describing current ability, not potential.

Steve Jobs was (and still is) regarded as a genius because he fulfilled his potential. If he had stayed at home and not gone to work, he would have wasted that potential.

Anyway, if potential is highly dependent on career path, how come Bebé didn't become a superstar at Manchester United? His maximum potential did not increase when he joined United, but the chances of him fulfilling it did. He's now been a low-end La Liga player for four years, so he probably has done that, thanks in part to his experience at Old Trafford. That said, he was never going to become another Ronaldo or even another Nani.

[oddspam]

Bebe was maybe an example of what we are looking for. 

Let's say there wasn't anything strange about that transfer, and no money were paid to some people under the table.

If so, the problem here was one out of two: Either the scouts got his potential very wrong, or he wasn't able to reach his potential. In FM, we most often see that the scouts are accurate, and the potential reached.

[Cougar2010]

22 hours ago, iamsth831 said:

No one can predict a player to be the next Messi at the age of 16. But in the game, it is only a matter of scout ability. It DOES NOT MAKE SENSE! There is no such scout! 

Thats just not true I'm afraid.

Scouts don't see PA, they give you PPA (Perceived PA) based on the player's CA + age + other factors.  I can show you literally thousands of examples where a player has come into the club with 4/5* PA and ended up maxing out at 2/3* by the time he is 21yo.  I can also show you players who have come into the club with say 2* PA and gone on to be far better than that.

 

22 hours ago, iamsth831 said:

Potential is highly dependent on career path. Just like in other domain, Steve Jobs is a genius but he is recognized now because of his career path and choices! He would not be who he is if he sits at home and play FM every day.  Anyone's potential is depending on a lot of choices, not born fixed!

Potential is fixed when you are born, whether you fulfill that potential is dependent on all those other factors.

Like hundreds of other threads on the subject over the last 20 years you are talking about CA development, not PA.

[Cap'nRad]

37 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Potential is fixed when you are born, whether you fulfill that potential is dependent on all those other factors.

This isn't a proven fact, is it? It's an argument, nothing more.

[tacticsdude]

Flexible PA
One of the things that FM (and everyone else) gets wrong every year is players PA. The problem is that it is fixed in the engine, so every year it has to be adapted to adjust for the real changes that happened with RL players.

Both sides are right. FM currently uses a fixed PA acting as a hard growth cap, and like most scouts trying to predict the future it guesses wrong most of the time and has to be adjusted every year. It seems that a better options is to have a flexible PA system, or no PA at all, instead a suggested growth curve with open PA, so a player like CR7 would start with a suggested growth curve that puts him at around 170 if he stays in Portugal, 185 if he stays at Man U, and 195+ if he moves to Madrid. Doing the numbers that way would be more realistic and it is not much of a change in the engine. Basically the same model we have now, except that there's a hidden growth curve that pushes the flexPA up if things are going great for the player.

Player Experience
I believe this is in the engine. It may not show up like a stat, but I feel it for sure in the way players become more adult as they play over the years. I feel some of my players reach maturity at 22 given enough access to very competitive games and having lifted a couple trophies.

[iamsth831]

37 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

Flexible PA
One of the things that FM (and everyone else) gets wrong every year is players PA. The problem is that it is fixed in the engine, so every year it has to be adapted to adjust for the real changes that happened with RL players.

Both sides are right. FM currently uses a fixed PA acting as a hard growth cap, and like most scouts trying to predict the future it guesses wrong most of the time and has to be adjusted every year. It seems that a better options is to have a flexible PA system, or no PA at all, instead a suggested growth curve with open PA, so a player like CR7 would start with a suggested growth curve that puts him at around 170 if he stays in Portugal, 185 if he stays at Man U, and 195+ if he moves to Madrid. Doing the numbers that way would be more realistic and it is not much of a change in the engine. Basically the same model we have now, except that there's a hidden growth curve that pushes the flexPA up if things are going great for the player.

Player Experience
I believe this is in the engine. It may not show up like a stat, but I feel it for sure in the way players become more adult as they play over the years. I feel some of my players reach maturity at 22 given enough access to very competitive games and having lifted a couple trophies.

I agree with your comment. For Player Experience, I don't think it is showing up enough. Right now, a player's consistency and important match are fixed at born. So theoretically, if you search for a group of 18 year old with consistency above 15, you have a very consistent team, which does not make much sense. Consistency and important match should grow with experience, shouldn't they?  It should also not only depend on age. Ronaldo won FIFA best player award at a very young age, but he already had a lot of experience, being able to show up in startup at much younger age. But for another player at the same age, he may not have the experience and thus cannot have the same consistency and performance.

[iamsth831]

2 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

Thats just not true I'm afraid.

Scouts don't see PA, they give you PPA (Perceived PA) based on the player's CA + age + other factors.  I can show you literally thousands of examples where a player has come into the club with 4/5* PA and ended up maxing out at 2/3* by the time he is 21yo.  I can also show you players who have come into the club with say 2* PA and gone on to be far better than that.

 

Potential is fixed when you are born, whether you fulfill that potential is dependent on all those other factors.

Like hundreds of other threads on the subject over the last 20 years you are talking about CA development, not PA.

My point is that potential is probably fixed at born, but no one can know for sure! If we need to adjust the database every year, it should be done the same way in the game. 

[iamsth831]

18 hours ago, CFuller said:

You are basically describing current ability, not potential.

Steve Jobs was (and still is) regarded as a genius because he fulfilled his potential. If he had stayed at home and not gone to work, he would have wasted that potential.

Anyway, if potential is highly dependent on career path, how come Bebé didn't become a superstar at Manchester United? His maximum potential did not increase when he joined United, but the chances of him fulfilling it did. He's now been a low-end La Liga player for four years, so he probably has done that, thanks in part to his experience at Old Trafford. That said, he was never going to become another Ronaldo or even another Nani.

I am not arguing about his potential, but his potential KNOWN TO PEOPLE! No one would know the potential of Steve Jobs unless he gets a chance to show it.

I am not saying every player has the same potential when they move to a large club like Man Utd. I am saying career path does change potential. Here is a path I would describe for Bebe. He probably had a PA of 140-150 in portugal. When he arrived in Man Utd, he has a chance of achieving higher potential, say 160, but he did not earn enough appearance and his performance was a disaster, so his PA should drop with age, with little increase in his CA. Eventually, he became a player with PA even below 130 because that's all he achieved in his career.

If potential is fixed, shouldn't Ganso still have a potential of 180 in the game? why does he only have 158 now? Was everyone just wrong or did he not do well with career path?

 

[tacticsdude]

3 minutes ago, iamsth831 said:

My point is that potential is probably fixed at born, but no one can know for sure! If we need to adjust the database every year, it should be done the same way in the game. 

The problem with that argument is that it is good in theory but it makes little practical sense. Like the idea that we all have the potential to become billionaires if we try really hard, get lucky and things go really well for us.

By the same token a realistic hard PA for all players should be near 200. And I'm not  being difficult. Look at Florenzi. A few years back his FM PA was in the 140s, now it is in the 160s. His growth curve has been different than most players and he is going through position changes IRL. He may end up at 170 IRL, so FM2021 may have him at CA169 / PA 170. So all this talk about a hard cap potential PA that is the human limit of the player is just a nonsensical philosophical exercise. Clearly IRL Florenzi's real PA is a flexPA based on all the complexities of life, and as it stands right now IRL it is likely to go up some more. A more realistic system would have set him on a flexPA at around 140 a few years back, and adjusted along a curve for later-career development, and as long as he continues to excel for Roma and can escape some injuries then he is likely to push his flexPA higher.

[iamsth831]

6 hours ago, tacticsdude said:

The problem with that argument is that it is good in theory but it makes little practical sense. Like the idea that we all have the potential to become billionaires if we try really hard, get lucky and things go really well for us.

By the same token a realistic hard PA for all players should be near 200. And I'm not  being difficult. Look at Florenzi. A few years back his FM PA was in the 140s, now it is in the 160s. His growth curve has been different than most players and he is going through position changes IRL. He may end up at 170 IRL, so FM2021 may have him at CA169 / PA 170. So all this talk about a hard cap potential PA that is the human limit of the player is just a nonsensical philosophical exercise. Clearly IRL Florenzi's real PA is a flexPA based on all the complexities of life, and as it stands right now IRL it is likely to go up some more. A more realistic system would have set him on a flexPA at around 140 a few years back, and adjusted along a curve for later-career development, and as long as he continues to excel for Roma and can escape some injuries then he is likely to push his flexPA higher.

I absolutely agree with you. Career path and random events should change PA.  Another example is Jamie Vardy. He stepped up to be a leader star in Premier League, but he was still playing in regional league even at the age of 25!  A fixed PA would never see that coming!  Does God have a pre-set limit for everyone at born? I truly doubt it. 

[Cougar2010]

9 hours ago, Cap'nRad said:

This isn't a proven fact, is it? It's an argument, nothing more.

There are other theories inc one from many years ago suggesting that 10,000 hours of practice would make you good at a professional sport.

If that was the case though why aren't the top football clubs churning out loads of top footballers every year?

Then you can point to our DNA and how that affects our physical & mental characteristics.  We know everybody is either left brain or right brain dominent, same for hands & feet as basic examples.  No matter how many hours I put in my right foot will never be as good as my left & my left hand will never be as good as my right.  Practice can only go so far and can never trump natural ability IMO.

Aside from that discussion though the game needs an isolated cap to function in a workable manner as has been mentioned in the many threads on the subject.

 

[tacticsdude]

13 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

the game needs an isolated cap to function in a workable manner

Why?

Keep the PA cap for functional calculations, but make it a soft cap, that can be affected by certain events in the life of the player. Like moving to Real Madrid, emerging from injury to find himself a key player for the team, etc.

I once had a young striker (I think it was FM08) that was very promising but showing his age with mistakes here and there and acting unsure. He was taking tutoring from our lead striker and they got along very well. I played 2 STs so they would be a team upfront. One important game we were down and playing poorly, and my lead striker got himself red-carded for simulation in the box. The kid put the team on his shoulders, scored 2 or more goals to secure the win and never again played like a youngster. I don't know what kind of wiring is in the game, but watching it felt like we all were feeling down and upset at the loss of our striker in a time of need, and something awoke in the kid that he decided to make things right for his mentor. He grew 2 years of seniority in one match and I think his PA should have gone up 5 points along with his cathartic experience - because that's very much what happens IRL.

[Cougar2010]

6 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

Why?

I don't really feel like getting into a long winded discussion yet again so basically because without a cap there would be far too many Messi's & Ronaldo's in saves and it would be far too easy for human users to cheat and gain a team full of them.

 

8 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

Keep the PA cap for functional calculations, but make it a soft cap

PA is a soft cap of sorts.

It controls the rate of CA growth of each player.  The further away from their PA a player is the more their CA will grow and likewise the closer they are the less their CA will grow.

Therefore PA acts as both a soft & a hard cap within the game.

[tacticsdude]

32 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

Therefore PA acts as both a soft & a hard cap within the game.

You mean as of now.

33 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

without a cap there would be far too many Messi's & Ronaldo's in saves and it would be far too easy for human users to cheat and gain a team full of them.

So the engine is not balanced right.

 

I don't think we are disagreeing here. I understand that the way the engine is built right now uses the PA as some form of top-end of the growth curve and it probably does some calculations off of it to dictate growth speed and what not. I'm following that.

I think what we are saying is that the current system is not that great, and we could do better. To say that it is so because otherwise the engine falls apart, all I'm hearing is that the engine needs to be better balanced. You can assume that as part of this suggestion of using a flexPA to be more realistic, we understand that this would be a change that would require the current game logic to be improved.

I think we just don't like that current answer: 'the system is somewhat unrealistic and rigid because otherwise we would have to do better at it'. That doesn't sound like a good reason to hold back important and useful feature improvements.

[Cougar2010]

4 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

You mean as of now.

I have no idea what you mean by that.

 

4 minutes ago, tacticsdude said:

So the engine is not balanced right.

What do you mean by engine?

Whatever you mean I don't see how you come to the conclusion that that something isn't balanced. 

PA works as it is, it has worked as it is for well over 20 years and performs the task required of it.  If you want to remove it the tasks that it does need to be done by something else or in a different way.

 

[SophJay182]

1 hour ago, Cougar2010 said:

I don't really feel like getting into a long winded discussion yet again so basically because without a cap there would be far too many Messi's & Ronaldo's in saves and it would be far too easy for human users to cheat and gain a team full of them.

10 years ago when processing power was far less than today I would have agreed with you.

These days I have absolutely no doubt a system could be made that balances

[Cougar2010]

5 minutes ago, SophJay182 said:

10 years ago when processing power was far less than today I would have agreed with you.

These days I have absolutely no doubt a system could be made that balances

No doubt other systems could be made as has been discussed in other threads.

If you were starting from scratch some of them are very viable and worth considering however to replace the PA system we currently have it would have to be something better and not just doing the same job to make it worthwhile from both a financial & time POV.

[SophJay182]

42 minutes ago, Cougar2010 said:

No doubt other systems could be made as has been discussed in other threads.

If you were starting from scratch some of them are very viable and worth considering however to replace the PA system we currently have it would have to be something better and not just doing the same job to make it worthwhile from both a financial & time POV.

I agree that it would require a pretty substantial reword in the underlying match engine and that's probably what's put SI off the idea in the medium term.

It's the same with positions. The CA attributes system still uses positions rather than roles and it leads to some "inefficiencies" in the game. I'm very confident SI will eventually look to replace positions with roles entirely, but it's a big job and again would require a big revamp of the game engine.

[Cap'nRad]

3 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

There are other theories inc one from many years ago suggesting that 10,000 hours of practice would make you good at a professional sport.

If that was the case though why aren't the top football clubs churning out loads of top footballers every year?

I think it's because most pro footballers have had more than that amount of practice and experience throughout their lifetime. I would assume 10,000 hours isn't enough to guarantee becoming a professional

 

3 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

Then you can point to our DNA and how that affects our physical & mental characteristics.  We know everybody is either left brain or right brain dominent, same for hands & feet as basic examples.  No matter how many hours I put in my right foot will never be as good as my left & my left hand will never be as good as my right.  Practice can only go so far and can never trump natural ability IMO.

I believe the left-right argument is inaccurate as it is definitely possible for both feet to have the same impact on the pitch. All it takes is practice. If you're right footed but you solely practice with your left, your left will be better at playing football than your right, despite your right dominance. Of course both feet being equal, you will still favor a certain foot but if you practice enough you won't really notice the difference when switching to the other. You can notice young players nowadays putting more emphasis on developing their weaker foot as they have started to notice its usefulness on the pitch. Even Gareth Bale at his "old age" in Real Madrid started developing his right foot to be more effective.

 

3 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

Aside from that discussion though the game needs an isolated cap to function in a workable manner as has been mentioned in the many threads on the subject.

I think a cap should come about as a result of the game's different factors and should be more flexible, as opposed to the one we have now.

[tiago_wakabayashi]

1. variable PA system.

I think PA could be variable yes, someone here gave the Vardy example, maybe with some limit, it could be variable yes

2. Experience.

FM got some good things from FIFAM, why not this one too? I think it should have in game and with levels of experience. Age can influence but it cannot be a determinant factor and yes his match experience. Play strong (youth/reserve) leagues will develop this part quicker, of course including good ratings and number of matches. Maybe could have a general match experience indicator and inside it match experience for each league the player participated. For example, when you contract a foreign player. Depending, he could have came from a too different football school, then he would need (re)adapt to the new style of game. In Brazil IRL, I note it not only with foreign players but with brazilians who played a long time in Europe and need readapt to brazilian league. 

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.