Trust the PA stars or the text after?

[Quickly]

The PA stars and the text after are very inconsistent..

Which should I trust more, The Stars or the comment after? 

And why do they differ? Am I missing something? 🤔

 

[fc.cadoni]

None. Take it with pinch of salt, because it's an relative opinion of your background staff which can be wrong (or true).

[Quickly]

22 minutes ago, fc.cadoni said:

None. Take it with pinch of salt, because it's an relative opinion of your background staff which can be wrong (or true).

I'm aware that the stars aren't absolutes and it's the opinion of the staff member. I'm fine with that and I think it's great… better staff more accurate prediction. 👍🏻

The problem here is the mismatch between PA stars and the potential league text.

 

Take #35… 4 gold and 1 silver stars.

"potentially league 1 standard" 

 

#25 same stars..

"potentially championship standard" 

 

#66  3,5 gold and 1 silver (less than #35!) 

"potentially championship standard" 

 

#10 3,5 gold stars 

"Good league 1 player" 

 

The same staff member making these reports. 

Is it a bug or is there some strange logic behind this? 🤔

[enigmatic]

They star comparison takes into account other players at your club.

[Quickly]

35 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

They star comparison takes into account other players at your club.

Did you read my question?

These copy/paste answers dont apply to my question

[fc.cadoni]

If you have question if it's a bug or not, just report it so someone from SI in QA department will take a look.

[enigmatic]

1 hour ago, Quickly said:

Did you read my question?

These copy/paste answers dont apply to my question

Did you read my answer?

If so, maybe you could consider the possibility that if your best right back is both 5* potential and League One potential and your right winger is 4.5* and Championship potential, it might be because the right wingers at your club generally have more potential than your right backs.

 

Or you could copy/past the same question for a third time and be rude to the next person to try to explain why, I guess. Your call.

[Quickly]

1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

Did you read my answer?

If so, maybe you could consider the possibility that if your best right back is both 5* potential and League One potential and your right winger is 4.5* and Championship potential, it might be because the right wingers at your club generally have more potential than your right backs.

 

Or you could copy/past the same question for a third time and be rude to the next person to try to explain why, I guess. Your call.

If it had the effect of you giving me more of an answer then a little rudeness might have been called for 😉

Is that really how it works? 🤔 
You're saying I should trust the text more? 

Then this pop-up from squad depth can't be trusted either when it comes to PA.. 

They're pretty much all AMR

L. Flower have the same roll suitability, less PA stars but better potential according to the text… 
And this striker have a whooping 3,5 suitability in the striker roll

So confusing 😵‍💫

Thx for the new answer btw 🙌🏻

 

[KingCanary]

Not sure if this is considered a 'hot take' but I'd be tempted to get rid of star ratings- they've largely become useless and there is so much that goes into them that isn't clearly explained that I find them more of a hinderance than anything.  

[rristola]

I have recently started a new topic "Add an option how 'Current ability' stars is handled". There I wrote about how these star ratings are pretty weird, and in some cases even unusable.

I suggested that those star ratings shouldn't be done so much 'relative' to your own team's players, but 'relative' to all players in that league. Rating should give an answer to the question: "Is he capable, and in what level, to play in this league?" Could this be an option in scouting page?

Just a new way how to make a scouting report...

 

Link to my topic here.

[FrazT]

On 06/06/2022 at 00:17, Quickly said:

The PA stars and the text after are very inconsistent..

Which should I trust more, The Stars or the comment after? 

And why do they differ? Am I missing something? 🤔

 

I think that the only thing that you can trust in this situation is your own judgement and that is what I would suggest.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

On 06/06/2022 at 15:49, KingCanary said:

Not sure if this is considered a 'hot take' but I'd be tempted to get rid of star ratings- they've largely become useless and there is so much that goes into them that isn't clearly explained that I find them more of a hinderance than anything.  

If you look on reddit, it seems to be all 99% of people who play it even look at.

 

"MY five star youth regen dropped to 4.5 when I signed him, so now he sucks!"

 

"This one star potential guy scored a hat trick? OMG HOW?"

 

It's really tedious to see; People just really don't seem to understand the whole point of the stars at all.

[toolkit68]

This comes up every single version of FM and includes all the typical misunderstandings of what those stars do and are.

To begin with: there is no such thing as a silver star. It is white when something is 'unconfirmed' and gold when confirmed. So a player might get scouted the first week, looks like potentially a 4 star rating thus 4 stars are white to begin with. Another week of scouting starts to fill the white with gold when stuff gets confirmed. Yes he can move a ball , yes he can use his head and so on. Meanwhile the player has actually played and trained thus stats might change and potential might go up and down still.

Both the stars and the text are a 'guideline' to sort out the weed from the corn. Especially when your scouting regions grow and your scout staff as well you have to handle tons of reports. This is where the star system is supposed to help you to make quick sorting decisions - keeper or dumper. Keepers go on the short for a while so they get scouted fully. This is where things get even more complicated because beside the stars you also get a letter recommendation which is as misleading as the stars if you dont use your own brain. If a player hasnt played a lot while being scouted those letters will be Cs and lower just because there is no analytical data and your scouts will sometimes even say: dont ever sign him.

As with everything in managing: it is not a simple one sided thing to make decisions but the combination of a number of sources and data that allows you to make proper decisions. If you think of it as a top down approach the stars and text are the very first level of the pyramid to weed through a big number of entries. Whatever is left after that gets looked through again but now also some extra data is used before making decisions like actual analyst data, comparison to other players with similar role and ability and so on. Once you have been through the entire stack you end up with a very low number of actual players that represent the top of the pyramid. Even those are uncertain as all of this is outside perspective of a player.

FM as the name says is a Management thing. You have to manage several sources of input properly to get the right output here and even then it is always 'their' opinion. The more different inputs of various sources say the same about one player the higher the probability that this info is correct. If you base any decision on the opinion of a single scout you are doomed to fail in decision making.

 

P.S. As of what you call difference in text and star representation: there isnt actually any. Everything inside the fourth star both text and star wise is consistently talking about Sky Bet One League. It is a range not an absolute. Everything confirmed in the fourth level makes the player 2nd League recommendation, anything not confirmed just a potential which is as good as me potentially winning the Brasilian lottery.

Edited June 8, 2022 by toolkit68

[Parmie]

What I've found to be the main cause of high star ratings against a description of being a lower standard is the squad comparison thing, but much more directly related to positional gaps in my squad.

I've tended towards formations that don't use AML/AMR positions, and my squad is appropriately recruited to avoid recruiting those players. What I see is my staff putting high star ratings against any decent winger because it perceives a lack of depth in that position and that player would 'improve' my squad.

The overview in reports enables me to change the position being rated to one that I do have depth for, and the star rating changes, that winger may be bad at AMC where I have good players.

It's quite a flaw in the way scouting works, as you're telling scouts to look for high star rated players, so it may be applying more specific filters will help. e.g. fit tactic (although I tend to find this completely stifles scouts and they don't return anyone).

[rristola]

Somehow I'm sensing that there are two different types of managers here - experienced and not so experienced. Therefore also their (no, our - me too) needs are different.

Someone understands better, that all good midfielders aren't that good when using certain formation, position, role and tactic. On the other hand, there are also managers, that are just trying to find capable midfielders for his team - they can also change their tactic, players' roles or something else, if needed. One kind of scout's report isn't enough!

I haven't yet ever played as a premier league manager in any country. I don't know what is it like, when all the other players are signed, and you should find one, the best you can, player to fit all criteria. I'm still learning to get there. So, I might write something foolish, but...

 

When a manager is playing this game and gets a scout's report to read, it is a kind of an answer. Some of these managers (us), in our minds, haven't asked just those questions that answer is for. Therefore the scout's report should be a bunch of papers - each sheet gives an answer to a different question.

• One sheet could give info about scouting percentage: what has been done, and WARN if something is missing - checking old reports, visiting training, interview, seeing a game,... If something is missing, this could happen:

  10 hours ago, toolkit68 said:

  If a player hasnt played a lot while being scouted those letters will be Cs and lower just because there is no analytical data and your scouts will sometimes even say: dont ever sign him.
   

• One sheet could give report like it is now.
• One sheet could give an answer to a question: "Is this player capable to play in this league?", so his overall capability against the average players' overall capability in this league.
• One sheet could compare this player to other players in our team and in other teams in this league - in this position. "This AMF is better than we already have, but wouldn't be the best in league, not even in top half."
• One sheet to compare players in our team - how well could he manage with us, fitting to our tactic, should we sign him, etc.
• Something more? Something else?

Downside - would this take a bit more time? Maybe there could be options to be checked, like with 'fits tactic,...'.

[KingCanary]

11 hours ago, toolkit68 said:

This comes up every single version of FM and includes all the typical misunderstandings of what those stars do and are.

To begin with: there is no such thing as a silver star. It is white when something is 'unconfirmed' and gold when confirmed. So a player might get scouted the first week, looks like potentially a 4 star rating thus 4 stars are white to begin with. Another week of scouting starts to fill the white with gold when stuff gets confirmed. Yes he can move a ball , yes he can use his head and so on. Meanwhile the player has actually played and trained thus stats might change and potential might go up and down still.

Both the stars and the text are a 'guideline' to sort out the weed from the corn. Especially when your scouting regions grow and your scout staff as well you have to handle tons of reports. This is where the star system is supposed to help you to make quick sorting decisions - keeper or dumper. Keepers go on the short for a while so they get scouted fully. This is where things get even more complicated because beside the stars you also get a letter recommendation which is as misleading as the stars if you dont use your own brain. If a player hasnt played a lot while being scouted those letters will be Cs and lower just because there is no analytical data and your scouts will sometimes even say: dont ever sign him.

As with everything in managing: it is not a simple one sided thing to make decisions but the combination of a number of sources and data that allows you to make proper decisions. If you think of it as a top down approach the stars and text are the very first level of the pyramid to weed through a big number of entries. Whatever is left after that gets looked through again but now also some extra data is used before making decisions like actual analyst data, comparison to other players with similar role and ability and so on. Once you have been through the entire stack you end up with a very low number of actual players that represent the top of the pyramid. Even those are uncertain as all of this is outside perspective of a player.

FM as the name says is a Management thing. You have to manage several sources of input properly to get the right output here and even then it is always 'their' opinion. The more different inputs of various sources say the same about one player the higher the probability that this info is correct. If you base any decision on the opinion of a single scout you are doomed to fail in decision making.

 

P.S. As of what you call difference in text and star representation: there isnt actually any. Everything inside the fourth star both text and star wise is consistently talking about Sky Bet One League. It is a range not an absolute. Everything confirmed in the fourth level makes the player 2nd League recommendation, anything not confirmed just a potential which is as good as me potentially winning the Brasilian lottery.

This is all really interesting but highlights a continued issue I have with the game and the feedback it gives to players- an awful lot of this is really unclear and thus why I'd rather do away with the stars altogether. They are given quite a lot of prominence but seem to have so many variable factors that go into them and fluctuate with such regularity that they become next to useless. 

Take the idea that star rating reflect how they compare to others in your squad- the text next to it gives no indication that it is based on that, just on the players ability relative the the level you're playing at.

The point about scouting grades is interesting but another level of confusion- I've often wondered why a player with 4/5 star potential is given a C- but another with lesser ability sometimes gets a B and would never have put together that this is due to a lack of analytical data for the first player as the game is telling me we've got 100% knowledge.

I also find it a bit strange that I'll have players who can play multiple positions with little variation in star rating across positions and roles. For example I have a player right now who is able to play RB, LWB, CM, AM, AML. According to a coaches report he's a 3 star player as a mezzela in CM but also a 3 star NNFB at RB and a 3 star trequartista. It feels off to me that this coach is suggesting he's just as good in 3 very different roles all over the pitch.

[fc.cadoni]

Here why I am telling to people to not trust any star which come from background staff. This is an edited player (attributes and other ranges has been edited for the purpose of this test, it's not the original ones).

1. The difference between "Promising" and "Wonderkid" is about reputation (and huge Transfer Value difference).
2. Both two versions of that player has the same CA/PA difference; but if you look at the "stars", the CA star is way to misleading. Actually is not even close to PA.

Promising

Wonderkid

====

Judge only by attributes and nothing else. Game helps you to highlight the key attributes for each role in each position. ;-)

[Daveincid]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb fc.cadoni:

Here why I am telling to people to not trust any star which come from background staff. This is an edited player (attributes and other ranges has been edited for the purpose of this test, it's not the original ones).

1. The difference between "Promising" and "Wonderkid" is about reputation (and huge Transfer Value difference).
2. Both two versions of that player has the same CA/PA difference; but if you look at the "stars", the CA star is way to misleading. Actually is not even close to PA.

Promising

Wonderkid

====

Judge only by attributes and nothing else. Game helps you to highlight the key attributes for each role in each position. ;-)

Amen

[toolkit68]

8 hours ago, rristola said:

Somehow I'm sensing that there are two different types of managers here - experienced and not so experienced. Therefore also their (no, our - me too) needs are different.

Someone understands better, that all good midfielders aren't that good when using certain formation, position, role and tactic. On the other hand, there are also managers, that are just trying to find capable midfielders for his team - they can also change their tactic, players' roles or something else, if needed. One kind of scout's report isn't enough!

I haven't yet ever played as a premier league manager in any country. I don't know what is it like, when all the other players are signed, and you should find one, the best you can, player to fit all criteria. I'm still learning to get there. So, I might write something foolish, but...

 

When a manager is playing this game and gets a scout's report to read, it is a kind of an answer. Some of these managers (us), in our minds, haven't asked just those questions that answer is for. Therefore the scout's report should be a bunch of papers - each sheet gives an answer to a different question.

• One sheet could give info about scouting percentage: what has been done, and WARN if something is missing - checking old reports, visiting training, interview, seeing a game,... If something is missing, this could happen:
• One sheet could give report like it is now.
• One sheet could give an answer to a question: "Is this player capable to play in this league?", so his overall capability against the average players' overall capability in this league.
• One sheet could compare this player to other players in our team and in other teams in this league - in this position. "This AMF is better than we already have, but wouldn't be the best in league, not even in top half."
• One sheet to compare players in our team - how well could he manage with us, fitting to our tactic, should we sign him, etc.
• Something more? Something else?

Downside - would this take a bit more time? Maybe there could be options to be checked, like with 'fits tactic,...'.

Let me explain why this is already ingame and also why it is me again answering to this

I am by no means a football fan nor did(do) I have specific knowledge about football as a sport as most others do. I was at most a spectator and not even that regularly. FM is a management game in its core and the career mode is about being a Manager and not about being a footballer which is why i believe many struggle with the tools at hand. I specifically point out that I am not a football freak because the problems people have with all of this are mostly connected to the wrong mindset. This is not FIFA career mode for dummies. No AI can make competent decisions for you without knowing what you are actually looking for. Which is why you get a whole range of information at once and it is your job to filter this information in a way that it makes sense.

• The shortlist is what you call 'sheets'. You can have several shortlists to structure things exactly the way you like them to be and by clicking the little check box Scouts will keep those on the lists up-to-date.
  They are basically like a desk with papers. Some people prefer to work with one big pile and dig through that(default shortlist only), others separate their piles into sub-stacks of certain aspects
• The shortlist should be what you call 'The question not asked yet' - for example 'Is the player generally good enough or not' which is basically just based on overall attribute numbers. If yes it goes on default pile
• Create views for your shortlists that have certain attribute filters, markups etc. Since every player has their own preference about this stuff there are not any by default except the standard view. I have quite a few where the most used one in the beginning of the filter process includes a set of 5 core attributes i deem essential for my players (mental mostly) and the expected minimum and maximum wage of that player. At that stage i actually dont care at all if the player is Messi 2 or a Demi-God - if I cant pay him anyway he goes out of the default list (i have a shortlist called 'Wishlist' which contains all those that i would love to have but simply can never pay - yet). At that stage i have neither looked at actual potential or all attributes by the way.
• Those that make the first filter end up in other shortlists. Those are either lists i separate by age - like youngsters and prospects dont go into the same list as actual players - or by certain other aspects like a specific play-style.which requires a specific combination of attributes to be of a minimum value.. This compares to your sheet that decides if a player can play in your league or not. Attributes below a certain level mean the player has to leave the shortlist either permanently or goes on a different pile.
• Then there are edgy cases where the player is just short of 1 or 2 attributes but everything else looks ok. Those are the ones that require their own list too as i deem them the ones that require most work. Why? Because it is with those players i actually look the first time at potential. If the player is fully scouted and lacks potential i have to make a decision about keeping him or dumping for good. If there is potential I have to figure out how much, the character of the player, nationality since foreign players can easily have a hard time in teams without any fellow countrymen. This is basically the list i spend most of the time as these are the cases that require a human brain to make decisions. This can not be done by an AI as the AI is too binary in its approach about this.
  Example: I play a pass-and-move style currently. That requires each player to be at least somewhat capable of moving a ball (good technical attributes) while at the same time being able to press opponents relentlessly (aggressive and good physics). These are 2 types of players for the AI. The passing one is considered 'technical' by the AI while a pressing one is considered 'physical'. But I dont need either one of them - I need a combo of it. This is why there is no way you can expect any scout report to give you proper answers to those questions you mentioned.

As you can see - all that has nothing to do with actual football. It is about managing your desk filled with papers. Creating those views, adjusting them once in a while, finding the right set of things to display at a time is what most people dont actually do. But the means for it are in the game. I added one of my views to this post to give you a better sense of what this is actually about - maybe it helps to get you started with your own ones.

This is a group of players before i sort them out.

This is what is left when i apply my criteria of being aggressive enough, having enough anticipation to get to a ball, to make decent decisions what to do with the ball or without it and if they are proper team-players.

Just based on the quick glance over their wage demands leaves me with almost just one player i can afford currently - the one at the top of the list. But once i actually look into the details i get the scouts quick report of him and only look at the pros and cons quickly. The 'inability to put himself into the right place ' under cons immediately makes me check his other attributes now and his positioning is just 5 - far too low for any defensive position.

No stars have been used to make any of these decisions yet. All they are to me and most others is an 'indicator' of where to roughly expect them in a pecking order of all player's abilities and potential development of them. But they are still useful when i skim through a whole pile of players.

P.S. While this player didnt make it for a defensive role everything else was good enough to consider him for a winger role or at least retraining him into one as there is enough room for development due to projected ability. This is the kind of decision the AI is not capable of seeing.

DWISS Shortlist Core Attributes.fmf

Edited June 9, 2022 by toolkit68
some late spellchecking

[rristola]

2 hours ago, toolkit68 said:

a pecking order of all player's abilities and potential development of them. But they are still useful when i skim through a whole pile of players.

This is exactly what I was trying to say. And adding, that I personally don't like this way these CA rating stars are presented or calculated. As far as I know, they are now too much relative to your own team's players.

I would like scout's lists of players (with CA stars column) to show me, which players are in his opinion capable of playing in that league our team is in. Player's CA star count 3 would mean average player in that league.

I would like to see this possible in setup, or as mentioned, added into 'Scouting' page as an option. Just to change those rules how to calculate CA stars would be unfair to someones. This was my point.

 

I quoted you only, that you had written about possibility, that scout could give misleading info because of not enough scouting. That I would hate. Why - those earliest results just make it possible for me to end unnecessary scouting. If that first info is... I'm ruined.

Otherwise, I liked your original text in this topic.

 

I'm personally on/off player with FM. I like to start my career in lower leagues and with low resources. Not enough scouts, and even them are most likely player/scouts. As a result a bunch of players are unknown to these scouts. That's why I need a quick look on as many players as there is time.

Players are mostly amateurs and non-contracts, and there can be a lot of try-outs. If a player's CA star count then changes because of this calculation method, it makes scouting, well, a bit unpleasant task. I would like another CA star presentation.

 

PS. Thanks for hints.

[toolkit68]

2 hours ago, rristola said:

I'm personally on/off player with FM. I like to start my career in lower leagues and with low resources. Not enough scouts, and even them are most likely player/scouts. As a result a bunch of players are unknown to these scouts. That's why I need a quick look on as many players as there is time.

Players are mostly amateurs and non-contracts, and there can be a lot of try-outs. If a player's CA star count then changes because of this calculation method, it makes scouting, well, a bit unpleasant task. I would like another CA star presentation.

 

PS. Thanks for hints.

This is very much the same for me and the main reason why i started to dig into how to setup my scouting more efficiently. I struggled with it in Fm19, became a bit better in Fm20 and at last in FM21 i had figured so much stuff out that I wasnt aware of before. I had the same wrong understanding of the stars in the beginning but also wouldnt want to work without them. They are really helpful in so many different ways. Like when i go through my squad quickly to check who is having which playing time promised and what the contract actually says. if that deviates too much from each other i either drop the player next possible window or offer them a better contract before they get miserable. For that the stars are one of the first things i use.

[rristola]

8 hours ago, toolkit68 said:

...same wrong understanding of the stars in the beginning...

Who wants to read manuals, when you can just start playing the game instead! And it doesn't help, that with those nice precise attributes there are also relative stars.

 

But, to my question. Can you imagine any situation, where different method to calculate CA stars would help you?

Like, what I would like the most - comparing the scouted player to all players in that league? In overall level. 3 stars would be the average player. Answering to this question: "Is his overall level good enough to play in this league?"

Or, because form is one part of stars calculation, can it cause recovering player to be not found?

[toolkit68]

1 hour ago, rristola said:

Who wants to read manuals, when you can just start playing the game instead! And it doesn't help, that with those nice precise attributes there are also relative stars.

 

But, to my question. Can you imagine any situation, where different method to calculate CA stars would help you?

Like, what I would like the most - comparing the scouted player to all players in that league? In overall level. 3 stars would be the average player. Answering to this question: "Is his overall level good enough to play in this league?"

Or, because form is one part of stars calculation, can it cause recovering player to be not found?

This is a tricky question. If you send your scouts out with orders to look only at stars (current and/or potential ability) then this is bad and could have players not appear when they perform badly for a while.
The way scouting works best is a combination of both the stars and a collection of core attributes that have to be at a minimum.

Let me digress a little bit to explain why. I too used to start my scouting back then only based on ability searches and was wondering after a while why other clubs around me where signing players that basically fulfilled what I was looking for but i had never seen them in any of my reports. Digging through tons of posts both here , on reddit and own experiments made me change that quickly to a combo approach. A squad is basically 2 things: just a simple group of players with certain attributes that allow them to perform certain actions properly and a personality in its own. The latter part is usually what we all overlook when we start FM. But it has a huge impact actually on how those players perform in a group on the pitch. If you have a player that has Messsi-like attributes but is badly unambitious he will perform far below par compared to any other player in the group once things get heated. Or players that are fickle will train badly and probably perform very inconsistent. So there is no truth in any one aspect that makes up a player. Another extreme example of a player and the stars is one of my centre backs. He is 32 now, star wise totally below par of any other player in my squad because i dragged him with us since we played 3. Liga in Germany. But he has been the team leader forever, loves me as a manager, solves constantly trouble for me with players and he simply can headbang goals in corner setups. He is worth every penny we pay him even if he isnt the world best player anymore - but he is still a reliable backup if all other get bookings or fall ill after a wet weekend

All this info is something you learn with time and it makes you change your scouting approach too. You simply want a consistent group of players by type before correct attributes for example. The odd outlier is not a problem but the majority needs to fit to each other.

So in terms of your question this means you will and probably should not see certain players even if they would fit the star level. As a rule of thumb you can safely say that everything 3,5-4 golden stars is actual leading 2. League- Decent 1. League material (assuming we have 3 Leagues per country that is). But since there is relativity in this it is just an indicator - not a fixed value. The problem comes with people making this direct relation between their database edits and stars which is just complicating things. By default a country will roughly place players of 3,5-4 stars in 2. League, everything above in 1.League and the rest somewhere below.
If you make sure that your scout assignments are a combo of minimum core attributes plus current ability / potential ability you will get actual useful information as your scouts might believe the player is world class material star wise but the attributes might say the opposite if it fails to match all of them. As i listed in my example in the post up there - sorting players radically out by failing to fulfil the core attributes i want/need is one lesson I learned. I used to accept far too many b-.class players by ignoring them when I started. Nowadays I have players that by scout opinion are max squad players but are actual Regular  Starters with consistent performance which is more important for me since my play-style requires a high level of team-work and not solo activity by 1 or 2 superstars. We have the lowest wage budget in the Bundesliga and still manage to perform well enough the stay mid table - because i can basically rely on a minimum performance every single game which means i have a very stable defence that doesnt allow many goals against us. This works because i dont get any player with team,work, aggression and decision below 12. I have thrown out so many players that looked really juicy but I know today from experience that without enough aggression they wont press properly thus making the entire team fail in possession.

Think of stars like signs in a supermarket: Deal, Special Deal, Super Bargain. They also dont tell you anything properly just indicate there is something to get for probably cheaper than usually. If that is true or not has still to be determined by yourself unless you want to fall into sell traps and blindly accept that the price is good (without putting it into a relative value and comparing prices you wont be able to make a proper decision).

P.S. Wages are actually a very good way to achieve what you are looking for and the reason why i have a view like in my screenshot up there. Players with similar attributes but outrageous wage demands are often the ones that either have a ton of potential left or ones that have been at clubs long enough to climb up the wage ladder without actually becoming that much better. To which group the player belongs is something you need to filter by yourself - the scouts are unable to properly do that. Wages are roughly similar for certain player classes in a league. So a player that earns more than lets say 100k Euro per month is somewhere between top 2. League and 1. League. The average wage budget of 2. League clubs is simply not that large to accommodate for many of those wages which means the few you find in a 2. League are probably either the oldest or the very best.

Edited June 9, 2022 by toolkit68

[Prepper_Jack]

The star ratings are based entirely on current ability, and perceived potential ability in relation to your team, and your team only. 

The text associated with it is how they fare in relation to the league for that particular position. Because some regions pump out better players than others in particular areas, such as Brazil with its wingbacks, the average current ability in various positions can be quite different. So, you might have a 120 CA defensive midfielder who is rated as a top player in your premier league, while your 120 CA central defender is just a decent player for the same league.

 

[toolkit68]

1 hour ago, Prepper_Jack said:

The star ratings are based entirely on current ability, and perceived potential ability in relation to your team, and your team only. 

The text associated with it is how they fare in relation to the league for that particular position. Because some regions pump out better players than others in particular areas, such as Brazil with its wingbacks, the average current ability in various positions can be quite different. So, you might have a 120 CA defensive midfielder who is rated as a top player in your premier league, while your 120 CA central defender is just a decent player for the same league.

 

Which is why making this relation of an actual number to stars the real problem. New players get the wrong understanding due to dealing with numbers that are simply not visible in the regular game. Without those numbers stars are working just fine once a player understands how they basically work.

Edited June 9, 2022 by toolkit68

[rristola]

2 hours ago, toolkit68 said:

... If you send your scouts out with orders to look only at stars (current and/or potential ability)...

toolkit68, I didn't mean how to send scout to find suitable players, but how to find suitable players from a list of already scouted players. With one glimpse. CA stars could help there as you wrote.

 

1 hour ago, Prepper_Jack said:

... in relation to your team, and your team only.

And this causes me trouble, at least in some cases.

 

First, little explanation. When I told, that I like to start from lower levels, well, in my game now I started from English 8. level (using a mod). 5. level is still National, 6. divided in South and North, rest are regional or local.

My team had just promoted, and it had only 4-5 players signed. All amateurs.

Those players (must have been) compared to each other (mostly), and they got even 4 stars in CA. Although their team had just promoted, and, in fact, almost all of them were just 9. level players. Still, 4 stars CA. After signing more players their stars dropped between half and one.

So, at least in this kind of situations, this CA stars calculation method is problematic.

When trying to find my first new players their CA stars didn't give me that much info - reliable info.

 

This is why I would like to have an option to have scouted player to be compared to "all" players in that league (not mainly own team players) when those CA stars are calculated.

When having an "empty" team or when promoted, these problems seem to be possible.

 

PS. toolkit68, thanks for your answer earlier. I just haven't got to that level yet.

Edited June 9, 2022 by rristola

[toolkit68]

21 minutes ago, rristola said:

toolkit68, I didn't mean how to send scout to find suitable players, but how to find suitable players from a list of already scouted players. With one glimpse. CA stars could help there as you wrote.

 

And this causes me trouble, at least in some cases.

 

First, little explanation. When I told, that I like to start from lower levels, well, in my game now I started from English 8. level (using a mod). 5. level is still National, 6. divided in South and North, rest are regional or local.

My team had just promoted, and it had only 4-5 players signed. All amateurs.

Those players (must have been) compared to each other (mostly), and they got even 4 stars in CA. Although their team had just promoted, and, in fact, almost all of them were just 9. level players. Still, 4 stars CA. After signing more players their stars dropped between half and one.

So, at least in this kind of situations, this CA stars calculation method is problematic.

When trying to find my first new players their CA stars didn't give me that much info - reliable info.

 

This is why I would like to have an option to have scouted player to be compared to "all" players in that league (not mainly own team players) when those CA stars are calculated.

When having an "empty" team or when promoted, these problems seem to be possible.

 

PS. toolkit68, thanks for your answer earlier. I just haven't got to that level yet.

Ok - i get it. What you want is not possible just by using the stars since players move between leagues as they do in your team thus meaning of star rating changes depending on the actual players at a given point in time. Since time advances, so do the changes to the stars. A player 3 star yesterday might become 2,5 half the next day when a load of better players came into the league.

The comparison to all players is what i described via the attribute view. Each league has an average for each attribute to be deemed 'successful' in his actions. Roughly said 1.League anything below 12-13 for average attribute value is problematic. Minus 1 for each league downwards. So 2. League is 11-12 as average. 10-11 for the next lower level and so on. Alll this is for 'average attribute' will say minimum. 1-3 points on top of average is 'good', anything beyond' that 'excellent'. So in your case playing in some 8th league makes a 9 a good or excellent value for any attribute.

So what you want to do is to set those colours in your settings for each league level you are currently in to be displayed in different colours. Every time you get promoted you readjust those numbers - will say raise them. Overall work to do once: go into preferences and setup skin colours for each year, make a view with the attributes you need most. Once you get comfy with that make even more views for each class of players like def/mid/att since they all require different attributes while core attributes for the entire squad are always the same.

[turnip]

44 minutes ago, rristola said:

So, at least in this kind of situations, this CA stars calculation method is problematic.

When trying to find my first new players their CA stars didn't give me that much info - reliable info.

 

This is why I would like to have an option to have scouted player to be compared to "all" players in that league (not mainly own team players) when those CA stars are calculated.

When having an "empty" team or when promoted, these problems seem to be possible.

No, that's the system working as intended. The game is saying, "Hey, these are the best players at your club in these positions." Then your scouts go away and find some better players and gives them good star ratings. You sign these players, and your coaches now tell you "Hey, those other guys you had before aren't very good anymore. But these new guys are the best players at your club in these positions." If you keep signing players with 4*-5*, your team will keep improving. 

Having your players be compared to others in the league just leaves too little room for variation. If you're managing in, say, Portugal and you get promoted to the top league, all of a sudden your players would be getting compared to the best players at Porto or Benfica and what's the point of that, because you haven't got a hope of signing anyone remotely close to that level of ability for probably a few seasons - they'll get 5* ratings and everyone else except a couple of other teams (maybe Sporting and Braga) is going to get 2*-3* because that's the gulf in quality. How does that help you? Now you'd just be annoyed that your scouts aren't finding any 5* players (because they wouldn't want to join). 

 

The system more or less works at the moment, it's just too opaque. 

[rristola]

1 hour ago, toolkit68 said:

So what you want to do is to set those colours in your settings for each league level

That could do the trick. Although, having a view with a list of a lot of players' names and column with CA stars would be easier and faster way to find those players to start scouting thoroughly. Like to check out their attributes.

 

1 hour ago, turnip said:

No, that's the system working as intended....

Yes, I know. And I have used it. I'm guessing that this case of mine isn't that common. Because of using mods? Only in lower leagues? Maybe with promotions in all levels...?

 

 

With this discussion I have tried to make it known, that there could be other ways CA stars (or just stars) could be calculated to be presented in these lists of names what we get while searching players.

For me it sounds similar like scout would write his report in another way - what to emphasize. Our scouts should know something about the other teams and their players in our league. Writing report with larger comparison might take a bit longer, thou.

I'm guessing that these kind of alternative reports will come into FM. Adding something into or leaving something out from comparison, and still having a presentation with stars. Developers?

 

Thanks.

Edited June 9, 2022 by rristola

[KingCanary]

I think this scouting report is an excellent example of the confusing mixed information the game is giving people...

From this screen, he's apparently a 4 star player who'd be considered a leading player in my league and reasonably affordable but he's only a C+. He's been watched for 5 games so no lack of data and knowledge. However if I click into his profile...

So he's a C+ report but I should sign him whatever the price? And then even more confusingly I click on the potential ability star in the scout report tab and...

He's now an A grade signing!

 

 

 

[obasa_G]

24 minutes ago, KingCanary said:

I think this scouting report is an excellent example of the confusing mixed information the game is giving people...

From this screen, he's apparently a 4 star player who'd be considered a leading player in my league and reasonably affordable but he's only a C+. He's been watched for 5 games so no lack of data and knowledge. However if I click into his profile...

So he's a C+ report but I should sign him whatever the price? And then even more confusingly I click on the potential ability star in the scout report tab and...

He's now an A grade signing!

 

 

 

The rating of the first report is the average of the scout's rating and the analyst's rating. For example, scout rates an individual as A+; the analyst gives the player a D rating; the rating of the player that appears in the scouting centre will be an average of the two ratings (about a C or C+).

Edited June 10, 2022 by obasa_G

[KingCanary]

4 minutes ago, obasa_G said:

The rating of the first report is the average of the scout's rating and the analyst's rating. For example, scout rates an individual as A+; the analyst gives the player a D rating; the rating of the player that appears in the scouting centre will be an average of the two ratings (about a C or C+).

Interesting, thanks. However surely the game needs to make that apparent somewhere? 

[toolkit68]

14 hours ago, KingCanary said:

Interesting, thanks. However surely the game needs to make that apparent somewhere? 

When you hover over that letter in the report it will actually tell you exactly what Obasa said.

[Broetchenholer]

On 05/06/2022 at 19:39, enigmatic said:

Did you read my answer?

If so, maybe you could consider the possibility that if your best right back is both 5* potential and League One potential and your right winger is 4.5* and Championship potential, it might be because the right wingers at your club generally have more potential than your right backs.

 

Or you could copy/past the same question for a third time and be rude to the next person to try to explain why, I guess. Your call.

One question because this is the second time i have seen that brought up, the ca stars are relative to your own players. The way i understood is so far, the game builds an average ability of all of your players in their best roles, takes that as 2 1/2 - 3 stars and puts all of your players on the range from 0 to 5 depending on how much better or worse to your average they are. This can't obviously not be true, because the ratings of the first team are significantly above "average", so at least, the scale is shifted a bit and is not a true average, but in theory it's fine. However, some people have mentioned, that the rating is not actually relative to all players in your team, but all players in a position of your team. So, all players of a position or area of the pitch have their own rating system and if my (star wise) best player in midfield would have no impact on the rating of my goalkeepers. If that were the case, why would my best keeper be 2 1/2 stars?

 

If your stars are relative at all, they have to be relative to something somewhat fixed, whether that is the ca of your best player or the average of all of them. If every star rating is relative to a different point depending on what position the player is playing, they lose every and all meaning. Your worst player attribute wise could show as your best player, because he is the only player in your whole club that could play that position. What am i missing here?

[toolkit68]

15 minutes ago, Broetchenholer said:

One question because this is the second time i have seen that brought up, the ca stars are relative to your own players. The way i understood is so far, the game builds an average ability of all of your players in their best roles, takes that as 2 1/2 - 3 stars and puts all of your players on the range from 0 to 5 depending on how much better or worse to your average they are. This can't obviously not be true, because the ratings of the first team are significantly above "average", so at least, the scale is shifted a bit and is not a true average, but in theory it's fine. However, some people have mentioned, that the rating is not actually relative to all players in your team, but all players in a position of your team. So, all players of a position or area of the pitch have their own rating system and if my (star wise) best player in midfield would have no impact on the rating of my goalkeepers. If that were the case, why would my best keeper be 2 1/2 stars?

 

If your stars are relative at all, they have to be relative to something somewhat fixed, whether that is the ca of your best player or the average of all of them. If every star rating is relative to a different point depending on what position the player is playing, they lose every and all meaning. Your worst player attribute wise could show as your best player, because he is the only player in your whole club that could play that position. What am i missing here?

There is again no simple answer to this one since most of the system is blackboxed. So a lot of 'assumptions' and 'believes' are floating around that entire part. I do get your point of making relativity to each other floating on a case by case basis isnt really ideal nor smart as the confusion of every single new player shows. But this is on the other hand experienced all over the place and not just with stars. A right winger with both feet almost equal doesnt mind which side he plays on yet the game insists on he is a right winger because he hasnt really learned left yet - but both positions will use the exact same attributes. So the assumption that it is all based on an average of attributes cant be right. My point being is: The star system is a helper function and not a decision function. Take people like me that are not breathing, eating and sleeping football in real life. When i started playing FM the stars where an actual help for me to decide which player to choose. This might not have been ideal but it worked. Once i understood more of the different roles , positions and the actual relation amongst them while on the pitch things became much more attribute oriented only while the stars became secondary but had still value for quick decisions.

The majority of players dont want to play excel in colour but want to deal with the fancy football stuff. So SI had to find a way that quickly presents the player with some form of tool that helps them to make decisions. For all others they are just an outside wrapper to indicate total crap or something useful inside.

[Broetchenholer]

I get that, i am the same, not a football fan, just a managing fan, and the stars have been useful to me, in the way i thought they worked. I have no problem with them being at 2 youth stars for your left winger that has to learn right winger and i have no problem with your left winger in the end being half a star worse playing at the right side of the field. That's completely fine, because the game explains that players need to train on positions to be good at them and strength of their feet is relevant to how good they can play their positions. However, if my midfielders or central my central midfielders would all be in a seperate pool of star ratings, that would not only be a really stupid design decision, it would also not be what i experienced so far. Last season i (was forced to) switch(ed) my best striker out and got a cm in instead. Both players were rated 4 1/2 stars. Neither my strikers, nor my midfielders significantly changed in their star rating. I still had all my strikers that were left at 3 stars and less, and my midfielders did not significantly move down. And my goal keepers have for a long time been 3 stars or less, even though they are constantly growing, but i never experienced one of them suddenly get ca stars when i sold the better one. I am not saying ca stars are more then a guideline to quickly see how strong your current lineup or a scouted player is, i am just saying i haven't seen players be judged only against the players that can play his position.

[Brother Ben]

I would say the lack of absolutes is what makes FM such a great game.  I personally try to always use a skin that removes all stars.  They make me lazy.  

[fc.cadoni]

38 minutes ago, Brother Ben said:

I would say the lack of absolutes is what makes FM such a great game.  I personally try to always use a skin that removes all stars.  They make me lazy.  

+1 for skins which remove stars (my hope is that one day, stars will disappear from game).

[Brother Ben]

3 minutes ago, fc.cadoni said:

+1 for skins which remove stars (my hope is that one day, stars will disappear from game).

I realised how lazy they made me when I booted up CM01/02 for a touch of nostalgia and found myself lost without them

I hope they will remove them too along with mentality in tactics but that's a discussion for another day........

[kopfan1977]

1 hour ago, Brother Ben said:

I realised how lazy they made me when I booted up CM01/02 for a touch of nostalgia and found myself lost without them

I hope they will remove them too along with mentality in tactics but that's a discussion for another day........

01/02 LEGEND!

To Madeira, Bakircioglu, Farnerud, Mark Kerr, Mike Duff.. Stuff of legends. I still play too occasionally. With an updated modern database.

[toolkit68]

Well - since i learned from this entire discussion that there is a lot of dark secrets in FM players are not aware of, I'll add a very simple but extremely effective method that should be used as a guideline for any decisions you make player-wise and also helps understanding the stars a little better.

Let's assume you know nothing about football and you need to figure out how to measure your own people and possible future transfers against those you are up against. Also assume this is the very first day of a season and all we are going to do is happening on this very day. This system works for any size of club and also for any league and does not require special quality staff!

Open up your Squad screen and go to -> Analyst Report -> Comparison. The displayed data might vary in accuracy once you have actual staff on those positions that feed this and the better the staff the more accurate this info will be - but it also works with a very basic club setup.

The overview will start in General which is the least helpful one and should be ignored for now. Click tab Physical and deselect goalkeepers from the 'show only' section. This is true for any section for now as goalkeepers have such a special set of skill-mix that you need to look at them on their own!

What you get now is something like this:

In the lower right you can see that i hover my mouse above Stamina currently which tells me that my own squad is roughly 0.3 points below the average in this league. This is not what you need to begin with - you simply want to know what the average value for your league is here! So since we can not assign any fractions of attribute points to Scouts or any other functionality in FM we have to round things up and down. I tend to always round up to be on the save side of things.

This little overview tells me all the averages for all physical attributes in a glance on a single screen. Since i did not make a difference between player positions this is a true average. Defenders usually require more of certain attributes than attackers for example - but we will ignore this for now!

Next step: Write all those average numbers of your league down and repeat this for both technical and mental too. Make sure to deselect goalkeepers in those too!

What you have now is basically the foundation of how those stars and texts of scout reports relate to. All those numbers on your dirty little notepaper have to go somewhere now. For all this to work you should roughly understand that this average is more or less the absolute minimum your player should fulfil to be of any real value in this particular league. Dont overthink exceptions but stick to the overall average first.

Open your preferences and go to skin colours.

Now assign a distinctive colour to the section 'average' and also define the values here. You are free to do this however you like but some stuff has simply proven to work - like taking this average and adding 1 up and subtracting one down to define the range of 'average'. Average in scout texts mostly means 'decent' or 'standard' by the way.

Repeat this for 'good' attributes now. Good attributes are roughly 1-3 points above the average - this is also a range not a fixed value. The longer you play the more you figure out what works best for you. Anything beyond 'good' is 'excellent' - those are your Superstar guys and they get a distinctive colour as well. (NB: I personally use different shades of green for those to indicate they are positive)

Now we have everything left below average. This is something you have to decide on your own but it also requires its own distinctive colour setup. You will constantly be bombarded with those attribute views and the colours should be setup in a way that you dont need more than a glance to make quick decisions like - scout fully or meh and so on. I personally found it best to give below par attributes a very alarming colour like flashy red or orange but with time that became a problem due to the sheer mass of information. Now i use very distinctive colours for 'good' and 'excellent' only, use the default white for average and a dark colour that matches my skin to fade out anything below par. This is just an example of all the possibilities you have here for your overall setup.

This setup has only to be done once per season but has massive implications on everything you look at from now on. Every scout report shows attributes - these will have proper colour codes now to support your decision making process. It will allow you to see quickly if the Scout is a liar or incompetent too because claiming to have found a superstar with half of the attributes in below-par range will  show you just that! 1 setup - overall massive help for almost everything. Since players change attributes during a season both up and down those averages are not really a fixed value. But i recommend not to overthink this. By doing the round-up thing i mentioned above you added some wiggle room already at season start and should stick with this setup all season through.

Rinse and repeat this process both at end of season and/or beginning of the next season.

Any scout reports that are still floating around or entries in your shortlist should be rechecked once you changed the averages again! This should hopefully answer the questions about the scout texts and the stars and how they relate roughly to your league. Any average changes constantly when you deal with dynamic data which you do in FM since players play games, train etc. Just because there are tons of click-bait videos and lists out there that claim to know the 'best' player does not mean they make any sense in your own league. A single excellent player will be unable to perform properly if the rest of the team is below-par for that league. Messi can not score enough goals if your overall defence is leaky as **** or your midfielders collapse mid-game due to lack of stamina etc. Averages are actually your best friend in FM.