[Suggestion] Dynamic PA

[santy001]

And in your attempts to be glib you're putting words into my mouth. In every discussion and even in this one I've never professed the infallibility of researchers. In fact, I explicitly wrote down that our lack of omniscience is the big problem. If you want to start claiming otherwise to help convince yourself of a narrative you're building in your own mind, go right ahead.

10 hours ago, ale1969 said:

I told you, it's mechanical and if I start today a new career in FM18 I already know which players to buy, which players to sell, etc... boring!

This is literally, the exact point in which you're conflating PA with a players development. That a player has a high PA is almost an irrelevance - it's known which players come good each year on FM (and ties in with that whole curious playerbase I mentioned that FM has that works this out very quickly) because they're able to identify which among the high PA players will go on to develop well. 

I've already covered this point, it was the one where I talked about the youngsters at Stoke, and how despite Thibaud Verlinden being a -8 and typically available for around £2m from an AI controlled Stoke, no one is rushing to buy him year in, year out. He's been a -8 since his inclusion in the DB. On some saves he does develop, on others he doesn't. So it's not high PA alone that guarantees a player won't go on to great things.

- - -

The last point is a bizarre, and utter irrelevance too. You're again demonstrating that you don't actually know in detail what you're talking about. The star rating system in game, is completely based on AI staff members perception about a player. It's been that way for a few years now. Different staff members will have different opinions.

Further to this, the stars, even if they were an absolute definitive guide to CA/PA in the game, that still has absolutely no bearing at all on how a player is actually performing in game. In fact, such is the lack of relevance on this front in terms of direct performance you can typically see something in game now using its own separate star system called Role Ability. 

It's not my job as a researcher to know the ins and outs of that aspect of the game. But it provides a different set of star ratings to those the in-game staff provide on ability and potential. They're assessing something different of course, specifics regarding to playing positions and roles.

- - -

Ultimately, a system like this median ability wouldn't make it into the game because I was able to point out its flaws within minutes of reading it. I expect someone with vastly superior knowledge to my own to be able to point out even more issues. Beyond that I simply try to help people to get a better understanding so that they can better provide critique to actually help bring about improvement in the future. If you talk authoritatively on something when you're wrong - expect that to be pointed out. 

[ale1969]

1 ora fa, santy001 ha scritto:

This is literally, the exact point in which you're conflating PA with a players development. That a player has a high PA is almost an irrelevance - it's known which players come good each year on FM (and ties in with that whole curious playerbase I mentioned that FM has that works this out very quickly) because they're able to identify which among the high PA players will go on to develop well. 

I've already covered this point, it was the one where I talked about the youngsters at Stoke, and how despite Thibaud Verlinden being a -8 and typically available for around £2m from an AI controlled Stoke, no one is rushing to buy him year in, year out. He's been a -8 since his inclusion in the DB. On some saves he does develop, on others he doesn't. So it's not high PA alone that guarantees a player won't go on to great things.

 

And this is exactly what you don't understand.

A high PA gives a chance to develop a player till high levels, probably a too HUGE chance and an exploitable one, as wonderkids lists and other spolers are avidly read by players every time a new FM is released.

A low PA instead blocks "prophetically" any chance of further developing.

There's no 1%, 0.1% or 0.01% chance as in real football.

No it's ZERO chance 0% chance, Z E R O, null, nada, kein, how much I have to spell it so you can understand?

1 ora fa, santy001 ha scritto:

The last point is a bizarre, and utter irrelevance too. You're again demonstrating that you don't actually know in detail what you're talking about. The star rating system in game, is completely based on AI staff members perception about a player. It's been that way for a few years now. Different staff members will have different opinions.

I used stars because SortitoutSI uses stars and not real CA/PA values and because you can't find anyway any example of a player with 2 stars potential developing into a 4 stars one, despite stars not being a direct representation of CA/PA, despite staff members with awful CA/PA judging. No one. In fact you skipped my question.

1 ora fa, santy001 ha scritto:

Further to this, the stars, even if they were an absolute definitive guide to CA/PA in the game, that still has absolutely no bearing at all on how a player is actually performing in game. In fact, such is the lack of relevance on this front in terms of direct performance you can typically see something in game now using its own separate star system called Role Ability. 

Please, don't try to sell that players can play well also with a low CA value. Please don't. I know that 10-15 CA difference makes no difference if the low CA player has the right attributes in the right place.

But we're talking of something different, that "average" CA player won't ever ever develop despite all his good rating, scoring, tackling, passing, crossing, dribbling, etc... no, he will be frozen by its PA rating that someone gave him.

I'll give you an example: in my brasilian saves I always buy since FM17 a Porto winger who has great pace, acceleration, flair and dribbling as he performs great during the matches. Each time he's been scouted as 3/3 stars by many different scouts with different JCA/JPA attributes. He's valued 3/3 stars by different assistant managers or other staff members (this is how the stars system works btw, you hardly get very varied results, but you assumed I don't know ****, ok, let's go on). The player is 23 years aged, in FM17 was 22. Having limited PA it comes away very cheap as Porto isn't interested to extend his contract. This is because AI looks at his PA, compares it with the first teamers, and decides that the player won't ever have enough quality. This despite his stats show that he can dribble past half of he opposition team... AI doesn't care. I can. And get him. And play in my first team. And he plays better than my other 4 stars winger. A lot better.  

So you have this problems related to PA:

1) AI can't judge well the player 

2) the player (alas me) can exploit it buying him for peanuts 

3) the player can play 10 times better and more consistently than before and his attributes won't change a notch once he hits the PA wall even if being just 23, he can just decline with injuries, age etc

If you think this is a realistic system that depicts well what happen in the real football world, ok, you're entitled to your opinion of course. I still have serious doubts.

 

1 ora fa, santy001 ha scritto:

Ultimately, a system like this median ability wouldn't make it into the game because I was able to point out its flaws within minutes of reading it. 

If it was for me I'd just eliminate PA and substitute it with a dynamic coded system that allows game events and some randomness to move players' CA during their career.

Let's repeat it for the third time: MA was a soft wall (not hard one like PA) because I understand Herne concerns to get rid of a simple and convenient instrument like PA to keep the DB sane.

But if you can code a dynamic system in a balanced way you can get rid of MA and PA and just work with a dynamic CA.

[CFuller]

21 minutes ago, ale1969 said:

And this is exactly what you don't understand.

A high PA gives a chance to develop a player till high levels, probably a too HUGE chance and an exploitable one, as wonderkids lists and other spolers are avidly read by players every time a new FM is released.

A low PA instead blocks "prophetically" any chance of further developing.

There's no 1%, 0.1% or 0.01% chance as in real football.

No it's ZERO chance 0% chance, Z E R O, null, nada, kein, how much I have to spell it so you can understand?

No, Football Manager is not black-and-white in that respect. If a player has reached their PA, that does not necessarily mean they cannot develop any further. I'm pretty sure that you can still improve their attribute spread with training (i.e. improving key attributes at the expense of less important ones), thus potentially making them more effective.

23 minutes ago, ale1969 said:

If it was for me I'd just eliminate PA and substitute it with a dynamic coded system that allows game events and some randomness to move players' CA during their career.

Let's repeat it for the third time: MA was a soft wall (not hard one like PA) because I understand Herne concerns to get rid of a simple and convenient instrument like PA to keep the DB sane.

But if you can code a dynamic system in a balanced way you can get rid of MA and PA and just work with a dynamic CA.

Game events and serious injuries can affect a player's ability to reach their peak already. Changes in hidden mental attributes like Professionalism and Ambition also play a part.

I still cannot understand why Potential Ability should be replaced with Median Ability (which as a name makes very little sense in terms of an individual player). It just feels like PA Lite to me.

Santy has gone out of his way to explain why PA is still preferred, and I feel like my discussions with you are going around in circles (like my discussions with the OP), so I'm going to knock this on the head. I cannot be bothered to continue arguing with someone who simply will not listen to the perfectly reasonable and insightful explanations put forward by a well-respected SI researcher.

[herne79]

Just to pick up on the point about buying the same players.  FM18 (or any FM) is a snap shot.  A point in time.  Of course we're going to look at the same players in each save we start because that's who's available for our club's needs at that point in time.  So the Researchers have given us their opinions of player quality at this point in time.  It'd be pretty daft if we wanted to buy Hamsik in one save and he's great but in another save he's rubbish because he's had some artificial PA lowering forced on him.  That wouldn't reflect his ability at this point in time.  And that's the same for real world clubs.  They don't look at different players and yeh sometimes they get it wrong too.  I'm sure Chelsea love seeing how Salah and de Bruyne have developed after they let them go.  But at the point in time they did let them go, they didn't realise what they could become.  That's not dynamic PA, that's just a failure to recognise it.

But what about actual younger talent (not newgens).  For many of them we already have a kind of dynamic PA.  This is where Researchers apply a negative number such as -6 or -8.5.  Once a game is started, the game itself then translates that figure into an actual PA figure within a certain range.  So a PA of -8.5 would translate into an actual PA in game somewhere between 140 and 170.  This provides variety in young players whenever a new game is started.  So De Ligt could be a top world class defender in one save, but a mere squad player in another.  ok the PA doesn't dynamically change once a new game starts, but variety is provided.  But again, a snap shot of a point in time is given.  De Ligt could well become the next world class defender, but he might not - we can't predict the future, and how many great prospects have turned out to be duds?  And how many duds turn out to be actually pretty good.  Again, it's a point in time.

Now, FM19, we get a new point in time.  Some players will have changed.  Others won't.  So again FM19 gives us a new start.  And I think this is what the issue is with using a dynamic PA - it's a method to try to manipulate the future rather than accepting each iteration of FM is a stand alone stake in the ground based on a view of the world as it is today.  We know who the "good" and "bad" players are today, just as real life clubs do as well.  We know that a lot of young players will develop differently from one save to the next.  And we know that the game isn't trying to manipulate and predict the future by artificially making PA dynamic.

Anyway, I still come back to my original point above.  PA isn't actually about any of this, it's just a database function the game uses which the player base has discovered and is using for an unintended purpose.  imo it should be permanently hidden, not even visible using an editor, and so more reliance can be placed on scout and coach reports to help us determine who to buy or develop.  It should also be noted this is one of the big unfair advantages we have over the AI managers and just for that reason alone it should be removed permanently from view.  But people play the game in different ways and if that's what they enjoy then good luck to them.

[herne79]

55 minutes ago, ale1969 said:

This is because AI looks at his PA, compares it with the first teamers, and decides that the player won't ever have enough quality.

Except that's not what the AI does.  PA may form a part of the assessment, but the AI actually also looks at a young player's current ability and compares it to other similar players.  So AI coach thinks "wow this kid looks good for his age, he must have great potential" and gives him a high potential accordingly.  That's something called "Perceived Potential Ability" or "PPA" for short - and it's very different from PA which a Researcher (or the game) sets to control the database.

So when you say:

56 minutes ago, ale1969 said:

but you assumed I don't know ****, ok, let's go on

It's not only ironic but rude.  I'm going to give you a gentle warning here now - have an open and frank discussion, but rein in the passion before you say something unacceptable please because then I'll have to step in.  I don't want to do that so please don't make me.

[ale1969]

1 ora fa, CFuller ha scritto:

Santy has gone out of his way to explain why PA is still preferred, and I feel like my discussions with you are going around in circles (like my discussions with the OP), so I'm going to knock this on the head. I cannot be bothered to continue arguing with someone who simply will not listen to the perfectly reasonable and insightful explanations put forward by a well-respected SI researcher.

 

43 minuti fa, herne79 ha scritto:

It's not only ironic but rude.  

Sorry CFuller but in the end you don't put any explanation why it should work that way except the argumentum ab auctoritate by "a well respected SI researcher". And this patronizing behavior is what stimulates "rude" reactions by gamers who plays this game since CM times like me.

58 minuti fa, herne79 ha scritto:

Just to pick up on the point about buying the same players.  FM18 (or any FM) is a snap shot.  A point in time. 

Now, FM19, we get a new point in time.  Some players will have changed.  Others won't.  So again FM19 gives us a new start.  And I think this is what the issue is with using a dynamic PA - it's a method to try to manipulate the future rather than accepting each iteration of FM is a stand alone stake in the ground based on a view of the world as it is today.  We know who the "good" and "bad" players are today, just as real life clubs do as well.  We know that a lot of young players will develop differently from one save to the next.  And we know that the game isn't trying to manipulate and predict the future by artificially making PA dynamic.

Herne, your point is perfect when you're talking about CA, but PA is exactly "trying to manipulate and predict the future" in a way no pro scout could and this makes the game unrealistic.

The dynamic negative numbers in PA is a step toward trying to make the future more dynamic like the real world, it's just not enough as once a player hits the PA wall there's little to no space for surprises like Salah or Lasagna or Verdi or... <insert here the name of any surprise player>.

58 minuti fa, herne79 ha scritto:

Anyway, I still come back to my original point above.  PA isn't actually about any of this, it's just a database function the game uses which the player base has discovered and is using for an unintended purpose.  imo it should be permanently hidden, not even visible using an editor, and so more reliance can be placed on scout and coach reports to help us determine who to buy or develop.  It should also be noted this is one of the big unfair advantages we have over the AI managers and just for that reason alone it should be removed permanently from view.  But people play the game in different ways and if that's what they enjoy then good luck to them.

I completely understand the fact that the PA number is a very convenient and easy way to keep the DB sane and reliable, this is why I proposed a soft cap like MA instead than a hard cap like PA, but anyway you get another important point, that number should be hidden to the gamers. And the best way to hide it is that the code should put a limit, through chances and probabilities of attribute modifying related to game events, not a magic number in the DB. The PPA would be a perfect start as it is exactly what researchers comes out with, a "perceived" PA based on the current abilities and age of a player.  

I know it would be probably a hell to balance. This is the point and I can accept it, but just some years ago regens were a perfect replica of retired players, for the same reason, now they're not and they are based on some probabilistic algorithm that also avoids another gamers' exploitation while adding some more unpredictability to the game.

So I have hopes about it.

 

[herne79]

51 minutes ago, ale1969 said:

but PA is exactly "trying to manipulate and predict the future" in a way no pro scout could and this makes the game unrealistic.

Personally I think it's important to separate "manipulate" and "predict", which perhaps I should have done earlier.

PA is about trying to predict the future.  Well actually it isn't because it's intended purpose is as a database function - it's us gamers who use it for prediction purposes, but I digress.

A dynamic PA is about trying to manipulate that prediction in order to present greater variety through saves.  I like increased variety, just not at the expense of reality.  Personally I would much rather solely rely on the Researchers to assess attributes and potential rather than taking that and overlaying some artificial coding on top.  If a Researcher gets it wrong then fine, I'm ok with that - nobody's perfect, nobody can predict the future - and neither can a game.  But in the next release of an updated database every November and March players get reviewed.  In a way such reviews are a kind of dynamic PA already as Researchers can change their opinion as they see players change and alter stats.  It's just that those changes won't take an effect until we start a new game with the updated database.

Dynamic PA is trying to swerve that.  Whilst Researchers can and do change their opinions, those opinions are at least based on countless hours of actually watching players live and in the flesh.  So yeh, I'll take the snap shot of how players currently look and run with that - along with 6 monthly updates - rather than trying to artificially manipulate that data with some coding.

What I can get behind however is more variety and diversity in player development.  At present it is simply too easy to take a young player and develop him to his PA cap.  The AI can do that, but nowhere near as quickly, easily or as regularly as we can.  That's unfair.  We can take practically any young player and without much effort maximise his development.  That's nothing more than a robotic production line.  imo it should be harder to take a player and train him to achieve his potential than it currently is.  With a very high set PA (for example) I'd like to see a variety, from save to save, of sometimes a player becoming world class, sometimes he ends up at a 3rd tier club, sometimes somewhere in between.  That then is not a dynamic PA - which satisfies the issue of potential being the best you can possibly be - it's a more dynamic development process which I think would better reflect reality.

That's what needs changing in my opinion, not manipulating PA to produce variety.  Hopefully FM19's training changes will head towards that.

[ale1969]

1 ora fa, herne79 ha scritto:

A dynamic PA is about trying to manipulate that prediction in order to present greater variety through saves.  I like increased variety, just not at the expense of reality. 

Scout and researchers makes predictions based on actual player qualities considering his age, just like the PPA AI uses but  with the human intelligence and experience added (which are invaluable, I agree with you). The only point that really can't win me it's that PA is a wall, while i guess it should be something more dynamic just like the negative PA in the editor, that's it. Negative PA numbers were added for this very reason, we can't have perfect predictions because it detracts from realism.

1 ora fa, herne79 ha scritto:

What I can get behind however is more variety and diversity in player development.  At present it is simply too easy to take a young player and develop him to his PA cap.  The AI can do that, but nowhere near as quickly, easily or as regularly as we can.  That's unfair.  We can take practically any young player and without much effort maximise his development.  That's nothing more than a robotic production line.  imo it should be harder to take a player and train him to achieve his potential than it currently is.  With a very high set PA (for example) I'd like to see a variety, from save to save, of sometimes a player becoming world class, sometimes he ends up at a 3rd tier club, sometimes somewhere in between.  That then is not a dynamic PA - which satisfies the issue of potential being the best you can possibly be - it's a more dynamic development process which I think would better reflect reality.

That's what needs changing in my opinion, not manipulating PA to produce variety.  Hopefully FM19's training changes will head towards that.

I can't agree with you more, except that more failures mean that there should be more chances, and we roll back to the manipulate predictions argument.

You see while others think that not having PA is a highway for an insane football world full of Messi I'd like to have a game where players with good current abilities for their age would have a harder time than now to develop into great players, but with more players to have that chance, even if minimal and even at an older age (football is changing a bit, age related). If the development code would really achieve it probably you won't need a fixed PA anymore because the development code itself would take care of avoiding unbalancing.

That was the sense of my post, not very far from your idea.

[santy001]

7 minutes ago, ale1969 said:

you won't need a fixed PA anymore

You still aren't understanding the philosophy of what PA is.

PA is the embodiment of a human beings limitations. In this context, it's their limits as a footballer. The philosophy behind it is that every player has a limit, a point at which no matter how hard they work, no matter how well anything goes they won't get beyond. 

That is what the 100m sprint analogy was about, that is what PA is. From how SI approach it, there will always be this limit included in the game in one form or another, because it is a very much realistic thing that we all have our limits. It's a hell of a job to be asked to try and guess what someones limits are, but that is the level of reality that SI aspire to include in the game. It really is the case, there are physical limitations that apply to us all, and they're not equal for everyone. PA is the tool that represents this. Maybe you disagree with this and think a footballers potential is unlimited, it's just harder to get to the higher end.

I think you'll find an awful lot of people object to the claim that they are simply not better footballers because they didn't work hard enough. 

- - -

Ultimately, you're several+ years earlier on a path many of us have wandered down before. Many of us have queried alternatives to PA down the years, and the process still often goes down the same route. The development side of the game is where the changes are best made. At least still at this stage.

And many do not realise this is happening on an ongoing basis. There have been fantastic posts from people at SI over the last 2 years or so detailing subtle changes. How things like a Vardy-esc late-career rise is possible. How young players can get complacent in their development, or can lose their ambition from getting a big contract early on. The determination attribute now plays a part in development when for many years it was simply just an 'in-match' attribute. SI are actually doing brilliantly well in this area, because its so unnoticeable. The problem then is that with this not being particularly stand out, many do not realise the scope of improvement there. 

It is also worth remembering that as a researcher we sign a non-disclosure agreement, and that means that despite having more knowledge of certain things we can't openly discuss it. If there's something I want to talk about on the forums, that helps educate people, I ask someone at SI first. But it does mean that a lot of what I talk about is being limited to what players know, and not something that may inadvertently breach the NDA in place with SI.

[ale1969]

18 minuti fa, santy001 ha scritto:

You still aren't understanding the philosophy of what PA is.

PA is the embodiment of a human beings limitations. In this context, it's their limits as a footballer. The philosophy behind it is that every player has a limit, a point at which no matter how hard they work, no matter how well anything goes they won't get beyond. 

Great, and if reality doesn't accustom to the philosophy it's reality which is wrong. We have a hegelian PA.

[enigmatic]

Of all the arguments for a dynamic or nonexistent PA, people complaining that the game routinely and predictably turns de Ligt into a world class player has to be the weirdest. I mean, how would you even think about designing a system where the highest rated and most mature teenage defenders in Europe playing regular football rarely become world class, especially if removing caps on development? 

 

But on a more serious note, the issue of researchers preventing the odd Salah-like overperformance is a much lesser issue for realism than an alternate system where literally any Premier League player in their early twenties can achieve Salah-like leaps in performance.

 

 

[santy001]

I assume @ale1969 you believe people have limits right? You don't believe that FM should make it possible for Mo Salah, if he works hard enough, to grow wings and then proceed to just fly down the wings. Because you know that's not possible for humans. It would be stupidly absurd to suggest it could happen. It just so happens, that's a limitation we all share in common.

So of course, long before the FM game is even on the table, an awful lot of stuff is discounted, because its not possible. What we then get into is what is possible (or the belief of what is possible) for individuals. So we look at Messi, Ronaldo, Salah, Iniesta and all the others and think "what is possible for this individual?"

No matter how hard 99.9% of footballers work, they will never be as good as Messi. No matter what advantages, no matter what training or conditions occur they just cannot attain it. It doesn't matter how many million to one shots you give Jon Walters in a game, it never should be possible he could one day get close to Messi as a footballer. You're painting a picture at the moment where you're suggesting its just the case that these players haven't tried hard enough or haven't had a good enough set-up to let them get there, and that it should be possible for anyone to climb to the top in terms of raw ability.

That just doesn't seem right. I would say it's not something I could ever see myself agreeing with. It also doesn't seem to be the way anyone views it at SI. We do have to guess on what each persons limit is, and that's unsatisfying on one hand because it's not something we can ever truly know - even after someones career. We'll never know now if Messi actually had the potential to be even better than he has been, but we do our best in the context of the game of FM.

As I said, simplifying it down, we're saying that a PA rating of 100 means someone can lift 100kg. They might currently be at 80kg, but they can still potentially lift another 20kg. There's nothing they can do (at least outside the realms of doping, which will never make it into FM) to increase that. It doesn't matter what age, or how quickly they advance to the 100kg if that is their limit that's their limit. That is what PA is representing - PA is an immovable object of limitation on a human beings potential. The fact we can get it wrong is just unfortunately a part of the process. 

But just as unrealistic as a player being low-balled in terms of PA and never being able to achieve the career he then goes on to have, is a player who never had a chance of being one of the best going on to do so. 

[ale1969]

4 minuti fa, santy001 ha scritto:

I assume @ale1969 you believe people have limits right?

Sorry it was a moot point 10 messages ago, just read my messages again. And anyway I believe that people have huge limits in judging other people limits.

[ale1969]

1 ora fa, santy001 ha scritto:

As I said, simplifying it down, we're saying that a PA rating of 100 means someone can lift 100kg. They might currently be at 80kg, but they can still potentially lift another 20kg. There's nothing they can do (at least outside the realms of doping, which will never make it into FM) to increase that. It doesn't matter what age, or how quickly they advance to the 100kg if that is their limit that's their limit. That is what PA is representing - PA is an immovable object of limitation on a human beings potential. The fact we can get it wrong is just unfortunately a part of the process. 

You see I was talking of onions, you reply talking of pears.

I got the point of @herne79 of PA as a very convenient internal tool to keep the DB sane and he rightly pointed out one of the problems, that a gamer can develop a high PA player into a world class champion almost effortlessly.

To cool down the tones, because I guess it's all down to a misunderstanding, I agree with you that it's completely true and right that with the ACTUAL code having a PA is the way to go and if we should have a PA it's far better to have it from some educated guess from a researcher than a random shot like in regens.

In an ideal simulation game though, player developing would be so advanced and sophisticated that it would simulate real life development where you have the young with incredible abilities for its age, just to stop there (Diawara of Naples is a real life example) while you can have the Salah who developes from good but stagnant abilities in the middle of his career.

1 ora fa, santy001 ha scritto:

No matter how hard 99.9% of footballers work, they will never be as good as Messi. No matter what advantages, no matter what training or conditions occur they just cannot attain it.

None says the development code should allow for something different, you can also decrease the chances from 0.1% to 0.01%. It's called balancing, the thing I'm talking about for the last 10 messages.
 

[HUNT3R]

11 hours ago, ale1969 said:

None says the development code should allow for something different, you can also decrease the chances from 0.1% to 0.01%. It's called balancing, the thing I'm talking about for the last 10 messages.
 

I've said before that this has very, very little to do with PA. The 0.01% (which is REALLY small) that you want, is down to development. So it's not PA, but development that needs to be better/harder for us to exploit. If that's the case, researchers could maybe even ease up on the PA judgement very,very slightly and we'd have different development curves for the same player - not because of PA, but because of development.

In De Ligt's case, since he was brought up, it's easy to develop him to reach his PA. I've even done it. If his PA was a little higher (or lower) I still would have had him reach it. While we're on that, 0.01% for a 170 PA player is 171.7 - you're not going to notice the difference. Anyway, I'm going to get him to reach is PA in 99.9% of the times I try. If it was more difficult to develop a player, that 170 PA player might only reach 165 CA. Or 160. Or I crash and burn and he only reaches 150 CA. If researchers knew it was more difficult to develop a player, they could take that player they think has a 170 PA and assign him to be 175 or 180 PA, just because it's difficult to reach that ultimate PA.

That makes the save dynamic, while still retaining the importance of a researcher's knowledge and judgment and it keeps a structure in the game.

[ale1969]

4 ore fa, HUNT3R ha scritto:

I've said before that this has very, very little to do with PA. The 0.01% (which is REALLY small) that you want, is down to development. So it's not PA, but development that needs to be better/harder for us to exploit. If that's the case, researchers could maybe even ease up on the PA judgement very,very slightly and we'd have different development curves for the same player - not because of PA, but because of development.

In De Ligt's case, since he was brought up, it's easy to develop him to reach his PA. I've even done it. If his PA was a little higher (or lower) I still would have had him reach it. While we're on that, 0.01% for a 170 PA player is 171.7 - you're not going to notice the difference. Anyway, I'm going to get him to reach is PA in 99.9% of the times I try. If it was more difficult to develop a player, that 170 PA player might only reach 165 CA. Or 160. Or I crash and burn and he only reaches 150 CA. If researchers knew it was more difficult to develop a player, they could take that player they think has a 170 PA and assign him to be 175 or 180 PA, just because it's difficult to reach that ultimate PA.

That makes the save dynamic, while still retaining the importance of a researcher's knowledge and judgment and it keeps a structure in the game.

0.1% or 0.01% was the chance for a player to reach Messi's level, alas the 200 CA hard cap once PA is removed.

But anyway we seem to agree that PA is needed because development is too easy now, and for the gamer is almost a sure shot. 

What would happen in RL? Say that a 18 years player has abilities that could be translated into the game as 120 CA: there will be a chance that he stops there or that abilities raise through years, the higher the value the smaller the chance though (with 200 that unfamous 0.01% which is still too huge because it's 1 player out 10000, while there's just a Messi out of 500-600k).

It would also happen that more the player ages the lesser the chance to develop is, Vardy, Lasagna etc are exceptions, but they are the exceptions that make football so fascinating and unpredictable.

Of course the higher the initial CA is (which reflects the abilities at this point in time of a player) and the lower is the age, the higher the chance to have a high "final" CA. That's the logic beside every scouting and it is used also by AI 

Quote

So AI coach thinks "wow this kid looks good for his age, he must have great potential"

Is this possibile to code? I guess yes.

Is this easy to balance? No, it would be a real pain.

But as @herne79 pointed out it's the development code. Till it doesn't simulate reality better I agree that having a PA wall it's the only way to keep the DB sane. Still it would be a real giant step toward making FM a real simulation.

[HUNT3R]

@ale1969, my bad about the 0.01%.

We agree overall then.  

[XaW]

On 14/10/2018 at 17:53, ale1969 said:

And please don't say "I played my 3 stars young player till he became mature and it played great also in CL finals". It won't happen, I never saw a game when it happened, if I browse all reknown players with their 20 years long save they don't have any 3 stars first teamer regen, so please, really, don't.

But what if I can prove it?

On 25/10/2017 at 08:23, XaW said:

I'd like to add something that it took me a very long time to understand about this game and youth players. In the past I would attribute too much on the assistants recommendation of the youngsters talents and only sign the ones who had the best potential. Lately I've signed more players than I used to and this sometimes really help out. I'm going to give an example for a player in my current squad.

In my first intake I had a couple of great players, and a lot of average ones, but I kept almost everyone. The one I want you to notice are Edmond Xhafa:

2 star potential, maybe 3 star. Not exactly a super talent I thought, though he had a good personality. Unfortunatly, I don't have a screenshot of his player profile, since I only did that for the most talented (or so I thought). That was back in 2018. Now, I'm in 2022 and let's see how 4 years of training and playing have improved him:

He is one of the better players in my squad. He is capped three times for Albania and just scored a hattrick as a central midfielder.

I thought I'd showcase this since I far too often let youngsters go if my assistant didn't rate them. Don't let the stars fool you, sometimes the players can become far better than expected.

This is a post I did when playing FM17. This was a player who came through my youth intake, with a poor rating and were not a player to notice. But he had a good personality and I kept playing him and at 20 he became a full international. Did his PA change? No, only his CA.

I've earlier written a long post about how I feel the current system to be changed, but here is a small recap; I would like to see PA be much much higher for a lot of players, but at the same time make it much much harder to reach. Currently (well FM18 at least), it's far to easy to have players reach their best level. Some tutoring and some gametime and bang, Bob's your uncle.

I would like it to be harder, based around player personality and some random events (which I do feel happen in real life!). I would like to see more variety in development (some late bloomers, some very early, but caps out soon, sudden stagnations, etc) to really separate players and their development from each other.

This would also make the list of wonderkids be different each game, since variances can lead to vastly different developments and careers. So you don't know that <insert wonderkid> will be amazing in every single game, while <insert non-wonderkid> will always fail.

[ale1969]

3 minuti fa, XaW ha scritto:

But what if I can prove it?

This is a post I did when playing FM17. This was a player who came through my youth intake, with a poor rating and were not a player to notice. But he had a good personality and I kept playing him and at 20 he became a full international. Did his PA change? No, only his CA.

I was talking of Premiere level when I was referring to stars because it's so much different for lower legues, your player is hardly good for a Legue1 or serie C team, probably with a CA of about 90-100  looking at his attributes and the step from 85 to 100 means a couple of stars in lower legues while at Premiere Legue level it almost won't make any difference, yeah he would be 1 1/2 stars, 2 stars, that's it. But that's not really the point anyway.

10 minuti fa, XaW ha scritto:

I would like to see PA be much much higher for a lot of players, but at the same time make it much much harder to reach. Currently (well FM18 at least), it's far to easy to have players reach their best level. Some tutoring and some gametime and bang, Bob's your uncle.

I would like it to be harder, based around player personality and some random events (which I do feel happen in real life!). I would like to see more variety in development (some late bloomers, some very early, but caps out soon, sudden stagnations, etc) to really separate players and their development from each other.

This would also make the list of wonderkids be different each game, since variances can lead to vastly different developments and careers. So you don't know that <insert wonderkid> will be amazing in every single game, while <insert non-wonderkid> will always fail.

Welcome on board! 😉

[santy001]

26 minutes ago, XaW said:

I would like it to be harder, based around player personality

A lot of it is already, typically you will find the youngsters who are "sure things" have a good/desirable set of hidden mental attributes coupled with some good determination. 

Seb has made some cracking posts over the last year or so as well detailing the events that aren't so random but are things that can genuinely happen to players. So if a youngster gets a big move at age 18 on a massive contract, it can lessen his ambition and some other attributes due to getting too much too soon. It doesn't happen to every player, but presumably, there's a chance if someone is just hoovering up all the best talent and paying them big money they're going to end up with several wasters on their hands. Even if they were in the right mould before.

This is why I keep mentioning Thibaud Verlinden, I take a slightly different approach with youngsters. The vast majority of players cannot drink until they're 18, and there's a tendency for youngsters, still living at home with mum & dad to be the model professional. They never get into any trouble really, they never have much going on, can't drink etc. It seems quite a few players come out of this time in their life appearing as great pro's on the right track. When they actually get a decent wage, and then get some freedom we tend to see things opening up a bit more. So I tend to keep more of the hidden mental stats on zero. This introduces a degree of randomness that I don't like, but essentially these youngsters are untested on their professionalism, their ambition etc in a senior football environment. Nile Ranger is a prime example, at age 17 he looked to be heading somewhere in football, one of the seeming success stories after a difficult childhood. If I remember rightly, he got a pretty lengthy contract at some point after 18 and started going off the rails.

Personally I'm a believer that youngsters need a -X rating system for hidden personality attributes. 

A tougher development path does mean you could be more generous when you're uncertain, but if you feel certain about a players potential a different development model doesn't change where you'd put the PA number at really.

- - -

Looking at other things that affect footballers...

One of the big things that we are always going to struggle to replicate in football though is that so much of why a player ends up not achieving what potential was there is down to mental health issues. Some issues I can recount from Stoke down the last few years, Matthew Etherington had a gambling addiction - he lost a lot of his development period to being obsessed, and then stressed out, by gambling. Bojan recently featured in a lengthy article about the pressure on him at Barcelona resulted in him suffering depression and anxiety attacks. Marc Muniesa has spoke about how his injuries at a young age left him struggling mentally too. Oliver Shenton is a youngster at Stoke who was on the fringes of the first team at 17, and his mother passed away, meaning his football suffered as a result. Not so much failed potential, but Michael Owen also talked about how he would deliberately play himself out of games so he wouldn't have to make high intensity runs due to injury fears. Lee Hendrie brought up how bad financial advice in terms of property investments caused him serious problems. Vincent Pericard started up a charity because he revealed he suffered so many issues with depression that despite persisting as a footballer it blighted most of his career. 

Legally speaking, a lot of these issues couldn't be included in the game for real players, or at least not outright. You put in game that Real Player X is suffering from gambling problems and legal issues are only a moment away. But it's very real. We've seen a huge amount of footballers involved in gambling issues in recent times. 

These are the kind of things that need to some way factor in before PA truly needs overhauling in my mind. 

[XaW]

1 hour ago, ale1969 said:

I was talking of Premiere level when I was referring to stars because it's so much different for lower legues, your player is hardly good for a Legue1 or serie C team, probably with a CA of about 90-100  looking at his attributes and the step from 85 to 100 means a couple of stars in lower legues while at Premiere Legue level it almost won't make any difference, yeah he would be 1 1/2 stars, 2 stars, that's it. But that's not really the point anyway.

My team were in the group stage of the Europa League at the moment and reigning champion of the Swiss top tier ahead of Basel, so not quite Serie C or League 1... But not top Premier League or Serie A, I'll grant you that. But still, players will improve quite a bit and remember, the stars are not PA, but PPA! 

9 minutes ago, santy001 said:

A lot of it is already, typically you will find the youngsters who are "sure things" have a good/desirable set of hidden mental attributes coupled with some good determination. 

Seb has made some cracking posts over the last year or so as well detailing the events that aren't so random but are things that can genuinely happen to players. So if a youngster gets a big move at age 18 on a massive contract, it can lessen his ambition and some other attributes due to getting too much too soon. It doesn't happen to every player, but presumably, there's a chance if someone is just hoovering up all the best talent and paying them big money they're going to end up with several wasters on their hands. Even if they were in the right mould before.

I know, I 've read quite a lot about it and I like that these things can happen, I just want it to be harder to reach the potential. Very few players will reach their maximum potential, at least in my opinion. We have countless examples of this from all around the world where young players are "The next <insert amazing player here>" only to fail. Samba, Adu, Morrison, Mellor and many many more experience this. And when we, in FM also consider players with much lower PA (eg the best that they could ever be) then the percentage who reach their PA would not even reach an actual percent.

16 minutes ago, santy001 said:

This is why I keep mentioning Thibaud Verlinden, I take a slightly different approach with youngsters. The vast majority of players cannot drink until they're 18, and there's a tendency for youngsters, still living at home with mum & dad to be the model professional. They never get into any trouble really, they never have much going on, can't drink etc. It seems quite a few players come out of this time in their life appearing as great pro's on the right track. When they actually get a decent wage, and then get some freedom we tend to see things opening up a bit more. So I tend to keep more of the hidden mental stats on zero. This introduces a degree of randomness that I don't like, but essentially these youngsters are untested on their professionalism, their ambition etc in a senior football environment. Nile Ranger is a prime example, at age 17 he looked to be heading somewhere in football, one of the seeming success stories after a difficult childhood. If I remember rightly, he got a pretty lengthy contract at some point after 18 and started going off the rails.

Personally I'm a believer that youngsters need a -X rating system for hidden personality attributes. 

Yes, and this is something I would like to see in the game. (I would assume the following could only be available for newgens for legal reasons though). I would see a lot more of the "off pitch"-events that change hidden traits, but now with a better notion of what happened and how to work towards countering it in the future (charity work, mentoring, avoid the high wages, etc). This would mirror the changes more realistically, in my mind. Especially when you have played for a while, and the hidden mental stats are quite easy to notice without actually seeing them in numbers.

19 minutes ago, santy001 said:

A tougher development path does mean you could be more generous when you're uncertain, but if you feel certain about a players potential a different development model doesn't change where you'd put the PA number at really.

I disagree on this part. You could be more generous in general, so that many more players have a potential to succeed. Because no one can with any degree of certainty know which players from each youth team will reach the highest level. Even the coaches closest to them can only make educated guesses to their potential. So by giving more players higher potential, but making it much harder to reach and add a bit of randomness into the mix would in my mind make it more realistic.

31 minutes ago, santy001 said:

One of the big things that we are always going to struggle to replicate in football though is that so much of why a player ends up not achieving what potential was there is down to mental health issues. Some issues I can recount from Stoke down the last few years, Matthew Etherington had a gambling addiction - he lost a lot of his development period to being obsessed, and then stressed out, by gambling. Bojan recently featured in a lengthy article about the pressure on him at Barcelona resulted in him suffering depression and anxiety attacks. Marc Muniesa has spoke about how his injuries at a young age left him struggling mentally too. Oliver Shenton is a youngster at Stoke who was on the fringes of the first team at 17, and his mother passed away, meaning his football suffered as a result. Not so much failed potential, but Michael Owen also talked about how he would deliberately play himself out of games so he wouldn't have to make high intensity runs due to injury fears. Lee Hendrie brought up how bad financial advice in terms of property investments caused him serious problems. Vincent Pericard started up a charity because he revealed he suffered so many issues with depression that despite persisting as a footballer it blighted most of his career. 

Legally speaking, a lot of these issues couldn't be included in the game for real players, or at least not outright. You put in game that Real Player X is suffering from gambling problems and legal issues are only a moment away. But it's very real. We've seen a huge amount of footballers involved in gambling issues in recent times. 

These are the kind of things that need to some way factor in before PA truly needs overhauling in my mind. 

This kind of relates to my other paragraph and only to newgens. More of these random happenings, that you can have impact on, but not eliminate. But I think that these things could work in tandem with CA growth, as they do today, but still make nurturing young players even more noticeable. This would even impact manager styles as well, since some like to develop youngster and do everything to improve it, while other managers prefer to buy the finished package while letting their staff do whatever development there is at their club. So this would make the noticeable difference between manager types clearer, as well as pushing users to define their roles regarding youth development.

I love youth development in FM, for me it's one of the most fun aspects of the game. But since I've been doing it for so many years I would like to see it improved upon and this is one of the things I have though about. I am looking forward to the new mentoring system in FM19 though and to see how that affects youth development.

[ale1969]

Dear @santy001 and @XaW, the more I read you the more it seems that we're saying the same thing.

I talked some weeks ago with a manager who works in the young sector of my favorite team and he said that, statistically about 25-30% of players of a Serie A U19 team will have a pro career. In FM terms this means that about 25-30% of players of a top league U19 team will reach and surpass CA 100 that it's more or less the boundary between serie C (pro) and serie D (semipro) players.

To continue on the realism, you can imagine that even if none of those players are little Messi, it's clear that to pass the screening and get a place in an Italian top legue U19 team some potential is required.

So yes, right now development is far too easy in FM.

I don't know of course how the new training and tutoring system will work, but yes, the problem is there and PA is needed as a simple method to avoid to produce serie A players like cherries out of tree. Another thing that I really hate it's not just PA, but also U19 players' CA is pushed down, except for the few renown wonderkids, so they're mostly rubbish, that no sane scout will take into a Serie A U19 team.

Make development real hard as in real life and finally the code itself will create a PA limit and we will just see wonderkids the way they are, young players with good attributes for their age and nothing more.

[enigmatic]

8 hours ago, santy001 said:

Personally I'm a believer that youngsters need a -X rating system for hidden personality attributes. 

I'd say this should be available (and encouraged) for most players tbh. 

Pretty easy to rate a senior footballer's pace and technique on a 1-20 scale relative to their peers; pretty hard to compare their personalities so precisely unless they're all over the newspapers even if they've played a few seasons and moved out of their mother's house! But on the other hand you've probably got an inkling that player X isn't extremely controversial or (un)ambitious from an absence of claims made about their attitude

Evaluating players' personalities being at least as much guesswork as "is this player likely to have a peak ability higher or lower than their teammates" is also one reason why making player development more dependent on personality isn't going to be in any sense an improvement.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.