I have been searching the forums for a clear answer on this but couldn't not find anything clear.
When a player gains attribute points the CA cost will depend on its position so increasing tackling for instance will be very expensive for a defender but pretty much free for a striker.
What happens if I have a striker that I retrain as a defender? Is the cost increase based on being a striker? A defender? An average of the 2?
Is it possible to min/max by keeping it natural as a striker and only accomplished as a defender so that the tackling cost is using the striker weight rather than the defender weights?
Xavinwonderland said: I have been searching the forums for a clear answer on this but couldn't not find anything clear.
When a player gains attribute points the CA cost will depend on its position so increasing tackling for instance will be very expensive for a defender but pretty much free for a striker.
What happens if I have a striker that I retrain as a defender? Is the cost increase based on being a striker? A defender? An average of the 2?
Is it possible to min/max by keeping it natural as a striker and only accomplished as a defender so that the tackling cost is using the striker weight rather than the defender weights? Expand
The position training works really simple. If you train a player an additional position then it inevitably leads to decreasing of his attributes, of course, if his CA stays the same and doesn't increase because if it works differently and additional position doesn't cost anything then everyone would want to train their players as many positions as possible which would be imbalanced.
Thanks but this is not what I meant. My point would be let's assume that I have a young striker coming out of my youth intake. Let's assume his CA will be 90 and his PA 160. He has a lot of room to grow. I now start training him as a defender. Is the cost of all the future points attributed using the weight for striker or defender? Because that would lead to a massive difference in potential points. Bonus question what is the exact trigger? (I have read that it could be position familiarity that would decide if the game considers you to be a striker or a defender) but if the player only trains as a defender but rarely plays it will take ages to achieve familiarity as a defender (which would be good as we could load up more cheap attributes points onto him)
Xavinwonderland said: I have been searching the forums for a clear answer on this but couldn't not find anything clear.
When a player gains attribute points the CA cost will depend on its position so increasing tackling for instance will be very expensive for a defender but pretty much free for a striker.
What happens if I have a striker that I retrain as a defender? Is the cost increase based on being a striker? A defender? An average of the 2?
Is it possible to min/max by keeping it natural as a striker and only accomplished as a defender so that the tackling cost is using the striker weight rather than the defender weights? Expand
It's possible, but highly unlikely to produce anything good in a reasonable time. The initial attributes are just too different. Maybe it would take 4 or 5 years for a striker to reach the attributes of a teenager defender, which isn't very impressive at all. Also, DC is one of the positions with the lowest costs for pace, acceleration and agility, which are the most effective attributes overall.
Xavinwonderland said: Bonus question what is the exact trigger? (I have read that it could be position familiarity that would decide if the game considers you to be a striker or a defender) but if the player only trains as a defender but rarely plays it will take ages to achieve familiarity as a defender (which would be good as we could load up more cheap attributes points onto him) Expand
I believe the natural position is decided at generation time, so you can't change it even if he only plays in another position. The natural position is the one that never lowers (always 20) when you stop training, while the other positions can decrease if you stop playing/training.
Xavinwonderland said: Thanks but this is not what I meant. My point would be let's assume that I have a young striker coming out of my youth intake. Let's assume his CA will be 90 and his PA 160. He has a lot of room to grow. I now start training him as a defender. Is the cost of all the future points attributed using the weight for striker or defender? Because that would lead to a massive difference in potential points. Bonus question what is the exact trigger? (I have read that it could be position familiarity that would decide if the game considers you to be a striker or a defender) but if the player only trains as a defender but rarely plays it will take ages to achieve familiarity as a defender (which would be good as we could load up more cheap attributes points onto him) Expand
You're complicating things and talking about unrealistic scenarios and things that don't make sense.
I've already told you already it works quite simple.
If you got a pure striker from your youth intake and you want him to be as efficient as possible at the STC position then don't train him any other positions. If you want him to cover some other positions then you can train him to play there but he won't be the same efficient at the STC position as if it was the only his playing position.
P.S. I don't think it's possible for a player "to forget" his "natural" playing position, at least I don't remember I've seen it.
ZaZ said: It's possible, but highly unlikely to produce anything good in a reasonable time. The initial attributes are just too different. Maybe it would take 4 or 5 years for a striker to reach the attributes of a teenager defender, which isn't very impressive at all. Also, DC is one of the positions with the lowest costs for pace, acceleration and agility, which are the most effective attributes overall.
I believe the natural position is decided at generation time, so you can't change it even if he only plays in another position. The natural position is the one that never lowers (always 20) when you stop training, while the other positions can decrease if you stop playing/training. Expand
I think it depends. Physical attributes are pretty much the only thing that matters for the match engine so if I have anybody with strong physical attributes I can retrain him to play anything basically as ultimately I don't care if my defender ends up with 10 tackling or my striker ends up with 5 finishing.
I agree that it would take time but for someone coming out from the youth intake you basically have 3 years which is quite a lot of time to get them in a decent junior role. Of course they have to get the right starting physical attributes. I will run some tests when I'm home and post them here. I had hoped that someone had gone through the process already.
Xavinwonderland said: I think it depends. Physical attributes are pretty much the only thing that matters for the match engine so if I have anybody with strong physical attributes I can retrain him to play anything basically as ultimately I don't care if my defender ends up with 10 tackling or my striker ends up with 5 finishing.
I agree that it would take time but for someone coming out from the youth intake you basically have 3 years which is quite a lot of time to get them in a decent junior role. Of course they have to get the right starting physical attributes. I will run some tests when I'm home and post them here. I had hoped that someone had gone through the process already. Expand
I see where your confusion comes from. You suppose that it's easy for a player to forget his "natural" playing position but that's not true. A player might not play on his natural position or not train it for very long time but he won't "forget" it. As I said I don't remember that a player drops his natural playing position.
Lapidus said: You're complicating things and talking about unrealistic scenarios and things that don't make sense.
I've already told you already it works quite simple.
If you got a pure striker from your youth intake and you want him to be as efficient as possible at the STC position then don't train him any other positions. If you want him to cover some other positions then you can train him to play there but he won't be the same efficient at the STC position as if it was the only his playing position.
P.S. I don't think it's possible for a player "to forgot" his "natural" playing position, at least I don't remember I've seen it. Expand
You don't get what I mean. I want to min/max the attributes I can put on a player. If you were to train quickness on a defender it will eat up less CA points than the same number of points on a striker because the weight of these attributes is less for the defender than for the striker. I can then play that defender as a striker. Yes he will most likely have terrible striker attributes (like finishing or first touch) but these attributes are pretty much ignored by the match engine so I don't care if my ex defender played as a striker has a finishing of 1.
So contrary to what you are saying this is not simple at all and I'm looking for hard facts. I understand that this is a very unusual min/max approach of the game but I have 1000s of hours into FM so I'm kinda bored playing normally. Especially with a match engine as broken as the one we have in FM21.
So in a nutshell it has nothing to do with normal retraining. I just want to max out the attributes points that I can load onto the player
Lapidus said: I see where your confusion comes from. You suppose that it's easy for a player to forget his "natural" playing position but that's not true. A player might not play on his natural position or not train it for very long time but he won't "forget" it. As I said I don't remember that a player drops his natural playing position. Expand
OK I take from that that the player natural position is hard coded and will never change. If that is the case this is ever better for what I want to do. As the weight of the attribute cost will be completely de correlated from the position familiarity
Xavinwonderland said: OK I take from that that the player natural position is hard coded and will never change. If that is the case this is ever better for what I want to do. As the weight of the attribute cost will be completely de correlated from the position familiarity Expand
You get it wrong.
You think that if you take a defender, Acceleration attribute costs cheaper for a defender than it cost for a striker and train him to play a striker then you'll get Acceleration attribute cheaply but that's not how it works when he learns playing a striker then a recalculation of CA will happen and Acceleration attribute will start costing as he were a striker and that's how it works.
I found another way to express this. When a player has reached its full potential his CA=PA but that calculation is based on his role. So if you have someone that was created by the game as a defender but was retrained since he was 15 as a striker he will still achieve the same PA but you could get much more points of what is useful for a striker for that PA.
For instance those acceleration /pace points will eat up less CA so you'll be able to get more potentially creating a de facto higher PA than what the limit would imply if it makes sense. I understand that this is a very hardcore approach.
You think that if you take a defender, Acceleration attribute costs cheaper for a defender than it cost for a striker and train him to play a striker then you'll get Acceleration attribute cheaply but that's not how it works when he learns playing a striker then a recalculation of CA will happen and Acceleration attribute will start costing as for a striker and that's how it works. Expand
OK interesting but when is that recalculation happening and on what basis? Because the guy is still considered by the game to be a defender so the cost cannot be the same as am for a striker. So average of the 2? Only for future points or even for already allocated points?
Xavinwonderland said: OK interesting but when is that recalculation happening and on what basis? Because the guy is still considered by the game to be a defender so the cost cannot be the same as am for a striker. So average of the 2? Only for future points or even for already allocated points? Expand
I'll try to put it in a very simple way.
When a player can only play a striker then he pays only for the ability to play a striker so it's cheap.
When a player can play a striker and a midfielder then he pays more for both abilities so it's more expensive.
When a player can play a striker and a midfielder and a defender then he pays even more so it becomes very expensive.
When a player learns a new playing position then re-calculation happens and his attributes randomly decrease to fit the new price for the attributes.
You think that if you take a defender, Acceleration attribute costs cheaper for a defender than it cost for a striker and train him to play a striker then you'll get Acceleration attribute cheaply but that's not how it works when he learns playing a striker then a recalculation of CA will happen and Acceleration attribute will start costing as he were a striker and that's how it works. Expand
I didn't know that was a thing, thanks for the info. =)
So according to you the weight cost of the attributes is calculated based on a worse off scenario (like if you can play multiple position the game will always use the highest weight to determine the cost of the attribute). That is a possibility and that would indeed kill any attempt to game the system even if that would be quite unfair. Do you have any data for that affirmation or this is your gut feeling? If that were the case it would also mean that from an attribute point of view players able to play multiple positions are a bad deal (like a striker /midfielder) as you get more flexibility that you might not need but it has a cost.
Xavinwonderland said: So according to you the weight cost of the attributes is calculated based on a worse of scenario (like if you can play multiple position the game will always use the highest weight to determine the cost of the attribute). That is a possibility and that would indeed kill any attempt to game the system even if that would be quite unfair. Do you have any data for that affirmation or this is your gut feeling? If that were the case it would also mean that from an attribute point of view players able to play multiple positions are a bad deal (like a striker /midfielder) as you get more flexibility that you might not need but it has a cost. Expand
I'm quite sure you can open the editor and test it yourself, it shows CA there.
I'm on holidays atm so I can't access the game but fore sure I will do a proper test when I'm back and share it here. I hoped that someone had done the test already 😊
Here is an interesting post from many years ago that I think still is valid and interesting - At the beginning of the game, Ronaldo's CA is 192. Ronaldo is natural at AM L; accomplished at S C and AM R; competent at AM C; and unconvincing at M R and M L. - When I change Ronaldo to be natural at S C and every other position to 1, Ronaldo's recommend current ability (RCA) is 195. This means that Ronaldo's ability as a S C is higher than his CA. If I made these changes to Ronaldo's positions and didn't change his CA, within a few days the game would adjust some of Ronaldo's attributes down, so that his RCA would match his CA of 192. - I also tried changing Ronaldo to natural as a D R and every other position to 1. When I do this, Ronaldo's RCA becomes 134. If I changed Ronaldo's positional attributes in this way and didn't lower his CA, within a few days the game would bump up his attributes across the board so that his CA as a DR would reach 192. - Then I made Ronaldo natural at D R and S C. When I do this, his RCA is 178. This is between 195 (RCA as a SC) and 134 (RCA as a D R). However, it is not a simple average. In some earlier games, players with proficiency in many different positions had, often times, very very good attributes. I believe this had to do with the way the game averaged the RCA of different positions to calculate the overall CA. SI seems to have compensated for this potential bug by making the average biased towards the position the player is best at. - When, besides being natural at D R and SC, I also make Ronaldo natural at D C (Ronaldo RCA when he is only a D C is 137), Ronaldo's RCA becomes 170. It seems like the weight given to the RCA in the position the player is less good at becomes even smaller when the player is proficient in many positions. - I also tried starting Ronaldo as a S C only and then, one by one, increase his D R proficiency. Up until D R = 10, Ronaldo's RCA does not change. Starting at 11, Ronaldo's RCA steadily decreases as his DR proficiency increases, reaching 178 when his DR proficiency reaches 20. So, positions are "free" up to 10, and then gradually start to affect the CA weights of attributes. So, my take is that the CA costs of attributes for players with multiple positions are an average of the CA costs of attributes of the different positions. However, this average CA cost is not a simple average (nor even a "simple" weighted average based on the proficiency in the positions). Rather, the CA cost of an attribute is "biased" towards the CA cost of the attribute in the position the player is best RCA-wise. A player with 6 in attributes has a RCA of 0 with any natural position (also when I changed finishing to 5 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of -1; and when I changed finishing to 7 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of 1). This implies that you cannot just multiply the CA costs I posted originally by the attributes and get a player's CA. You have to subtract from that calculation, approximately, 6 x sum of the CA costs of all attributes. That being said, I still wouldn't expect you could get the exact CA of a player by doing that calculation. As I explained in the original post, there is some quirks in the way the whole CA weighting of attributes works that I couldn't fully figure out. But the number should be in the neighborhood. Attributes are not "free" up until 6. According to my testing, their cost seems similar below and above 6. What happens is that a player with CA = 1 has an allotment for attributes that is approximately 6 x CA cost of all attributes. You don't start with all attributes at 1 when CA is 1. A player with 1 in all attributes and 2 in corners has RCA = -99 (when I put all attributes to 1 the in game editor shows RCA=0 -> this is probably because the editor is not prepared for that extreme).
Mark said: Here is an interesting post from many years ago that I think still is valid and interesting - At the beginning of the game, Ronaldo's CA is 192. Ronaldo is natural at AM L; accomplished at S C and AM R; competent at AM C; and unconvincing at M R and M L. - When I change Ronaldo to be natural at S C and every other position to 1, Ronaldo's recommend current ability (RCA) is 195. This means that Ronaldo's ability as a S C is higher than his CA. If I made these changes to Ronaldo's positions and didn't change his CA, within a few days the game would adjust some of Ronaldo's attributes down, so that his RCA would match his CA of 192. - I also tried changing Ronaldo to natural as a D R and every other position to 1. When I do this, Ronaldo's RCA becomes 134. If I changed Ronaldo's positional attributes in this way and didn't lower his CA, within a few days the game would bump up his attributes across the board so that his CA as a DR would reach 192. - Then I made Ronaldo natural at D R and S C. When I do this, his RCA is 178. This is between 195 (RCA as a SC) and 134 (RCA as a D R). However, it is not a simple average. In some earlier games, players with proficiency in many different positions had, often times, very very good attributes. I believe this had to do with the way the game averaged the RCA of different positions to calculate the overall CA. SI seems to have compensated for this potential bug by making the average biased towards the position the player is best at. - When, besides being natural at D R and SC, I also make Ronaldo natural at D C (Ronaldo RCA when he is only a D C is 137), Ronaldo's RCA becomes 170. It seems like the weight given to the RCA in the position the player is less good at becomes even smaller when the player is proficient in many positions. - I also tried starting Ronaldo as a S C only and then, one by one, increase his D R proficiency. Up until D R = 10, Ronaldo's RCA does not change. Starting at 11, Ronaldo's RCA steadily decreases as his DR proficiency increases, reaching 178 when his DR proficiency reaches 20. So, positions are "free" up to 10, and then gradually start to affect the CA weights of attributes. So, my take is that the CA costs of attributes for players with multiple positions are an average of the CA costs of attributes of the different positions. However, this average CA cost is not a simple average (nor even a "simple" weighted average based on the proficiency in the positions). Rather, the CA cost of an attribute is "biased" towards the CA cost of the attribute in the position the player is best RCA-wise. A player with 6 in attributes has a RCA of 0 with any natural position (also when I changed finishing to 5 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of -1; and when I changed finishing to 7 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of 1). This implies that you cannot just multiply the CA costs I posted originally by the attributes and get a player's CA. You have to subtract from that calculation, approximately, 6 x sum of the CA costs of all attributes. That being said, I still wouldn't expect you could get the exact CA of a player by doing that calculation. As I explained in the original post, there is some quirks in the way the whole CA weighting of attributes works that I couldn't fully figure out. But the number should be in the neighborhood. Attributes are not "free" up until 6. According to my testing, their cost seems similar below and above 6. What happens is that a player with CA = 1 has an allotment for attributes that is approximately 6 x CA cost of all attributes. You don't start with all attributes at 1 when CA is 1. A player with 1 in all attributes and 2 in corners has RCA = -99 (when I put all attributes to 1 the in game editor shows RCA=0 -> this is probably because the editor is not prepared for that extreme). Expand
As I answered @Xavinwonderland at the begging of the thread everything is quite simple and you don't need to know all those geeky formulas and it's enough knowing the following simple facts:
1) It's extremely hard or almost impossible for a player to forget his "natural" position, he might not play on it or not train it but he won't forget it, it stays "natural" during his career or for very long time even he doesn't "use" it.
2) You can't turn a pure defender into a pure striker. I mean you can't make a defender to forget how to play a defender and teach him how to play a striker BUT it doesn't mean that you can't teach a defender to play a striker. Yes, you can do that so he'll be capable of playing both positions a defender and a striker the same time but such ability will cost him a price so his attributes will be lower and that's how it works, any additional playing position always cost something.
Thanks for all the people taking the time to comment. I think that the test that needs to be run is the following: - take a young player with a single position like a defender - check his CA and double check the values with the FM calculator. Let's assume that the guy has 90 CA and that it matches what the FM scout calculator would find. (it should) - increase the CA of the player to let's say 160 by only bumping striker attributes so only increase manually stuff like finishing / dribbling/ first touch and so on until you reach 160CA. - you should now have a defender with weird attributes with 160 CA and 160 PA. - recheck with the FM calculator that their estimate of the CA is still valid (it should). - check with the FM calculator what the CA would be if the guy was a striker. Normally if you went hardcore enough you should have something much higher like 180. - now start adding a new striker familiarity and check until when you can keep that mismatch. - we already know that until 10 familiarity it will be free. But maybe we can get him to accomplished and still have a higher de facto striker CA as the game still considers him to be more a defender than a striker.
Hope that makes sense. If nobody can do it I will run the tests when I'm back home. In a way I just want to see if there is an arbitrage opportunity.
I strongly suggest ignoring any 3rd party tools like FM Scout because they don't have insight into the game code and all they calculation are based on assumption that people make which often are incorrect and outdated.
You can only trust calculation from official tools like the official pre-game editor or the official in-game editor from the devs.
Please, don't be offended but what you offer doesn't make sense. The guys have already explained you very well how it works, honestly, I don't understand why you still don't get it.
Poacher said: I strongly suggest ignoring any 3rd party tools like FM Scout because they don't have insight into the game code and all they calculation are based on assumption that people make which often are incorrect and outdated.
You can only trust calculation from official tools like the official pre-game editor or the official in-game editor from the devs.
Please, don't be offended but what you offer doesn't make sense. The guys have already explained you very well how it works, honestly, I don't understand why you still don't get it. Expand
I get what they say but I'm an engineer and I need to understand exactly how it works. Don't worry I will conduct the test and share the results. For the 3rd party source not being reliable I have to disagree it just depends which source and it has to be tested. For something like CA it is very easy to check if the calculation is off or not but don't worry I will double check with the ingame editor.
Ok I posted the test results in a new thread so a mod can probably close down this one. Feel free to comment on the test results if anything is unclear.
I have been searching the forums for a clear answer on this but couldn't not find anything clear.
When a player gains attribute points the CA cost will depend on its position so increasing tackling for instance will be very expensive for a defender but pretty much free for a striker.
What happens if I have a striker that I retrain as a defender? Is the cost increase based on being a striker? A defender? An average of the 2?
Is it possible to min/max by keeping it natural as a striker and only accomplished as a defender so that the tackling cost is using the striker weight rather than the defender weights?
Xavinwonderland said: I have been searching the forums for a clear answer on this but couldn't not find anything clear.
When a player gains attribute points the CA cost will depend on its position so increasing tackling for instance will be very expensive for a defender but pretty much free for a striker.
What happens if I have a striker that I retrain as a defender? Is the cost increase based on being a striker? A defender? An average of the 2?
Is it possible to min/max by keeping it natural as a striker and only accomplished as a defender so that the tackling cost is using the striker weight rather than the defender weights?
The position training works really simple. If you train a player an additional position then it inevitably leads to decreasing of his attributes, of course, if his CA stays the same and doesn't increase because if it works differently and additional position doesn't cost anything then everyone would want to train their players as many positions as possible which would be imbalanced.
Thanks but this is not what I meant.
My point would be let's assume that I have a young striker coming out of my youth intake. Let's assume his CA will be 90 and his PA 160. He has a lot of room to grow. I now start training him as a defender. Is the cost of all the future points attributed using the weight for striker or defender? Because that would lead to a massive difference in potential points.
Bonus question what is the exact trigger? (I have read that it could be position familiarity that would decide if the game considers you to be a striker or a defender) but if the player only trains as a defender but rarely plays it will take ages to achieve familiarity as a defender (which would be good as we could load up more cheap attributes points onto him)
Xavinwonderland said: I have been searching the forums for a clear answer on this but couldn't not find anything clear.
When a player gains attribute points the CA cost will depend on its position so increasing tackling for instance will be very expensive for a defender but pretty much free for a striker.
What happens if I have a striker that I retrain as a defender? Is the cost increase based on being a striker? A defender? An average of the 2?
Is it possible to min/max by keeping it natural as a striker and only accomplished as a defender so that the tackling cost is using the striker weight rather than the defender weights?
It's possible, but highly unlikely to produce anything good in a reasonable time. The initial attributes are just too different. Maybe it would take 4 or 5 years for a striker to reach the attributes of a teenager defender, which isn't very impressive at all. Also, DC is one of the positions with the lowest costs for pace, acceleration and agility, which are the most effective attributes overall.
Xavinwonderland said: Bonus question what is the exact trigger? (I have read that it could be position familiarity that would decide if the game considers you to be a striker or a defender) but if the player only trains as a defender but rarely plays it will take ages to achieve familiarity as a defender (which would be good as we could load up more cheap attributes points onto him)
I believe the natural position is decided at generation time, so you can't change it even if he only plays in another position. The natural position is the one that never lowers (always 20) when you stop training, while the other positions can decrease if you stop playing/training.
Xavinwonderland said: Thanks but this is not what I meant.
My point would be let's assume that I have a young striker coming out of my youth intake. Let's assume his CA will be 90 and his PA 160. He has a lot of room to grow. I now start training him as a defender. Is the cost of all the future points attributed using the weight for striker or defender? Because that would lead to a massive difference in potential points.
Bonus question what is the exact trigger? (I have read that it could be position familiarity that would decide if the game considers you to be a striker or a defender) but if the player only trains as a defender but rarely plays it will take ages to achieve familiarity as a defender (which would be good as we could load up more cheap attributes points onto him)
You're complicating things and talking about unrealistic scenarios and things that don't make sense.
I've already told you already it works quite simple.
If you got a pure striker from your youth intake and you want him to be as efficient as possible at the STC position then don't train him any other positions. If you want him to cover some other positions then you can train him to play there but he won't be the same efficient at the STC position as if it was the only his playing position.
P.S. I don't think it's possible for a player "to forget" his "natural" playing position, at least I don't remember I've seen it.
ZaZ said: It's possible, but highly unlikely to produce anything good in a reasonable time. The initial attributes are just too different. Maybe it would take 4 or 5 years for a striker to reach the attributes of a teenager defender, which isn't very impressive at all. Also, DC is one of the positions with the lowest costs for pace, acceleration and agility, which are the most effective attributes overall.
I believe the natural position is decided at generation time, so you can't change it even if he only plays in another position. The natural position is the one that never lowers (always 20) when you stop training, while the other positions can decrease if you stop playing/training.
I think it depends. Physical attributes are pretty much the only thing that matters for the match engine so if I have anybody with strong physical attributes I can retrain him to play anything basically as ultimately I don't care if my defender ends up with 10 tackling or my striker ends up with 5 finishing.
I agree that it would take time but for someone coming out from the youth intake you basically have 3 years which is quite a lot of time to get them in a decent junior role. Of course they have to get the right starting physical attributes. I will run some tests when I'm home and post them here. I had hoped that someone had gone through the process already.
Xavinwonderland said: I think it depends. Physical attributes are pretty much the only thing that matters for the match engine so if I have anybody with strong physical attributes I can retrain him to play anything basically as ultimately I don't care if my defender ends up with 10 tackling or my striker ends up with 5 finishing.
I agree that it would take time but for someone coming out from the youth intake you basically have 3 years which is quite a lot of time to get them in a decent junior role. Of course they have to get the right starting physical attributes. I will run some tests when I'm home and post them here. I had hoped that someone had gone through the process already.
I see where your confusion comes from. You suppose that it's easy for a player to forget his "natural" playing position but that's not true. A player might not play on his natural position or not train it for very long time but he won't "forget" it. As I said I don't remember that a player drops his natural playing position.
Lapidus said: You're complicating things and talking about unrealistic scenarios and things that don't make sense.
I've already told you already it works quite simple.
If you got a pure striker from your youth intake and you want him to be as efficient as possible at the STC position then don't train him any other positions. If you want him to cover some other positions then you can train him to play there but he won't be the same efficient at the STC position as if it was the only his playing position.
P.S. I don't think it's possible for a player "to forgot" his "natural" playing position, at least I don't remember I've seen it.
You don't get what I mean. I want to min/max the attributes I can put on a player. If you were to train quickness on a defender it will eat up less CA points than the same number of points on a striker because the weight of these attributes is less for the defender than for the striker. I can then play that defender as a striker. Yes he will most likely have terrible striker attributes (like finishing or first touch) but these attributes are pretty much ignored by the match engine so I don't care if my ex defender played as a striker has a finishing of 1.
So contrary to what you are saying this is not simple at all and I'm looking for hard facts. I understand that this is a very unusual min/max approach of the game but I have 1000s of hours into FM so I'm kinda bored playing normally. Especially with a match engine as broken as the one we have in FM21.
So in a nutshell it has nothing to do with normal retraining. I just want to max out the attributes points that I can load onto the player
Lapidus said: I see where your confusion comes from. You suppose that it's easy for a player to forget his "natural" playing position but that's not true. A player might not play on his natural position or not train it for very long time but he won't "forget" it. As I said I don't remember that a player drops his natural playing position.
OK I take from that that the player natural position is hard coded and will never change. If that is the case this is ever better for what I want to do. As the weight of the attribute cost will be completely de correlated from the position familiarity
Xavinwonderland said: OK I take from that that the player natural position is hard coded and will never change. If that is the case this is ever better for what I want to do. As the weight of the attribute cost will be completely de correlated from the position familiarity
You get it wrong.
You think that if you take a defender, Acceleration attribute costs cheaper for a defender than it cost for a striker and train him to play a striker then you'll get Acceleration attribute cheaply but that's not how it works when he learns playing a striker then a recalculation of CA will happen and Acceleration attribute will start costing as he were a striker and that's how it works.
I found another way to express this. When a player has reached its full potential his CA=PA but that calculation is based on his role. So if you have someone that was created by the game as a defender but was retrained since he was 15 as a striker he will still achieve the same PA but you could get much more points of what is useful for a striker for that PA.
For instance those acceleration /pace points will eat up less CA so you'll be able to get more potentially creating a de facto higher PA than what the limit would imply if it makes sense.
I understand that this is a very hardcore approach.
Lapidus said: You get it wrong.
You think that if you take a defender, Acceleration attribute costs cheaper for a defender than it cost for a striker and train him to play a striker then you'll get Acceleration attribute cheaply but that's not how it works when he learns playing a striker then a recalculation of CA will happen and Acceleration attribute will start costing as for a striker and that's how it works.
OK interesting but when is that recalculation happening and on what basis?
Because the guy is still considered by the game to be a defender so the cost cannot be the same as am for a striker. So average of the 2? Only for future points or even for already allocated points?
Xavinwonderland said: OK interesting but when is that recalculation happening and on what basis?
Because the guy is still considered by the game to be a defender so the cost cannot be the same as am for a striker. So average of the 2? Only for future points or even for already allocated points?
I'll try to put it in a very simple way.
When a player can only play a striker then he pays only for the ability to play a striker so it's cheap.
When a player can play a striker and a midfielder then he pays more for both abilities so it's more expensive.
When a player can play a striker and a midfielder and a defender then he pays even more so it becomes very expensive.
When a player learns a new playing position then re-calculation happens and his attributes randomly decrease to fit the new price for the attributes.
Lapidus said: You get it wrong.
You think that if you take a defender, Acceleration attribute costs cheaper for a defender than it cost for a striker and train him to play a striker then you'll get Acceleration attribute cheaply but that's not how it works when he learns playing a striker then a recalculation of CA will happen and Acceleration attribute will start costing as he were a striker and that's how it works.
I didn't know that was a thing, thanks for the info. =)
So according to you the weight cost of the attributes is calculated based on a worse off scenario (like if you can play multiple position the game will always use the highest weight to determine the cost of the attribute).
That is a possibility and that would indeed kill any attempt to game the system even if that would be quite unfair. Do you have any data for that affirmation or this is your gut feeling?
If that were the case it would also mean that from an attribute point of view players able to play multiple positions are a bad deal (like a striker /midfielder) as you get more flexibility that you might not need but it has a cost.
Xavinwonderland said: So according to you the weight cost of the attributes is calculated based on a worse of scenario (like if you can play multiple position the game will always use the highest weight to determine the cost of the attribute).
That is a possibility and that would indeed kill any attempt to game the system even if that would be quite unfair. Do you have any data for that affirmation or this is your gut feeling?
If that were the case it would also mean that from an attribute point of view players able to play multiple positions are a bad deal (like a striker /midfielder) as you get more flexibility that you might not need but it has a cost.
I'm quite sure you can open the editor and test it yourself, it shows CA there.
I'm on holidays atm so I can't access the game but fore sure I will do a proper test when I'm back and share it here. I hoped that someone had done the test already 😊
Here is an interesting post from many years ago that I think still is valid and interesting
- At the beginning of the game, Ronaldo's CA is 192. Ronaldo is natural at AM L; accomplished at S C and AM R; competent at AM C; and unconvincing at M R and M L.
- When I change Ronaldo to be natural at S C and every other position to 1, Ronaldo's recommend current ability (RCA) is 195. This means that Ronaldo's ability as a S C is higher than his CA. If I made these changes to Ronaldo's positions and didn't change his CA, within a few days the game would adjust some of Ronaldo's attributes down, so that his RCA would match his CA of 192.
- I also tried changing Ronaldo to natural as a D R and every other position to 1. When I do this, Ronaldo's RCA becomes 134. If I changed Ronaldo's positional attributes in this way and didn't lower his CA, within a few days the game would bump up his attributes across the board so that his CA as a DR would reach 192.
- Then I made Ronaldo natural at D R and S C. When I do this, his RCA is 178. This is between 195 (RCA as a SC) and 134 (RCA as a D R). However, it is not a simple average. In some earlier games, players with proficiency in many different positions had, often times, very very good attributes. I believe this had to do with the way the game averaged the RCA of different positions to calculate the overall CA. SI seems to have compensated for this potential bug by making the average biased towards the position the player is best at.
- When, besides being natural at D R and SC, I also make Ronaldo natural at D C (Ronaldo RCA when he is only a D C is 137), Ronaldo's RCA becomes 170. It seems like the weight given to the RCA in the position the player is less good at becomes even smaller when the player is proficient in many positions.
- I also tried starting Ronaldo as a S C only and then, one by one, increase his D R proficiency. Up until D R = 10, Ronaldo's RCA does not change. Starting at 11, Ronaldo's RCA steadily decreases as his DR proficiency increases, reaching 178 when his DR proficiency reaches 20. So, positions are "free" up to 10, and then gradually start to affect the CA weights of attributes.
So, my take is that the CA costs of attributes for players with multiple positions are an average of the CA costs of attributes of the different positions. However, this average CA cost is not a simple average (nor even a "simple" weighted average based on the proficiency in the positions). Rather, the CA cost of an attribute is "biased" towards the CA cost of the attribute in the position the player is best RCA-wise.
A player with 6 in attributes has a RCA of 0 with any natural position (also when I changed finishing to 5 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of -1; and when I changed finishing to 7 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of 1). This implies that you cannot just multiply the CA costs I posted originally by the attributes and get a player's CA. You have to subtract from that calculation, approximately, 6 x sum of the CA costs of all attributes.
That being said, I still wouldn't expect you could get the exact CA of a player by doing that calculation. As I explained in the original post, there is some quirks in the way the whole CA weighting of attributes works that I couldn't fully figure out. But the number should be in the neighborhood.
Attributes are not "free" up until 6. According to my testing, their cost seems similar below and above 6. What happens is that a player with CA = 1 has an allotment for attributes that is approximately 6 x CA cost of all attributes. You don't start with all attributes at 1 when CA is 1.
A player with 1 in all attributes and 2 in corners has RCA = -99 (when I put all attributes to 1 the in game editor shows RCA=0 -> this is probably because the editor is not prepared for that extreme).
Mark said: Here is an interesting post from many years ago that I think still is valid and interesting
- At the beginning of the game, Ronaldo's CA is 192. Ronaldo is natural at AM L; accomplished at S C and AM R; competent at AM C; and unconvincing at M R and M L.
- When I change Ronaldo to be natural at S C and every other position to 1, Ronaldo's recommend current ability (RCA) is 195. This means that Ronaldo's ability as a S C is higher than his CA. If I made these changes to Ronaldo's positions and didn't change his CA, within a few days the game would adjust some of Ronaldo's attributes down, so that his RCA would match his CA of 192.
- I also tried changing Ronaldo to natural as a D R and every other position to 1. When I do this, Ronaldo's RCA becomes 134. If I changed Ronaldo's positional attributes in this way and didn't lower his CA, within a few days the game would bump up his attributes across the board so that his CA as a DR would reach 192.
- Then I made Ronaldo natural at D R and S C. When I do this, his RCA is 178. This is between 195 (RCA as a SC) and 134 (RCA as a D R). However, it is not a simple average. In some earlier games, players with proficiency in many different positions had, often times, very very good attributes. I believe this had to do with the way the game averaged the RCA of different positions to calculate the overall CA. SI seems to have compensated for this potential bug by making the average biased towards the position the player is best at.
- When, besides being natural at D R and SC, I also make Ronaldo natural at D C (Ronaldo RCA when he is only a D C is 137), Ronaldo's RCA becomes 170. It seems like the weight given to the RCA in the position the player is less good at becomes even smaller when the player is proficient in many positions.
- I also tried starting Ronaldo as a S C only and then, one by one, increase his D R proficiency. Up until D R = 10, Ronaldo's RCA does not change. Starting at 11, Ronaldo's RCA steadily decreases as his DR proficiency increases, reaching 178 when his DR proficiency reaches 20. So, positions are "free" up to 10, and then gradually start to affect the CA weights of attributes.
So, my take is that the CA costs of attributes for players with multiple positions are an average of the CA costs of attributes of the different positions. However, this average CA cost is not a simple average (nor even a "simple" weighted average based on the proficiency in the positions). Rather, the CA cost of an attribute is "biased" towards the CA cost of the attribute in the position the player is best RCA-wise.
A player with 6 in attributes has a RCA of 0 with any natural position (also when I changed finishing to 5 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of -1; and when I changed finishing to 7 in a striker, the in-game editor showed a RCA of 1). This implies that you cannot just multiply the CA costs I posted originally by the attributes and get a player's CA. You have to subtract from that calculation, approximately, 6 x sum of the CA costs of all attributes.
That being said, I still wouldn't expect you could get the exact CA of a player by doing that calculation. As I explained in the original post, there is some quirks in the way the whole CA weighting of attributes works that I couldn't fully figure out. But the number should be in the neighborhood.
Attributes are not "free" up until 6. According to my testing, their cost seems similar below and above 6. What happens is that a player with CA = 1 has an allotment for attributes that is approximately 6 x CA cost of all attributes. You don't start with all attributes at 1 when CA is 1.
A player with 1 in all attributes and 2 in corners has RCA = -99 (when I put all attributes to 1 the in game editor shows RCA=0 -> this is probably because the editor is not prepared for that extreme).
I just tested here in the editor. First, I picked Messi and made him have 20 in one position and 0 in each other. As a DC, his RCA is 130, while as AMC his RCA is 192. When I make him have 20 in two different positions, he gets the RCA from the highest, no matter which position I add. There are a few exceptions in which RCA is higher than both positions, like ST + DC or ST + DL/R. When I add any third or fourth position, the RCA always increases. I did the same with Piqué and results were similar.
ZaZ said: I just tested here in the editor. First, I picked Messi and made him have 20 in one position and 0 in each other. As a DC, his RCA is 130, while as AMC his RCA is 192. When I make him have 20 in two different positions, he gets the RCA from the highest, no matter which position I add. There are a few exceptions in which RCA is higher than both positions, like ST + DC or ST + DL/R. When I add any third or fourth position, the RCA always increases. I did the same with Piqué and results were similar.
As I answered @Xavinwonderland at the begging of the thread everything is quite simple and you don't need to know all those geeky formulas and it's enough knowing the following simple facts:
1) It's extremely hard or almost impossible for a player to forget his "natural" position, he might not play on it or not train it but he won't forget it, it stays "natural" during his career or for very long time even he doesn't "use" it.
2) You can't turn a pure defender into a pure striker. I mean you can't make a defender to forget how to play a defender and teach him how to play a striker BUT it doesn't mean that you can't teach a defender to play a striker. Yes, you can do that so he'll be capable of playing both positions a defender and a striker the same time but such ability will cost him a price so his attributes will be lower and that's how it works, any additional playing position always cost something.
Thanks for all the people taking the time to comment.
I think that the test that needs to be run is the following:
- take a young player with a single position like a defender
- check his CA and double check the values with the FM calculator.
Let's assume that the guy has 90 CA and that it matches what the FM scout calculator would find. (it should)
- increase the CA of the player to let's say 160 by only bumping striker attributes so only increase manually stuff like finishing / dribbling/ first touch and so on until you reach 160CA.
- you should now have a defender with weird attributes with 160 CA and 160 PA.
- recheck with the FM calculator that their estimate of the CA is still valid (it should).
- check with the FM calculator what the CA would be if the guy was a striker. Normally if you went hardcore enough you should have something much higher like 180.
- now start adding a new striker familiarity and check until when you can keep that mismatch.
- we already know that until 10 familiarity it will be free. But maybe we can get him to accomplished and still have a higher de facto striker CA as the game still considers him to be more a defender than a striker.
Hope that makes sense. If nobody can do it I will run the tests when I'm back home.
In a way I just want to see if there is an arbitrage opportunity.
Xavinwonderland said: what the FM scout calculator would find. (it should)
I strongly suggest ignoring any 3rd party tools like FM Scout because they don't have insight into the game code and all they calculation are based on assumption that people make which often are incorrect and outdated.
You can only trust calculation from official tools like the official pre-game editor or the official in-game editor from the devs.
Xavinwonderland said: Hope that makes sense.
Please, don't be offended but what you offer doesn't make sense. The guys have already explained you very well how it works, honestly, I don't understand why you still don't get it.
Poacher said: I strongly suggest ignoring any 3rd party tools like FM Scout because they don't have insight into the game code and all they calculation are based on assumption that people make which often are incorrect and outdated.
You can only trust calculation from official tools like the official pre-game editor or the official in-game editor from the devs.
Please, don't be offended but what you offer doesn't make sense. The guys have already explained you very well how it works, honestly, I don't understand why you still don't get it.
I get what they say but I'm an engineer and I need to understand exactly how it works. Don't worry I will conduct the test and share the results.
For the 3rd party source not being reliable I have to disagree it just depends which source and it has to be tested. For something like CA it is very easy to check if the calculation is off or not but don't worry I will double check with the ingame editor.
Ok I posted the test results in a new thread so a mod can probably close down this one. Feel free to comment on the test results if anything is unclear.