Youth Intake ineffective

[RBKalle]

15 ore fa, Neotropolis ha scritto:

That's exactly what happens IRL though...a player joins as a 'Striker', but after some assessment, it's deemed that he's unlikely to make it as a one as he is more suited to being say a Centre Back. For example, as a youth player, Didier Drogba was a CB, it was only after realising that he was no good at defending that he became a Striker. It's not a waste of time at all, in all my experience, I've found that the more effort you put in, the greater your reward is.

But retraining a player who's unsuited for his original position in FM will take a lot of CA points, whereas in reality it's mostly about having enough time and dedication.

If you get an awful CM who can still be retrained to be a decent MR, he must have enough PA left to be spent on the retraining process, as the points that are already "wrongly" allocated can't be detracted and reused.
In RPG terms, if your character gets a low starting Intelligence and you still want to play as a Wizard, you'll either have a reroll or will fight an uphill battle to survive in the gameworld.

 

15 ore fa, Neotropolis ha scritto:

But they are though...Harry Kane was brought to Arsenal's academy for a reason, a different decision maker decided that he wasn't good enough so he was removed. Then he went into Tottenham's academy and well the rest is history.

A similar story could be said for Messi. At first he wasn't deemed good enough to play football because he was 'too small and frail'. Now look at him, one of the best players to grace the beautiful game.

But we're still talking about kids with lots of talent (high PA, in FM speak)... In game terms, staff with low JPA JPP may be a bit off in terms of PA stars, but that doesn't really affect your judgement of a youth prospect as long as his starting level is good enough or the rating is still good enough to warrant the kid a year or two in your U18 team.

What I'm trying to say is that the game lacks a lot of mid-level players. Most academies in real life tend to produce only a handful of top talents and a relatively low amount of no-hopers who'll be gone for good before they're 21. On the other hand, the bulk of any top-level youth team will end up playing professional or semi-professional football anyway.
Actually, most of the youth teams serve as Lower Leagues Fodder. As often you can see former Top Club prospects in, say, Championship or League 1 or Serie C sides.

In-game, this is rather rare, with most of the intake being retired already a few months after you've released them. Or rotting on the free agents list for months or even years because they're too crappy for a top-tier club but LL sides still won't approach them because they're either awful or their expectations are too high (as former top-tier prospects).

 

14 ore fa, roger redknapp ha scritto:

I’m just shocked with how much resistance is met when this aspect of the game gets rightly crticised.

Unfortunately, that's how it works quite often.

People tend to defend the game almost by default, even when some aspects should be improved or at least be up for a healthy debate.

 

14 ore fa, alanschu14 ha scritto:

If the newgen comes in with higher attributes, those Ability Points are already spent.

Which brings us back to my original point. A player with a "wrong" position isn't worth to be retrained unless he's truly talented. In which case, it's still better to keep him like he is and focus on getting the best out of him without "wasting" valuable CA points on a new role and to raise secondary or tertiary attributes.

 

11 ore fa, Nacaw ha scritto:

this is not random

 

It may not be random, but surely it's spawning.

I see how the youth intake is influenced by all the already mentioned factors (youth facilities, recruitment, national youth rating, staff ability and traits), but the core of the matter is that the players we get every year change at every reload.
The good/average/dross ratio may be sort of consistent (often when you get one super-talent, the rest of the intake is generally quite awful) but there's nothing wrong with saying that they are generated "randomly" within a set of rules.

I wouldn't want more control over the recruitment at U16 and U14 level, but I'd at least like to set a few guidelines for my YoHD in order to avoid being presented abysmal prospects who'd have been cut from the academy already.
Like "no lazy players, no players with this stat <10, no WBs" and so on.

But as a lot of the intake is, indeed, "random", it's currently just a matter of pressing Continue (or Reload) and hope for a lucky die roll.

[forameuss]

The youth intake isn't in place only to fill your own youth team, it's also to fill the database itself, and maintain the balance between the number of players active, replacing those that have retired.  Those that want more fine-grained control over what players come in, how exactly does that balance the database?  Do you get less players in, only seeing those that fit the bill?  Do you know get 16 players in, but without any poor ones?  Do you get these powers and the AI doesn't?  

The only way I could see it working is that you request the types of players you want, but you have no control over ability.  If you have any control over that, then you should only get those players that fit those parameters, even if that means getting nothing at all.  Whilst every AI team gets a full complement to maintain balance.  Not exactly an optimal solution.

It's almost like the way it is now works...

[westy8chimp]

On ‎06‎/‎05‎/‎2018 at 09:06, roger redknapp said:

But at the end of the day it is a database and it is essentially spawning data under the environment I’ve laid out for it. I’ve put good time and investement in get the best possible return on that spawn. 

 

10 hours ago, enigmatic said:

And I hate to break the news, but the reason you can't see any evidence your HOYD goes out to work every day is because he is in fact actually only a record in a database consisting of a few dozen numbers whose primary role is to influence the values of numbers in other records in a database. Which is pretty much the same as everything else in FM, come to think of it....

Kind of the OPs point... it is just some data - where he believes he is now in a position to have skewed the data favourably in his direction.

The most pertinent information provided by the OP is that he is doing a comparison to other youth intakes for clubs at his level... and is suggesting he is consistently dealt a poor hand.

All else (such as telling him to be happy about having some 4* potential) is noise.

[forameuss]

I bought as many lottery tickets as most other people did last week (well, I didn't, but for the purposes of this analogy I did) and I didn't win anything?  How is that fair when some people won something?

Flippant, I know, but it's applicable.  Having better facilities is never a guarantee that you're going to get better results.  It's never been that way.  Should it?  For me, no.  Would boil the game down to Top Trumps - bigger number wins.  Having a bit more nuance might be more frustrating to some, but it's more realistic.  

Out of interest, if you took the current top 50 players in the World, where did they come through initially?  I know it's not exactly directly comparable to FM, as players "come through" a lot earlier than they do in game, and it depends where you draw the line, but I'd imagine a lot of players are initially playing for much smaller clubs, before being picked up by larger ones and ultimately coached and nurtured to be the player they are.  In that case, FM should never get to the point where it's effectively impossible for smaller clubs to produce the odd high potential player.

[westy8chimp]

5 minutes ago, forameuss said:

Flippant

 it is flippant because I don't think anyone is arguing with that point. I think the OP is hoping that by having top facilities and staff it isn't down to luck, like the lottery is. It shouldn't be 1 in a billion chance, rendering any youth facility/coaching pointless (akin to buying a few more lottery tickets). If it is then why bother have the feature and waste any time and money on your facilities.

Also if I bought a hundred tickets and the guy next to me bought one ticket, and every week he won and I didn't ... it would be suspicious to say the least.

The only way he can affect the outcome is to improve his facilities, sign a good HOYD, have good junior coaching etc ... he has done this. In comparison to other teams at his level it is not unreasonable to expect a similar crop. If he was playing and not reloading and was commenting that "this year my crop wasn't as good as Chelsea" then of course the logical argument is that a lot is down to luck ... watch the pattern over the next 50 seasons. He has done reload, reload, reload and seen consistent behaviour.

Likewise, if every team got dross I'm sure his complaint would either be different or non-existent...and arguments like there is only a few worldys every 10 years would be applicable. He isn't complaining because his team aren't producing a Messi every 12 months.

 

[RBKalle]

7 minuti fa, forameuss ha scritto:

I bought as many lottery tickets as most other people did last week (well, I didn't, but for the purposes of this analogy I did) and I didn't win anything?  How is that fair when some people won something?

Flippant, I know, but it's applicable.  Having better facilities is never a guarantee that you're going to get better results.  It's never been that way.  Should it?  For me, no.  Would boil the game down to Top Trumps - bigger number wins.  Having a bit more nuance might be more frustrating to some, but it's more realistic.  

What?!

So what's the point in wasting millions on improving youth facilities, recruitment and on paying a top-level HoYD a six-figures wage if that doesn't even guarantee SLIGHTLY BETTER ODDS?

Ok, the youth intake doesn't only need to refill my U18 side but as a whole it's a refill for the whole gameworld, but if I'm a Top Club in a Top Nation with top-level facilities why should my whole intake consist of players who won't even make it in the lowest playable league in the nation?
 

 

[forameuss]

3 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

What?!

So what's the point in wasting millions on improving youth facilities, recruitment and on paying a top-level HoYD a six-figures wage if that doesn't even guarantee SLIGHTLY BETTER ODDS?

Diving in with two feet there...

I said it didn't guarantee results.  It gives you better odds.  Obviously.  I didn't think it was that hard to grasp.

4 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

Ok, the youth intake doesn't only need to refill my U18 side but as a whole it's a refill for the whole gameworld, but if I'm a Top Club in a Top Nation with top-level facilities why should my whole intake consist of players who won't even make it in the lowest playable league in the nation?

Because that's likely what happens in real life?  Top clubs will go through hundreds of absolute jobbers in the hope of finding a star.

[herne79]

27 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

In comparison to other teams at his level it is not unreasonable to expect a similar crop.

One other thing to factor in - he's comparing his club vs everybody else, and each time he reloads it's likely to be different teams who get the better players.  So one reload his newgens get compared to Everton/Leicester/West Ham, the next reload he's comparing to Stoke/Bournemouth/Palace.  Therefore there's a perception bias that he's always getting poor newgens in comparison when actually everyone are getting poor newgens and the good ones get shared around each reload - including to himself btw when he gets his 4 star ones.

And lets not forget he's still only York City with nowhere near the best reputation.  And reputation counts for quite a lot - if you have two clubs in the same league with exactly the same youth set up, the one with the higher rep is more likely to get the better newgens.

[RBKalle]

18 minuti fa, forameuss ha scritto:

Because that's likely what happens in real life?  Top clubs will go through hundreds of absolute jobbers in the hope of finding a star.

Not arguing with that, but with the star/decent LL player/gas station attendant ratio in the Top Leagues

Assuming in any youth intake the bulk of the hopeless kids has been taken care of already, the 16 or so players EVERY club is presented with should reasonably consist of mostly middle-of-the-road prospects whose career could range from decent rotation option at that level to starter or star one or two levels below that. If anything, because those 320 players (in EPL) shoudl rejuventate the league's landscape in replacing retired players (due to age or to crappiness).

But if a solid half of those (and I'm being generous, as it's more like 75%) are rubbish and will disappear merely months after having been brought into the gameworld, maybe the average level is a tad too low?

BTW, it's particularly noticeable when you manage a NT in an inactive league... I'm currently managing Portugal, and I'm constantly 1 injury away from a LB crisis, as the only viable options are aging mediocre players, while no decent prospect has been generated in SEVEN YEARS worth of youth intakes...
Again, not expecting to see 5 or 6 world-class fullbacks, but what are the odds of such a long dry spell for a specific role in a nation that has otherwise produced (too?) many high-potential players?

[westy8chimp]

1 minute ago, herne79 said:

One other thing to factor in - he's comparing his club vs everybody else, and each time he reloads it's likely to be different teams who get the better players.  So one reload his newgens get compared to Everton/Leicester/West Ham, the next reload he's comparing to Stoke/Bournemouth/Palace.  Therefore there's a perception bias that he's always getting poor newgens in comparison when actually everyone are getting poor newgens and the good ones get shared around each reload - including to himself btw when he gets his 4 star ones.

And lets not forget he's still only York City with nowhere near the best reputation.  And reputation counts for quite a lot - if you have two clubs in the same league with exactly the same youth set up, the one with the higher rep is more likely to get the better newgens.

This is true .... and far better feedback for the OP than 90% of the replies that missed his point

I don't put enough time and attention into youth development so I'm interested in any valuable input in the thread....reading 50 replies ignoring the facts as stated is really frustrating.

[enigmatic]

44 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

Not arguing with that, but with the star/decent LL player/gas station attendant ratio in the Top Leagues

Assuming in any youth intake the bulk of the hopeless kids has been taken care of already, the 16 or so players EVERY club is presented with should reasonably consist of mostly middle-of-the-road prospects whose career could range from decent rotation option at that level to starter or star one or two levels below that. If anything, because those 320 players (in EPL) shoudl rejuventate the league's landscape in replacing retired players (due to age or to crappiness).

But if a solid half of those (and I'm being generous, as it's more like 75%) are rubbish and will disappear merely months after having been brought into the gameworld, maybe the average level is a tad too low?

BTW, it's particularly noticeable when you manage a NT in an inactive league... I'm currently managing Portugal, and I'm constantly 1 injury away from a LB crisis, as the only viable options are aging mediocre players, while no decent prospect has been generated in SEVEN YEARS worth of youth intakes...
Again, not expecting to see 5 or 6 world-class fullbacks, but what are the odds of such a long dry spell for a specific role in a nation that has otherwise produced (too?) many high-potential players?

This is wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to start.

The top leagues' players are made up of the best players of 12-15 years' worth of youth intakes (plus the best players from lesser leagues). Of course most of the rest of those youth intakes didn't reach that standard and few  of them had any chance of doing so. You need less than one prospect that makes it per team per year to replenish the league. In general, most players coming through academies will not become senior professional footballers at all, even including quite a few from the big clubs

Someone actually posted the class of 2012 from the UK's second best academy. There's more gas station attendants than feasible rotation options.

It's a simple fact that the average potential for newgen youth intakes is higher than the average potential in the starting database, not lower. You posted a graph highlighting this yourself three days ago...

A national team not having a decent prospect in a particular position is pretty normal IRL for most national teams (England have over various ~7 year periods sorely lacked good striker, left winger and right back prospects) and of course it's going to be worse if it's an inactive league so the game is only generating a fraction of the players. That's a database size problem, not a player ability distribution problem (much worse if in order to fill out inactive nations' teams, their local clubs only generate future internationals. Imagine how pointlessly easy that'd make finding prospects...)

[Baodan]

4 hours ago, RBKalle said:

A player with a "wrong" position isn't worth to be retrained unless he's truly talented. In which case, it's still better to keep him like he is and focus on getting the best out of him without "wasting" valuable CA points on a new role and to raise secondary or tertiary attributes.

So CA points are used to learn a new position? Does it also take CA points for a player to learn a new language?

[RBKalle]

2 ore fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

The top leagues' players are made up of the best players of 12-15 years' worth of youth intakes (plus the best players from lesser leagues). Of course most of the rest of those youth intakes didn't reach that standard and few  of them had any chance of doing so. You need less than one prospect that makes it per team per year to replenish the league. In general, most players coming through academies will not become senior professional footballers at all, even including quite a few from the big clubs

Define: coming through academies...

Here we're taking as a fact that those who don't even get a tryout for the clubs' official Youth Team (U18, C-team, Primavera, Amateur... whatever it's called) are already taken into account as "cuts" and FM doesn't bother generating them.

To me, the 16 youth candidates we get each year are those who will indeed "make it" at least until the highest youth level in real life.

Not all of them will become top players, but most of them will indeed have a career in football, but probably at a semi-pro level.

Also, 1 usable prospect per team (in EPL) means 20 new EPL-level players per year... Isn't it a bit too low to replenish the league?!

 

2 ore fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

Someone actually posted the class of 2012 from the UK's second best academy. There's more gas station attendants than feasible rotation options.

I don't have time now to research, but off the top of my head the Inter Milan side that won the UEFA Youth League some years back has produced 1 mid-table Serie A player, 3 or 4 low-level Serie A players, a handful of lower/minor foreign leaguers and only a fraction of gas station attendants.

The Barça side that won it the following year has likely a similar ratio.

Still, much like a "normal distribution" where the core of a Youth Generation ends up in Tier 2/3, with few exceptions at both ends of the curve.

I'll come up with more details later

2 ore fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

It's a simple fact that the average potential for newgen youth intakes is higher than the average potential in the starting database, not lower. You posted a graph highlighting this yourself three days ago...

That was meant to prove a different point though...

And it clearly couldn't factor the <50 PA players who'll be gone soon after they've been cut from the Youth Candidates list.

It may be worth a check as well, looking at how the CA/PA distribution works on newgens for a specific nation on youth intake day.

 

 

2 ore fa, enigmatic ha scritto:

A national team not having a decent prospect in a particular position is pretty normal IRL for most national teams (England have over various ~7 year periods sorely lacked good striker, left winger and right back prospects) and of course it's going to be worse if it's an inactive league so the game is only generating a fraction of the players. That's a database size problem, not a player ability distribution problem (much worse if in order to fill out inactive nations' teams, their local clubs only generate future internationals. Imagine how pointlessly easy that'd make finding prospects...)

Fair enough, but the newgens for inactive but manageable nations should still provide enough variety and quality to keep the same level of skill from the original DB, or something similar (or compatible with the Youth Rating).

I don't need Salgueiros or Gil Vicente to have full squads of 110CA players, but, again, it's the "middle class" we're missing in many instances regarding newgens.

[enigmatic]

16 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

Define: coming through academies...

Here we're taking as a fact that those who don't even get a tryout for the clubs' official Youth Team (U18, C-team, Primavera, Amateur... whatever it's called) are already taken into account as "cuts" and FM doesn't bother generating them.

To me, the 16 youth candidates we get each year are those who will indeed "make it" at least until the highest youth level in real life.

Not all of them will become top players, but most of them will indeed have a career in football, but probably at a semi-pro level.

Also, 1 usable prospect per team (in EPL) means 20 new EPL-level players per year... Isn't it a bit too low to replenish the league?!

~1 new player per club per year, will have career of 12-18 years.  11 players on a team, 18 in a match day squad. Most of the league actually consists of foreign imports and few top PL prospects end up plying their trade overseas.

Pretty much everyone that comes through a Premier League youth intake FM will be good enough to make it as a pro eventually anyway, it's just you're not interested in developing the 90PA player your coach rates with one star potential to help him reach the heights of League Two, and the game tends to delete released players a month or twelve after you release them partly because it's inefficient at matching free transfers to clubs in general and partly because nobody cares about following their 17 year olds they weren't willing to spend £2k per annum developing as they look for a semi pro contract to get back into football.

23 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

I don't have time now to research, but off the top of my head the Inter Milan side that won the UEFA Youth League some years back has produced 1 mid-table Serie A player, 3 or 4 low-level Serie A players, a handful of lower/minor foreign leaguers and only a fraction of gas station attendants.

The Barça side that won it the following year has likely a similar ratio.

Still, much like a "normal distribution" where the core of a Youth Generation ends up in Tier 2/3, with few exceptions at both ends of the curve.

So probably the best youth team (by current ability) in Europe that year produced no players good enough to play for Inter Milan today, and some players that probably didn't make it as professional footballers? Thanks for proving my point. Title-winning youth side peaks at "three star" ability, the level the OP was complaining his 16 year olds didn't start at...

Have we actually seen any evidence that the youth generation in FM isn't broadly normally distributed? Because if you get a team normally distributed in that manner, a scout with perfect foreknowledge will rate the one or two prospects at 3 or 4 star potential, and everyone else (second tier player or failure alike) at one or two star potential... exactly the sort of thing that prompts this threadwhinge.

 

53 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

It may be worth a check as well, looking at how the CA/PA distribution works on newgens for a specific nation on youth intake day.

Agree this is a good idea. I think you'll prove the same point in your last thread (more theoretical world beaters than you'd expect) and possibly be pleasantly surprised that a lot of your expectations around distributions of players and ability to play a couple of levels down from the starting club if not higher are actually met...

[alanschu14]

7 hours ago, RBKalle said:

Which brings us back to my original point. A player with a "wrong" position isn't worth to be retrained unless he's truly talented. In which case, it's still better to keep him like he is and focus on getting the best out of him without "wasting" valuable CA points on a new role and to raise secondary or tertiary attributes.

Disagree based on my own experiences.

If a player has better attributes for a different position sometimes it makes excellent decision to retrain them. I'm not sure how this refutes my point that your assertion that "by the time we can get our hands on the newgens, any "fix" will cost Ability Points."  Any attribute point, whether they come with it or we have to train it, costs Ability Points.

Quote

If you get an awful CM who can still be retrained to be a decent MR, he must have enough PA left to be spent on the retraining process, as the points that are already "wrongly" allocated can't be detracted and reused.

I think you overstate the amount of CA required, but I've also seen players lose "natural" status in my own game. How much CA does it actually cost? (I had a player that was natural at DC and CM, and when I stopped using them at CM and more in DM which I was training and split between DC and DM his CM rating had shifted to accomplished (which I hadn't seen before but there it happened. /shrug

I suspect it only happens when they have two natural positions (possibly with little overlap in those positions) but it was interesting to see.

[westy8chimp]

what RBK is saying is fairly simple.

---------------

Highly rated player comes through - he is a CM.

Let's say under the hood there are 100 'points' available for this CM to develop.

If he keeps the player as a CM those 100 points can all go towards attributes

If he retrains as a winger that could use say 20 points ... leaving only 80 to go towards attributes.

In terms of attributes that could be the difference between a CM with some really high attributes or a winger with some fair attributes.

-----------------

So it is frustrating when you see a CM come through with good speed and dribbling, so should be a winger ... and you have to spend 'points' converting him.

I agree with him that IRL by the time a player is 16 they should have a better idea of where they play... ok a pacey winger may become a striker or a full back. But you wouldn't get a 16 year old with 20 pace, 20 dribbling but 1 in passing, 1 in tackling being presented as a DLP!

[herne79]

Sorry, far too many people worry about how much "CA" something costs.  It's hidden for a reason.  Just develop players as you see fit to compliment your system.  And if that means a player ends up being able to play through the middle as well as on the wing then great, you have more options.

Load up Plymouth Argyle one day, take a look at how many different positions just about all of their players can play in.  From memory there's even one or two players who can play in every position (except GK).  Think about how much "CA" all of that positional familiarity supposedly costs, and yet their attributes are still sufficient to get them promoted last season and just miss out on a play off spot this season.

Positional familiarity is a good thing to have in your locker, not something to avoid because it costs CA.

4 hours ago, Baodan said:

Does it also take CA points for a player to learn a new language?

No.

[alanschu14]

9 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

what RBK is saying is fairly simple.

---------------

Highly rated player comes through - he is a CM.

Let's say under the hood there are 100 'points' available for this CM to develop.

If he keeps the player as a CM those 100 points can all go towards attributes

If he retrains as a winger that could use say 20 points ... leaving only 80 to go towards attributes.

In terms of attributes that could be the difference between a CM with some really high attributes or a winger with some fair attributes.

His example seemed upset about someone starting with low natural fitness so that wasn't clear.

That said, how much CA does it actually cost?  And in a world where someone is upset that it's too easy to create world class players, nit picking a few CA points in a min/max sort of way strikes me as bizarre. If one is already peeking at CAs and PAs and finds this offensive enough, I suggest editing the player's roles and enjoying the game.

But this idea that players don't play in different positions as they get older doesn't even hold up in NHL Hockey either. Most players do remain the distinction between "forward" and "Defense" (and I'd find that Football Manager still reflects this. My new centerbacks are typically tall, with stronger attributes in defending and heading, for example), but even then you'll get world class players that grew up playing defense and they are a hall of fame center by the time their career is over.

 

33 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

ok a pacey winger may become a striker or a full back. But you wouldn't get a 16 year old with 20 pace, 20 dribbling but 1 in passing, 1 in tackling being presented as a DLP!

You're right, and they probably wouldn't be presented as a DLP unless they had other stats that made up for it. (A good chance the game would highlight the player as an AP since AP has lesser key attributes than most roles and Dribbling and Pace are two of them... but in general I have concerns about the role highlighting and what it really means and often disregard it. I know that from a role familiarity perspective, my player will be comfortable playing at midfield).

 

5 minutes ago, herne79 said:

Sorry, far too many people worry about how much "CA" something costs.

I have to agree here. Like people telling me that I should never train the off foot because it sucks up valuable CA as though being able to cross at 17.0 compared to 16.6 is more valuable than my player being more comfortable if the defense forces my winger inside.  For your system you may think so, but for my system I may think not and neither of these seems intrinsically bad.

I look at it because I'm still learning the game (both FM, and Football itself) so it helps provide some context to me while I learn to evaluate players since I'm not as good at it. But I also look at it less and less with each passing year (FM16 I relied on IGE a lot, 17 less so, and 18 even less so).

[Tom8983]

2 hours ago, westy8chimp said:

Highly rated player comes through - he is a CM.

Let's say under the hood there are 100 'points' available for this CM to develop.

If he keeps the player as a CM those 100 points can all go towards attributes

If he retrains as a winger that could use say 20 points ... leaving only 80 to go towards attributes.

Well yes, but if you're retraining them in a position that suits the stats they already have, he's already possibly got 20 more 'points' in the attributes required for his new position than he did for his original position. Unless you're retraining him for another position that he isn't suited to.

And CA/PA isn't the be all and end all. A winger with 140 CA can be much more effective than one with 160 CA, depending on how his stats are spread, and how he's suited to your system.

[enigmatic]

Retraining players taking up CA points can sometimes be annoying when they're near their potential and your midfielder with the attributes to be a defender actually becomes less good at heading the ball and marking once he's spent enough time training as a defender to become natural at it, not for any logical footballing reason (quite the opposite!) but simply to rebalance weighting algorithms.

That really shouldn't be a problem for a raw 17 year old with enough potential to play for your first team one day though.

And lots of retraining that's useful (teaching a fullback to play in the wingback roles you actually use, teaching someone to play on the other side of the pitch because that's where you need the long term replacement) usually has no impact on CA at all...

[roger redknapp]

On 07/05/2018 at 20:49, Neotropolis said:

It has everything to do with the influence. As a winger, why would you join an academy when the HOYD prefers a formation that doesn't utilise wingers? It would make no sense. Yes he's being employed by the club, but as manager, you've employed him. I always look to employ staff who fit with my ideals, if you choose not to then fair enough, but don't complain when they don't work the way you want them to.

Sorry, but players joining an academy think about how the clubs first team plays and the reserve teams should play the same way. 

And a FM players willingness to play younger players should be another bonus to your intake odds.

I have my settings to use the first teams tactics set as well, so the HOYD has one job, I don’t even let him near the training pitch. 

[roger redknapp]

 

On 07/05/2018 at 20:49, Nacaw said:

Yes, and this happens in the background on FM, under the hood on youth day, as already mentioned by another poster. You get to interact with the players at a time where they, as it happens in real life, either get promoted to the u18 team or cut. This is how FM represents u16 and lower youth teams, and you can be unhappy about it, but it is not UNREALISTIC in the way it's presented. The first team manager isn't interacting with every 14yo youth team player or looking through scout reports of 12yos. Likely their first interactions will happen in the u-18 squad, but even here it's really other staff looking after the development of the player. From what I remember reading about Sir Alex for example, he would famously rarely speak youth team players, simply trusting the youth coaches to develop them. 

 

Nobody has said that he does. The game condenses all his work into youth day because it makes sense to do it like that. It's utterly irrelevant if he actually recruits one youth player per month, or if it happens once a year. You'll get the new youth players presented to you at a realistic time, one that mirrors real life. You make the decision, sign or release, then put them into squads. It all follows how these things work in real life, except of course that different players are generated each reload. But can you imagine the complaints on this forum, if you couldn't reload for youth day?  In real life, the vast majority of youth players are evaluated and move squads at the end of the season. 

 

Again, I am politely reminding you that this is not random. Repeating it won't make it so. There's a risk of this discussion going in circles if you are unable to understand this point, and hence our interaction will cease being useful for either party. 

You are incorrect. 

It is completely random, if you reload the same youth day you will not respawn John Smith ST, 15 years old.

It throws the concept that there’s any background work between the HOYD and a bunch of Under 15s out the window. And it reinforces the suggestion that it is random spawning. It isn’t even debateable,  completely random NPCs popping into a game; and they are varied each time you reload, is a concrete definition of the words random and spawn.

[roger redknapp]

On 07/05/2018 at 23:50, enigmatic said:

And I hate to break the news, but the reason you can't see any evidence your HOYD goes out to work every day is because he is in fact actually only a record in a database consisting of a few dozen numbers whose primary role is to influence the values of numbers in other records in a database. Which is pretty much the same as everything else in FM, come to think of it....

 

Finally somebody describing the youth recruitment equation accurately, rather than providing fairytale interpretations that don’t make sense. 

[roger redknapp]

21 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

The fact that you get all players on one day instead of the more realistic way of doing it throughout the year will have been a game design choice. Whether it's to speed up the game overall or make it easier to balance etc etc, there will be reasons for it.

FIFA offers monthly reports. Ironically their offerings are also trash when it comes to physical and mental stats. 

Id like to be able to send the HOYD and youth scouts out to under 16, 12, 10s abroad and around the country, and find talent that I will arrange the club to buy the family a house and university place for. (Tactics Fergie/Wenger has used to lure the likes of Ronaldo, Fabregas etc)

And to take a leaf from PES, PES put some retired players back into youth teams a year after retirement, this would be an amazing optional way for the game to never get old after 5-10 seasons. 

[roger redknapp]

16 hours ago, westy8chimp said:

 

Kind of the OPs point... it is just some data - where he believes he is now in a position to have skewed the data favourably in his direction.

The most pertinent information provided by the OP is that he is doing a comparison to other youth intakes for clubs at his level... and is suggesting he is consistently dealt a poor hand.

All else (such as telling him to be happy about having some 4* potential) is noise.

You just burst a boil of frustration there.

im not asking for Rooney or Ronaldo or Messi, maybe the odds could be shorter.

what I’m asking for is to be rewarded with Cattermole, Whelan, Delaney, Pennant, Bentaleb, Mason, Winks a bit more often. 

Its not a big ask, I just want to the element of the game to be rewarding.

I love maximising success with minimum wage and transfer expenditure.  My two careers have been wolves and york, I joined UTD from wolves and kept my wage budget 2-3m under the max.

i hope this explains my passion towards this area of the game improving. 

[roger redknapp]

15 hours ago, forameuss said:

 

Because that's likely what happens in real life?  Top clubs will go through hundreds of absolute jobbers in the hope of finding a star.

Guarantee you clubs in real life don’t get the choice of 15 teenagers that have been rounded up in 24 hours. 

[roger redknapp]

15 hours ago, herne79 said:

One other thing to factor in - he's comparing his club vs everybody else, and each time he reloads it's likely to be different teams who get the better players.  So one reload his newgens get compared to Everton/Leicester/West Ham, the next reload he's comparing to Stoke/Bournemouth/Palace.  Therefore there's a perception bias that he's always getting poor newgens in comparison when actually everyone are getting poor newgens and the good ones get shared around each reload - including to himself btw when he gets his 4 star ones.

And lets not forget he's still only York City with nowhere near the best reputation.  And reputation counts for quite a lot - if you have two clubs in the same league with exactly the same youth set up, the one with the higher rep is more likely to get the better newgens.

My club, reputation is 4 star with extensive youth recruitment, exception junior coaching, excellent youth facilities 

and a manager known to play and purchase youth; thank you very much 

my local rivals for Intake are Leeds, harrogate, hull, Lincoln, Scunthorpe and grimsby. Hardly world beaters. 

 

[alanschu14]

1 hour ago, roger redknapp said:

Guarantee you clubs in real life don’t get the choice of 15 teenagers that have been rounded up in 24 hours. 

I think you're taking things a bit too literally, especially in light of you agreeing with enigmatic's post which pointed out that the U15 youth system is abstracted out of the game?

I'm having a hard time following the thread now because it seems like you're asking for a deeper youth system that includes more of the youth teams which, IMO, isn't a fundamental fault with the current game given it's not a level of granularity that they want with the system. It's fine to want that, but I suspect it's probably not going to be the case anytime soon.  But it's very different than being upset that none of your 15 year old regens are as good as most players on your team at the age of 15.

 

1 hour ago, roger redknapp said:

It is completely random, if you reload the same youth day you will not respawn John Smith ST, 15 years old.

It throws the concept that there’s any background work between the HOYD and a bunch of Under 15s out the window. And it reinforces the suggestion that it is random spawning. It isn’t even debateable,  completely random NPCs popping into a game; and they are varied each time you reload, is a concrete definition of the words random and spawn.

This still represents a misunderstanding of the point of the system.

Yes the players are randomly generated during the "intake day" because they fundamentally do not exist in any capacity prior to that day. The players that are generated are influenced by a variety of factors which include:

• Your team and league reputation
• Your nation's reputation
• Your nation's Youth Rating score
• Whomever you have managing your youth intake (HOYD or otherwise)
• Your youth recruitment network
• Your youth facilities
• Your junior coaching
• Possibly even more factors I cannot recall at the moment of or just don't know about yet as I'm still learning the system.

Everything prior to the youth intake is not simulated. If you ever got the impression that anyone in this thread was suggesting that it was, then there was a misunderstanding.  I understand that the Head of Youth Development isn't actually going around scouting players that don't actually exist in the game.

 

Rather than decide to build a system that does intake checks throughout the year, the abstract system occurs on various intakes for various leagues, typically towards the end of the current season in my experience. When someone suggests that the HOYD influences the intake by "scouting for players" it's an implicit rationalization behind how the system works because, (as enigmatic points out... like everything in the game) it's all just a series of numbers that exist in a database that interact with each other.

So no, there isn't a HOYD actually doing active things throughout the season with regards to junior teams below the U18/U19 level. The idea is that the HOYD impact based on the numbers the HOYD has is based around the notion that that's what a HOYD does. Unfortunately because it's all data that doesn't exist, it's randomly generated at the time of the youth intake day. Just like how FIFA randomly generates its youth team members.

 

I suspect in real life it's not common for players that come through any Youth academy to actually amount to much, let alone be good enough to play in the Premier League.  So sometimes you'll get a year where you don't actually have many kids with top end potential through your academy. Sometimes you end up with with this guy:

 

[HUNT3R]

3 hours ago, roger redknapp said:

FIFA offers monthly reports. Ironically their offerings are also trash when it comes to physical and mental stats. 

Id like to be able to send the HOYD and youth scouts out to under 16, 12, 10s abroad and around the country, and find talent that I will arrange the club to buy the family a house and university place for. (Tactics Fergie/Wenger has used to lure the likes of Ronaldo, Fabregas etc)

Since there aren't u16, 12 or 10 matches in the game (and there are probably unlikely to be, maybe ever), this is simulated in the background, as has been said a few times.

 

Quote

And to take a leaf from PES, PES put some retired players back into youth teams a year after retirement, this would be an amazing optional way for the game to never get old after 5-10 seasons. 

That's an old leaf. The regen system is something FM had in years and years ago. It saved on processing, made regen days easy and was easy to keep a balanced database. We have a better, more realistic newgen system in FM these days.

[Nacaw]

4 hours ago, roger redknapp said:

You are incorrect. 

It is completely random, if you reload the same youth day you will not respawn John Smith ST, 15 years old.

It throws the concept that there’s any background work between the HOYD and a bunch of Under 15s out the window. And it reinforces the suggestion that it is random spawning. It isn’t even debateable,  completely random NPCs popping into a game; and they are varied each time you reload, is a concrete definition of the words random and spawn.

As explained to you a multitude of times, through wiki and examples, youth day is not completely random. If it was, we would be seeing as many wonderkids from Botswana as from Brazil. Not understanding this concept, is sadly holding you back from understanding why the specific game mechanic is in place. 

[Baodan]

13 hours ago, herne79 said:

Positional familiarity is a good thing to have in your locker, not something to avoid because it costs CA.

Positional familiarity is great when you're playing with a very limited amount of players on the bench or managing a team with poor finances that cant afford to have 2-3 players for all positions.

Otherwise you'd greatly prefer the player to spend all available CA on improving his stats, obviously right? Cause you wouldn't want a decent player who can cover many positions, you'd want a great player just being specialized in one.

I always enjoyed having versatile players but now I'll have to do my best to avoid them. I don't suppose there's a way to unlearn positions?

[herne79]

6 hours ago, roger redknapp said:

My club, reputation is 4 star with extensive youth recruitment, exception junior coaching, excellent youth facilities 

and a manager known to play and purchase youth; thank you very much 

my local rivals for Intake are Leeds, harrogate, hull, Lincoln, Scunthorpe and grimsby. Hardly world beaters. 

 

That's not how it works.

Yes you'll probably beat those local rivals to the signing of local lads, but with those facilities you're also competing against other Premier League and high rep foreign clubs to attract youth players from further afield.  And how likely are they to choose York City ahead of Man Utd?  Or Barcelona?  Or any other 4 / 4.5 / 5 star club of which there are plenty?

With those facilities you're competing on a global scale to attract young players and globally there are plenty of other clubs who will look more attractive than York City based on your current 4* rep.

6 hours ago, roger redknapp said:

what I’m asking for is to be rewarded with Cattermole, Whelan, Delaney, Pennant, Bentaleb, Mason, Winks a bit more often. 

You're getting them.  As you've already said, you get 4* players - you just decide to bin them because their attributes look low.  One other point to mention - as your squad improves over time, a 4 star newgen (or senior player) will lose stars.  Not because they've got any worse or because the newgen has less potential, but because the other players around them have improved, so now they compare less favourably.

And if you're not getting them, other clubs are - because you lost the race to sign them (as outlined above).

6 hours ago, roger redknapp said:

It is completely random, if you reload the same youth day you will not respawn John Smith ST, 15 years old.

I know you have frustrations about the seeming randomness of the newgen process and I agree it can seem random.  The truth is that there are so many variables involved that can produce so many different results that it's easy to believe it's random when it's actually anything but.  You have thousands of clubs, all with different youth set ups generating thousands of newgen players, all of which still need to need to fall within the overall database profile in order to maintain a balance of players available across all levels of clubs.  It's a massively complex process, but random it's not.

So yeah, each time you reload you won't get John Smith ST 15 years old.  But someone else will, although he won't be called John Smith and he'll have a slightly different attribute profile.  And why will he have slightly different attributes if it isn't random?  Because the profile of any given club's youth set up, or even the country you are playing in, can produce different styles of player.  For example, did you know you are more likely to produce technical newgens if managing a club in Brazil than in England?  Or you may get more technical newgens at a club with a technically minded HoYD than at a club who doesn't?

Now factor all of those (and many more) variables into the new player generation model, multiply that by 3000 for all the clubs in the database and that's a lot of variables which can produce what appears to be a very random event.

[Tom8983]

8 hours ago, roger redknapp said:

Id like to be able to send the HOYD and youth scouts out to under 16, 12, 10s abroad and around the country

Your scouting team kinda do that. The more scouting knowledge your club has of the world, the more likely you are of getting regens from other countries, ones that your team knows well. Mine seem to be a little obsessed with Argentina this last year, but there's been times when I've also had Africans, Asians, Brazilians, loads of different nations from Europe, even a few from the US. You've also got to take into account your Brexit rules. I once had a hard-ish Brexit that pretty much meant getting foreign youngsters in was impossible, so then my intake was 100% British every year.

[alanschu14]

8 hours ago, Baodan said:

Positional familiarity is great when you're playing with a very limited amount of players on the bench or managing a team with poor finances that cant afford to have 2-3 players for all positions.

Otherwise you'd greatly prefer the player to spend all available CA on improving his stats, obviously right? Cause you wouldn't want a decent player who can cover many positions, you'd want a great player just being specialized in one.

I always enjoyed having versatile players but now I'll have to do my best to avoid them. I don't suppose there's a way to unlearn positions?

I'd argue it's still overstated. Unless you're actively looking at the hidden values it's something you can't be sure of, but I like positional versatility because it helps ensure that I can always have my best players on the pitch especially with some players getting rotational minutes that don't have the versatility.

In my Wolfsburg game I have an excellent Spaniard that didn't have wonderful finishing but really good DLF traits. But I ended up training him as an AMC Trequartista and playing him there a lot because I had a really high quality striker with much better finishing and I was playing a 4-2-3-1. I ended up finding another really good striker so my Spaniard now plays a lot of Raumdeuter at AML with my previous year striker playing AMC a lot (or I play two strikers).

With that two striker setup, sometimes it still works better for me to have my Spaniard playing as a striker, just as a DLF. When my Spaniard was out injured my team still did well but definitely had a bout of bad form. Being able to bring him back in at a variety of positions helped me still get a variety of time for rotational players while he still played virtually every game he wasn't injured in.

[Deisler26]

I will say though, it would be nice to get a report, say, twice a season stating that Player X is playing well for your academy and is likely to be your #1 talent when the intake happens.

 

[turnip]

Dare I ask why?

I've already got 60+ players between my First Team, Reserves and U-18s to supposedly know and care about; my HOYD sending me an email about someone I have no way to interact with would be SPACE-barred through quicker than anything other news item. 

[Deisler26]

4 hours ago, turnip said:

Dare I ask why?

I've already got 60+ players between my First Team, Reserves and U-18s to supposedly know and care about; my HOYD sending me an email about someone I have no way to interact with would be SPACE-barred through quicker than anything other news item. 

For me, it would be preparation.

I look at next season on Jan 1. To know which position a talented player will enter my academy means that I can tailor my moves and sales accordingly

[Transk53]

On 06/05/2018 at 18:49, theonets said:

Look at Big Sam at Everton. He's actively trolling the fans by sticking to what he's always done. Someone whose entire philosophy is the opposite of yours won't change for you, he really just can't. Hire the right member with the right tactics.

Don’t suppose you could email Kenwright or Moshiri that.

[Greyfriars Bobby]

On 5/8/2018 at 12:57, herne79 said:

Load up Plymouth Argyle one day, take a look at how many different positions just about all of their players can play in.  From memory there's even one or two players who can play in every position (except GK).  Think about how much "CA" all of that positional familiarity supposedly costs, and yet their attributes are still sufficient to get them promoted last season and just miss out on a play off spot this season.

Positional familiarity is a good thing to have in your locker, not something to avoid because it costs CA.

I have a question that's related to this point.  I enjoy having players in my team who have the ability to play a number of different positions.

Will the players who are generated in Plymouth Argyle's youth intake arrive with the ability to play multiple positions?  If that's the case, I'd enjoy playing a save with them.

Just curious...

[herne79]

1 hour ago, Greyfriars Bobby said:

I have a question that's related to this point.  I enjoy having players in my team who have the ability to play a number of different positions.

Will the players who are generated in Plymouth Argyle's youth intake arrive with the ability to play multiple positions?  If that's the case, I'd enjoy playing a save with them.

Just curious...

You might although there are no guarantees and as far as I'm aware the available positions of existing players have no bearing on the positional familiarity of newgens.

Load up a test save, holiday past youth intake day and see what comes up .

[Transk53]

On 08/05/2018 at 11:23, westy8chimp said:

This is true .... and far better feedback for the OP than 90% of the replies that missed his point

I don't put enough time and attention into youth development so I'm interested in any valuable input in the thread....reading 50 replies ignoring the facts as stated is really frustrating.

Then how do expect valuable input if you are not prepared to invest time yourself in the game. At end of the day, 50 replies are probably from those that try, rather than those that want to be spoon fed.

[theonets]

On 5/11/2018 at 19:33, Transk53 said:

Don’t suppose you could email Kenwright or Moshiri that.

He's gone by the end of the week 

[Transk53]

1 hour ago, theonets said:

He's gone by the end of the week 

Yes hope so. 

[theonets]

On 14/05/2018 at 15:52, Transk53 said:

Yes hope so. 

And Sam is gone, gone, gone. Sacked faster than a newbie on FM

[roger redknapp]

On 09/05/2018 at 07:15, Nacaw said:

As explained to you a multitude of times, through wiki and examples, youth day is not completely random. If it was, we would be seeing as many wonderkids from Botswana as from Brazil. Not understanding this concept, is sadly holding you back from understanding why the specific game mechanic is in place. 

 As explained to you in the message you just replied to,  reloading an intake results in “John Smith, ST, 15 from Coventry” no longer reappearing from the load just beforehand hand. 

That is a perfect definition of random spawning. I never mentioned or complained about the differences in intake between Brazil and Botswana, I understand why there would be huge differences in those intakes.

My point is that the game doesn’t reward you for having a higher reputation, HOYD, Recruitment system, in England, with state of the art youth facilities and a reputation bearing 5*, with top Junior Coaching. It’s pot luck with no explanation. 

A more realistic approach is for the HOYD to intake players regularly throughout the year.  As in real life clubs send scouts to kids football weekly. 

Or I would be happier to click an option where you get a handicap bonus in odds to sign decent young players if you make your club kitted out with the Youth facilities etc. I’d rather tick that and enjoy my game than sit there reloading until the **** HOYD does his job properly. 

[herne79]

18 minutes ago, roger redknapp said:

My point is that the game doesn’t reward you for having a higher reputation, HOYD, Recruitment system, in England, with state of the art youth facilities and a reputation bearing 5*, with top Junior Coaching. It’s pot luck with no explanation. 

Yes it does reward you and no it's not just pot luck.  I explained it all to you higher up.

[roger redknapp]

1 hour ago, herne79 said:

Yes it does reward you and no it's not just pot luck.  I explained it all to you higher up.

Huw Jenkins, Speakman, makes no difference.

Extensive YR, State of Art facilities, 5* Rep, makes no difference.  

It still takes 50+ reloads to finding a decent player. 

Ive played the game for 1000s if hours, hundreds of careers and seasons, I’m not going to pretend this part of the game isn’t broken when it is. 

They should scrap hidden stats, simplify how facilities effect your club, possibly scrap preferred formations and personalities, as currently they just complicate. 

And make the HOYD work all year round, rather than 1 day a year. That is how real life works, players aren’t rounded up on one specific day at youth level. 

[CFuller]

We are just going around in circles now. It's been explained in detail by several users why youth intakes work as they do and why they should work as they do.

At the very least, you should either re-read this whole thread (herne's comments especially) or lower your expectations.

[Vernum]

Sounds like he just wants more control or a more extensive scouting and recruitment system for the younger player instead of random spawn with weighting depending on reputation and location etc..

[enigmatic]

51 minutes ago, roger redknapp said:

Huw Jenkins, Speakman, makes no difference.

Extensive YR, State of Art facilities, 5* Rep, makes no difference.  

It still takes 50+ reloads to finding a decent player. 

Ive played the game for 1000s if hours, hundreds of careers and seasons, I’m not going to pretend this part of the game isn’t broken when it is. 

They should scrap hidden stats, simplify how facilities effect your club, possibly scrap preferred formations and personalities, as currently they just complicate. 

And make the HOYD work all year round, rather than 1 day a year. That is how real life works, players aren’t rounded up on one specific day at youth level. 

Go look at all the people taking clubs from minor leagues to the Champions League whilst not signing anyone outside of their youth intake. Youth intakes in FM produce far more players with first team potential than the real life cohorts of youngsters (let's face it, in the past couple of decades Swansea's produced Ben Davies, Joe Allen and a lot of players that wouldn't make the Swansea team even now they're in the second tier. Guess that's what happens when you don't get to save/reload because you haven't got wonderkids with good personalities)

It's not the game that's broken, it's your expectations...