Mikaelinho Posted May 23, 2020 Share Posted May 23, 2020 (edited) Inspired by doing mostly player development saves I'm gonna try a few training/player development experiments using the editor to test different variables! I'm really excited but I have no real clue what the experiments will show... The first experiment will look at how much playing time actually matters for a player's development. I'm gonna play one player per position a lot and one player as little as possible and then compare development after one season. I'm trying to maximise as many other variables as possible, therefore coaches, facilities, reputation etc is at a max. The team "Training Experiment", nicknamed "The Talents" play in an EPL that has seen the reputation bumped to a maximum of 200. Everything at the club has been maximised as well, facilities wise. The squad consists of 23 players all born on Jan 1st 2003, meaning that they are all 16 years old as the experiment starts. Every player starts with these attributes, but with different preferred positions. They all have a 200 PA and a CA that is equal to their RCAs based on position. They also have a "Model Citizen" personality with an identical setup of all 20s in Determination, Ambition and Professionalism. The strategy is to play the no1 in each position as much as possible, followed by no2 etc. The player must be fit and have a condition above 90, otherwise the guy next in line plays. I will use the in-game editor to remove any injuries along the way. No players will be given specific positional or role training or an additional training focus. Training is set at "Double intensity". Edited May 23, 2020 by Mikaelinho 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted May 23, 2020 Author Share Posted May 23, 2020 (edited) Experiment 1: How much does playing time matter? Place holder for now. Will fill this as the experiment progresses. Edited May 23, 2020 by Mikaelinho Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted May 23, 2020 Author Share Posted May 23, 2020 We are using a very basic 4-4-2 setup that suits our players well: Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted May 23, 2020 Author Share Posted May 23, 2020 @_Ben_ and @Jimbokav1971, any thoughts or suggestions on this? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jimbokav1971 Posted May 23, 2020 Share Posted May 23, 2020 Am busy cooking but I have thought about this sort of thing many times so have a few suggestions for "extremes" that are good to test stuff like this. Playing time. 1 player should play regularly and another should feature not at all. Training. 1 player should train as normal and another player should be "rested" for the full period of the experiment with absolutely no training. Facilities. 1 player should use the 20/20/20 facilities at home and another should be loaned to a club, (playing at the same level), who have 1/1/1/1 facilities and given a similar amount of playing time to act as a comparison, (but you would also have to sort coaches out there so might not be possible). Match rating. 1 player should be played in their favoured position and another player should be played significantly out of position, (striker played in defence and vice versa, to impact on their performance), so that we can compare match ratings to development. Praise/criticism. 1 player should be praised on a monthly basis and compared to a 2nd player who is criticised every single month. PPM training. 1 player trained constantly on any PPM where possible, to see how this affects other training. Sorry, will try to come back and have a look later. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted May 25, 2020 Author Share Posted May 25, 2020 I've now completed one season of this experiment and you can see the progress made by each player below: Every player progressed nicely, which was expected considering their 200 PA combined with state of the art facilities and coaches, but what's more interesting is that there is a clear difference in how much they progressed based on playing time. When comparing the total number of attribute increases for each player, you notice a difference between the players that played a lot and the players that played very little or nothing at all. Even though the sample is very small, the trend is similar for all positions. This is certainly along the lines of what's been communicated from SI games that for the youngest players training is more important than playing time, even though this experiment highlights the fact that playing time is still important, even for 16-year-olds. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted May 25, 2020 Author Share Posted May 25, 2020 Experiment Part Two: Scaling things up After the encouraging results from the first experiment it's time to scale this up! For the next experiment I'll fill the entire Premier League with experiment teams. I will simultaneously look at three variables in this experiment: Age, training intensity and playing time. There will be twenty teams divided into five ages and four training intensities: The different ages will be 16, 17, 18, 21 and 24 and the different training intensities will range from no training at all to tough training. Each team will consist of 22 players with identical setup regarding attributes, personality, height, weight etc. The only difference will be in position and age. One player per position will play a lot, while one player plays as little as possible, just like in the experiment above. This is going to take significantly longer to set up in the editor, but I hope to have it up and running this week. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillHoward42 Posted June 18, 2020 Share Posted June 18, 2020 Hope you are still looking into this. Fascinating to see the season 1 results. I have always tended to bring any big potential newgen into the first team set-up, so they can train and play sporadically in the first team (cup games, late subs, etc) Would be interesting to see if you simulated a season, with player 1 in the first team and playing games as you've done... and player 2 sitting in the U18 set up. Comparing that would be nice to know, if the U18 is any good/how effective it is to a players development. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted June 23, 2020 Author Share Posted June 23, 2020 On 18/06/2020 at 08:30, WillHoward42 said: Hope you are still looking into this. Fascinating to see the season 1 results. I have always tended to bring any big potential newgen into the first team set-up, so they can train and play sporadically in the first team (cup games, late subs, etc) Would be interesting to see if you simulated a season, with player 1 in the first team and playing games as you've done... and player 2 sitting in the U18 set up. Comparing that would be nice to know, if the U18 is any good/how effective it is to a players development. I am still doing this from time to time. It became too tedious to just do the experiment, but I do an hour here and there. I've just finished a test where I look at playing time in the 1st team vs the U23s and U18s. It'll be published this week I hope. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
WillHoward42 Posted June 23, 2020 Share Posted June 23, 2020 27 minutes ago, Mikaelinho said: I am still doing this from time to time. It became too tedious to just do the experiment, but I do an hour here and there. I've just finished a test where I look at playing time in the 1st team vs the U23s and U18s. It'll be published this week I hope. That will be an interesting read. I have always wondered if it would be best to just sit your very best youth prospects in the first team to train and play sporadically. And do away with/pay no attention to the U23/U18 teams in terms of signing players to bulk out the squads so that your 'stars' can play in a competitive team for those U23/U18 leagues, hope that makes sense Plus, I like to keep my best prospects in the first team to be influenced very early on by the first team players. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted June 30, 2020 Author Share Posted June 30, 2020 A similar experiment to the one above, but with a comparison between playing time/no playing time in a First team/U23s/U18s squad is now finished and will be published next week. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted July 2, 2020 Author Share Posted July 2, 2020 The entire thing is here: https://dictatethegame.com/2020/07/01/playing-time-and-player-development-on-fm20/ 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
_Ben_ Posted July 3, 2020 Share Posted July 3, 2020 On 02/07/2020 at 13:05, Mikaelinho said: The entire thing is here: https://dictatethegame.com/2020/07/01/playing-time-and-player-development-on-fm20/ I got to the Shrewnaldo bit and saw this: I've been posting on forums for too long! --- Will read over the rest later on 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikaelinho Posted August 25, 2020 Author Share Posted August 25, 2020 I'm finished with the experiment now. You can find the three part experiment here: https://dictatethegame.com/2020/08/24/playing-time-and-player-development-on-fm20-part-3/ 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
04texag Posted November 19, 2020 Share Posted November 19, 2020 On 25/08/2020 at 02:52, Mikaelinho said: I'm finished with the experiment now. You can find the three part experiment here: https://dictatethegame.com/2020/08/24/playing-time-and-player-development-on-fm20-part-3/ Just finally got around to reading the final update, great stuff. I'm sure this experiment took quite a long time to run, so I really appreciate your solid work! Kudos Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now