More uncertainty needed with ‘Potential’

[DP]

The scenario:

I’m in the Championship. I see a 19 year old, 5 star potential player in Brazil and sign him. At this point I know he will at least be a very good player for me in the Championship in future and very likely to be a starting player for me in the Premier League. 

This scenario happens with pretty much every player. Yes, some won’t hit their top potential but you can guarantee I can get someone from South America with a high potential and they’ll eventually perform. 

In real life there is far more uncertainty involved. Nobody can guarantee a young player from Brazil will be able to perform in the English Championship at some point. 

Should there not be far more uncertainty around potential ability - rather than just being able to hoover up all of the young players with 4/5 stars thus guaranteeing a future pipeline?

[Sneaky Jeongyeonnie]

4 minutes ago, DP said:

The scenario:

I’m in the Championship. I see a 19 year old, 5 star potential player in Brazil and sign him. At this point I know he will at least be a very good player for me in the Championship in future and very likely to be a starting player for me in the Premier League. 

This scenario happens with pretty much every player. Yes, some won’t hit their top potential but you can guarantee I can get someone from South America with a high potential and they’ll eventually perform. 

In real life there is far more uncertainty involved. Nobody can guarantee a young player from Brazil will be able to perform in the English Championship at some point. 

Should there not be far more uncertainty around potential ability - rather than just being able to hoover up all of the young players with 4/5 stars thus guaranteeing a future pipeline?

No this is currently not the case. The likelihood of a player hitting their potential or coming dangerously close is affected by all the attributes, not simply those known attributes

Also, when the scouts provide you with the feedback, I believe that the scouts also provide you with their evaluation of hidden attributes like consistency, injury proneness, professionalism and whatever, meaning that those 4/5 stars should already have pretty good hidden attributes that will slingshot them closer to max PA

If you complain about South American youngsters more likely to hit the ceiling, it's probably because they have better adaptability and/or the scouts already brought you the players they believe will perform

Want more uncertainty? Why in blind, sign a 5-star PA with 30% knowledge and see what happens

[Tyburn]

It’s why I made this skin:

https://community.sigames.com/forums/topic/549828-fm21skin-nostarsattributes21-v20-updated-6th-may-21/

Tbf, reading the scout reports is still too revealing. It doesn’t stop the mechanic, just makes it a bit less absolute. 

Next update for the skin is removing the numbered identification from a scout report. Makes signing kids a bit more random. Again, only a bit in fairness.

[DP]

20 minutes ago, Sneaky Jeongyeonnie said:

No this is currently not the case. The likelihood of a player hitting their potential or coming dangerously close is affected by all the attributes, not simply those known attributes

Also, when the scouts provide you with the feedback, I believe that the scouts also provide you with their evaluation of hidden attributes like consistency, injury proneness, professionalism and whatever, meaning that those 4/5 stars should already have pretty good hidden attributes that will slingshot them closer to max PA

If you complain about South American youngsters more likely to hit the ceiling, it's probably because they have better adaptability and/or the scouts already brought you the players they believe will perform

Want more uncertainty? Why in blind, sign a 5-star PA with 30% knowledge and see what happens

Just scout until full knowledge and you know. I have yet to buy any player that is 5 star potential that turns out to be a flop. It just doesn’t happen. 
 

Sure they might not make it to world class but they’ll perform eventually. That wouldn’t be the case in real life. In fact, how many young foreign players do you see in the Championship, let alone South American youngsters coming to a brand new culture?

[Freakiie]

Obviously you won't sign a flop because you'll avoid any player that could be a flop in the first place. It's not that hard to never sign a flop when you know beforehand that the guy is consistent, loves big matches, super adaptable and highly professional! The PPA isn't the issue here, that's the one stat that can be (and regularly is) wrong. The fact that a scout however knows all the hidden attributes, even ones that the player himself probably isn't even aware of, that's the issue. You'll never sign a Balotelli, because even if your scout rated him 5* PPA, you'd see the crap personality and go "Nope, not signing this dude".

Hidden attributes need to be removed from scout reports, especially for players that have not shown any aspects that could determine said attributes. Add to that more dynamic personalities, where player personalities can heavily change as they mature (I mean, how many 16 year olds are really highly professional? They're 16!) and then you'll have your uncertainty, as you have to gamble that this unambitious, but seemingly solid CA youngster from Brazil will actually mature over time and not have some serious injury problems or other issues.

[DP]

39 minutes ago, Freakiie said:

Obviously you won't sign a flop because you'll avoid any player that could be a flop in the first place. It's not that hard to never sign a flop when you know beforehand that the guy is consistent, loves big matches, super adaptable and highly professional! The PPA isn't the issue here, that's the one stat that can be (and regularly is) wrong. The fact that a scout however knows all the hidden attributes, even ones that the player himself probably isn't even aware of, that's the issue. You'll never sign a Balotelli, because even if your scout rated him 5* PPA, you'd see the crap personality and go "Nope, not signing this dude".

Hidden attributes need to be removed from scout reports, especially for players that have not shown any aspects that could determine said attributes. Add to that more dynamic personalities, where player personalities can heavily change as they mature (I mean, how many 16 year olds are really highly professional? They're 16!) and then you'll have your uncertainty, as you have to gamble that this unambitious, but seemingly solid CA youngster from Brazil will actually mature over time and not have some serious injury problems or other issues.

But these hidden attributes should be tied into potential. You shouldn’t get a player that is potentially world class if he is unambitious - the stats should work together. An unambitious player won’t have that potential by the fact of being unambitious. 
 

It’s where FM can do a better job of tying some things together that are intrinsically linked rather than seeing stats in isolation.   

Edited May 10, 2021 by DP

[Nacaw]

47 minutes ago, DP said:

But these hidden attributes should be tied into potential. You shouldn’t get a player that is potentially world class if he is unambitious - the stats should work together. An unambitious player won’t have that potential by the fact of being unambitious. 
 

It’s where FM can do a better job of tying some things together that are intrinsically linked rather than seeing stats in isolation.   

I vehemently disagree with this. There are so many examples of football players and indeed athletes of any sport reaching a very high level, while lacking ideal ambition, professionality or determination. And the opposite is true as well; you don't suddenly get more potential by being ambitious, and it would feel plain wrong if the game treated it like that. Instead of looking at scouting reports, people would just look for ambitious personalities, and know that it was linked to high potential. 

[Freakiie]

41 minutes ago, DP said:

But these hidden attributes should be tied into potential. You shouldn’t get a player that is potentially world class if he is unambitious - the stats should work together. An unambitious player won’t have that potential by the fact of being unambitious. 
 

It’s where FM can do a better job of tying some things together that are intrinsically linked rather than seeing stats in isolation.   

Yes you should?

Balotelli had world class potential. Never really made use of it, but he definitely had the potential. Why do you think clubs kept trying with him? Because he showed that in potential he could be one of the best strikers in the world. Plenty of other examples that showed massive potential, but simply never had the mentality to make it in in top sport and yet plenty clubs gave them a shot in the hope that one day they'd learn their lesson and change their attitude.

There's also plenty of players that got pretty far, even despite being unambitious, that always gave you the feel that "there could've been more from them". They had the potential and thanks to their potential even on 80-90% effort they became very good players, but at the same time you also realize that they never quite got everything they could have out their careers.

[obasa_G]

1 hour ago, DP said:

But these hidden attributes should be tied into potential. You shouldn’t get a player that is potentially world class if he is unambitious - the stats should work together. An unambitious player won’t have that potential by the fact of being unambitious. 
 

It’s where FM can do a better job of tying some things together that are intrinsically linked rather than seeing stats in isolation.   

I have actually seen a case where hidden attributes(personality) along with low club reputation affected the perceived potential ability of a player.

 

I was scouting the Spanish U19 Division( A lot of cheap high potential newgens can be found here) and I saw a player from Bansander U19. He had a scout recommendation score of 30 and a very bad personality (Unambitious). That rating was actually an outlier because most of his peers were rated between 10 and 19.

 

I thought it was strange so I decided to take a punt at him. When he arrived at my club his CA was 1 star and his PA was 1.5 stars +1 black star.I had a lot of time with this save, so he was immediately put in a mentoring group to improve his personality and with him making use of state of the art training facilities, I expected him to grow even if it was minimal.

 

A year later, I see that his personality has changed to a more beneficial one and his potential star rating has moved up to 5 stars(4 normal stars +1 black star). The jump was to drastic for me to ignore, so I took a sneak peek at his hidden PA and found that he had a potential ability of 182(Which is world class in my opinion).

[Sneaky Jeongyeonnie]

4 hours ago, DP said:

Just scout until full knowledge and you know. I have yet to buy any player that is 5 star potential that turns out to be a flop. It just doesn’t happen. 
 

Sure they might not make it to world class but they’ll perform eventually. That wouldn’t be the case in real life. In fact, how many young foreign players do you see in the Championship, let alone South American youngsters coming to a brand new culture?

Just separate real life from FM. Like Tyburn said, the scouts reports are too revealing

How are you comparing this to real life? In real life, how can you actually measure, assess and determine the ambition or consistency on the scale of 20? The game is a software, the numbers are keyed into the game to give the players a certain locked range of ability

The thing you are looking for here is not just uncertainty but less knowledge.

The game already has randomized range of "numerical" ability in a range of 30 units and if it's not enough, it's a good idea to request a feature in the next games allowing a range of options in the setting up of a save to choose the attribute(s) that is specifically invisible (even to in-game editors) and more volatile, that might add to the uncertainty

Finally, as I said, you are saying that 5-star potential always end up being absolute stars and never flops means the AI knows too much about the player, knowing that he's adaptable, ambitious, professional along with all the personalities and attributes required to reach stardom

[Sneaky Jeongyeonnie]

2 hours ago, obasa_G said:

I have actually seen a case where hidden attributes(personality) along with low club reputation affected the perceived potential ability of a player.

 

I was scouting the Spanish U19 Division( A lot of cheap high potential newgens can be found here) and I saw a player from Bansander U19. He had a scout recommendation score of 30 and a very bad personality (Unambitious). That rating was actually an outlier because most of his peers were rated between 10 and 19.

 

I thought it was strange so I decided to take a punt at him. When he arrived at my club his CA was 1 star and his PA was 1.5 stars +1 black star.I had a lot of time with this save, so he was immediately put in a mentoring group to improve his personality and with him making use of state of the art training facilities, I expected him to grow even if it was minimal.

 

A year later, I see that his personality has changed to a more beneficial one and his potential star rating has moved up to 5 stars(4 normal stars +1 black star). The jump was to drastic for me to ignore, so I took a sneak peek at his hidden PA and found that he had a potential ability of 182(Which is world class in my opinion).

I came across this too, the thing about scout reports is that it grades the player based upon all the information about and regarding the player including known attributes, hidden attributes up to comparison with the current squad quality

Having a 5 star potential alleged wonderkid when using a scout with excellent judging attributes would provide a very comprehensive scout report, not easily missing out on the wonderkids like the one you mention here

So, all in all, the problem OP has, I believe, is down to the scouts and coaches being too good and knowing "too much"

Edited May 10, 2021 by Sneaky Jeongyeonnie

[DP]

4 minutes ago, Sneaky Jeongyeonnie said:

Just separate real life from FM. Like Tyburn said, the scouts reports are too revealing

How are you comparing this to real life? In real life, how can you actually measure, assess and determine the ambition or consistency on the scale of 20? The game is a software, the numbers are keyed into the game to give the players a certain locked range of ability

The thing you are looking for here is not just uncertainty but less knowledge.

The game already has randomized range of "numerical" ability in a range of 30 units and if it's not enough, it's a good idea to request a feature in the next games allowing a range of options in the setting up of a save to choose the attribute(s) that is specifically invisible (even to in-game editors) and more volatile, that might add to the uncertainty

Finally, as I said, you are saying that 5-star potential always end up being absolute stars and never flops means the AI knows too much about the player, knowing that he's adaptable, ambitious, professional along with all the personalities and attributes required to reach stardom

You are right - less knowledge. But there should maybe be more made of young player adaptability. It’s not a strong enough penalty in the game imo. 
 

I’m also not saying they will be absolute stars, but they won’t flop either. 

[Sneaky Jeongyeonnie]

Just now, DP said:

You are right - less knowledge. But there should maybe be more made of young player adaptability. It’s not a strong enough penalty in the game imo. 
 

I’m also not saying they will be absolute stars, but they won’t flop either. 

They won't flop simply because theiy're just too good to fall below being just mediocre or decent

About young player adaptability, it could be a thing but the game grades the players every year and updates time and time again right? It aims to be as close to the real life situation as possible, the only unknown variable the want you to have is in the future in the game when you have gone months and years into the future and see how the player "may" be correctly managed

If you specify a separate adaptability level, other than the general adaptability attributes, it might be possible (I'm not a dev idk) but I expect there to be some lurking variables such as the "learnability" of the language compared to the player's mother tongue, the receptability of the neighborhood surrounding the home field (French players moving to London tend to prefer a rather French part of the city, Chinatown everywhere,...) and stuff like that

Would be a lot of work for precision but yeah, a mere "locked" penalty based on the age at which the player moves abroad might do