Jump to content

A Closer Look at Training.


Recommended Posts

sfraser- how do you find having very high workload?

I find that attribute improvement is substantial but the penalties for playing too often or playing at a low condition are severe. I also find that players that play regularly will not put up with as high a training workload as those that do not play regularly, and I find that training someone above the workload they tolerate results in a lower rate of attribute improvement.

In short my players are working hard and reaping the rewards, but it is possible to overwork players in a short space of time and reap the consequences before you notice a problem. Due to the weekly training update that Lyssien spotted and the greater than weekly update rate of condition, match consequences etc. it is possible to subject a player to conditions they cannot tolerate and you cannot easilly address.

High Workloads are a fine line between a high rate of improvement and overexertion. You should anticipate fixture congestion and reduce first team players workloads before you enter a heavy period of matches.

Fact about FM is that you need to manage the number of games a player takes part in a season. Of that I'm almost certain. You can set up the ideal training schedule, but if you don't bleed a young 18 year old into senior matches, then his overall rate of development will be low. I think we all agree on this point.

Completely agreed, of this point there is no doubt in my mind. The younger a player is the more training will make up a large proportion of his development rate, but only because it is both unwise to play a youngster regularly and because he is unlikely to have the attributes to replace your first team choice over the course of an entire season. Accurately judged first team appearances can reap vast rewards in terms of development and a slowly accelerating rate of first team starts over several years is vital for a player to achieve his potential.

However intelligent man management of a young player is atleast as vital as the number of matches he plays, in my opinion. Some youngsters have a personality that ensures they thrive under adversity and will benefit greatly from a role as a last 20 minute impact substitute or a place in the starting lineup against rivals and the biggest clubs/matches. These kinds of players will perform better the greater the challenges you set them, and will often outperform many of your first team players in the most difficult of matches, irrespective of their lack of attributes. Great performances in difficult matches equals a much greater attribute gain than mediocre performances against mundane opposition. Other youngsters will buckle under the same kind of pressure and require a different strategy, one of mentoring and careful introduction to football matches that are equal to their attribute level. These players are likely to crumble in big matches and suffer a drop in confidence that is a nightmare to re-establish, that negatively affects future perfomances and so hinders attribute gain.

Here I am focusing only on the development of players...an area that has sparked my interest lately....I'm fairly sure I'm threading on familiar ground for many, sometimes its good to rehash old stuff

The development of young players is one of the most interesting facets of FM09 for me and certainly keeps me entertained inbetween match days. You can setup your basic schedules and rush from match day to match day if you wish, but I certainly enjoy tracking the development, morale, personalities and "drama" of my squad and club on a daily basis. Interacting with young and talented players and getting them to develop and perform on match day is a great part of this game. I will admit to having a little smile when I found myself listed as one of Mario Balotelli's favoured personnel or watching this seasons top performer in my club become my squads favourite player.

For the best development rate in terms of age..we should be looking at:

<18- Youth matches, and if possible loan periods with teams that will play him in as many as half the matches a season

>18 & <21 Premiership Player must be on loan to a championship side where he is an important player, or you need to ensure that he plays as often as he can for the senior side, even if he were to come on for less than 45 mins,

>21, should be a squad player whom you give at least half the season matches to play (coming on as a sub means he needs to play at least 22 matches.

I think here your age limits are too conservative. The season that Ryan Giggs turned 18 he played 38 first team games for Manchester United. Paolo Maldini played 27 times for the A.C. Milan first team during the season that he turned 18. According to FM anyway.

I would take the position that as soon as a player turns 17 and signs his first professional contract, thereby taking part in Senior Training according to FM, that the manager considers him for first team action.

U17. Youth team and youth training with the occasional reserve match. Try to keep up to date with how high potential under-17s are doing in the youth team and reserves.

Age 17. Contract marks the start of his professional career and senior training regimes. Observe his training, youth team and reserve performances and pencil in a First Team appearance for the best and brightest youngsters of this age group. Keep all players that turn 17 this season in the youth side, but give the best between 3 and ten substitute appearances in the first team to gauge their ability and temprament.

Season of 18th Birthday. Use the Pre-Season to decide whether they go on loan or stay and fight for a First Team place. If they stay at the club then this is the season where the managers man management of these players will have its most decisive influence. At no point should they ever become a First Team regular in squad status, though they may play regularly.

Season of 19th Birthday. Use Pre-Season to decide whether they go on loan or stay and fight for a First Team place. Those that stay for two consecutive seasons get set to Rotation. Those that are on loan for two consecutive seasons are in the last chance saloon. If the youngster stays and is head and shoulders above the competitors for his position then sign a cheap, veteran, flexible competitor for his position and make him work for it.

Season of 20th Birthday. Is either a First Team regular by merit and with a squad status to match, is a flexible and useful squad rotation player with the status to match, or is on the Transfer List. Transfer Listing a player is the final, strongest push available to kickstart a career and if it fails to work he gets sold.

I decided to have as high workload as the player can take. If he becomes unhappy i will lessen it until he becomes happy. I want to train my youngster, who is a DC, to have more composure. How much of a benefit will it be if i put him on shooting training? Thanks

The effects of the composure attribute are most obvious during high tempo matches, in closely confined areas of the pitch, or close to a touchline. The higher the composure of your defenders then the less likely he is to punt it out of play or wildly up the pitch when subjected to any tense situation. This is however a secondary concern for a defender that is surpassed by his defending ability. If you are comfortable with his defending ability and wish to slightly increase the risks he takes in favour of more controlled possession then increasing his shooting training will certainly improve his composure.

Due to the way training works, the distribution of training attributes and the tactical importance of the Centre Back position I tend to view composure in Centre-Backs as a natural talent rather than a desireable training focus.

So, has anyone figured out when a player decides they are "unhappy with the training workload?"

A players Training Happiness is updated on a weekly basis, but his tolerance of Workload would seem to decrease the more regularly he plays.

Link to post
Share on other sites

  • Replies 521
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Excellent discussion guys, cant wait to get stuck into training schedules.

Question-

Sergio Aguero doesnt perform for me, he drifts in and out of games. Looking at his attributes I wondered why.

He has everything you want in a striker, but he has 10 on concentration. Could this be the reason for his poor performances?

How would I improve his concentration?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Excellent discussion guys, cant wait to get stuck into training schedules.

Question-

Sergio Aguero doesnt perform for me, he drifts in and out of games. Looking at his attributes I wondered why.

He has everything you want in a striker, but he has 10 on concentration. Could this be the reason for his poor performances?

How would I improve his concentration?

Concentration may well play a role in his behaviour but nothing I have seen ingame would suggest that concentration is in any way a large factor in the performances of strikers. The only logical influence of concentration in such a Determined and gifted striker would be errors in his runs or touches.

I would suggest that the problem you are having with Aguero is a tactical one. He does not run channels and he has a low work rate and aggression, so a lone striker or Apex striker role like Torres is not his forte. Aguero is much more suited to close control build up play around the edge of the box operating in close proximity to other creative attacking players. If you can keep Aguero close to the midfield with a high creative freedom and get the midfield close to the 18 yard line then he is absolutely lethal.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Not only, imo if you overtrain a player, he could be not well fit or fatigued, so his performance on the pitch could drop down, he could get an injury...etc...

Then a training regime too hard could let your player unhappy and their performance will drop again.

Or not?

Yes, yes, it's all part of the "indirect" effect I was talking about. I was trying to make a point that training does not affect matches directly, and I did not word it too carefully.

Guys,

I am trying to start a discussion on player fitness management in the GD forum, but it's not working. If you find that topic interesting and want SI to work further on this issue, here is the thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=103931&highlight=Player+Fitness+curve

Note that the first external link I have added is extremely interesting (especially if you like graphs), with a lot of information on how fitness and fatigue develop IRL.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Composure (and interlinked training/match motivation)

I focus a lot on improving this with all players and particularly defenders need composure around 14 (my tactic involves playing high up the pitch, so straight away the demand and pressure on the defenders increases).

Like most people I couldn’t care less if long shooting is 1 (finishing on the other hand is handy when penalty situation arise).

I’m going to try a different approach (apart from tutoring), and I hope this is programmed into the game.

Composure is how calmly a player deals with pressure situations (also perceived by the player in question). The best example, a striker shooting at goal, hence Shooting training improves Composure.

When you analyse the main tasks (and stats [training] needed) of defenders it is:

Defending:-

Tackling, Marking, Concentration - covered by Defending training

Anticipation, Decisions, Off the ball, Positioning, Team Work - covered by Tactics training

First touch, Heading, Technique - covered by Ball Control training

I think that the weekly training combinations have a direct impact on matches in that period. Example being Set-pieces, Defending & Tactics training, if set high (rather then medium) ensuring that your players deal better with defensive set-pieces.

Build-up & establishment of play:-

Anticipation, Decisions, Off the ball, Positioning, Team Work - covered by Tactics training

Creativity, Passing - covered by Attacking training

First touch, Heading, Technique - covered by Ball Control training

Crossing, (Free kicks), Long throws, (Penalty taking)

Going by the above theory (training [defensive set-pieces] theory) a defender who has then been trained well in the above stats (for Build-up & establishment of play), then needs encouragement. Which we can give through team-talks ‘faith in your ability’. The team-talk (encouragement) should happen after the player in question has the right training levels and improvements are already noticeable. His ability, stats will obviously also have to be taken into account. I personally would not abandon Shooting training altogether, ensuring that a maintaining level is achieved in training.

So for a defender to be calm and composed he needs self-confidence in his ability (defending, build-up and establishment of play). He needs the ability (potential in the first place), which can then be influence through training. So creating the right training schedule is obviously important; in which Ball Control should play an important part. Instead of training Shooting on a high medium or high, the time (sliders) should be used on Ball Control, Attacking, Tactics and wretched :thdn: Set-pieces training.

Interaction with the defender(s) through team talks, is a key component in this theory. Supporting the player even when things go wrong. Obviously it depends on what goes wrong and the managers perception.

Should be interesting to see if the training alone, with reduced shooting can improve or at least maintain the composure stat. I also think that the role the player plays within the formation/system adds to improvement in stats (ability).

Link to post
Share on other sites

Excellent discussion guys, cant wait to get stuck into training schedules.

Question-

Sergio Aguero doesnt perform for me, he drifts in and out of games. Looking at his attributes I wondered why.

He has everything you want in a striker, but he has 10 on concentration. Could this be the reason for his poor performances?

How would I improve his concentration?

My guess is that his below-expectation performance is due to his low strength.

In FM09 low-strength striker is far too easy to lose control on the ball in body-to-body challenge, which means Aguero has to make a shot at the first time before the opponent defender closes him down. In my first season Aguero only scored 13 goals in 32 appearences.

Then I give him intense strength training and now (4 seasons later) his strength is 15 (origin strength is 10) and has scored 17 goals in 15 appearences. The ability to hold the ball a little bit more against the body of a defender is a key reason IMO.

Link to post
Share on other sites

You are on the right track with this but it is far from a complete overview of the factors involved in development.

But we don't have to unravel all the details (both major and trivial) of the underlying mechanism, do we? I don't think it is possible for us to achieve a complete overview as we are not code readers.

To grasp the key factors governing the CA-increasing and attributes-improvement is enough for us, and even this is not that easy. That's why I strongly recommand to highlight the key factors first in a simple and straightforward way, and to extend the trivial factors later if someone wants to. As I mentioned before, the key factors in player development are young age, match practice, high professionalism and high ambition. With these satisfied, a player can boost his CA jolly fast (say 20-40 CA per season depending on the performance and position) and therefore develop his attributes. Other factors such as Overall Training Workload, Workrate, Player's happiness with the training load are trivial. What we need to do then is to adjust the notches in the training categories to shape the player attributes to what kind of distribution we want.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

My guess is that his below-expectation performance is due to his low strength.

In FM09 low-strength striker is far too easy to lose control on the ball in body-to-body challenge, which means Aguero has to make a shot at the first time before the opponent defender closes him down. In my first season Aguero only scored 13 goals in 32 appearences.

Then I give him intense strength training and now (4 seasons later) his strength is 15 (origin strength is 10) and has scored 17 goals in 15 appearences. The ability to hold the ball a little bit more against the body of a defender is a key reason IMO.

Aguero's acceleration, agility, anticipation, decisions, dribbling, first touch, and off-the-ball movement are all so high as to ensure that with the proper support he should rarely be involved in body-to-body contact with an opposition defender.

I have Aguero in my save in the English Premier League. After 23 League Starts he has scored 16 goals and contributed 9 assists. He regularly turns the opposition defenders with his first touch and accelerates beyond them or cuts them out completely with a quick run onto a through ball. Whenever someone does get a foot in and there is a tussle for the ball he generally loses out, that is true.

I disagree that strength is vital for Aguero. The key to using him successful is as I said getting him working closely with creative Forwards and Creative midfielders and letting the sheer speed and accuracy of his play do all the work.

But we don't have to unravel all the details (both major and trivial) of the underlying mechanism, do we? I don't think it is possible for us to achieve a complete overview as we are not code readers.

To grasp the key factors governing the CA-increasing and attributes-improvement is enough for us, and even this is not that easy. That's why I strongly recommand to highlight the key factors first in a simple and straightforward way, and to extend the trivial factors later if someone wants to. As I mentioned before, the key factors in player development are young age, match practice, high professionalism and high ambition. With these satisfied, a player can boost his CA jolly fast (say 20-40 CA per season depending on the performance and position) and therefore develop his attributes. Other factors such as Overall Training Workload, Workrate, Player's happiness with the training load are trivial. What we need to do then is to adjust the notches in the training categories to shape the player attributes to what kind of distribution we want.

Cheers

I do not disagree with you on these points but I think personally that the managers handling of the player in question is atleast as important to the final results or rate of progress as the players natural talent and potential. If you can find the right mentor and get yourself and your club listed as his favourite personnel and favourite club as soon as possible then you will reap the performance rewards for years to come.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I have Aguero in my save in the English Premier League. After 23 League Starts he has scored 16 goals and contributed 9 assists. He regularly turns the opposition defenders with his first touch and accelerates beyond them or cuts them out completely with a quick run onto a through ball. Whenever someone does get a foot in and there is a tussle for the ball he generally loses out, that is true.

Personally I have to say that 16 goals and 9 assists in 23 appearances is not a successful use of a striker with Aguero's calibre. In my first season Aguero also has 17 assists but that is far below my satisfaction. For me a successful use of an Ace-Striker such as Aguero, Vela, Drogba, Adebayor should score more than 1 goal per appearance (may be more for other people), and I have achieved that for vela, drogba, and adybayor (more than 30 goals in 30 to 32 appearances per season) nearly every year, but have not for Aguero until last season. Observing his on-pitch behavior, he is now able to hold the ball and makes a shot even if he is body-marked by a defender, and therefore he's got more shooting chances than before if check the stats.

I know in real life few striker can achieve a goal/game ratio more than 1 but in this game we are allowed to do so and why not try.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Perhaps not but his first season average rating of 7.48 in 36 appearances in all competitions in a team that has "attained a good level of understanding" hints that he is currently destroying all opposition through his general play even if his goal tally is not up to your standard. Regardless of your expertise in goal scoring it is clear that Aguero is a player that does not require strength to be a dominant force in every football match and it is frankly astonishing to think that a manager would focus on developing his strength rather his lightening quick technical ability and footballing intelligence. Afterall when he is 33 his physical ability is unlikely to be of much use and you will have wasted ten years making him stronger when you could be making him smarter.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Perhaps not but his first season average rating of 7.48 in 36 appearances in all competitions in a team that has "attained a good level of understanding" hints that he is currently destroying all opposition through his general play even if his goal tally is not up to your standard. Regardless of your expertise in goal scoring it is clear that Aguero is a player that does not require strength to be a dominant force in every football match and it is frankly astonishing to think that a manager would focus on developing his strength rather his lightening quick technical ability and footballing intelligence. Afterall when he is 33 his physical ability is unlikely to be of much use and you will have wasted ten years making him stronger when you could be making him smarter.

Personally I prefer goals, assists and even MoMs to ratings because the rating system in the game has been flawed (although it is getting better version by version). Even if taking that into account, in last season my Aguero scores 28 goals plus 11 assist and 8 MoM in 31(2) appearances with strength 14 and average rating 7.50. And this season he has scored 18 plus 3 assist and 4 MoM in 16 appearances with strength 15 average rating 7.59 so far. In previous seasons he only scored about half number of his appearances and never got a rating over 7.5. Although not as good as Vela yet (who always scores more goals and has a rating over 7.8), I am quite happy with his improved performance season by season. Maybe it is only in my tactics that adequate strength of a striker is a key factor (that's quite possible), however in any way I have no intention to use him when he is 33 year-old (over 30 will not be in my first-team plan in fact), because by that time there will be at least several super regens better than him and he will have to give way to the next generation stars.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Personally I prefer goals, assists and even MoMs to ratings because the rating system in the game has been flawed (although it is getting better version by version). Even if taking that into account, in last season my Aguero scores 28 goals plus 11 assist and 8 MoM in 31(2) appearances with strength 14 and average rating 7.50. And this season he has scored 18 plus 3 assist and 4 MoM in 16 appearances with strength 15 average rating 7.59 so far. In previous seasons he only scored about half number of his appearances and never got a rating over 7.5. Although not as good as Vela yet (who always scores more goals and has a rating over 7.8), I am quite happy with his improved performance season by season. Maybe it is only in my tactics that adequate strength of a striker is a key factor (that's quite possible), however in any way I have no intention to use him when he is 33 year-old (over 30 will not be in my first-team plan in fact), because by that time there will be at least several super regens better than him and he will have to give way to the next generation stars.

Ofcourse but given the fact I don't know how many seasons you have had to perfect Aguero's performance nor gell your team, combined to the fundamental importance of mentorship and squad competition in man management and therefore player ratings, I can only surmise that you don't have anything much to add to this recent discussion beyond a personal preference over time that I do not have the data to easilly refute, despite the obvious logic of the situation.

Perhaps you would be interested in comparing the development and performances of 18 year old players across the course of a single season to determine whether infact your choice of physical development, rejection of experience and general training outlook is infact an ideal course of action for a manager? I am sure you have observed the screenshots of Mario Balotelli I have posted. As this thread is about training and player development rather than subtle tactical tweaks I would be most interested to view the results of your training and man management ability, especially considering your self professed ability as a tactician and knowledge of the training mechanics.

Do you for example have anything that compares to this?

14e8hnc.jpg

Link to post
Share on other sites

Firstly I want to say thanks for the Sergio Aguero replies. Interesting to see the difference in opinion. Maybe it is my tactics, however all my other strikers seem to score. But they are all strikers and not AM/FCs. Will try making him play closer to the midfield and see what happens.

Secondly I think Physical Attributes are very important in FM. To have a player with Strength and Pace is a lethal combination and from my experience I have seen players with only 15 on Finishing averaging 15+ goals a season in the Premiership. I cant recall Aguero's Strength in my game, but might look into that.

Cheers for the help.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Ofcourse but given the fact I don't know how many seasons you have had to perfect Aguero's performance nor gell your team, combined to the fundamental importance of mentorship and squad competition in man management and therefore player ratings, I can only surmise that you don't have anything much to add to this recent discussion beyond a personal preference over time that I do not have the data to easilly refute, despite the obvious logic of the situation.

Perhaps you would be interested in comparing the development and performances of 18 year old players across the course of a single season to determine whether infact your choice of physical development, rejection of experience and general training outlook is infact an ideal course of action for a manager? I am sure you have observed the screenshots of Mario Balotelli I have posted. As this thread is about training and player development rather than subtle tactical tweaks I would be most interested to view the results of your training and man management ability, especially considering your self professed ability as a tactician and knowledge of the training mechanics.

Do you for example have anything that compares to this?

Sorry I am not quite sure what you want to compare. Unfortunately I've never bought Balotelli so I am fraid I don't have the same picture for him here. But if you refered to young player development strategy I can tell you that I have successfully developed several regens with CA increased by 20-40 points per season in the last few years following the key factors I've mentioned above.

A example is my DC (not the fastest developing one in term of CA, but has better attribute distribution), regened as a 16 year old with CA/PA=109/186, Professionalism=Ambition=18. One year later his CA increased by 26 points (to 135) in the reserve team and I promoted him into the first team. Another year later after 25 appearances his CA increased by 31 points to 166. A screenshoot for his current profile here (CA=170):

tar0k9.jpg

and his current training schedule (the first schedule below). Before his jumping reached 20 a couple of weeks ago he had been in intense aerobic training and unhappy with high amount of fitness training for the past 2 seasons, but I did not care(see the second schedule below). Now I've reduced a little bit aerobic to give more CA-share to ballctrl&attacing training:

29o51lg.jpg

20ijqx2.jpg

I've no idea how much CA increased for your Balotelli which is hard to tell only via some attributes change, but according to the assistant manager's report he did not improved very much in the last several months, did he? Regarding the whole season scale improvement, due to his professionalism(11) and Ambition(17) plus some tutoring I am sure he could have developed his CA by around 20 points in an entire season.

One important thing I want to repeat is that don't care too much about training. Training is little more than a strategy of how to re-distribute the CA of a player to his attributes (therefore it is helpful to shape the attribute-distribution for develped adult players). However training itself helps nearly nothing in CA-improvement. The key to develop a young player is how to boost his CA. If you failed to improve the CA at a decent speed, training means nothing to you. It may sound unrealistic but in this game it is the case.

Link to post
Share on other sites

How can you not care about training when it develops the player? Strikers like Vela will not be fast or good in the air in FM if you do not set them up properly.

I was saying dont care too much, not dont care. If you cannot have vela's CA increased, your training schedule, whatever it is, will be nothing. As you want Vela to have fast pace or good air ability, I guess you will give him decent amount of aerobic training right? This is a very simple scheme that everyone bears in mind so that I don't think it's important to emphasis this point here.

The important thing is, when you face a bouch of young players with pa=180-199 who look like future Vela but in fact only a few of them can be (or even better), how do you pick them out? You cannot pick them all because it is impossible to give everyone enough amount of first-team experience. If you just pick only a few of them say those with pa>195 and give them some match experience and training schedule the same as what you give Vela, you may get a rubbish player in the end because they have poor Professionalism/Ambition and you will have missed out the real future stars----A very painful waste of time and energy isn't it?

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

And how do you do that mate ?

Oh dear, I've said it twice in this page:)

OK I would like to repeat again as you've asked.

(1) Pick a young player who still has much CA to improve (i.e. high PA), I am sure you won't have problem in this step.

(2) The player you have picked must has decent Professionalism(at least 15 I recommend) and Ambition(at least 12 I recommend) or a good total of both (say >30) to ensure a reasonable speed of CA-increasing. Of course the higher the better. If your young player does not have those high values, give him a good tutor with high Professionalism and Ambition. The combination of this two factors makes magnificent impact on CA-increasing. Given the same match experience and training schedule, players with high Professionalism/Ambition can grow his CA 5-10 times faster than those with poor values (I do not mean training schedule makes an impact here. I just want to emphasize that training schedule is irrelevant to CA-increasing).

(3) Give him match appearances to keep his "match experience" at or close to 100%. If his CA is below 135, you can leave him in reserve team and give him only non_competitive matches. If his CA is between 135-145, put him in your first-team but you can still give him only non_competitive matches. If his CA reaches 145, give him decent amount of competitive matches (20-30 matches per season I recommend). Note that 135 and 145 are only rough numbers which may depend on club reputation and training facility, so when you feel the numbers in your club are higher or lower do the appropriate adjust to your players. Also note that players under 18 are esay to get fatigue if you put them in too much matches, which is not good for their development.

PS, please note that the player's on-pitch performance also affect the CA-increasing, but this is the part not very easy to control. If a player's CA is close to his PA (say the difference is less than 10 or so), the CA-increasing slows down whatever speed it has been at.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

I was looking for evidence that you had been able to do more than simply allow a players natural development to progress and tweak its distribution with training.

Specifically I was looking for evidence that you had managed to sculpt a players personality and motivate him to produce performances above what his CA distribution would indicate.

I have stated repeatedly that intelligent man management of players is a vital aspect in producing the personality and perfomances that inevitably matter more than pure CA distribution. Ofcourse achieving them both is the Holy Grail, but the former not only produces players with the right mentality but achieves the latter.

You have stated that ambition and professionalism alongside match performances increase the rate of CA gain. You will no doubt know that ambition and professionalism can be altered through mentoring, that Determination influences match perfomances, and that being listed as a players favoured personnel elicits a strong response when you are critical of them. I am surprised therefore that your posts regarding player development do not place fundamental importance upon management of personality and relationships, and exploiting these to achieve maximum developmental effects.

For example in my 8 months as manager of Mario Balotelli he has achieved an Off The Ball of 15, Anticipation of 11, Finishing of 16, Passing of 14 and Creativity of 15. These are hardly World Class attributes for a striker or playmaker and his goals/assists/MoM/ratings do not correspond to his CA distribution.

When you factor in an increase of Determination by 4 points, an increase of Ambition by 1 point, an increase of Professionalism by 1 point, a decrease in Controversy by 4 points, and having myself and my club listed as Favoured Personnel and Favourite Club then it is clear that I have turned him into a Player that is highly motivated to perform in my team. Thus the methodical increase of his CA distribution is supplemented by the fact he (now) has a desire to win and work his socks off to impress me. Should Balotelli attain his PA of 183 he will play better for me and my team than any CA 190-200 striker I purchase and throughout the latter stages of his career will be an ideal mentor and big game match winner, akin to Scholes/Giggs of real world Manchester United.

As I said in response to your initial post you are on the right track and no doubt have valuable information to add regarding the specific mechanics of natural player development, but you have far from a complete overview of player development in Football Manager 2009 as shown by the lack of importance you place upon the development of personality, mentality, relationships and the exploitation of the above for both results/perfomances and CA development.

Exploiting corners with a jumping 20 centreback is not the ideal means to achieve high ratings either.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I am surprised therefore that your posts regarding player development do not place fundamental importance upon management of personality and relationships, and exploiting these to achieve maximum developmental effects.

That's because I don't think these are as important as high Professionalism and Ambition in player development. Determination is importent to on-pitch performance which is hence one of my requirements for a developed player but it has almost no effect in CA-increasing speed compared to the key factors I mentioned before. Besides determination can grow itself if the player has high enough Professionalism (an important thing I forgot to mention before) without tutoring, and certainly it can also be tutored gradually in the future.

Back to the Personality you mentioned, following my rule of selecting and developing players, my player will have high professionalism and ambition plus decent determination after a couple of season's growth, which must result in an excellent personality. So I dont have to worry about that. As for the relationships you mentioned, I don't care too much either. If a player with poor Professionalism and Ambition failed to have a good relationship with his mentor, he will be abandoned by me because he will have no future in my squad due to low Professionalism/Ambition. If a player already has high Professionalism and Ambition, he does not have to be tutored (like the DC I posted above, and players like him are my main targets).

As I said in response to your initial post you are on the right track and no doubt have valuable information to add regarding the specific mechanics of natural player development, but you have far from a complete overview of player development in Football Manager 2009 as shown by the lack of importance you place upon the development of personality, mentality, relationships and the exploitation of the above for both results/perfomances and CA development.

Exploiting corners with a jumping 20 centreback is not the ideal means to achieve high ratings either.

I also said before what you have paid much attention to is not important for me. IMO the information I've given embraces the key/major factors in player development and I think it is well enough for us to build a pack of high-calibre young players who have been performing very well for me already. Managing their personality, mentality(to be honest I am not sure what exactly you mean by this) and relationship to a possibly better degree could hardly make huge difference for me. If you can prove these management things are really more important than player ability, I would like to reconsider my theory (but were it true I hardly believe people will abandon the idea to build their own super stars).

By the way, to have 20 in Jumping for a DC is not my intention. The ideal attribute for me will be high pace (17/17) plus decent jumping (18 will do) but unfortunately the distribution of CA to attributes in the same category is someting out of my control. I reduced his aerobic training only because I think it's time to improve attributes in other categories for him which does not mean he will stop increasing pace but increase slower than before.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

It is clear that you place maximum importance on pure CA values and distribution for players and value CA increase as the point of fundamental importance in player development. It is lucky that CA growth is dependant upon ambition and professionalism otherwise someone following your management theories would be stuck with a squad of talented wasters.

I on the other hand understand the importance of both CA increase rate and CA distribution, but view personality and reaction to criticism as the bedrock of achieving high perfomances that lead to CA increase and high perfomances that lead to match success once PA has been achieved.

You have stated that player performances are difficult to control yet have an impact on development. You reject the idea that motivation, relationships and manager criticism have an impact on performances. Your problem is clear, and requires no further explanation.

Link to post
Share on other sites

It is clear that you place maximum importance on pure CA values and distribution for players and value CA increase as the point of fundamental importance in player development. It is lucky that CA growth is dependant upon ambition and professionalism otherwise someone following your management theories would be stuck with a squad of talented wasters.

Yes I do place maximum importance on CA and attributes distribution, which is Player Ability I refer to as. But there is no 'otherwise', CA growth does dependant heavily on Professionalism and Ambition rather than the trivial factors like overall training workload, determination and workrate, and that theory is from my systematic tests rather than personal feelings.

You have stated that player performances are difficult to control yet have an impact on development. You reject the idea that motivation, relationships and manager criticism have an impact on performances. Your problem is clear, and requires no further explanation.

I never reject the idea that motivation, relationships and manager criticism have an impact on performances. I don't think you can verbally extract that imformation from all I've written above, can you? I only put these in a much less important place compared to player ability when regarding longterm on-pitch performance. Whether this is a clear problem of mine or not depends on whether a yet-to-be-proved assumption that motiveation, ralationships and criticism are actually more important than player ability is true or not. But can you prove that?

Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't have to prove anything, it is a game feature that motivation is equally as important as player ability in match performances.

Match performances may play only a minor role in the rate of CA development, but it is one of the few if not the only factor a manager can interact with on a regular basis and that makes it vitally important from the managers perspective.

You have shown a high potential player with high ambition and high professionalism playing regularly and developing well. I have shown a high potential player that had to be mentored developing equally well but producing game winning man of the match performances on a regular basis, far beyond what his CA level and attribute distribution would imply he is capable of. My player may not be developing any faster than he otherwise would have with similar match time but he has been sculpted into a player motivated to perform which is equally as important as talent on match day.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I don't have to prove anything, it is a game feature that motivation is equally as important as player ability in match performances.

Again this is nothing more than a statement without any solid prove. I have no intention to make personal offence but could you please present your opinions in a more sensible and logic way. It's not only for me or you but everyone reading this thread. Thank you. And in this case, you'd better clarify what by motivation you specificly mean before discuss. Is it the general teamtalk or your special way to motivate players?

You have shown a high potential player with high ambition and high professionalism playing regularly and developing well. I have shown a high potential player that had to be mentored developing equally well but producing game winning man of the match performances on a regular basis, far beyond what his CA level and attribute distribution would imply he is capable of. My player may not be developing any faster than he otherwise would have with similar match time but he has been sculpted into a player motivated to perform which is equally as important as talent on match day.

Firstly they are not developing equally well, obviously mine is better than yours according to the Coach Report. Secondly however they have performed on-pitch, it's highly likely that their performance is more tactic and ability related than personality or motivation (I say highly likely, not something I don't have to prove anything. I am ready for people's arguement other than stopping it). Thirdly Baloteli is a real-life future star who we all know possesses good personality and hidden attributes so it's not very appropriate to ascribe his success to your special player-development strategy, I guess everyone using Baloteli has a good Baloteli. However if we are facing a bounch of kids only a few of whom can be future star, not everyone can pick up what they want----that's why I posted how to do that and I believe it is something people really care about.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

please note that the player's on-pitch performance also affect the CA-increasing, but this is the part not very easy to control.
it is a game feature that motivation is equally as important as player ability in match performances.
Again this is nothing more than a statement without any solid prove.
however they have performed on-pitch, it's highly likely that their performance is more tactic and ability related than personality or motivation

How Do You Keep Your Players Performing Well In The Second Half?

Wolfsong's Guide To Teamtalks.

There are a number of threads regarding teams being destroyed in the second half of football matches, of apparently inferior clubs dominating previously successful tactics, and a whole host of other issues that combined to the ingame mechanics of player interaction prove that the entire system of man managing player personalities and reactions is solid and effective at producing match day performances, whether that is for your side because you understand the players and motivation strategies, or against your side because you don't understand your players and motivation strategies.

You have shown in this thread an understanding of the methodical increase of CA brought about by the difference between CA/PA, a players Ambition and Professionalism, and a knowledge of FM Scout Genie that allows you to give each player exactly the right amount of match experience. In short by selecting the perfect or ideal players and observing their match experience as you play them you have managed to obtain near maximum rates of CA growth. By monitering a player through FM Scout Genie you have allowed a player to develop at close to his maximum possible natural rate. This is impressive, welcome information, and no one is arguing with you regarding these points.

This is however an exceedingly hands-off approach that shows you understand the basic and most vital aspects of CA growth and know the variables to observe to ensure that near maximum growth is reached. Your entire manager strategy involves using those players with maximum potential and maximum growth rates and playing them in sufficient games using FM Scout Genie. This does not help those that do not use this programme, it does not explain what can be achieved using all development options available to a manager, and it does not take into account that attributes beyond Ambition, Professionalism and those that increase as CA increases have a massive impact upon how well a player performs and in what context throughout the rest of his career.

You have stated that match performances influence CA growth and that match performances are difficult to control. This is correct ofcourse, but outside of training distribution this is the aspect of development of a player that a manager has most control over. FM Scout Genie does not supply the easy solutions to this problem because match performances depend upon a significantly larger number of variables than base natural CA growth.

This is where I point out that a manager that understands natural CA growth through match practice should be looking to understand and shape his players personality beyond Ambition and Professionalism so that the player can be involved in the right matches with the right motivation to achieve the highest ratings possible to further enhance his CA development, as well as produce performances that help with the goals of the club. This is a minor influence on CA growth but it can have dramatic effects on performances and results, and it will remain a corner stone of the managers man management strategy long after the player in question has reached his peak CA.

Now I think we all understand the points you have raised, have taken them onboard, and I will no doubt be adding them to my original post at some point in the future. However maintaining a denial of the value of exploiting a players personality to achieve match performances, of creating a personality that is easy for the manager to exploit, and of forming a relationship with the player that makes him react powerfully to your criticism is not helpful, is not accurate and is highly shortsighted. Not only is it possible to radically alter a players personality and radically improve his match performances but it is possible to man manage a player to achieve the highest possible ratings and the highest possible rate of CA growth.

In short this game allows good managers to produce good players and great managers to produce great players from the same potential ability and current ability.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Now I think we all understand the points you have raised, have taken them onboard, and I will no doubt be adding them to my original post at some point in the future. However maintaining a denial of the value of exploiting a players personality to achieve match performances, of creating a personality that is easy for the manager to exploit, and of forming a relationship with the player that makes him react powerfully to your criticism is not helpful, is not accurate and is highly shortsighted. Not only is it possible to radically alter a players personality and radically improve his match performances but it is possible to man manage a player to achieve the highest possible ratings and the highest possible rate of CA growth.

Oh I may have understood what you mean. I said the on-pitch performance is hard to control is because that is hard to control AFTER appropirate teamtalks. Teamtalk is a relatively simple scheme and that guild you mentioned has been there for a long time so I think it is not a big problem for people to do and we all can do the right teamtalks. But decent teamtalk does not garantee good performance, which is my points. I don't believe Teamtalk can make a huge difference between my players and yours in a match. At least I won most or all trophies every season and score more than 3 goal per game on average.

What you have emphasized may be very important but until now you haven't given much detailed information about them, like how to treat (praise or critisize) players with various personalities? What exact personality of player do we actually need? How to build and maintain a very good relationship among players? The most of the details in the orignal post is about training and ca/attribute development as far as I know. If you cannot make these personality, motivation and relationship things very clear and detailed, they remain as blur general ideas and help little.

Cheers.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I think what SFraser is trying to say is that he specifically moulds his players' personalities into either "Determined" / "Professional" / "Ambitious" character descriptions via tutoring etc, and that by good tutoring, and man management (not specifically team talks, although they will clearly be partly involved) he tries to get the players to have him (the manager) as favoured personnel, along with team mates - something that in the in game hints and tips it does specifically say helps the players play well together, but also to get the club as a favoured club.

By doing this, he has players who are (even before a team talk) highly motivated to die for the club / manager / each other on the pitch - a real life example would be Gerrard or Carragher for Liverpool / Giggs, Scholes, Neville etc for United - players that he KNOWS will give it 110% - because they love the club etc.

Such players will be potentially even more motivated by the right team talks, he claims. Logically, that would be true in real life - whether the game does in fact model this, I haven't looked closely enough.

What SFraser hasn't told us (unless I missed it somewhere) is specifically how he gets his players to have the manager / other players / the club as favourites - and that is the crucial bit of info that is missing.

Now if catafan's very impressive training reports could be added in with SFraser's man management policies - then we would have an extremely impressive way of getting the very best out of every player :)

Apologies to either of you if I have totally mis-construed what you are both saying.

Link to post
Share on other sites

What you have emphasized may be very important but until now you haven't given much detailed information about them, like how to treat (praise or critisize) players with various personalities? What exact personality of player do we actually need? How to build and maintain a very good relationship among players? The most of the details in the orignal post is about training and ca/attribute development as far as I know. If you cannot make these personality, motivation and relationship things very clear and detailed, they remain as blur general ideas and help little.

Well that is the purpose of a discussion forum and the reason why the first sentence of the first post states the guide is a continual work in progress.

If I take what you say regarding CA progression to be accurate, and it certainly appears so, then the manager has very little control over CA development in comparison to a players personality, and can really only influence the distribution of CA gains or encourage growth through match experience.

This would imply that personality is the key to development of CA, but equally personality is the key to encouraging high performances. Not only that but high performances produce an increase in CA gain.

In short the direct effects of the manager on CA gain are minimal, but the indirect effect of the manager on CA gain can be substantial, through producing a player with the right personality to develop quickly and produce good match performances, and then choosing the right matches and encouraging a player to perform on match day. This will not only improve his natural development rate but increase his CA gains through high performances AND give the manager a player that performs to a high standard.

Granted I do not have the numerical data nor experimental knowledge of FM Scout Genie data to back up my claims, but I do have evidence of a player whose personality has been radically altered, whose CA has progressed along maximum expected lines, and who is performing to an exceptional standard on a regular basis.

If what you say is true then the current system would allow the manager control over a players attribute distribution, his personality, and a minor input on his rate of CA gain through subsequent perfomances if we assume relevant quantities of matches is not a question.

Thus the key to developing a player close to his PA is a high natural Ambition and Professionalism combined to the necessary quantity of games, whereas the key to producing the maximum possible CA and perfomances that player could ever achieve is shaping his personality, introducing him to the right games and achieving maximum perfomances through motivation and man management.

My point all along has been that while you understand CA development from a technical perspective you do not factor in the control over Player development from a managers perspective. By all means write your thread on player development, but without discussing man management and motivation and its effects on CA and ultimately match performances I think you will end up with an inferior overview to what can be found in this thread. There is perhaps a reason why the application you use is called FM Genie Scout while the game you play is called Football Manager.

What SFraser hasn't told us (unless I missed it somewhere) is specifically how he gets his players to have the manager / other players / the club as favourites - and that is the crucial bit of info that is missing.

Be very careful in choosing the games you play these youngsters, motivate them according to their personality and praise them often. You can't praise someone for regularly achieving a 6 rating while you berate the rest of the team.

You are spot on with your analysis, and Catafan has stated that performances increase CA gain. He has offered an indepth analysis of the mechanics involved in CA development and I am offering ideas on how to maximise CA gain and match performances through man management. Once the details of CA distribution in relation to training and match practice have been discovered I think we will have a complete understanding of player development.

Link to post
Share on other sites

What SFraser hasn't told us (unless I missed it somewhere) is specifically how he gets his players to have the manager / other players / the club as favourites - and that is the crucial bit of info that is missing.

That is what I am very interested to know too. But I've not got time to make a deep study in this. Hopefully someone else could lift this weight.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

It's rather simple to have your team players listing yourself as the favoured personnel. I have all my first team squad members listing myself as a favoured personnel.

The easiest way to achieve that will be to comment on their recent form, for most players, after 2 successive praise, you will see your name appearing on the player's favourite personnel, however, to what degree, I haven't found any third party application that allows me to see that. But I believe, the more successful praise you achieve, the deeper the relationship will be.

So how to achieve a successful comment on their recent form? Look at their recent form over the past 5 games.

Delighted - Above 8

Pleased - Above 7.5

Acceptable - Above 7

Below par - Above 6.4

Disappointed - Below 6.4

Deeply upset - Below 5.5 to 6 (haven't used this option so just making a guess)

Easiest way to get a player to list another player as his favourite personnel, use your press-conference. When the media talk about handling your opponent's main threat, if you choose the correct personnel which is able to handle pressure adequately, that particular player will be buoyed by your words, sometimes, this view will also be echoed by some other team-mates. There you go, the other team-mates that have the PR sign in your team will list that particular player you highlight correctly as his favoured personnel.

For favoured club, I am much less successful, only getting 4 players to list my club as the favoured club. My guess is that the player must be enjoying playing for club at the general happiness section for a couple of seasons and playing regularly for first team. Too bad I practise too much squad rotation.

I play my game as a manager who collects all the high PA individual, train and develop them and sell them like an industrialized factory. I have done various tests on CA gains as well and I concur with catafan's conclusion that professionalism and ambition are the two important hidden attributes, together with the determination stat. I have Zapata playing regular first team for the past 4 seasons at Man Utd but he never seems to surpass his 172 CA and never seem to reach his 187 PA due to his low ambition 8 and determination 12. Perhaps SFraser you can help me to devise a better training regime to improve him? Zapata is now 26 years old and is probably 1 year away from his peak so there's still some time for a bit of improvement.

I am also a tutoring freak, giving tutoring assignments to all "experienced" players able to mentor a youngster. To the extent, now I even buy model professional and driven/perfectionist old players who come free or a negligible transfer fee to tutor my youngsters.

Link to post
Share on other sites

"I haven't found any third party application that allows me to see that."

FMRTE - relations. you can see the number how much they like you out of 100. Over 50 gets you on the personal screen.

"Zapata is now 26 years old and is probably 1 year away from his peak so there's still some time for a bit of improvement."

He's too old to be tutored now; you just have to hope they increase with experience, although I doubt they will. For players U24 tutoring is the key way to increase these attributes.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I have done various tests on CA gains as well and I concur with catafan's conclusion that professionalism and ambition are the two important hidden attributes, together with the determination stat. I have Zapata playing regular first team for the past 4 seasons at Man Utd but he never seems to surpass his 172 CA and never seem to reach his 187 PA due to his low ambition 8 and determination 12. Perhaps SFraser you can help me to devise a better training regime to improve him? Zapata is now 26 years old and is probably 1 year away from his peak so there's still some time for a bit of improvement.

I have increased the CA of Gary Neville (age 34) from 150 to 162 between July 08 and April 09 while in the same period Ryan Giggs (age 34) has declined from 153 to 147. Neville has an Ambition of 14 and Professionalism of 20. Giggs has an Ambition of 11 and Professionalism of 20.

I remain unconvinced that a difference of 3 in Ambition would explain an 18 point CA difference between the 6 point decline of one 34 year old and the 12 point increase of another 34 year old. You have a 26 year old whose CA is static while I have two 34 year olds with nearly equal Ambition/Professionalism one of whose CA is declining and the other whose CA is increasing substantially. I think it is clear that there are other factors involved in CA gain and these factors are significant.

The data from my own save would suggest that natural CA growth is not enough to reach PA or prevent decline of players over the age of 30. Natural CA growth being the growth of CA brought about by personality, CA/PA difference and 100% match exercise.

The data from my own save would suggest that a period of sustained high performances against high quality opposition is necessary to achieve maximum CA values and as soon as these performances stop CA will decline. In short natural development and match experience will take you to the cusp of achieving your potential, but only performances on the pitch will get you that final yard.

I think there are questions to be asked regarding how far Natural CA Growth can take a player and how far match performances can take a player. I don't think there is any doubt however that the game replicates the necessity to produce match performances to achieve potential, nor do I have any doubt that the key to achieving maximum rates of CA growth in youth, achieving Potential in peak years or preventing rapid decline and developing mental and technical skills in later years is match performance.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I play my game as a manager who collects all the high PA individual, train and develop them and sell them like an industrialized factory. I have done various tests on CA gains as well and I concur with catafan's conclusion that professionalism and ambition are the two important hidden attributes, together with the determination stat. I have Zapata playing regular first team for the past 4 seasons at Man Utd but he never seems to surpass his 172 CA and never seem to reach his 187 PA due to his low ambition 8 and determination 12.

I've got the same problem with my Zapata whose CA nearly stops to grow after 175. I think this should be ascribed to his low ambition. (In fact Determination has little affect in CA development as I've mentioned in another thread, besides Determination 12 is not that low)

As training schedule only shapes player's attributes rather than improves CA, you can polish Zapata's attributes with proper training schedule (I give him more defence training than other DCs to boost his concentration which is his weak point). However you cannot improve his CA further by this. I am afraid his low ambition is the bottleneck.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

"I haven't found any third party application that allows me to see that."

FMRTE - relations. you can see the number how much they like you out of 100. Over 50 gets you on the personal screen.

"Zapata is now 26 years old and is probably 1 year away from his peak so there's still some time for a bit of improvement."

He's too old to be tutored now; you just have to hope they increase with experience, although I doubt they will. For players U24 tutoring is the key way to increase these attributes.

Thanks for the recommendation, I will try it out when I get some time. Regarding Zapata, I've signed him since he was 22 years old and ever since he was regarded as an important team status player. Hence, he never got the option of being tutored and my older central defenders have never got free time providing tutelage.

I think it is clear that there are other factors involved in CA gain and these factors are significant.

Thanks for your example on Neville and Giggs. I happened to be managing Man Utd as well and been looking hard around the forum regarding the old players' rate of decline. Reason being the Man Utd researcher asking for more test results from other players before making changes to the Man Utd data. More about my post can be read at http://community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=2706718&postcount=1027 and http://community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=2721361&postcount=1057.

In this test, my general hypothesis is that the rate of decline of a player is pegged to his determination stat. Of course, match experience still matters but it is not strong as evidenced in the shocking decline of VDS's CA in a season. If possible, please share with me your experience in your saved games, so that I can bring this up to the Man Utd researcher.

However you cannot improve his CA further by this. I am afraid his low ambition is the bottleneck.

I guess I have to accept the hard fact that he can't grow much to his fullest potential, which is a refreshing change to FM 09 as compared to FM 08 where it is too easy to help a high potential youth reach its max CA.

In my opinion, professionalism seems a bit more important in the early stages of the youth development, whereas ambition will bring you to the next stage of dizzy heights potential. Just a weak view still with not much hard facts to back up. The only case I came across is that one regen that is a model professional (professionalism 20, ambition 6). He did not play a single game for me, only been loaned out to feeder clubs for his whole career and he managed to reach 155 CA (out of 167 PA) at the age of 20. I'm actually amazed at his rate of development since I didn't really bother much to develop that player.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I guess I have to accept the hard fact that he can't grow much to his fullest potential, which is a refreshing change to FM 09 as compared to FM 08 where it is too easy to help a high potential youth reach its max CA.

In my opinion, professionalism seems a bit more important in the early stages of the youth development, whereas ambition will bring you to the next stage of dizzy heights potential. Just a weak view still with not much hard facts to back up. The only case I came across is that one regen that is a model professional (professionalism 20, ambition 6). He did not play a single game for me, only been loaned out to feeder clubs for his whole career and he managed to reach 155 CA (out of 167 PA) at the age of 20. I'm actually amazed at his rate of development since I didn't really bother much to develop that player.

Yes in FM09 it seems that the PA-CA gap rarely gets zero. In my game there are only 20 or so players have their CA equal to PA, but all of them have very low PA (maximum 135).

20 in Professionalism alone is good enough to give him a decent CA-developing speed (10-20 points per season I would like to say). But if combined with 20 in Ambition, the speed could double.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks for your example on Neville and Giggs. I happened to be managing Man Utd as well and been looking hard around the forum regarding the old players' rate of decline. Reason being the Man Utd researcher asking for more test results from other players before making changes to the Man Utd data. More about my post can be read at http://community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=2706718&postcount=1027 and http://community.sigames.com/showpost.php?p=2721361&postcount=1057.

In this test, my general hypothesis is that the rate of decline of a player is pegged to his determination stat. Of course, match experience still matters but it is not strong as evidenced in the shocking decline of VDS's CA in a season. If possible, please share with me your experience in your saved games, so that I can bring this up to the Man Utd researcher.

It is rather simple to be fair, although not as quite as simple as you state. Determination, Professionalism and Ambition all profoundly influence a players match performances. The decline of VDS you observe shows that match experience is not vital, but the extreme difference in development between Giggs and Neville show that CA progression cannot be explained by linking it directly to those 3 statistics.

We can assume that Determination, Professionalism and Ambition directly determine CA gain and influences match performances, or we can assume that Determination, Professionalism and Ambition influence match performances which influences CA gain. The evidence I am seeing in my save supports the latter, especially with older players, and I am sure that as more testing is done and more experience and information brought to light that Determination, Professionalism and Ambition will indeed be shown to be vital, but that the relationship between those statistics and CA gain will be shown to be more complex than is currently being assumed.

Link to post
Share on other sites

It is rather simple to be fair, although not as quite as simple as you state. Determination, Professionalism and Ambition all profoundly influence a players match performances. The decline of VDS you observe shows that match experience is not vital, but the extreme difference in development between Giggs and Neville show that CA progression cannot be explained by linking it directly to those 3 statistics.

We can assume that Determination, Professionalism and Ambition directly determine CA gain and influences match performances, or we can assume that Determination, Professionalism and Ambition influence match performances which influences CA gain. The evidence I am seeing in my save supports the latter, especially with older players, and I am sure that as more testing is done and more experience and information brought to light that Determination, Professionalism and Ambition will indeed be shown to be vital, but that the relationship between those statistics and CA gain will be shown to be more complex than is currently being assumed.

The extreme difference in development between Giggs and Neville can be attributed to:

1) Rate of decline of Giggs (determination 17) being much faster than Neville (determination 19). With determination level of 19 and 20, the players are able to sustain high level of CA for a longer period of time.

2) CA gain of Neville is better due to his higher ambition stat of 14 and regular high level competitive match exposure (but actually I am quite surprised Neville can still gain 12 CA at the age of 33) - with FM's tip stating that players rarely improve much after the age of 24.

On the other hand, excellent match performances do not lead to CA gain for VDS's case. That is because his rate of decline is far more significant than his CA gain, if any.

Link to post
Share on other sites

The extreme difference in development between Giggs and Neville can be attributed to:

1) Rate of decline of Giggs (determination 17) being much faster than Neville (determination 19). With determination level of 19 and 20, the players are able to sustain high level of CA for a longer period of time.

2) CA gain of Neville is better due to his higher ambition stat of 14 and regular high level competitive match exposure (but actually I am quite surprised Neville can still gain 12 CA at the age of 33) - with FM's tip stating that players rarely improve much after the age of 24.

The extreme difference in development between Giggs and Neville can be explained if we take into account a difference of 2 Determination and 4 Ambition and then take into account the difference between Giggs' and Neville's consistency which is 4, and Giggs' and Neville's Important Match attribute which is 2.

This would explain a natural tendency for Giggs to gain CA less rapidly than Neville under similar conditions, and perform to a lower standard across the course of a season and in important matches. I would say that the relationship is that Giggs is gaining CA less rapidly because he is performing to a lower standard as I don't think either would naturally develop without match practice and high performances.

As for van der Sar I would surmise from the redistribution of Neville's attributes that you are trying to redistribute any CA gained from match performances into his naturally declining physical attributes and are therefore fighting a losing battle.

Although the important attributes have been found I do not think the relationship between those attributes and CA increase is simply that those attributes increase CA. Clearly regular playing time and high performances are necessary to achieve high CA gains and it seems logical and apparent through playing the game that playing time and performances are the direct cause of CA gain. There would need to be testing done on a high potential player with no training and zero match practice to see how important the manifestation of those attributes are in relation simply to their existence. It would be illogical if a player that did not train and did not play improved dramatically through a high ambition and high professionalism.

Link to post
Share on other sites

It would be illogical if a player that did not train and did not play improved dramatically through a high ambition and high professionalism.

Unfortunately it does seem "illogical" in this game. In my tests my second GK has 0 appearance and severly lacks in match fitness. He improved his CA by 7 points in 6 months with Professionalism=Ambition=20. But in another test where he played 10 games with average rating=6.96 plus 5 clean sheets and 8 conceded goals, his CA has not improved by a single point with his Professionalism=Ambition=0. This indicates that without any match practice, high Professionalism and Ambition does help CA increase.

Further more, in one test strike_X has only 1(7) appearances, plus 1 goal, 0 assists, 0 mom, and average rating=6.74. But he improved his CA by 25 points in 6 months (Professionalism=20 and Ambition=20). During the same peroid his team-mate striker_Y (an exact clone of X) has scored 17 goals plus 7 assits 5 mom in 20(4) appearances with average rating=7.54, improved his CA by 20 points. Beside high Professionalism and Ambition, random factors (Luck) seem more important than on-pitch performance.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Concerning decline, try taking into account the players Natural Fitness attribute as well. In earlier versions of FM, this attribute was vital for slowing down decline. It should still make a difference.

Thanks Lyssien, I am aware of that attribute as well. However, the rate of decline seems to be heavily reliant on the determination and professionalism, especially the determination stat on 9.2.0 data. This caused many players with determination 20 to play far beyond 40 years old and amassing too many international caps.

In the new patch, they seem to tweak the factors to fine-tune the above problem, so you don't see so many old players sustaining at the top echelons of the footballing scene. Now, it seems to be a mix of determination, professionalism, ambition and natural fitness, coupled with player's position/age and playing time, which is a good change for the game.

Clearly regular playing time and high performances are necessary to achieve high CA gains and it seems logical and apparent through playing the game that playing time and performances are the direct cause of CA gain.

As much as I agree with you that it would be illogical if a player that did not train and did not play improved dramatically through a high ambition and high professionalism, the game does not necessarily reflect it. I did a simple test and put two players of equal calibre into the Man Utd squad (CA 140, PA 200). With all factors similar, except for their Ambition, Professionalism and Determination (one set as 1, the other as 20). To prevent them for having any match experience, global bans are set. After a season, the player with 20 gained 20 CA whereas the one with 1 gained 0 CA. Hence, just by training in the club facilities allow the player's growth with the right mentality. A bit unrealistic there, a more subtle growth will be more appropriate.

If I got more time ahead, I might do some testing for them to be free agents without a club.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Unfortunately it does seem "illogical" in this game. In my tests my second GK has 0 appearance and severly lacks in match fitness. He improved his CA by 7 points in 6 months with Professionalism=Ambition=20. But in another test where he played 10 games with average rating=6.96 plus 5 clean sheets and 8 conceded goals, his CA has not improved by a single point with his Professionalism=Ambition=0. This indicates that without any match practice, high Professionalism and Ambition does help CA increase.

No one is disputing that.

Further more, in one test strike_X has only 1(7) appearances, plus 1 goal, 0 assists, 0 mom, and average rating=6.74. But he improved his CA by 25 points in 6 months (Professionalism=20 and Ambition=20). During the same peroid his team-mate striker_Y (an exact clone of X) has scored 17 goals plus 7 assits 5 mom in 20(4) appearances with average rating=7.54, improved his CA by 20 points. Beside high Professionalism and Ambition, random factors (Luck) seem more important than on-pitch performance.

I would need to know who those players performed against, their age and their training distribution before accepting your analysis of "Luck" and rejection of performance ratings against quality opposition. In my save I am seeing a clear correlation between high ratings versus high reputation/importance opposition and a short term increase in CA, and the converse of low ratings versus low reputation/importance opposition and a short term drop in CA in players close to their PA. Clearly CA can be gained and lost at various times throughout a season/career without it being representative of an overall trend unless the player is at an extreme age.

As much as I agree with you that it would be illogical if a player that did not train and did not play improved dramatically through a high ambition and high professionalism, the game does not necessarily reflect it. I did a simple test and put two players of equal calibre into the Man Utd squad (CA 140, PA 200). With all factors similar, except for their Ambition, Professionalism and Determination (one set as 1, the other as 20). To prevent them for having any match experience, global bans are set. After a season, the player with 20 gained 20 CA whereas the one with 1 gained 0 CA. Hence, just by training in the club facilities allow the player's growth with the right mentality. A bit unrealistic there, a more subtle growth will be more appropriate.

Again it is clear that training has an impact on CA gain. Catafans thread on player development shows that training intensity has an influence on CA gain and these variables cannot be ignored simply because Ambition and Professionalism are the two largest factors in determining general CA development in young players. Ambition, Determination and Professionalism might be the factors that play the largest role in determining general CA gain but these are the factors the manager has least influence over, while other less influential factors are indeed much more easilly accessible by the manager and would certainly appear to play a large role in CA fluctuation and change once a player has reached his peak.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Excellent stuff Lyssien, keep it up mate, I've been reading everything in this thread, looks like a top qualtiy thread and I've changed my training completely.

I usually enjoy getting credit for other people's work, but I should point out that this thread has not been originated by me and neither have I done most of the work in it :)

Link to post
Share on other sites

I would need to know who those players performed against, their age and their training distribution before accepting your analysis of "Luck" and rejection of performance ratings against quality opposition. In my save I am seeing a clear correlation between high ratings versus high reputation/importance opposition and a short term increase in CA, and the converse of low ratings versus low reputation/importance opposition and a short term drop in CA in players close to their PA. Clearly CA can be gained and lost at various times throughout a season/career without it being representative of an overall trend unless the player is at an extreme age.

As I said in my test post, they are exact clones with no difference in age, training(default schedule), attributes, PA or starting CA. A recent test regarding club reputation shows that it is the reputation of your club that matters to the CA-improvement of your players, whereas reputations of your opponent teams have little impact. You can find details in my thread.

Again it is clear that training has an impact on CA gain. Catafans thread on player development shows that training intensity has an influence on CA gain and these variables cannot be ignored simply because Ambition and Professionalism are the two largest factors in determining general CA development in young players. Ambition, Determination and Professionalism might be the factors that play the largest role in determining general CA gain but these are the factors the manager has least influence over, while other less influential factors are indeed much more easilly accessible by the manager and would certainly appear to play a large role in CA fluctuation and change once a player has reached his peak.

IMO that difference between the total CA-improvement under light training (415) and maximum medium training (442) is in the error range, and does not necessarily indicate training amount helps CA-improvement, at least the impact of training amount is ignorable compared to random factors, not to mention more important factors like Professionalism and Ambition. This could be backuped by another two facts: (1)the fastest developing one with light training increased his CA by 29 points which is bigger than that with medium training. (2) with training facility=1 the total CA-increase could be 467, 25 points more than training facility=20, which must be in the error range brought by random factors.

In addition I don't think the manager has least influence over Ambition, Determination and Professionalism. We are talking about player development which must be a long-term process, not a one or two seasons run. A manager can choose young players with high Professionalism and Ambtion to culture, and can also give youngsters a tutor with high Professionalism, Ambition and Determination. That's what a manager can do and will make a significant impact on player development in a long run.

Cheers

Link to post
Share on other sites

I usually enjoy getting credit for other people's work, but I should point out that this thread has not been originated by me and neither have I done most of the work in it :)

No I was talking about you finding out (I think it was you?) about when the training really matters, like on a Sunday, has made me think about the training and change it slightly.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...