Are you happy with the current CA/PA system?

[Truegunner]

I completly agree with those that say PA and CA is not all that should be used when judging a player, I remember reading a few years back in FM11 a story in the portugese league and the person who played it had a player called Magalhaes he was a regen and had a very low pa of 120, he was the top scorer in the portugese league and won various trophies including the champions league. What made him so good was high finishing and good attributes in key areas. in real life this would be more than good enough to get called up to the portugese national team, however strangely enough not once was he called up which just goes to show that the AI picks based on CA. The system is fine, its really just the AI and it's own judgement of ability and CA that needs some fine tuning.

[swansongs]

Michu's a great example of an average player that fit the system that Swansea were playing at the time, which is why he was frozen out there last season, and hasn't got anywhere near that first Swansea season since

does he deserve a high CA/PA due to a fluke season (which he hasn't come close to competing with)? no - he's the prime case of someone who's attributes outweigh his PA

That's not why Michu isn't playing for Swansea. He was "frozen out" last season because he was out on loan at Napoli, where he suffered persistent ankle problems and could barely get a game even when fit. Personal problems (which will come out in the media when his contract finishes), doubtful fitness and grudges held behind the scenes mean that he's not been included in first team duties at all this season (wasn't even welcome at pre-season fitness tests).

Should a player's CA & PA be dropped for these reasons?

I do agree that he was a somewhat overrated and limited player, whose purple patch of form was only about 18 months long (a year at Rayo and the first 6 months with Swansea). But what a patch it was. I'd play him over Gomis at the moment, that's for sure.

[Menion]

Is the issue not only with real players? I've always thought that players shouldn't have a static PA. Some of the most enjoyable games I've had is when there was a -1 or -2 system and it made games less predictable and more chaotic. When you see most players 21+ have a static PA, it makes games slightly dull. Unless something dramatic happens to the player, they generally turn out the same. If their PA was slightly more random, games would be more interesting. You can't have a dynamic PA but you can have a more random start PA.

It doesn't help that young players generally have quite low CA and you have to work hard to make them good. It's much easier to wait one or two seasons and the newgens are generally easier to develop.

[Icy]

People get CA confused with how players perform in FM. Someone like Jamie Vardy for example, nothing was stopping anyone from picking him when he had an awful CA and he could well have gotten a decent average rating and scored goals if used in the right way. A high CA doesn't guarantee a player will perform in a match.

It's not always about picking the out and out 'best' players you have, it's about picking players who suit the system and perform in the match engine. I've had players with insanely high CA's who don't have the right balance or attributes, so just aren't as suitable as a player with a lower CA with strong attributes in specific areas.

Totally free with you here Neil, but imho the main problem and please correct me if I'm wrong, is that the AI weights CA to heavily when signing up players, setting up lineups etc while specially in LLM I look myself for cheap or free players that are the perfect fit for my system.

The AI would be way more competitive if the CPU managers would have a more defined style and would sign players to fit that idea of football instead of searching for the highest CA ones.

I'm probably exaggerating here and the AI also search for attributes (player roles maybe?) and not only CA when deciding who to sign and who to pick for their lineup.

Please can you confirm either?

[samdiatmh]

That's not why Michu isn't playing for Swansea. He was "frozen out" last season because he was out on loan at Napoli, where he suffered persistent ankle problems and could barely get a game even when fit. Personal problems (which will come out in the media when his contract finishes), doubtful fitness and grudges held behind the scenes mean that he's not been included in first team duties at all this season (wasn't even welcome at pre-season fitness tests).

Should a player's CA & PA be dropped for these reasons?

I do agree that he was a somewhat overrated and limited player, whose purple patch of form was only about 18 months long (a year at Rayo and the first 6 months with Swansea). But what a patch it was. I'd play him over Gomis at the moment, that's for sure.

okay, fair enough

as someone that lives the other side of the world, not watching football (and looking at wikipedia figures) I made an incorrect assumption there

@Icy - of course they do, they (like some human managers) get sucked in by the star rating and pick players up that way, rather than some players that look at attributes for the role

of course, because sometimes those players that you sign are nuffies, then they'll have a limited shelf life if you get promoted (and won't be able to be sold on)

whereas the AI would be able to sell the player on due to the fact that he's got a high star rating (high star rating means good right?)

of course, you can also set it up so that the AI buys players that fit their system, but then you'll end up with extremely specialist players (like 20s everywhere that they play, but 1s everywhere else) so they've got to sign someone decent to remain competitive

it's an advantage of the human manager - you can sign a midrange player because he excels at what you want him for, knowing that he'll most likely be unable to be sold on for anything reasonable

[fmhatesme]

The issue comes up often and has been discussed to death. CA is fine. PA is fine. The development could do with a revamp. It is too easy for us to develop players.

The issue comes up time and time again because PA is not fine.

PA should not be a fixed cap, it's ridiculous!

[forameuss]

The issue comes up time and time again because PA is not fine.

PA should not be a fixed cap, it's ridiculous!

Except it should be, has to be, and it makes total sense for there to be. Apart from that, then yeah, ridiculous.

[heryellowribbon]

I agree that there should not be a cap on PA as it ruins the experience and forces the player to do too many transfers to soon. You should be able to develop players who manage to get great ratings playing in a position even if they don't have high PA or otherwise with every positive contribution in a small way. Too many youth players end up going to waste otherwise and end up in the lower leagues even if you decide to play them. If you don't play them (assuming I'm Arsenal) then they can not develop and end up in the lower leagues... but if I decide to play an U18 central defender and he does amazingly for me then he should get better than the -6 or -7 that he's locked to because of a rigid system. It shouldn't be easy to increase PA, I'm sure others can think of more variables to make it more difficult for players to do so, but I think it needs to be revised.

[forameuss]

I agree that there should not be a cap on PA as it ruins the experience and forces the player to do too many transfers to soon. You should be able to develop players who manage to get great ratings playing in a position even if they don't have high PA or otherwise with every positive contribution in a small way. Too many youth players end up going to waste otherwise and end up in the lower leagues even if you decide to play them. If you don't play them (assuming I'm Arsenal) then they can not develop and end up in the lower leagues... but if I decide to play an U18 central defender and he does amazingly for me then he should get better than the -6 or -7 that he's locked to because of a rigid system. It shouldn't be easy to increase PA, I'm sure others can think of more variables to make it more difficult for players to do so, but I think it needs to be revised.

What's any of that got to do with PA? You want a player who plays well with you to get a boost in PA, but in simplistic terms, the better his CA, the better he'll play, and the better his CA, the higher his fixed PA will be.

This is a totally circular argument. Everyone has a potential in any field, but it's a ceiling of your ability that can't move. And it's also completely immeasurable, so how can you realistically envisage a system where you can shift this relative potential. You can't become potentially better at something, you just move closer to the point where you're as good as you can be.

[ggwood]

I'm pretty happy with the current PA/CA system.

That said, I like the idea from the OP. When starting a new save, I would recommend having a slider of "unpredictability" from 0-10 where 0 means, this is exactly how good everyone is (and our prediction of how good they will become), to the best of our knowledge, and 10 meaning roll the dice: Marital may just realize he always wanted to be a mime. No goals for you, Man United.

I freely admit most will set it to zero, and thus be able to buy cheap, reliable wunderkin. But I think it would add a lot to the game for some of us.