Player development makes zero sense to me in this game.

[Marko1989]

Sorry for the long post, I hope someone from SI will read.

This FM version is after 3 versions finally one that is fun to me, but there is something almost game breaking for me. ( not just in this version, this was in last couple of years)

I think that player development makes no sense at all.

1.) Let's take Bastoni as an example. He has CA 147 and PA 169. That gives him room for very little development.

So - he is in top 5 best young defenders in the game.

So - SI think he will be one of the best defenders in the world after a couple of years. ( even now he is one of the best defenders in the game )

At age of 21, he has marking 15. With this CA and PA he will in most cases finish his career in the game with marking 16.

Let's say for example he win Serie A with Inter, he win best defender of the year, he goes to Real/Barcelona, there he wins a couple of Champions Leagues, he wins World Cup with Italy, in short - he is the best defender in the world in this scenario. Which is possible, because he is one of the best defenders in the game.

BUT, because of those numbers, CA and PA, he has marking 16 at the age of 30.

You want to say  that it is logical that young defender has 15 marking on start of his career, and only 16 at age of 30 when he is much more experienced, smarter, etc etc, when he is the best? No. That makes no sense.

- I don't know is the problem that the CA is too high for some players, or the calculations for CA are too strict, but no matter what, some of the best talents in the game will improve by just a little.

2.)  In FM 2019 I had this problem - I've played with Lyon and I bought Vinicius Junior. One of the best young talents in the game. In my third season, I won league with ease, and I won Champions League. He was insane, he finished the season with above 8.0 average rating in all the games. He would probably win Ballon d Or if I continued playing.
I expected that his attributes have grew greatly because of this. When I checked him, his dribbling was lower by 1 and acceleration was lower by 1. In his best season in career at age of 22 I think. 

( one could say, maybe your training is the problem, no - I would not win CL and League with ease if the training was not correct ) So, because of how strange CA and PA works, he got worse after his best season in career. Decreasing some attributes to increase other and illogical stuff like that.

- Some players no matter what will even get worse because of those calculations. I don't know who thought that this is logical or even fun.

3.) Older players 23y - 26y. You will very rarely see players age 23 or older improve at all. Players should not reach their peak that young. 26 is nothing in football now, that is still young.

Take for example De Bruyne, Kante, Mahrez, Vardy they are all much much better now in every aspect of the game than they were age of 23!

---------------------------

In game - let's take as an example take this player. Niang.

I took him as an example because he is solid both technically and physically, but as we know, he has no
good mental attributes. So he is a capable player who could improve still.

What if he was bought for example by Barcelona in real life, and there, with Messi and others, he scores 20 goals in a season. 

What would happen?

In next FM, SI would increase his mental attributes, probably his finishing to 16, Acceleration to 16, Technique to 17, or something like that it does not matter he is 26y old. In this game, no matter what, he will most probably not improve at all. ( of course there is a slight possibility that he will improve by little )

If he goes to Barcelona in the game, do the same, or even better, he scores 30 goals in every of next 5 seasons, nothing would change because of CA and PA. So, SI would increase his attributes from version to version, which happened many times in the past, but in game, there is no way for players of that age or similar to improve.

Why is all this bad. If players reach their peak very fast, then it becomes boring very fast. With development this strict, even if you overachieve with some small team, and you continue overachieving, it is very possible none of your players will improve at all ever, because their CA PA difference is very small. When some team overachieve in real life, SI will increase attributes for several players from that team.

CA - PA calculations are maybe too strict or something. I remember in some older versions keeping some player for 10 years, building my team around him, just to see him maxed out at age of 30+! That is a great motivation for long term saves. Now, when he reaches 23 he is ready for replacement. That has impact on fun. There are very few things that are realistic in this game ( and that is good thing) I don't know why they are looking for ultra realism in player development or why it is so strict, it is just taking the fun off. I known, some people will say how they saw very young players 16-18 developing very fast and good, but that is not what am I talking about, I am talking about development in general. To sumarize, I think that:

1.) Players are peaking too soon

2.) Best players in the world getting worse at young age without any logical reason because of those CA - PA calculations

3.) players of age of 23 and very rarely improve

I don't know does dynamic potential even exists in the game but it seems it is a must.

It may sound like I am bashing the game, no, I just think before, when development was not that strict, you could bond with some player for 10 years or more, it was fun to play more and more just to see him improve, you could see some player without big PA improve just because he was playing very good ( I don't know how that worked ) now, as I've said, that fun of attributes growing stops very early/fast.

Edited November 22, 2021 by Marko1989

[Overmars]

I agree with the sentiment that PA is too rigid, but that debate has been covered many times over the years. Ideally, I would prefer PA to move up or down a small amount year after year to reflect what can happen in real life. Obviously you will never have a 120 PA player change into a 160 PA player, but it would be nice if they could bump up to 130 PA if they push up against their theoretical ceiling at a young age.

As for age, I do think the game is too rigid there. More flexibility and variance would be nice so that you didn't have to automatically rule out 23+ year olds from ever hitting it big if they haven't already done so.

I kind of like the random dropoffs in ability (often due to injury), but I'd like to see the opposite sometimes happen too.

[4football]

Great post Marko1989
I am also very unhappy that player in the age of 23 or 24 that will play on top level will not increase his attributes, only and maybe by 1 in few of them. Despite playing very well.
In fm if a player is 22 or 23 then this is the end of his development. Very sad :(

[Freakiie]

PA is fine and definitely better than the occasional alternative that gets suggested here. The issue is player development.

In the original database there's 4 21 or younger players with 160+ CA. These are all 20/21, 3 are in the 160 range and the fourth is Mbappé, who is absurdly good for his age. Increase this to 23 years or younger and it'll only add 2 more players, both exactly at 160 (And seeing how Frenkie plays at Barca, I question that 160 CA tbh, but that's another story). So, in real life players with CA high enough to be a regular starter at an absolute top club at young age are incredibly rare and Mbappé who at his age is already one of the best are basically one in a generation kind of players.

However, in FM this gets massively skewed as young players develop at absurd pace, resulting in 21-22 year olds hitting their 170+ PAs and basically any talented youngster that comes through at a club with solid facilities can easily reach the level of these supposedly rare cases. In FM you can easily field a world class team with nothing but 22 year olds, while with the original DB even if you bought all the youngsters at this level you'd have half a squad at best.

Development then also slows down horribly after 23ish, so anyone who hasn't hit their PA by that point is basically a lost cause. The development curve is currently massively skewed towards a players younger years and that's something that really needs looking at. Preferably combined with a couple other factors to make youth development less straightforward as it currently is simply too easy in every single aspect.

[FlorianAlbert9]

There is no PA in real world. 

So i would like the FM reflects that. 

And yes, the development of younger in FM Is too fast and above all to play with a team full of younger It has 0 risks in the game. 

So you can pick up a team that in real world have an Age av. of 27 and bring It to have Age of 19 and win with them 

[Preveza]

Please use spoilers on PA

 

Great post though bro.

 

16 minutes ago, FlorianAlbert9 said:

There is no PA in real world. 

So i would like the FM reflects that. 

And yes, the development of younger in FM Is too fast and above all to play with a team full of younger It has 0 risks in the game. 

So you can pick up a team that in real world have an Age av. of 27 and bring It to have Age of 19 and win with them 

I do think every player has a ceiling, so yes, there is PA in the real world; in FM, it is just depicted differently that's all.

[FlorianAlbert9]

40 minuti fa, Preveza ha scritto:

Please use spoilers on PA

 

Great post though bro.

 

I do think every player has a ceiling, so yes, there is PA in the real world; in FM, it is just depicted differently that's all.

The point is not if there is a limit or no. 

The point Is It there is or no a limit that is used in the real world inside the game. 

PA Is like God (or Fate)

For the real world game it isn't important if there is or no a God (or Fate). 

It Is important that his existence has zero impact in the rules and in the way professionals work in the game. 

If it has zero impact that means that It isn't a factor in the game. 

And you can easily compare a real under 19 team (the One you get at the starting game) with the under 19 you can built up in 3 year inside the game. 

Your under 19 would have easily a much Better potential and would have much more country rapresented. 

Cause in real life an Under 19 would have foreing only if they are currently better. Cause CA Is the 95% of the staff report (mentality and enviroment are the others factor).

(I made a post in feature request: No PA system)

 

 

Edited December 26, 2020 by FlorianAlbert9

[afailed10]

I'd love a mod that makes development slower but without a strict age restriction. Players should be able to develop into their late 20s and even early 30s besides the occasional +1 or +2 CA increase.

[goranm]

While I can get that techincals don't increase a lot (there are a few quotes by Wenger and others that technique is mostly developed when the player is a teen), the growth of mental attributes is something that in my opinion is not properly represented. A player will have the same mental attributes at 33 as they did at 23, implying that they haven't learned anything about the game in 10 years of experience. I'd also like to see mental attributes more influenced by the current manager and backroom staff. Players under SAF, Pep, Klopp or Mourinho behave on the pitch differently than under Moyes, Valverde, Rodgers or Poch.

[KlaaZ]

If you don't like PA and CA, don't look at the numbers under the hood? 

[4football]

7 minutes ago, KlaaZ said:

If you don't like PA and CA, don't look at the numbers under the hood? 

i am not looking at PA/CA as i am playing without an editor
and what do i have?
main squad players reach 23 years and this is the end of their development
This is what will happen next with them:

 

9 minutes ago, goranm said:

A player will have the same mental attributes at 33 as they did at 23, implying that they haven't learned anything about the game in 10 years of experience.

So if you look at it or not it still affects you in a bad way

[yau]

I totally agree. There should be more late bloomers and more flexible age when they improve.

But for me, older players are much more unrealistic. Real players at age of 31+ has nothing similar to the game players. In the game its always the same. Rapidly decrease physical attributes and no mental increase. Look  how at Ze Roberto mentals increase  when ge gets older. Look at Seedorf physical. I would love to get a chance to sign old players not only for mentoring. 

[enigmatic]

I don't understand this post at all.

Let's take a 33 year old defender who really has gone to Barcelona, won the Champions League a couple of times, best defender awards and the World Cup with his home country

Step forward, Gerard Pique. Marking 16

So apparently, you can be a world class defender with Marking of 16

 

But his marking must have got massively better since he was a kid whose only experience was good top division loan spells, right?

Oh...

[4football]

18 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

I don't understand this post at all.

here is nice example

3 hours ago, goranm said:

While I can get that techincals don't increase a lot (there are a few quotes by Wenger and others that technique is mostly developed when the player is a teen), the growth of mental attributes is something that in my opinion is not properly represented. A player will have the same mental attributes at 33 as they did at 23, implying that they haven't learned anything about the game in 10 years of experience. I'd also like to see mental attributes more influenced by the current manager and backroom staff. Players under SAF, Pep, Klopp or Mourinho behave on the pitch differently than under Moyes, Valverde, Rodgers or Poch.

why the hell player will not improve his skills (at least mental) while playing good at top level in a top team? Cuz he is 24 already?

Same with phys stats drop. It is happening  to rapidly.
Players with high professionalism should not be affected so much, specially in pace. Look at current Ronaldo.
And imagine what would happen with him if you load some previous FM versions and play until now. I can bet his pace would be 8-10.  And what do we have now? 15-16 at the age of 35? Only because it is updated every year manually

[enigmatic]

25 minutes ago, 4football said:

why the hell player will not improve his skills (at least mental) while playing good at top level in a top team? Cuz he is 24 already?

Did you miss the second part where I showed an elite 33 year old with exactly the same Marking attribute he had in FM2008 as a 20 year old with similar experience to Bastoni

So why are we pretending that it would be strange if Bastoni improves to Pique-level in the next ten years without improving his marking very much?

[4football]

14 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Did you miss the second part where I showed an elite 33 year old with exactly the same Marking attribute he had in FM2008 as a 20 year old with similar experience to Bastoni

So why are we pretending that it would be strange if Bastoni improves to Pique-level in the next ten years without improving his marking very much?

I am not talking about marking. We all know that players IRL can improve alot from 23-24 to 30. And we know what happens in game. This is a problem.

[Sloak]

2 hours ago, 4football said:

I am not talking about marking. We all know that players IRL can improve alot from 23-24 to 30. And we know what happens in game. This is a problem.

While I agree with what you’re saying overall in terms of length of development, your argument about specific attributes going up is lacking. Defensive positioning training trains marking, positioning, and decision, so in order to look at how good the player is at marking you need to take these into account as well, and concentration/ anticipation to a lesser extent. This means that while the players marking may only go up by ~1 (remember all attributes are on a 1-200 scale, it just simplifies down so you can see it at a 1-20, so a 146 and a 154 are all going to display as 15. Or, he could be a 146 at the start of the game and a 164 at the end, an improvement of 2 that will be displayed as 1) he will receive benefits to his marking from improvements in decisions and positioning.

[Marko1989]

4 hours ago, enigmatic said:

I don't understand this post at all.

Let's take a 33 year old defender who really has gone to Barcelona, won the Champions League a couple of times, best defender awards and the World Cup with his home country

Step forward, Gerard Pique. Marking 16

So apparently, you can be a world class defender with Marking of 16

 

But his marking must have got massively better since he was a kid whose only experience was good top division loan spells, right?

Oh...

I don't have time to answer to all the replies, didn't expected this many replies, so thanks to all who replied, even to those who didn't agree.

But I must reply to yours since it will be a good add-on to my original post.

You posted a pic of Pique at age of 20. I know you took that pic from google, now install FM 2008 and go on holiday for 10 seasons, when you get back he will have 18-20 marking. It is just a coincidence that he has 16 for marking in newest version and that version of FM.

Here is Pique from FM 2014, with marking 18 at the start of the game. 

 

 

Here, in another version, in FM 2015 I went 3 seasons on holiday for you. Oh...

In FM 2015 at age of 27 he also has marking 16 at start. But they have allowed him to improve  at marking even he is 27. Which is completely possible in real life.

Which perfectly fits their in-game tip, if I remember it goes something like "Defenders will enjoy their best playing years between age of 27 and 32" Which is absolutely true in previous versions. Now, the players in most cases are exactly the same at age of 23 and 30.

That is the point of this post.

Edited December 27, 2020 by Marko1989

[Overmars]

8 hours ago, afailed10 said:

I'd love a mod that makes development slower but without a strict age restriction. Players should be able to develop into their late 20s and even early 30s besides the occasional +1 or +2 CA increase.

Especially if they move to a club with better coaching, better training facilities, and a higher level of competition.

[SeaCarrot]

Quite simply the game as a whole is too rigid. It never changes from the first year to 2200. The game world is static. 
 

it lacks so many things that make the OOTP baseball games amazing. Dynamic changeable potential is one. If a player has a ripper season they can improve their potential, a bad disappointing season and they can reduce their potential. Means the game world is alive. The same person in a different save game can be a flop or a new world beater, who knows. Different every time. The world changes, new rules or old rules changed every few years, teams fold, new teams get created and leagues expanded. It’s a real dynamic simulation of the world of baseball into the future.

FM is the exact same game every year of your save besides seeing different teams rise and fall now and then. Dull. 

Edited December 27, 2020 by SeaCarrot

[bowieinspace]

37 minutes ago, SeaCarrot said:

Quite simply the game as a whole is too rigid. It never changes from the first year to 2200. The game world is static. 
 

it lacks so many things that make the OOTP baseball games amazing. Dynamic changeable potential is one. If a player has a ripper season they can improve their potential, a bad disappointing season and they can reduce their potential. Means the game world is alive. The same person in a different save game can be a flop or a new world beater, who knows. Different every time. The world changes, new rules or old rules changed every few years, teams fold, new teams get created and leagues expanded. It’s a real dynamic simulation of the world of baseball into the future.

FM is the exact same game every year of your save besides seeing different teams rise and fall now and then. Dull. 

In fairness this is achieved through coach/scout (eg star) ratings...your coaches make their best guesses as to a players ability but it’s not accurate all the time. Sometimes a player is underrated and has a breakthrough season, suddenly your coaches/scouts see additional potential. PA is just an under the hood max value someone can have, but they could easily be poorly rated in game, have a banger season and suddenly improve dramatically. 
 

SI have improved the game in this area in recent years, a few years back coaches and scouts used to be too accurate but now it’s a bit more varied. 
 

Overall in regards to this thread I agree that player development over 25 is quite limited, but it does occur. You don’t get many Jamie Vardy style late bloomers, but equally you don’t get them often IRL either. I’m not saying it couldn’t be a more dynamic model of course, but there’s a lot of references to someone being done at 23 in this thread which is an exaggeration.

[ajt]

I've never used the editor so I have no idea about my players CA/PA, but I do agree that it is a shame that age 23 seems to be the cap of sorts for player development.

I don't think that Vardy is that good an example as he is such an outlier in terms of "late bloomer", but I do agree it would be nice to see players develop attributes if they have a sensational season etc.

For as long as I can remember my strategy (once I get the club financially stable/good first team) is to start hoovering up players with a max age of 17 (18 if South American) as I can actually develop them to my liking with my great coaches & facilities. Many of them turn out not to be good enough for my team, but at least they develop to an acceptable level that they usually end up playing in one of the top divisions around the world.

I just wish that the AI utilised their youth players better and sent them out on loan etc rather than letting really good players rot in the reserves, in fact that annoys me far more than youth development itself.

[enigmatic]

10 hours ago, Marko1989 said:

You posted a pic of Pique at age of 20. I know you took that pic from google, now install FM 2008 and go on holiday for 10 seasons, when you get back he will have 18-20 marking. It is just a coincidence that he has 16 for marking in newest version and that version of FM. 

You're arguing that realistically, a 20 year old defender who is already top level must improve his marking by more than a point or two if he becomes an elite player

I'm pointing out clearly, in the opinion of FM's researcher a 20 year old who won all the accolades you mentioned hasn't improved his marking at all. That's not 'coincidence', it's because Pique was pretty good at marking after a couple of seasons of top division football but thirteen years amazing experience didn't make him amazing at marking. Diminishing returns exist.

The difference between Bastoni and a world class player is only one or two points in most areas, therefore he will only improve one or two points in most areas. The timescale he does it on will depend on when he gets the experience, but players who are international class at 21 usually do stop improving in their early 20s rather than continuing until they are the greatest player in history

[AFCBeer]

The Vardy example might be an outlier but still a useful discussion point. IRL he always had the potential we see realised now, but because he was playing at a lower standard with poorer quality coaching and training facilities it was largely untapped potential.

In some ways this does mirror FM. Once he got exposed to higher level football and coaching, his CA rapidly shot up close to his PA. In FM terms it might not be possible as he was already 25 when he moved to Leicester.

It would be interesting to edit a 25 year old at a National League club to have a CA of 83 (or whatever is slightly above average for that league) and a PA of 163 (which is his PA in FM21). Would it still be possible to develop him to an elite level player. Even if reaching 163 isn’t possible, if 150 could be achieved then maybe FM isn’t as unrealistic as perhaps we think. 

[Tom8983]

The biggest mistake SI have ever made is allowing CA/PA to be visible with the editor. Without that, the only thing we have in game to help judge potential is the star rating system, and that does change all the time throughout the game based on quite a few things. I'm forever seeing my players current and potential star rating ability changing based on form, how they're developing, coaches opinions changing etc etc.

I do agree that it would be good to see a bit more stat changing at more advanced ages, but I'm not sure it's as bad as is being made out.

[4football]

22 minutes ago, Tom8983 said:

The biggest mistake SI have ever made is allowing CA/PA to be visible with the editor. Without that, the only thing we have in game to help judge potential is the star rating system, and that does change all the time throughout the game based on quite a few things. I'm forever seeing my players current and potential star rating ability changing based on form, how they're developing, coaches opinions changing etc etc.

I do agree that it would be good to see a bit more stat changing at more advanced ages, but I'm not sure it's as bad as is being made out.

What i see with top coaches/facilities is that player is 16-20 and has 5 starts potential. And then he gets to 22 or 23 and boom. Report says that there is almost no room for improvement(i am playing in different language then English in game) but you get a point.
IMHO player mental attributes should be able to develop until he is 30 and in case of goalkeepers - even after 30. Ofc not by 1 each year - but a little improvement while playing at top clubs with facilities/coaches matches is should be possible.
And as i mentioned.
Phys stats drop is insane. No matter if you a professional like c.ronaldo or such guy like rooney that ended up playing (at least running in 28? :D)

[RocheBag]

PES has the best development system of any sports game. FIFA's dynamic potential is ok but it still falls short of PES.

In PES, players have no potential rating. Every player gets assigned a "soft peak" and a "hard peak" age. Players will develop with game time, rapidly until their soft peak, the  slower until their hard peak.

Form and playing time impact development a lot. If a player plays often and plays well, he will develop fast. If he doesn't play much he will develop much slower. If they hit a purple patch of incredible form their development is boosted massively for a short time. Even players past their hard peak can develop from this form related development.

This leads to a game where every file a player can end up widely different because their development is so dependent on how they play rather than a predetermined number.

So naturally if you have a 21 year old player and an 18 year old player with the same current rating, you can assume the 18 year old will probably end up better because he has more time to develop. So you can use your common sense to figure out a rough potential of players. But it can vary so much with gametime and form that it leads to a very dynamic world.

Edited December 27, 2020 by RocheBag

[steakfaced]

4 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

PES has the best development system of any sports game. FIFA's dynamic potential is ok but it still falls short of PES.

In PES, players have no potential rating. Every player gets assigned a "soft peak" and a "hard peak" age. Players will develop with game time, rapidly until their soft peak, the  slower until their hard peak.

Form and playing time impact development a lot. If a player plays often and plays well, he will develop fast. If he doesn't play much he will develop much slower. If they hit a purple patch of incredible form their development is boosted massively for a short time. Even players past their hard peak can develop from this form related development.

This leads to a game where every file a player can end up widely different because their development is so dependent on how they play rather than a predetermined number.

This has convinced me to switch from FIFA to PES haha this sounds incredible.

[RocheBag]

4 minutes ago, steakfaced said:

This has convinced me to switch from FIFA to PES haha this sounds incredible.

Haha well be careful. PES has a whole host of other issues with it's career mode, but player development is definitely not one of them.

[rp1966]

At the moment, from what I understand, scouts get to determine CA/PA with a margin of error based on their judging attributes - part of the problem is that the best scouts make these judgements far too accurately, so big clubs end up hoarding all the young talent and even if the game allows for later development it will never happen because the good young players will always end up at a club with really good training, bringing out all their potential at an early age.

What could help is that scouts should have a bias against massive development from the CA.  So instead of seeing the PA they would only be able to judge a proportion of PA minus CA.  That way a low CA; high PA player would get ignored by the biggest teams giving them a change to develop lower down the pyramid - or not at all if they were stuck at a club that couldn't develop them.  

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by rp1966

[jere_d]

4 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

PES has the best development system of any sports game. FIFA's dynamic potential is ok but it still falls short of PES.

In PES, players have no potential rating. Every player gets assigned a "soft peak" and a "hard peak" age. Players will develop with game time, rapidly until their soft peak, the  slower until their hard peak.

Form and playing time impact development a lot. If a player plays often and plays well, he will develop fast. If he doesn't play much he will develop much slower. If they hit a purple patch of incredible form their development is boosted massively for a short time. Even players past their hard peak can develop from this form related development.

This leads to a game where every file a player can end up widely different because their development is so dependent on how they play rather than a predetermined number.

oh Yeah I remember pes back in the day

incorporate that in with what they have here minus the rigid PA

maybe PA could be dependant up until 27 on;

Level played at IE league and continental matches (example Mane at Southampton PA drastically improved when he was playing european football at liverpool)

Form and hitting top league stats (If I got a player hitting 15 to 20 goal average over 2 seasons how can he not have the improvement for growth if his CA is close to a low PA? watching traore get 7.00 - 8.00 average with those dead attributes is so annoying especially when hes bought by a good team)

Winning Caps Trophies and individual accolades (if my player with 140 CA wins the the prem player of the year at 24 I expect him to push on towards the 160 mark and his CA should improve by 30% of that increase to the PA during the pre season to reflect doing so well in the league

 

obviously the increase of an180CA player should be be A very small and B only occur after a concoction of the aforementioned stimulants,

 

These increases shouldnt always happen but they should happen sometimes because it happens in real life!

Van Dijk to celtic and playing in the champions league then to Southampton Playing in the Prem then to Liverpool playing in the Champions league and winning trophies ALL lead to increases in this players CA and PA in the following FMs.

 

 

[enigmatic]

1 hour ago, 4football said:

What i see with top coaches/facilities is that player is 16-20 and has 5 starts potential. And then he gets to 22 or 23 and boom. Report says that there is almost no room for improvement(i am playing in different language then English in game) but you get a point.

Much of this is the scouts being designed to be wrong about underlying potential in a realistic way though, so they assume 23 year olds probably wont improve much even if they can, and assume 20 year olds have a lot of room for improvement even if they don't.

 

41 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

PES has the best development system of any sports game. FIFA's dynamic potential is ok but it still falls short of PES.

In PES, players have no potential rating. Every player gets assigned a "soft peak" and a "hard peak" age. Players will develop with game time, rapidly until their soft peak, the  slower until their hard peak.

Form and playing time impact development a lot. If a player plays often and plays well, he will develop fast. If he doesn't play much he will develop much slower. If they hit a purple patch of incredible form their development is boosted massively for a short time. Even players past their hard peak can develop from this form related development.

This leads to a game where every file a player can end up widely different because their development is so dependent on how they play rather than a predetermined number.

So naturally if you have a 21 year old player and an 18 year old player with the same current rating, you can assume the 18 year old will probably end up better because he has more time to develop. So you can use your common sense to figure out a rough potential of players. But it can vary so much with gametime and form that it leads to a very dynamic world.

This is good for randomness and makes player development easy, but is it good for realism?

Players playing extremely well are already good; there's no footballing (as opposed to game-y rewards) reason why this means they should always be even better next season as a result. Dele Alli played consistently well in over 100 games in his early twenties but instead of becoming the greatest player of his generation he hit an invisible ceiling and actually went backwards. Lingard developed better when he wasn't playing. Rashford largely maintained his level. 

I dare say any professional coach can point to players who  never developed the all round game they'd hoped to see precisely because their existing skills were enough to get praise for their performances, or players that improved immensely because bad performances (or reasons for not being picked) highlighted weaknesses to work on. 

[RocheBag]

7 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

This is good for randomness and makes player development easy, but is it good for realism?

Players playing extremely well are already good; there's no footballing (as opposed to game-y rewards) reason why this means they should always be even better next season as a result. Dele Alli played consistently well in over 100 games in his early twenties but instead of becoming the greatest player of his generation he hit an invisible ceiling and actually went backwards. Lingard developed better when he wasn't playing. Rashford largely maintained his level. 

I dare say any professional coach can point to players who  never developed the all round game they'd hoped to see precisely because their existing skills were enough to get praise for their performances, or players that improved immensely because bad performances (or reasons for not being picked) highlighted weaknesses to work on. 

These are great points and ones I've made here many times in the past as well. My point is mainly that PA shouldn't exist at all. Scouts cannot look at a player and tell how good he will be. "PA" is simply judged in real life by how good players are vs their age. The best players at 16 are assumed to be the ones who will be best at 20. So the entire PA system is pointless. It should simply be current ratings and age.

If you have two players who are identical right now in ratings and have the same age, there is no reason anyone in the world would think one has more potential than the other. Potential ratings in any game are a ridiculous notion that has no basis in reality.

I agree with the notion that having a good year shouldn't increase ratings. If a player is already good enough with his current ratings to play great, there is no reason that next year he should be even better.

[HUNT3R]

8 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

My point is mainly that PA shouldn't exist at all. Scouts cannot look at a player and tell how good he will be. "PA" is simply judged in real life by how good players are vs their age. The best players at 16 are assumed to be the ones who will be best at 20. So the entire PA system is pointless. It should simply be current ratings and age.

If you have two players who are identical right now in ratings and have the same age, there is no reason anyone in the world would think one has more potential than the other. Potential ratings in any game are a ridiculous notion that has no basis in reality.

You should distinguish between PA and PPA. If a player is identical in attributes and age, they'll be rated very similar, regardless of the actual PA.

[goranm]

5 hours ago, enigmatic said:

I'm pointing out clearly, in the opinion of FM's researcher a 20 year old who won all the accolades you mentioned hasn't improved his marking at all. That's not 'coincidence', it's because Pique was pretty good at marking after a couple of seasons of top division football but thirteen years amazing experience didn't make him amazing at marking. Diminishing returns exist.

Well that's not correct. According to researchers, Pique did improve his Marking from 16 to 18 at ages 20 to 26, as shown in the screenshots, and then declined back to 16. This is also something that the game doesn't reflect well enough: players can also get worse.

But Pique is just one example. Cristiano Ronaldo, according to researchers, at age 23 had Long Shots 12, but at age 30 has Long Shots 20. His finishing fluctuated a lot over the years, from 12 to 17 to 19, decisions went from 14 at age 23-27 to 18 at age 30, anticipation from 13 to 19 etc. As he was having great season time and again, the researchers kept bumping up his attributes. If a player performs in-game as well as CR7 did in his career, his attributes will not increase by 4 points past age 23, but rather his attributes will generally reach a peak at 23-24 and stagnate until 32-33 when the physical decline starts.

[enigmatic]

19 minutes ago, RocheBag said:

These are great points and ones I've made here many times in the past as well. My point is mainly that PA shouldn't exist at all. Scouts cannot look at a player and tell how good he will be. "PA" is simply judged in real life by how good players are vs their age. The best players at 16 are assumed to be the ones who will be best at 20. So the entire PA system is pointless. It should simply be current ratings and age.

If you have two players who are identical right now in ratings and have the same age, there is no reason anyone in the world would think one has more potential than the other. Potential ratings in any game are a ridiculous notion that has no basis in reality.

I agree with the notion that having a good year shouldn't increase ratings. If a player is already good enough with his current ratings to play great, there is no reason that next year he should be even better.

The 'two players who are identical now in ratings and have the same age but different potential' is the bit that doesn't exist though. 

Players having limits to how much they can improve, on the other hand, is well established (as is the fact it doesn't have a simple relationship with game time or personality. I mean, it's not a three digit number either, but scouts and coaches act more like it's that than just a matter of a nice personality and enough matches)

Right now scouts will be looking at some of the best 16 year olds and assuming some will make it and others probably won't because they rely on being closer to full grown adults than others and don't seem to be improving much. And sometimes they'll spot qualities in players who are far too immature to be the best player on the team and be very interested in those. Of course, sometimes they'll be wrong, but not as wrong as a system which concludes everyone has the same ability to improve. 

 

 

3 minutes ago, goranm said:

As he was having great season time and again, the researchers kept bumping up his attributes. If a player performs in-game as well as CR7 did in his career, his attributes will not increase by 4 points past age 23, but rather his attributes will generally reach a peak at 23-24 and stagnate until 32-33 when the physical decline starts.

You're completely misunderstanding the point of making attribute changes.

If a player performs well IRL their attributes may not change at all. Liverpool players mostly had excellent seasons last season, but few of them changed much.  If a player performs better IRL than he can in FM, a researcher will be expected to improve them so that they can perform well in FM. 

If a player performs well in FM, it is obviously unnecessary for them to have higher attributes for them to perform well in FM. 

 

[goranm]

4 hours ago, enigmatic said:

You're completely misunderstanding the point of making attribute changes.If a player performs well IRL their attributes may not change at all. Liverpool players mostly had excellent seasons last season, but few of them changed much. 

Liverpool players didn't change much because in the season before they won the CL and lost the PL by 1 point and the season before that were CL finalists. Compare the FM21 Henderson to the FM16/17 Henderson, not to the back-to-back CL finalist Henderson in FM20.

Quote

If a player performs better IRL than he can in FM, a researcher will be expected to improve them so that they can perform well in FM. 

If a player performs well in FM, it is obviously unnecessary for them to have higher attributes for them to perform well in FM. 

Are you sure you understand the point of making attribute changes? First, a researcher can not know how a change in certain attributes will make the player perform in the next edition of FM, they are subjectively judging IRL skill, not how it will translate into the ME (that they don't have access to yet). An increase in attributes can also do nothing, which is what happened with Salah who in FM19 and FM20, and even FM21 performs nothing like IRL because he's played as a winger by AI managers.

Cristiano Ronaldo performed well in past 10 editions of FM yet his attributes still fluctuated a lot. Changing Long Shots from 12 to 20 didn't happen because it would make him perform better in FM, it happened because the researchers who subjectively judged his long shots thought that they've underestimated his IRL skill. The researchers obviously thought that such a drastic improvement in the attribute is necessary even though it didn't make CR7 perform any better when managed by an AI manager.

We've seen time and again AI teams and players under/overperform relative to IRL, yet they don't see an attribute increase/decrease across the board between FM versions to correct that. We've seen players attributes changing even if they play well both in-game and IRL, and we've seen them not change if they don't play well in-game but do in IRL. 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2020 by goranm

[enigmatic]

12 minutes ago, goranm said:

Liverpool players didn't change much because in the season before they won the CL and lost the PL by 1 point and the season before that were CL finalists. Compare Henderson in FM16/17 to Henderson in FM21, not to the back-to-back CL finalist Henderson in FM20.

OK, let's do that. Looks like over the 5 years since FM16 he's gone up by one or two points in some attributes and hit an unremarkable fixed potential which is substantially lower than many players who have not played in back to back Champions League finals. I thought this thread was dedicated to complaining about that happening in game....

 

22 minutes ago, goranm said:

Are you sure you understand the point of making attribute changes? First, a researcher can not know how a change in certain attributes will make the player perform in the next edition of FM, they are subjectively judging IRL skill, not how it will translate into the ME (that they don't have access to yet).

Yes. Research is an ongoing process, researchers have access to the most recent version of the game (and early access to the next version), and SI testers to recent ratings and 'have you actually tried using him in game' is one of the most frequent retorts by researchers greeted by 'x has scored some goals, clearly 13 finishing should become 15 finishing' type complaints in the Data Issues forum. 

If a player, let's call him Dominic Calvert Lewin, starts scoring frequently, winning towering headers and playing for England then a researcher will give him bumps in relevant attributes and even across the board so he is capable of being picked for Everton and England's first teams, and outjumping good Premier League defenders to score in the ME, which FM21 Calvert-Lewin is and FM20 Calvert Lewin is unlikely to. If a player, let's call him Marcus Rashford, has his best ever season and a better overall season than Calvert Lewin but doesn't change anyone's opinion of his skills and can easily be made to put in those sort of performances in FM then his attributes won't change much.

Sure, the judgement is subjective, but it absolutely isn't about bumping attributes for great seasons, unless there's evidence the player changed over the course of the season or was underrated all along in FM

 

30 minutes ago, goranm said:

Cristiano Ronaldo performed well in past 10 editions of FM yet his attributes still fluctuated a lot. Changing Long Shots from 12 to 20 didn't happen because it would make him perform better in FM, it happened because the researchers who subjectively judged his long shots thought that they've underestimated his IRL skill. The researchers obviously thought that such a drastic improvement in the attribute is necessary even though it didn't make CR7 perform any better when managed by an AI manager.

Cristiano is the outlier to end all outliers, having constantly reinvented himself over a 20 year career to outperform others in completely different roles and been so much better than nearly every other footballer ever that researchers have sometimes complained they can't give him enough maximum attributes. But yes, you are right that at various times researchers reevaluated his skill based on his RL performances and concluded they underestimated some of his abilities.

On the other hand, if a player scores a number of long shots in FM it certainly isn't because his Long Shots attribute is underestimated, so it doesn't need to change. It's not a subjective estimate of the abilities a player might have from watching those shots, it's the number that went into the calculation that produced those shots.

It might change for other development-based reasons, but player development curves should rarely give mature players four point boosts to long shots because players don't generally learn to shoot at 23. 

[goranm]

3 hours ago, enigmatic said:

OK, let's do that. Looks like over the 5 years since FM16 he's gone up by one or two points in some attributes and hit an unremarkable fixed potential which is substantially lower than many players who have not played in back to back Champions League finals.

He's gone up by 4 points in First Touch, Composure and Leadership, 3 points in Free Kicks, Determination and Team Work, and 2 or 1 points in 10 other attributes. I've never seen in the past 3 or 4 FM's a player do that from ages 25 to 29.

Quote

I thought this thread was dedicated to complaining about that happening in game....

You brought up Liverpool and the change of attributes, I'm replying to that.

3 hours ago, enigmatic said:

Yes. Research is an ongoing process, researchers have access to the most recent version of the game (and early access to the next version), and SI testers to recent ratings and 'have you actually tried using him in game' is one of the most frequent retorts by researchers greeted by 'x has scored some goals, clearly 13 finishing should become 15 finishing' type complaints in the Data Issues forum. 

Why are we then seeing at the launch of the game that Man Utd overperform, Tottenham are bottom table, Bayern underperform (and general criticism about Bayern being underrated this year), Salah (when managed by AI) scores 12ish goals at the end of the season when he currently IRL is at 13 etc?

Also, I'm intentionally restricting myself to talking about players when managed by the AI, I can have a player with 14 finishing score 40 goals (and in FM21 even the AI can make players with 12 finishing score 40+ goals which IMO shouldn't be the case).

3 hours ago, enigmatic said:

Sure, the judgement is subjective, but it absolutely isn't about bumping attributes for great seasons, unless there's evidence the player changed over the course of the season or was underrated all along in FM

What you're saying here is that attribute bumping isn't about great seasons unless the player had a great season. How else do we have "evidence the player changed over the course of the season or was underrated" unless that player has a great season or two?

3 hours ago, enigmatic said:

It might change for other development-based reasons, but player development curves should rarely give mature players four point boosts to long shots because players don't generally learn to shoot at 23. 

The other day I looked at something similar, Ronaldo's stats with his weaker foot. At Man Utd, 11% of his goals were with his left foot. At Real Madrid and Juventus, 16% of his goals were with his left foot. He scored 50% more goals with his left foot in RM and Juve than at Man Utd. He didn't just decide to use his left foot more, he worked on it. Similarly with Messi and free kicks. Players do make improvements throughout their careers and work on their game, especially top tier players. They also decline, and the game in my opinion is not reflecting that well enough.

[rp1966]

I'm really not sure why all the discussion about attributes of players between FM versions - that is a research issue.  The OP was about how a player develops during their career in game during a single FM version. 

 

 

[pejocho]

One solution could be the creation of a "develop number", that would give the years when the player could develop more. For example, for a develop number of 1, the player can develop fast between he is 18-23, for 2: 19-24, for 3 20-25, for 4 21-26 and for 5 22-27. 

It would be a random number assigned to all players, something like random PA (-9,-8...) and could be different in each save. The most probably number to get would be the 1, because it is the most usual progression, and the number 5 would be less probably, but assigned to a few players. It could be a way to create players like vardy, they would maintain a low CA until he reach his best years of his develop number. 

[goranm]

31 minutes ago, rp1966 said:

I'm really not sure why all the discussion about attributes of players between FM versions - that is a research issue.  The OP was about how a player develops during their career in game during a single FM version.

Because an argument was that some players haven't seen an increase in some of their attributes since they were in their early 20's, so we shouldn't be surprised that we don't see such improvements in-game. Which is countered by giving examples of players which did see an increase in some of their attributes between early 20's and late 20's.

[rp1966]

1 minute ago, goranm said:

Because an argument was that some players haven't seen an increase in some of their attributes since they were in their early 20's, so we shouldn't be surprised that we don't see such improvements in-game. Which is countered by giving examples of players which did see an increase in some of their attributes between early 20's and late 20's.

But it's not comparable. Research ratings have to be calibrated per version, so how attributes change between FM versions doesn't relate to the changes in attributes of a player during a save.  You can make the broad argument that changes in attributes between version is reflective of the player's development, but it could just be that the researcher has had to change them because the player is getting played differently which brings different attributes to the fore (a defensive midfielder shifted to central defence or full-back converted to winger). 

It is still a very different thing to in game attribute changes within the CA/PA system.  The argument that attribute changes don't reflect the way players develop IRL is a completely valid one, but trying to use FM version to version attribute changes to justify it is not that useful because they can often reflect changes in the game calibration or the research rather than in the player.

 

[Jervaj]

I find the sytem is ok in general. The only issue really is that age is too impactful. This goes mainly in two ways.

It makes sense that the fastest development, specially in some areas happens at a younger age, and that older players barelly change anymore or start declining. But I feel like the ffects are too harsh too soon. Like players in the middle of their carreers 25-26 are barelly developping even when they have potential left. I feel like some slower developping, specially mental should still be possible if they are still training well and playing regularly.

And older players physical decline also seems too hardcoded. Like this is easily noticeable with starting old players that have good physicials and they all drop dramatically in the first season. I had in my save 4 players between 31 and 36, all with decent pace/accelaration of around 12-13 (2nd league team) and similar or better in other physicials (one was even my strongest player). Despite the varying specific ages and personalities they all dropped consistently. All of them were below 10 in pace/acceleration and had taken around a 2 point hit in all the others.  

It seems impossible organcially after a few years in to have older players with similar physical values to the ones at the start in the database because after a certain age the game seems to make them fall no matter what.

I think there should be more influence from other factors. Personality and quality of training should affect this decline instead of been so guaranteed at 29-30. Maybe also peak values (17-20) could be harder to maintain, but the lower they are its easier.

 

[Tonton_Zola]

“Dynamic potential” - for me - isn’t so much about a player’s ceiling level being changeable, it’s about the rate of development + decay being player variable.

e.g you would build a simple model of four or five player development types and have them coded into regens

Early risers, but never-quite-peaked = Walcott 

the late bloomer = Vardy 

the steady riser = Lampard

the full wonderkid, then fade = Owen

the full wonderkid, then evergreen = Messi

wonderkid, stall, then explode = Henry, Odegaard (potentially?)

 

etc etc

 

 

Edited December 28, 2020 by Tonton_Zola

[Tonton_Zola]

(You could do better than the above taxonomy obviously, but just wanted to highlight the kinds of dynamics that should exist around player development)

[goranm]

33 minutes ago, rp1966 said:

The argument that attribute changes don't reflect the way players develop IRL is a completely valid one, but trying to use FM version to version attribute changes to justify it is not that useful because they can often reflect changes in the game calibration or the research rather than in the player.

I don't think that you can dismiss using FM version to version attribute changes as justification because those attribute changes are mostly driven by IRL performances, not by game calibration or changes in mechanics. I don't even see how a researcher might justify a change in attributes based on game calibration since they don't have access to the engine for which they are doing the research. Even if we assume that they do, we still have players and teams whose in-game counterparts aren't calibrated to replicate their IRL performances to some respectable degree of accuracy, and sometimes they're way off in replicating the previous or predicting the current form.

Quote

 You can make the broad argument that changes in attributes between version is reflective of the player's development, but it could just be that the researcher has had to change them because the player is getting played differently which brings different attributes to the fore (a defensive midfielder shifted to central defence or full-back converted to winger). 

This is a separate thing, and there is no reason why the game shouldn't also replicate this, which currently it doesn't, unless you start retraining a player early on. If it is possible to have such a variation IRL that would make the researchers change some number of attributes significantly, it should also be possible to do that in-game.

Edited December 28, 2020 by goranm

[Freakiie]

Researchers make mistakes. The game doesn't. A researcher might wrongly judge the peak of a player, the game won't. The whole "but researchers buff players" is really not all that relevant to the discussion of player development. Not to mention it also depends on the researcher and lets face it, more than a couple have a tendency to overhype the players they're rating (no surprise since it's largely done by fans of said clubs), meanwhile a Lewandowski needed to win world player of the year and a new set of researchers before someone looked at him and went "yeah, he really has improved these past few years"

Anyway, back to player development. Players in reality hit peaks, that's simply how it is. The issue in FM is that development is very one dimensional resulting in basically everyone going through the same process. Gain massive attributes till you either hit PA or hit 23 and then development is mostly gone. You won't see a player that's solid at like 25, but has PA to spare, so he slowly but surely grows towards an actual world class player in his later years. That's where the issue is.

If you want to translate the examples people are using here to FM, in FMs eyes they always had the PA to reach that level. A De Bruyne, Lewandowski, Pique, whatever other people named here, as newgens in FMs would always have had their massive PAs. However, due to how development worked, they wouldn't continue developing until late into their careers, even their early thirties in the case of Lewandowski, they'd either hit their PA before their development stops or they'd hit 23 and then stop massively improving and remain stuck at the level they hit early in their careers.

Now as for the whole "a player playing well should develop", why? Should Messi be improved because he plays well? Or does he play well, simply because he's the best footballer around? Also, lets say you change PA so that players playing well can always improve, then they improve, play even better the season after, should they then improve again? In the end, PA does what it's supposed to do; it indicates the peak a player can reach. Players having a peak is not the flaw in FM in my eyes and if people want to get into an argument about a peak or PA not existing in real life, well I disagree. Talent is a real thing and plenty of players branded as massive talents never got anywhere, as their talent was nothing more than them having developed quicker than the people around them, but then quickly hit their ceiling when they actually become a pro.

In the end, the issue in FM remains the absurd pace of development before a player hits 23. It makes everything else meaningless, as you can just build a squad of 22 year old world class players. Obviously nobody will ever see a latebloomer, as we never even bother with buying players that old in the hope they will develop. Why bother with that, when you can buy an 19 year old, that has the same attributes, of which you know that if he has PA left to spare he'll develop? We also won't see a Vardy story, because we can see his exact stats. If he'd be good enough to play in a higher league, he'd have the stats for that from the get go and thus he would have been poached from his non league club way earlier.

Long story short, PA is perfectly fine, the way how players reach their PA in FM is massively flawed.

[trevjim]

It it helps, I've found players attributes to have little or no effect on how they play. Aslong as their CA is good, and their hidden attributes are not awful, they seem to play well.

I've had a central defender with terrible stats in his defensive area, such as 9 tackling and 9 marking, play better then some tailor made CBs, simply because his CA was better.

 

I've had slow forwards outpace their fellow teammates, simply because their CA is better.

 

Ive had players with less then 10 finishing and composure, slot alot of chances away, and have others with great finishing and scoring attributes waste loads.

[enigmatic]

2 hours ago, Freakiie said:

In the end, the issue in FM remains the absurd pace of development before a player hits 23.

Agree with most of your post but FM has considerably slowed the average pace of early development in the last couple of versions.

It's still easy to build teams of very good young players, but that has more to do with the rest of your paragraph (you can see exactly which players that are unusually good for their age even if they're at a tiny overseas club or the AI doesn't play them)

 

4 hours ago, Tonton_Zola said:

“Dynamic potential” - for me - isn’t so much about a player’s ceiling level being changeable, it’s about the rate of development + decay being player variable.

It already is, and more variable than your example. I'd quite like a variable researchers can set that nudges players in a particular direction though

 

10 hours ago, goranm said:

He's gone up by 4 points in First Touch, Composure and Leadership, 3 points in Free Kicks, Determination and Team Work, and 2 or 1 points in 10 other attributes. I've never seen in the past 3 or 4 FM's a player do that from ages 25 to 29.

But the original purpose of the thread was arguing that a one or two point improvement in one particular key attribute over a period of sustained excellence wasn't enough. Now apparently we're in agreement that despite progressing from having his place in a mid table side under question to captaining a record breaking side, a one point attribute increase in most key areas to hit a hard PA cap of 159 is absolutely fine for Jordan Henderson.

Leadership, Determination and Work Rate can all easily be improved in senior players by three or four points in FM, FWIW 

 

10 hours ago, goranm said:

Why are we then seeing at the launch of the game that Man Utd overperform, Tottenham are bottom table, Bayern underperform (and general criticism about Bayern being underrated this year), Salah (when managed by AI) scores 12ish goals at the end of the season when he currently IRL is at 13 etc?

Because, shockingly, games with millions of data points and many possible outcomes do not produce exactly the results people who like to complain about games on the internet expect. Of course it's also clear from these complaints that researchers are not increasing Bayern's attributes by a few points as a reward for winning a title

SI have said they're happy that in their soak tests, Man Utd on average come third and Spurs are on average battling for Europe. Also, gameplay matters as well as stats, so whilst it would be possible to get Kane scoring more goals for the AI by making him fast, Harry Kane is simply not fast, scoring lots of goals in previous seasons will not make him faster and so the researcher has avoided rating Kane in a way which makes him accelerate past defenders in the ME.

Agree or disagree with the outcome, it's not true that researchers do not consider match engine performance when assessing players.

10 hours ago, goranm said:

What you're saying here is that attribute bumping isn't about great seasons unless the player had a great season. How else do we have "evidence the player changed over the course of the season or was underrated" unless that player has a great season or two?

You missed, presumably deliberately, the example of Rashford as a player who had a fine season and did not change by much, because scoring more goals did not convince the researcher that he had developed new areas of his game or that a previous attribute was a mistake.

More to the point, a great season IRL may be evidence some attributes set in the database might be too low, but a great season in game is definitely not evidence that a player's attributes are too low, because the attributes cause the performance

 

1 hour ago, trevjim said:

It it helps, I've found players attributes to have little or no effect on how they play. Aslong as their CA is good, and their hidden attributes are not awful, they seem to play well.

I've had a central defender with terrible stats in his defensive area, such as 9 tackling and 9 marking, play better then some tailor made CBs, simply because his CA was better.

I've had slow forwards outpace their fellow teammates, simply because their CA is better.

Ive had players with less then 10 finishing and composure, slot alot of chances away, and have others with great finishing and scoring attributes waste loads.

CA is not used in the match engine at all, and is just a weighted sum of the attributes. 

It's probable that you're missing all the good points of the defender who can't tackle and weak points of the tailor made CBs, and that faster teammates are being outpaced because they're tired or not trying to run at full speed.