Clearing Up the Retraining Myth: There is no ‘cost’?

[isuckatfm]

I created two identical 17 year olds at Arsenal, date of birth 1st July 1990. Both are DMCs (defensive midfielder, centre). All attributes as I said identical including hidden ones that may affect development (professionalism, injury proneness etc.). I holidayed the game but I also periodically checked in to see if either player had picked up a serious in jury and removed said injury using FM Modifier.

Both have a Current Ability (CA) of 110 and a Potential Ability (PA) of 180 at the start.

Both were automatically assigned ‘backup’ status and I left that as it was.

Both had

Left Foot 4, Right Foot 20

Versatility 20

Notes:-

-The moment I set the DMC to retrain as a CB his CB rating increased from 1 to 2 on the next ‘continue’.

-As both players CA increased all attributes showed similar gains (remember it is the General training schedule)

-The retrained player began collecting gains in the attributes that were free as a DMC but not free as a CB when his positional rating reached 10 or 11. I’m not sure of the specific value due to timing of saves and holidaying periods

-Retraining did not steal points that could have gone to other attributes. The game has a distribution and the distribution changes based on positional ratings. When the retrained player reaches 10 or 11 in his retrained position it triggers a change in how points are distributed but does not take from what could have been gained in others

Here’s the screenshots

Retrained to CB DMC, FM Modifier Profile Changes

July 7 07

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7436/dmcretraining01fmmproficr4.jpg

Jan 7 08

http://img144.imageshack.us/img144/3763/dmccbretraining20080107gc5.jpg

April 4 08

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/4586/dmccbretraining20080406uc2.jpg

July 7 08 (CA 127)

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/6663/dmccbretraining20080707fy7.jpg

No retraining DMC, FM Modifier Profile Changes

July 7 07

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/7600/dmcnoretraining01fmmpropf8.jpg

Jan 7 08 (CA 117, forgot to add it to pic)

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/8084/dmcnoretraining20080107vr2.jpg

April 4 08

http://img172.imageshack.us/img172/8290/dmcnoretraining20080406bk1.jpg

July 7 08 (CA 127)

http://img181.imageshack.us/img181/9148/dmcnoretraining20080707hu7.jpg

Holidaying with just the Premiership active and ‘none’ detail levels took 3 hours for 1 year so if you found this helpful please contribute to the ‘Help isuckatfm buy a better computer’ fund. My PayPal details can be found in my profile

Contradictory evidence is welcomed. It’s only one player but I believe the equivalent changes in attributes from April 4 to July 7 when the code started putting points into the non free CB attributes (heading, jumping, marking) is clear enough 'evidence' for me.

[Smac]

So let me see if I have this right: You train up the abilities that are cheap for one position, then start retraining for another position and new attributes are now cheap, but old gains are not impacted or weighed by the new standards?

That makes some good sense.

So what about the limitation on 'free attributes' by having multiple positions. Any suggestion that that is true? As otherwise I can't see how the multi-position thing would work. Unless there may be some averaging of the weighting (cost) of attributes affected by both positions....

[isuckatfm]

Old gains aren't affected. It does not go 'hang on, you can't have 15 in that and 13 in that so I'll nick some off the 15' at which point you see a big red arrow in a player's profile.

What I was showing is that retraining activates the 'free attributes' (around the 10 or 11 positional rating mark) when they are no longer free due to retraining but it doesn't improve those free attributes to the detriment of others.

Look at the no retraining DMC. From the 3rd to the 4th screenshot he gained 1 point in passing but no points in heading/marking/jumping.

Now look at the retraining to CB DMC. From the 3rd to the 4th screenshot for a similar gain in CA he also adds 1 point to his passing. But because he has reached the threshold value (11 or 12) the code starts adding points to his previously 'free attributes' of heading/marking/jumping but it doesn't do so to the detriment of the other attributes.

There is a question of what happens when a player is maxed out in CA but from looking at this I'd be fairly certain that nothing happens. It won't suddenly cause a player's attributes to collapse. It could be easily tested again by creating two identical players but my slow laptop means I won't be doing that again.

[vladislav19]

One little issue here, you set the player versatility to 20. That may be why there is no slowdown in the development of the retraining player. He is so versatile that learning a new position causes him no detriment.

[isuckatfm]

Interesting thought vladislav19 but to be honest it took so long to do that test I can't see myself repeating it. What I will say about 'versatility' though is it is a strange little attribute in that players seem to increase in it even if they are not training a new position or doing anything that you would expect to improve versatility (playing in an unfamiliar position for example). So I set it to 20 to avoid the complication of this.

I might run it again and set their versatility to 1 and see what happens although I am still fairly convinced that the idea of retraining 'costing' points is from a thread where the 'free attribute' concept was discovered by editing players in the pre-game editor. My opinion on it at the time was that the editing of players in the editor shows the effects of a 'control model' which allows SI to keep a check on researched players without necessitating independent checking of every player in the database to ensure they aren't being made into 'wonder players', and that the 'development model' acts in a different manner.

If there was an 'attribute cost' for new positions then I would expect the game to adjust attributes if a player gains a new position in the same way it does if a player's current ability suddenly increases. By this I mean if you use FM Modifier to increase a player's CA but no attributes, then within 3 to 4 weeks his attributes will jump up to match this new CA (it seems to operate like a check - adjust -check - adjust pattern). But if I add a new position using FM Modifier a player's attributes stay exactly the same.

It could just be my flawed logic or an incorrect assumption of the positional ratings being involved in the check - adjust cycle though.

[SCIAG]

Old gains aren't affected. It does not go 'hang on, you can't have 15 in that and 13 in that so I'll nick some off the 15' at which point you see a big red arrow in a player's profile.

What I was showing is that retraining activates the 'free attributes' (around the 10 or 11 positional rating mark) when they are no longer free due to retraining but it doesn't improve those free attributes to the detriment of others.

Look at the no retraining DMC. From the 3rd to the 4th screenshot he gained 1 point in passing but no points in heading/marking/jumping.

Now look at the retraining to CB DMC. From the 3rd to the 4th screenshot for a similar gain in CA he also adds 1 point to his passing. But because he has reached the threshold value (11 or 12) the code starts adding points to his previously 'free attributes' of heading/marking/jumping but it doesn't do so to the detriment of the other attributes.

There is a question of what happens when a player is maxed out in CA but from looking at this I'd be fairly certain that nothing happens. It won't suddenly cause a player's attributes to collapse. It could be easily tested again by creating two identical players but my slow laptop means I won't be doing that again.

Excuse me, but I'm pretty sure heading, marking and jumping aren't "free" for DMs.

[Joor]

Excuse me, but I'm pretty sure heading, marking and jumping aren't "free" for DMs.

Yes they are..

http://koti.mbnet.fi/fmr2008/freeattributes.html

[therubberducky]

Im perhaps a bit naive with all this? But can someone explain, or point me in the right direction of something that can explain, free attributes and their significance?

[isuckatfm]

Excuse me, but I'm pretty sure heading, marking and jumping aren't "free" for DMs.

In case you are looking at the link Joor gave and thinking 'how does that prove anything' here's some evidence.

Genie Scout profile of DM aged 16

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/7411/ashleyparkerprofile2009jh4.jpg

Genie Scout profile of same DM aged 26

http://img213.imageshack.us/img213/2870/ashleyparkerprofile2019ku1.jpg

Im perhaps a bit naive with all this? But can someone explain, or point me in the right direction of something that can explain, free attributes and their significance?

On 8.0.2 the CA model was rejigged so that certain attributes for certain positions took up no CA points. What this means is when you create a player in the editor you can give him 20 for those attributes and it will not cause his other attributes to drop becasue of it breaking the CA = attributes rules.

But what also happened is that these free attributes got removed from the development model such that these attributes will never increase regardless of what happens to CA. See my screenshots above.

[Joor]

Long thread, but very informative

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=18848

[therubberducky]

Thanks.

Ten Char.

[cice2]

The total number of points gained for both players is the same right? That means the cost is in distributing the same number of points over more attributes for the retrained player? I'm I right to say that?