Does experience matter in FM?

[pheelf]

To answer the question, no.

Should it matter more, absolutely.

How do you make it more important is the question.

It would help if the way the players developed was more flexible. As it stands you get to 24/25 years old in the game and you stop evolving as a player. Your personality becomes fixed, your physical attributes are capped and the only real improvement you can make is to your mental attributes.

Knowing that, it would seem that the only way to improve the importance of experience would be to then make mental attributes more meaningful but then it's not as simple as that. Doing such a thing would require the complete re-write of the match engine which seems an awfully large cost for not much benefit.

[herne79]

33 minutes ago, pheelf said:

As it stands you get to 24/25 years old in the game and you stop evolving as a player.

That's not how it works at all and I know @Seb Wassell (sorry for the poke!) would have a thing or two to say about that.

Flexibility in development is already built into the game.  That's not to say things are perfect and (like everything) there are always improvements that can be found.  Players can stop evolving at 24/25, but they can also stop evolving at different points.

[herne79]

51 minutes ago, Keyzer Soze said:

Again, this where the "wonderkid" comes in.

Of course a wonderkid, that could turn into Messi or CR7 in the future should have good hidden attributes from the start. But this should be rare cases, and even in this cases they should start with attributes not very high.

IMO, the large majoraty of young players should have low attributes for important matches, consistency and pressure. And in time, with training and matchday experience this attributes would increase, and reach their full potential later in their carreer.

Agree to an extent, although I wouldn't limit it to just the "wonderkids".  You can have (rare) low league young players that will never amount to anything but could still enjoy big matches or have good consistency.

The majority of young players should have low hidden attributes?  Sure I can see that so long as there is a) an acceptable development path to improve such attributes and b) that path is flexible enough to produce a variety of results.  As far as I'm aware that's already part of the game, although quite how effective that may be perhaps varies from game save to game save and thus different people may see different results.

[Guest]

Unless there was a change for FM17 (I never checked) then players do not twns toward generatin with low mental attributes, based on previous years you’re just as likely to get a 15 year old with 15-20 for consistency as one with 1-6.

[Seb Wassell]

2 hours ago, pheelf said:

It would help if the way the players developed was more flexible. As it stands you get to 24/25 years old in the game and you stop evolving as a player. Your personality becomes fixed, your physical attributes are capped and the only real improvement you can make is to your mental attributes.

 

1 hour ago, herne79 said:

That's not how it works at all and I know @Seb Wassell (sorry for the poke!) would have a thing or two to say about that.

Flexibility in development is already built into the game.  That's not to say things are perfect and (like everything) there are always improvements that can be found.  Players can stop evolving at 24/25, but they can also stop evolving at different points.

Thing one - That's not how it works.

Thing two - Players have peak ages that help to craft their development curves. Some players stop developing at 21, some at 28. Physical attributes tend to develop earlier, Mentals later, but this still varies from player to player. It also varies within the attribute types themselves, for example Pace is much more volatile than Strength.

[Seb Wassell]

23 hours ago, ilkork said:

I have this 19y old Central Defender whom I loaned out. He hasn't even played more than 5 matches for me (League, Cup) the past 2 seasons. But he is slightly better in everything (attributes, personality) from a 24y old Central Defender I have, who has played about 40 matches for me (League, Cup, Europa League, Champions League). And of course, the 19y old has the potential to become even better.

IRL, the 24y old DC would be far more experienced than the 19y old DC and that would count as to who should you choose. But, is such thing coded in FM?

And to take this one step further, let's say you have an 18y old MC who is better in everything (attributes, personality) than a 30y old MC, but he has no experience, whereas the 30y old has plenty (League, Cup, EL, CL, International).
Would the 30y old's experience matter?

 

I've searched for similar topics, but they all are from 2009-2010 (this and this)

I think the simplest answer is replace "experience" with "mental and hidden attributes". Experience is effectively just a group collective noun for the latter, both in reality and FM.

Also don't confuse or weight "experience" too heavily in your examples. The "class of '92" had little to no traditional "experience" but did alright for themselves. It comes much more down to the individual player's mental makeup than how long or how much they have played, but of course how much or how long a player has played can have a big impact on that player's mental makeup.

The 30 year old MC in your example has lots of "experience" sure, but by the definition of his attributes this experience has not made him a better player than the 18 year old MC. There are plenty of lower league footballers that are full of experience, but they they still lack something, mentally, physically, technically, that top level youngsters may have. As ever, a combination of the two is likely the most desirable outcome.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

14 minutes ago, Seb Wassell said:

Some players stop developing at 21, some at 28. Physical attributes tend to develop earlier, Mentals later, but this still varies from player to player. It also varies within the attribute types themselves, for example Pace is much more volatile than Strength.

Is this:

"Player will continue developing *new* attribute points towards his potential even all the way to 28 years of age."

 

or 

 

"Player will continue 'developing', therefore, trading attribute points around from his current ability at 28 years of age" ?

 

I've been led to believe it is the latter, and that genuine fresh attribute improvement rates tend to even out at the age of 23, with development from that point on often just a readjustment of what he already has earned in most cases.

[Seb Wassell]

Just now, isignedupfornorealreason said:

Is this:

"Player will continue developing *new* attribute points towards his potential even all the way to 28 years of age."

 

or 

 

"Player will continue 'developing', therefore, trading attribute points around from his current ability at 28 years of age" ?

 

I've been led to believe it is the latter, and that genuine fresh attribute improvement rates tend to even out at the age of 23, with development from that point on often just a readjustment of what he already has earned in most cases.

First things first, 28 was just an example. The age varies from player to player. 

After a certain age development slows, this is often around 21 (but can be anywhere from 18 to 24 - possibly where the 24/25 myth comes from). However, after this point both further "new" development and attribute shifts (without new development) are possible and in fact likely.

[isignedupfornorealreason]

1 minute ago, Seb Wassell said:

First things first, 28 was just an example. The age varies from player to player. 

After a certain age development slows, this is often around 21 (but can be anywhere from 18 to 24 - possibly where the 24/25 myth comes from). However, after this point both further "new" development and attribute shifts (without new development) are possible and in fact likely.

Hmm, thank you for the answer. 

 

So, in theory, the bulk of the improvement is still ideally going to be done at that 14-24 time period, when development is still rapid, so to speak, and we'll get a good picture of the player's abilities by then. 

[Seb Wassell]

22 minutes ago, isignedupfornorealreason said:

Hmm, thank you for the answer. 

 

So, in theory, the bulk of the improvement is still ideally going to be done at that 14-24 time period, when development is still rapid, so to speak, and we'll get a good picture of the player's abilities by then. 

Very broadly speaking most players, given the right conditions, will experience their biggest gains in that period. But it is absolutely included in the game, and to be expected, for players to develop well outside of that bracket. Conversely a player may explode at an early age but then stall and never continue improving. Late (and early) bloomers is something we have very much worked on in recent versions.

[ilkork]

1 hour ago, Seb Wassell said:

I think the simplest answer is replace "experience" with "mental and hidden attributes". Experience is effectively just a group collective noun for the latter, both in reality and FM.

Also don't confuse or weight "experience" too heavily in your examples. The "class of '92" had little to no traditional "experience" but did alright for themselves. It comes much more down to the individual player's mental makeup than how long or how much they have played, but of course how much or how long a player has played can have a big impact on that player's mental makeup.

The 30 year old MC in your example has lots of "experience" sure, but by the definition of his attributes this experience has not made him a better player than the 18 year old MC. There are plenty of lower league footballers that are full of experience, but they they still lack something, mentally, physically, technically, that top level youngsters may have. As ever, a combination of the two is likely the most desirable outcome.

First of all, thank you for taking the time to reply .
Well, I just wanted to know if experience (with whatever it consists of under the hood, be it a sum of mental and hidden attributes or whatever) is included in FM, and if yes, if it gives a small bonus (%) in various areas, with most important the calculation of a match outcome.
And sure, there are plenty of lower league footballers with experience, but there isn't just "experience accumulated from many league appearances". There are many types, like "Champions League experience", "international experience", etc. For example, you could have a 25y old with much more experience in CL than a 30y old. Is such thing separate under the hood or the only "experience" in FM is "mental and hidden attributes"?

[GoldenGoal]

The problem is that the game keeps linking age with experience, without checking the actual maturity of the hidden attributes before referring to the player or group of players. Sometimes you may get a question in the press conference or an after match report saying that a young and inexperienced team won / loss against an older more experienced team, even if those older guys were losers in the hidden attributes department and the young team had excellent hidden attributes.

This kind of reinforces that "experience" is important when it is actually not how it works.

28 minutes ago, ilkork said:

And sure, there are plenty of lower league footballers with experience, but there isn't just "experience accumulated from many league appearances". There are many types, like "Champions League experience", "international experience", etc. For example, you could have a 25y old with much more experience in CL than a 30y old. Is such thing separate under the hood or the only "experience" in FM is "mental and hidden attributes"?

I hope there is no such thing as competition or international experience because to me that makes no sense. What is the difference in playing a league game and a champions league game? The rules of football are the same, the only changes would be maybe pitch size and pressure the players are in, which there already are two attributes "Important matches" and "Pressure" to control that. Having different "experience" meters for competitions would be strange as a player could be super better at a champions league match and then don't know what he is doing in a league match for some arbitrary reason.

[Seb Wassell]

43 minutes ago, ilkork said:

First of all, thank you for taking the time to reply .
Well, I just wanted to know if experience (with whatever it consists of under the hood, be it a sum of mental and hidden attributes or whatever) is included in FM, and if yes, if it gives a small bonus (%) in various areas, with most important the calculation of a match outcome.
And sure, there are plenty of lower league footballers with experience, but there isn't just "experience accumulated from many league appearances". There are many types, like "Champions League experience", "international experience", etc. For example, you could have a 25y old with much more experience in CL than a 30y old. Is such thing separate under the hood or the only "experience" in FM is "mental and hidden attributes"?

There is not a literal translation of experience, but I do believe this is represented by the sum of various factors, as discussed above. For the CL one Important Matches/Pressure combined with actually being good enough for the CL may be your comparison. Also there are plenty of lower league players with top league experience  

[Seb Wassell]

4 minutes ago, GoldenGoal said:

The problem is that the game keeps linking age with experience, without checking the actual maturity of the hidden attributes before referring to the player or group of players. Sometimes you may get a question in the press conference or an after match report saying that a young and inexperienced team won / loss against an older more experienced team, even if those older guys were losers in the hidden attributes department and the young team had excellent hidden attributes.

I would argue that is exactly what real life journalists do, equate age to experience.

[ilkork]

25 minutes ago, GoldenGoal said:

The problem is that the game keeps linking age with experience, without checking the actual maturity of the hidden attributes before referring to the player or group of players.

Experience is this: Player X has played so many matches in his life, than knows how to approach situations. Obviously, you find that in older players.
Now, if a footballer in FM has very good hidden attributes, it doesn't mean he is experienced. It means that the has very good hidden attributes. If FM doesn't make that distinction and only equates experience=mental and hidden attributes, then for me it's wrong.

25 minutes ago, GoldenGoal said:

I hope there is no such thing as competition or international experience because to me that makes no sense.

But it exists irl. Sure, it doesn't mean that, in competition X, someone experienced can for sure perform better than someone inexperienced, but it's still a small bonus for him.

[ilkork]

48 minutes ago, GoldenGoal said:

What is the difference in playing a league game and a champions league game?

Really?

Do you think that everything revolves around England and the EPL? There are 150+ nations with leagues. Do you think that a CL match is the same as a league match in countries such as Holland, Portugal, Greece, Czech Republic, etc.?

[GoldenGoal]

48 minutes ago, ilkork said:

Really?

Do you think that everything revolves around England and the EPL? There are 150+ nations with leagues. Do you think that a CL match is the same as a league match in countries such as Holland, Portugal, Greece, Czech Republic, etc.?

England and EPL? You assume i am from the UK? I don't even watch the premier league or the england national team.

What is the difference in the matches? The rules are the same. Only difference i see is the CL match is more important and that's all. I don't see any reason to have separate experience meter for competitions when "Important Matches" and "Pressure" hidden attributes already cover this.

If two teams face each other both in CL and league, say Inter and Milan, what is the difference between the matches in CL and in League? The rules, offside, cards etc are all the same. Is the more experienced in CL player gonna run faster in just the CL match? Pass better?

The only thing i can think is that the guy knows the matches have different stakes, which is what those two hidden attributes are all about.

[ilkork]

39 minutes ago, GoldenGoal said:

What is the difference in the matches? The rules are the same. Only difference i see is the CL match is more important and that's all.

If two teams face each other both in CL and league, say Inter and Milan, what is the difference between the matches in CL and in League? The rules, offside, cards etc are all the same.

They are different. It's different story.

39 minutes ago, GoldenGoal said:

I don't see any reason to have separate experience meter for competitions when "Important Matches" and "Pressure" hidden attributes already cover this.

Is the more experienced in CL player gonna run faster in just the CL match? Pass better?

No. You sound like you misunderstood me. Experience can't all of a sudden make a player perform better. It's just a small bonus. And it doesn't have to do with important matches only.
For example, a veteran with 500 appearances in League X has so much experience, he faced all the other teams so many times, he knows how to handle situations better. It doesn't necessarily mean that he enjoys big matches (the "important matches" attribute). It doesn't necessarily mean that he will still perform well against that team that suddenly bought 5 star players the summer (the "pressure, on the pitch" attribute).

It's just a small bonus. Mostly mentally. But the FM attributes can't depict that very well.

[Seb Wassell]

@ilkork - It's worth posting in the Feature Request section if you believe it would add to FM.

[ilkork]

6 minutes ago, Seb Wassell said:

@ilkork - It's worth posting in the Feature Request section if you believe it would add to FM.

I'm considering posting something the following days, but it's kinda difficult, it would probably require a new attribute, so, what are the chances for something like that? Close to zero.
Is there any other option? To up some mental and hidden attributes? But experience is not just "Consistency", "Important Matches", "Pressure", "Determination" etc....

[GoldenGoal]

14 minutes ago, ilkork said:

They are different. It's different story.

Explanation? Different how? All you did was shrug off what i said.

No. You sound like you misunderstood me

. Experience can't all of a sudden make a player perform better. It's just a small bonus. And it doesn't have to do with important matches only.
For example, a veteran with 500 appearances in League X has so much experience, he faced all the other teams so many times, he knows how to handle situations better. It doesn't necessarily mean that he enjoys big matches (the "important matches" attribute). It doesn't necessarily mean that he will still perform well against that team that suddenly bought 5 star players the summer (the "pressure, on the pitch" attribute).

It's just a small bonus. Mostly mentally. But the FM attributes can't depict that very well.

I know what you meant here, i was talking about experience in specific competitions only. Like whatever "continental experience" means makes no sense if you think like the same teams playing in different competitions that "continental experience" is gonna make someone play better in only one of the matches.

"he knows how to handle situations better" Well this can be argued that it is the Decisions attribute and it can go up along the career of the player.

[ilkork]

15 minutes ago, GoldenGoal said:

I know what you meant here, i was talking about experience in specific competitions only. Like whatever "continental experience" means makes no sense if you think like the same teams playing in different competitions that "continental experience" is gonna make someone play better in only one of the matches.

Besides the example "teams from the same league face each other in a continental competition", continental experience matters for every other team. Example: some past Olympiacos players have so much experience in the CL because they played every year in it. It's not the same as a Slovenian team which plays once every 10 years. And it doesn't mean that because of it, those past Olympiacos players will perform better, but they will have a small bonus for sure.
And even if it doesn't matter for teams from the same competition (let me try to agree with you here), IT MATTERS FOR EVERY OTHER TEAM!

What's your problem? What do you want from me and you make me repeat things over and over again?
Are you suffering from any disability that makes you incapable of understanding basic things such as "experience in a competition" or experience in general?

[yezzko]

16 hours ago, ilkork said:

What's your problem? What do you want from me and you make me repeat things over and over again?

Maybe the problem is not his but yours. You keep repeating the same thing again and again disregarding any arguments that are against your belief.

17 hours ago, ilkork said:

Experience can't all of a sudden make a player perform better. It's just a small bonus.

What should the small bonus do when it is not supposed to make a player perform better? Should it bend the laws of physics so the ball ends up in the net instead hitting the crossbar or something like that?

[ilkork]

22 minutes ago, yezzko said:

Maybe the problem is not his but yours. You keep repeating the same thing again and again disregarding any arguments that are against your belief.

It's not my belief, it's not a belief.
There is a thing called "experience" in life. It exists in football as well.
 

22 minutes ago, yezzko said:

What should the small bonus do when it is not supposed to make a player perform better? Should it bend the laws of physics so the ball ends up in the net instead hitting the crossbar or something like that?

Let me give you an everyday example (not about experience), cause it seems to that it's nuclear science for some people here:
Let's say you move abroad to play for a team but you don't speak the language. You'll face some issues on the pitch, for sure, wouldn't you?
Now, let's say you speak the language. Wouldn't that be a small bonus for you? Wouldn't the fact that you speak the language, make you understand your manager's tactics and communicate with your teammates, therefore perform better?

Experience translated in FM=Small Bonus. Mostly mentally. And FM attributes can quite depict that. But it exists irl and should exist in FM.
End of argument.

[MBarbaric]

16 minutes ago, ilkork said:

Wouldn't the fact that you speak the language, make you understand your manager's tactics and communicate with your teammates, therefore perform better?

not if you can't play in the first place  

[MBarbaric]

18 minutes ago, ilkork said:

Experience translated in FM=Small Bonus. Mostly mentally. And FM attributes can quite depict that. But it exists irl and should exist in FM.
End of argument.

i am not saying it doesn't exist and it isn't a dig on you. however, you speak about it as it is well known fact. I'd really like to see some study, research... anything that backs these claims apart pundit/media mentioning it.

[ilkork]

48 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

not if you can't play in the first place  

Well, sure .

46 minutes ago, MBarbaric said:

i am not saying it doesn't exist and it isn't a dig on you. however, you speak about it as it is well known fact. I'd really like to see some study, research... anything that backs these claims apart pundit/media mentioning it.

It's not like it needs a study. We all know that if we are experienced with something (whatever that is), we can do it a little bit better the next time. Sure, if we talk about more complicated things like playing football in CL, it's not certain that we will always do it better.

I think some people here are confused. They think that, when I'm talking about a "small bonus", I mean that suddenly your player is gonna become Superman. No, I don't mean that. In FM, there are hundreds of variables for calculating the outcome of a match. One of those should have been "experience". Just a small percentage, 0.5%, I don't know how much, but it should exist.

 I know someone who can confirm it. Let's see the following quote:

On 10/9/2017 at 11:39, HUNT3R said:

I'm a keeper IRL and 10 years ago, I'd make plenty of full length diving saves etc. These days, this isn't happening as much and I realised it's because (in FM terms) my mental attributes improved. My positioning and reading of the game is so much better now and I'm more comfortable playing off my line to gather through balls and be in better position to deal with shots etc.

Now, @HUNT3R (and sorry for the poke but we are getting nowhere here ), would you say you are more experienced now, than you were 10 years ago?
Is it true that experience also is responsible for helping you reading the game better now?
Would you say that, because of you experience, there are some situations where you can deal with them better? Like for example, you remember that opponent striker from some years ago, so you can position yourself better against some of his shots. If yes, isn't that because of the experience you accumulated throughout the years?

 

[HUNT3R]

This was covered already. My experience helped my game which is to say my Mental attributes improved. I stated this and Seb's answered in FM terms too. That's all it is. I don't have strikers that I've played against for years, so I have no input there except to say that people and their game change over years, so I don't think the comparison is a good one.

[ilkork]

Just now, HUNT3R said:

This was covered already. My experience helped my game which is to say my Mental attributes improved. I stated this and Seb's answered in FM terms too.

Even though it's much more than Mental attributes, it's complicated.
In my hypothetical scenario (you vs the opponent striker), some of your mental attributes are increased only when you face him. And it isn't even an absolute (that it will always happen against him).
It's very complicated to be added to FM, because it would require many calculations.

Unless you or someone else has to say something, I would like you to close this please, all my questions were answered (I have no problem for someone to re-open it, contact a mod)...

[yezzko]

1 hour ago, ilkork said:

It's not my belief, it's not a belief.
There is a thing called "experience" in life. It exists in football as well.

I didn't say experience doesn't exist. Contrary i think it does. But you cant's see my view because you are set up to prove everybody that you are right and we are wrong. Guys here already told you that experience is in the game and it is mirrored in mental attributes and hidden attributes. You keep talking about small bonus that experience brings but still you cant explain what do you think experience really does in RL.

In my view experience gives you ability to make consistently better decisions (mental attribute in fm), handle pressure better (hidden attribute), better anticipate situations etc. That is the "small bonus" you keep talking about. So when the attributes (visible as well as hidden) are the same then the age of player is irrelevant. His experience is shown in his attributes.