CA star ratings skewed by positional versatility?

[SPOOGE DRIVER]

Using in-game editor,

• I set all of a player's attributes to 10 and made him natural (20) in striker position and nothing (1) in every other position. I set his CA to the RCA of 63. The assistant manager gave him 2.5 stars and 'Fringe player'.
• Then, keeping everything else the same, I made him natural (20) additionally in two other positions, left attacking midfield and right attacking midfield. I set his CA to the RCA of 69. The assistant manager gave him 3.5 stars and 'Regular player'. 

If I have two identical players apart from the fact that one of them is a natural in just the striker position and the other is a natural in striker, left attacking midfield, and right attacking midfield, then even though they will both be equal in their performance as strikers, my assistant manager will rate the one who is a natural in the three positions more highly than the one who is a natural in just one position - so, even if I never ever decide to play the versatile player in any other position than striker, he will be rated more highly than the other player simply due to this versatility?

Have I understood this correctly?

 

This point leads onto this phenomenon that I have found in my latest save, whereby one of my strikers who is actually slightly better than another striker is actually lower rated than the other striker simply because the other striker is more versatile and can play the attacking midfield too.

I loaded up an old save to play around in the editor and have uploaded an image to illustrate my point. I have an assistant manager with 'Excellent knowledge' on my players and set 20 for both judging ability and judging potential. I set two players to have 5 left foot strength and 20 right foot strength. I set them to have 10 for all attributes, except the first player (David Ijaha) has 11 for certain key attributes for an advanced forward. Then, the first player is set to be natural only as striker, but the second player (Danny Mills) is natural not only as striker but as attacking midfield too. I then set their CAs to correspond to their RCAs. The result is shown in the image. Look at the red circled bit at the very bottom.

I'm being told by my assistant manager that the second player (Danny Mills) is actually a better striker with 3.5 stars than the first player (David Ijaha) with 3 stars?!?!?! What is this?!?!? David Ijaha is clearly the better suited to the striker position. He has slightly higher attributes than Danny Mills. Is this a flaw in the rating system? It seems like stars for a certain specific position, e.g. striker, will be misleadingly skewed based on a player's ability to play in other positions. Players who can play in multiple positions will be unfairly considered better than they really are in a certain specific position relative to players who can only play in one certain specific position. Can anyone shed any light on this for me please?

[Enos]

Good research.  It seems SI have drawn that conclusion.  They can only make a somewhat imperfect system and I can see why it may value versatility over skill on a single area.  I can imagine SI are using this criteria to help AI managers decide who to buy on the transfer market.  There is great value in flexibility and some may say that if abilities are close, I prefer multiple positions.  

[santy001]

It's a staff opinion, even by giving a staff member 20/20 their judgement will not be perfect. You can't really infer an outcome from this because ultimately the staff members can still be wrong.

You can have the very best team possible, fifteen+ scouts with every one having 20/20 judging potential and its possible all of them will fail to realise a player has 200PA. 

It serves as a loose guide to help you with making decisions. So ultimately the point would be you haven't understood it correctly, because you're trying to use a blunt instrument as a precision tool. 

[Guest]

8 minutes ago, santy001 said:

It's a staff opinion, even by giving a staff member 20/20 their judgement will not be perfect. You can't really infer an outcome from this because ultimately the staff members can still be wrong.

You can have the very best team possible, fifteen+ scouts with every one having 20/20 judging potential and its possible all of them will fail to realise a player has 200PA. 

It serves as a loose guide to help you with making decisions. So ultimately the point would be you haven't understood it correctly, because you're trying to use a blunt instrument as a precision tool. 

I am little shocked with that answer:

- IGE is the official tool from SI. Are you saying official tool is not working or it's a fault that SI has been publish it?

- What's the purpose of trying to have the best AM or the best Staff if it's not give - guide you correctly; even if it's perfect?

[santy001]

The judgement of a staff member is an emulated opinion which is aggregated on stats. This cannot be used as though its something definitive.

There are going to be errors and incorrect information. Better staff reduce the margin of error, but never eliminates it. 

20/20 consistency doesn't mean a player is perfect in every game or at full CA every game, 20/20 finishing doesn't mean a player never miscues a shot. 

The In-Game Editor is an irrelevance other than the fact its been used to create the situation. I'm referring to staff opinions being a blunt instrument. They're something you can use as a back-up to your own initial thoughts, or something to present an idea or suggestion that you might have missed and warrants looking at further. The moment you start to infer that these staff opinions are definitive measures you have completely misconstrued the way in which its supposed to be used and how its supposed to work.

Ultimately, if you want to know which player is better... you play them both and see who performs best.

[Guest]

That's interesting.

Of course I am not always count his/her opinion (background staff) with closed eyes, but I was thought that JCA/JPA 20/20 will give me the best idea about X player among thousands of players. If it's not capable to do this with accuracy (assume it's 20/20 JCA/JPA), at least 90%, then I don't see the point of having a scale of 1-20.

I think, that's a good food for thought for SI.

[zyfon5]

The star rating is not just based on the players ability. It is also judged based on the players form and whether the staff thinks he is a good fit for your team. Two players with the exact same current ability might be given different star ratings bcz one might have better form or he is a domestic player that fits well with your team.

4 hours ago, Cadoni said:

That's interesting.

Of course I am not always count his/her opinion (background staff) with closed eyes, but I was thought that JCA/JPA 20/20 will give me the best idea about X player among thousands of players. If it's not capable to do this with accuracy (assume it's 20/20 JCA/JPA), at least 90%, then I don't see the point of having a scale of 1-20.

I think, that's a good food for thought for SI.

The star rating system is already at a very accurate level that far exceeds real life situation. Having better staff will increase your accuracy but only the developers will know what is the scale of increment and what is the max value is. We can only speculate. Who knows what is the accuracy level of a perfect staff is?90%? 95%? Even if it's on 99% there is still a small margin of error there. So getting better staff will still give u the best opinion just it would not be perfect.

Edited May 8, 2020 by zyfon5

[zyfon5]

5 hours ago, SPOOGE DRIVER said:

Using in-game editor,

• I set all of a player's attributes to 10 and made him natural (20) in striker position and nothing (1) in every other position. I set his CA to the RCA of 63. The assistant manager gave him 2.5 stars and 'Fringe player'.
• Then, keeping everything else the same, I made him natural (20) additionally in two other positions, left attacking midfield and right attacking midfield. I set his CA to the RCA of 69. The assistant manager gave him 3.5 stars and 'Regular player'. 

If I have two identical players apart from the fact that one of them is a natural in just the striker position and the other is a natural in striker, left attacking midfield, and right attacking midfield, then even though they will both be equal in their performance as strikers, my assistant manager will rate the one who is a natural in the three positions more highly than the one who is a natural in just one position - so, even if I never ever decide to play the versatile player in any other position than striker, he will be rated more highly than the other player simply due to this versatility?

Have I understood this correctly?

 

This point leads onto this phenomenon that I have found in my latest save, whereby one of my strikers who is actually slightly better than another striker is actually lower rated than the other striker simply because the other striker is more versatile and can play the attacking midfield too.

I loaded up an old save to play around in the editor and have uploaded an image to illustrate my point. I have an assistant manager with 'Excellent knowledge' on my players and set 20 for both judging ability and judging potential. I set two players to have 5 left foot strength and 20 right foot strength. I set them to have 10 for all attributes, except the first player (David Ijaha) has 11 for certain key attributes for an advanced forward. Then, the first player is set to be natural only as striker, but the second player (Danny Mills) is natural not only as striker but as attacking midfield too. I then set their CAs to correspond to their RCAs. The result is shown in the image. Look at the red circled bit at the very bottom.

I'm being told by my assistant manager that the second player (Danny Mills) is actually a better striker with 3.5 stars than the first player (David Ijaha) with 3 stars?!?!?! What is this?!?!? David Ijaha is clearly the better suited to the striker position. He has slightly higher attributes than Danny Mills. Is this a flaw in the rating system? It seems like stars for a certain specific position, e.g. striker, will be misleadingly skewed based on a player's ability to play in other positions. Players who can play in multiple positions will be unfairly considered better than they really are in a certain specific position relative to players who can only play in one certain specific position. Can anyone shed any light on this for me please?

Although I am pretty sure the reason of difference is due to versatility but can u adjust both players to have the same value and exact same contract? These things will also affect star ratings.

[sporadicsmiles]

I mean at first look it would make perfect sense to me. If two players are identical, then the one who can play more positions is better. 

Anyway, getting stuck on star rating holds a lot of players back. It is a useful guide, but follow the actual attributes and performances. The best player I ever had in terms of performance was never rated higher than 2.5 stars. He just fit the team perfectly/. 

[KrKAlex]

7 hours ago, zyfon5 said:

The star rating is not just based on the players ability. It is also judged based on the players form and whether the staff thinks he is a good fit for your team. Two players with the exact same current ability might be given different star ratings bcz one might have better form or he is a domestic player that fits well with your team.

This! 
Have you ever received the e-mail where your AssMan updates his opinion on some players. I checked with some screenshots, my left winger being on his prime did not evolve any stats for a year. However, his rating went from 4.5 stars CA to 3.5. The only reason is that I transfered-in a youngster that has been on a decent form and whom PA is higher than the one of my current Left Winger. Plus, the form of the winger on his prime has been decreasing. In a sense, his current ability did not change by attributes (or slightly by decimals), but his current ability by facts did change because he is performing below than what you expect from a 4.5 stars player. Does it make sense?

[zyfon5]

9 minutes ago, KrKAlex said:

This! 
Have you ever received the e-mail where your AssMan updates his opinion on some players. I checked with some screenshots, my left winger being on his prime did not evolve any stats for a year. However, his rating went from 4.5 stars CA to 3.5. The only reason is that I transfered-in a youngster that has been on a decent form and whom PA is higher than the one of my current Left Winger. Plus, the form of the winger on his prime has been decreasing. In a sense, his current ability did not change by attributes (or slightly by decimals), but his current ability by facts did change because he is performing below than what you expect from a 4.5 stars player. Does it make sense?

FM Base recently made a video on this and describe it with detail. yes that would be the most reasonable explanation. in your case i think bcz ur youngster had a higher PA it essentially deflated everyone star ratings bcz every player does not look good enough as before when u have a young Messi in your team for example. star ratings are essentially a rating of how good a player is in your team which is influenced by multiple factors such as form, perceived value of the player and others. 

 

[turnip]

14 hours ago, Cadoni said:

That's interesting.

Of course I am not always count his/her opinion (background staff) with closed eyes, but I was thought that JCA/JPA 20/20 will give me the best idea about X player among thousands of players. If it's not capable to do this with accuracy (assume it's 20/20 JCA/JPA), at least 90%, then I don't see the point of having a scale of 1-20.

I think, that's a good food for thought for SI.

They have a scale of 1-20 because that's the scale used for all other attributes within the game.

In the same way that a player with 20s in all the 'Shooting' attributes won't score with nearly every shot, a staff member with 20 JPA/JCA won't identify a player with fantastic ability/potential every time.

[yolixeya]

2 hours ago, zyfon5 said:

FM Base recently made a video on this and describe it with detail. yes that would be the most reasonable explanation. in your case i think bcz ur youngster had a higher PA it essentially deflated everyone star ratings bcz every player does not look good enough as before when u have a young Messi in your team for example. star ratings are essentially a rating of how good a player is in your team which is influenced by multiple factors such as form, perceived value of the player and others. 

 

I agree with most of what this guy says but I always thought and I think I've seen someone from SI to confirm that star ratings are also relevant to the league you play in. That is why I thought that star rating always go down when you get promotion, but now that I think of it that is the time when you also bring new players. I will keep an eye on this next time I get promotion.

[yolixeya]

On 08/05/2020 at 14:52, yolixeya said:

I agree with most of what this guy says but I always thought and I think I've seen someone from SI to confirm that star ratings are also relevant to the league you play in. That is why I thought that star rating always go down when you get promotion, but now that I think of it that is the time when you also bring new players. I will keep an eye on this next time I get promotion.

Regarding this, I just won promotion and didn't bring any new players. Actually I signed 2-3 players on a free transfer but they will arrive in the middle of the season so no new players to skew my star ratings, but nevertheless the stars for most of the players dropped. My first striker who had a 4 stars dropped to 3, same with trequartista, some players dropped only a half star... The only other thing that could influence star ratings if I had a lot of youth players that progressed a lot but I'm not focusing on the youth currently as I only have adequate facilities. I have a young Segundo Volante who kept his 3 and a half stars so he progressed, I have also young RB but I don't think those 2 players could influence star ratings that much.