Possebrew said: I am beginning to develop the suspicion that the single most important attribute for a striker is not pace, height or acceleration. It's "off-the-ball". Expand
Above + 20 off the ball (for 2 strikers) = +93, 93 2nd sample = +92, 90
Looking at the striker stats specifically, there was no improvement, taken together they were overall slightly worse in line with the overall team result.
what do you think about the find that CA can win games? as mentioned i increased my player’s CA and PA (but not the attributes) directly before a match (so that everything stayed unchanged) and suddenly i started winning against the same team I always lost against (reloaded a savegame many times) it would mean that mental and technical attributes can make a difference because the game assigns CA to them.
maybe this is sports interactives trick to make attributes matter - even if they cannot show things like passing in the match engine (pace / acceleration are very easy to show in the match engine) they just generally change the odds of winning 😀
that’s why i made another small experiment, i gave a player a 20 in passing/technique/vision/flair and compared this to him having a 1 in these attributes. My team won more games because of higher CA but the “passing match stats” like “passes completed” or “key passes” did not change at all Expand
I did a few tests
---------------
(All outfield) 20 pace/acc/jump/drib + 8 other attributes:
I didn't isolate things 100% or take many samples, but I think it's good enough to draw a few key conclusions.
Those technical/mental attributes don't do much, even in combination. And the extra cost is ~40 CA, which is really the nail in the coffin. ~40% extra cost for ~18% extra performance.
It's more difficult to draw a conclusion about whether attribute combos compound performance, but I would say it doesn't seem so. HarvestGreen22's data showing effect of 12 > 18 of each attribute has ~2-3% increased win rate for each of these attributes I boosted. 5x2.5% = 12.5%. I boosted from 8 to 20 and got ~14%-21% extra depending on how you look at it, which is about the same as you'd expect from each attribute alone.
Also it shows that its not just judging based on CA, and my ideal 140 CA templates which are around about the same CA did significantly better
very attacking + shorter passing + be more expressive + shoot on sight = +259, 114 very attacking = +270, 112 very attacking + shorter passing = +286, 114
very attacking + shorter passing, other adjustments + 9 subs = +306, 114 very attacking + shorter passing + work into box, other adjustments + 9 subs = +309, 114 very attacking + shorter passing, other adjustments + 9 subs = +312, 114 attacking + shorter passing, other adjustments + 9 subs = +312, 114
very attacking + shorter passing + work ball into box, other adjustments + 9 subs = +339, 114
Some observations:
The +339 result was not from the test with the most optimizations. So training schedule, pre-season team talk morale boost, match plans, all that mustn't have mattered much. I'm guessing what made the key difference was match fitness. A repeat of the same settings produced +309.
The changes to the tactic of 'very attacking', 'shorter passing' and 'work ball into box' seemed to produce slightly better results, or at least they weren't worse, whereas some others obviously were.
Biggest premier league game win I saw was 23-0.
I realized that penalty taking, and other set pieces, for goalkeeper has 0 weighting. This is potentially useful. I've said before that set piece attributes are not worth picking for. But you may as well select a goalkeeper with decent penalty taking and composure (which there are quite a few of), and make them your penalty taker. It will also have the satisfying effect of making your GK a goalscorer.
However I think I created this before I created my templates so it will be a little different perhaps, and GenieScout also doesn't allow negative weighting for certain attributes. But overall it should be close enough.
Alxy said: Thanks for this post - please can I ask you which skin did you find had the largest player faces (e.g. when you check attributes)? Or is there any skin that would allow you to fit in a whole shot of a player instead of just the player face?
Also is there any way to get player faces in-match (so rather than seeing player shirt numbers you see the player faces?). Thanks Expand
For face size:
WTCS Gold 24 1.3.1 - 9 Sas2025Final-Hidden - 4 (what brought this skin down from no. 1 for me) Dark Polish FM24 Skins v7 - 6 FusionDB FM24 Classic Dark v1.1 - 9 Chove Skin for FM24 - 9
Tato is a popular skin I didn't rate highly, I gave it 5 for face size.
In my view, WTCS 'profile' page for viewing attributes is usable as your default attribute view page, unlike many skins were its just too cluttered. And I like that it gives you 4 different options (i.e. face with kit behind, or just face, etc.)
Chove has perhaps the biggest face for attribute + profile pages (and its centered on profile page), but its quite non-vanilla.
FusionDB is smallish on profile page, but large on attribute page.
I definitely didn't see any skin with full body, and to me face pic can be too big because it just stretches it too big at a certain point (though I only used the sortitoutsi pack).
I took into account 2 other minor face things when giving my overall score btw, which is face icons on squad list screen, and big photos of the board members on the club vision screen. Many skins don't have either of these at all.
5 or above is good/playable 3-4 may even be great in some ways but has serious issues 1-2 trash
I am strongly inclined towards a default-style skin, but I've tried to be somewhat open-minded.
My criteria is:
font clarity responsiveness hidden attributes (footedness, CA/PA, personality, instant result, fitness %, etc.) lack of crowdedness stadium imagery info/data lack of logo intrusiveness comfyness face size lack of bugs
For score 6 or less, I just went with overall initial impressions, with the criteria in mind.
WTCS Gold 24 1.3.1 - 7.64 Sas2025Final-Hidden - 7.09 Dark Polish FM24 Skins v7 - 7.09 Chove Skin for FM24 - 7.09 FusionDB FM24 Classic Dark v1.1 - 7.00
No, I will eventually but they're not very useful anyway; it would give you a better idea of what attributes are realistic I guess. It would be basically an in-between of the shortlist filter and the template ideals.
The Genie Scout ratings I posted in the other thread would be a more useful method, as it accounts for all the attributes in its rating system, but doesn't rule out anyone.
The problem with shortlist filters is that the more attributes requirements you add, exponentially fewer players match them. To make this more concrete, here are a few stats in my data:
~20% of players have 8+ long shots ~17% of players have 10+ dribbling ~27% of STs have 12+ finishing ~25% of AMRs have 10+ finishing ~5.4% of STs have 12+ finishing, 10+ dribbling, 8+ long shots ~12.8% of AMRs have 10+ finishing, 10+ dribbling, 8+ long shots ~4.5% of CBs have 8+ long shots, 8+ dribbling
You can see the problem here with my ~140 DC 'ideal template' having 14 long shots; this would be reduced to say ~6-8 in my 'in depth filter', whereas my 'shortlist filter' doesn't set a minimum on long shots at all.
Bill W said: Regarding the first bit there, since I think a lot of people are going to use tactics where players change positions (DMs <> CMs, AMC<>Strikers, etc), what's the recommendation?
Ensure they're natural in both tactical positions? Ensure they're natural in at least the IP tactic? The OoP tactic? Break the above rule and ensure they're like 18 in both instead of 20 in one?
Also. In that last line, what's considered the minimum conditions to hit the 12.5 and 25.5 CA gains in a year? Expand
As someone said in another thread, it may be that having IP and OoP tactic be the same will be the meta due to the player proficiency downside. But who knows at this point.
Roughly speaking, 18 vs 20 proficiency is around -1.5 pace.
For hitting the yearly CA cap, see my 'ideal growth' details. You won't need all of them to hit the cap. High professionalism can largely make up for lack of game time. Professionalism and game time are the two main contributors to growth. From memory, friendlies/youth matches will count as game time to some extent (maybe even 100% up to age 18, I can't recall exactly now), but after 18 proper first team matches is really whats needed. And the game measures the minutes rather than appearances, so putting on the player for last 10 minutes will count as 10 minutes towards the full 2520 minutes that's optimal. How many games will be 'adequate', once they're age 20 say? About half the optimum, say 15 full games. This is why loaning out at that age is so important if they can't get first team games, even if its at crappy clubs.
For those who are interested, I'll add some more detail about my methodology and thoughts.
I didn't just guess the ideal combo of attributes for each position, although it is very much just an approximation. Essentially what I did is I took HarvestGreen22's attribute performance data, the CA weightings for each position, and used ChatGPT to help me distribute attributes accordingly given a certain PA (for instance, 'long shots' is often high because its also often cheap yet performs well). This is a bit of an oversimplification though, because I have also taken into account the availability of attributes to some extent, and some squad-level adjustments (i.e. there should be a captain and ~2 backups). So for instance you will note that even in my 200 PA players, decisions is kept to just 12. This is because decisions does hardly anything (especially in situations where you already have 1 good decision maker it is suggested), yet it has very high CA cost for all positions. So I biased against 'decisions' specifically, and yet you will also notice that it isn't lower than 6 in the lower PA players - this is because few players will actually have decisions lower than 6. In fact in my filter you can see I suggest setting max 12<. The general idea is pick a player with high pace/acc/jump, and ~10 decisions, and then let the training get 'decisions' down closer to the ideal; maybe it will drop to 8 say. This frees up CA for more pace/acc/jump/drib, etc.
Some things need extra context
If you dig into HarvestGreen22's posts there are some things that turn up that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, it seemed that flair was a pure negative, but in another post he noted flair and certain other attributes can be positive, and what its about seems to be whether you have 1 high flair player (good) or 3 (ok) or 10 (bad).
Another trait that needs extra context is aggression. High aggression is good so long as there is low dirtiness, or if it is position where neither come much into play anyway (i.e. AMR). And this one isn't really a nothingburger either, as dirtiness is 10x more important than injury proneness. It can lead to conceded penalty or one man down with no sub which is worse than a mid-match injury.
Some attributes interact, such as finishing & composure, whereas others such as positioning & tackling don't. Pace/acc/drib/finish scale linearly; work rate scales massively from 1-6 but above 6 it doesn't matter so much.
At the end of the day, the main thing to keep in mind is that you want to look for players with decent starting pace/acc/jump/drib, but 5 'decisions' should also look like 20 pace to you because that's what its enabling you to get.
I would reiterate that position proficiency is a very important attribute, so pick players that have 20 natural proficiency, don't get one with '18' or try and train them into it from another position. Another reason not to do the latter is that there's very little leeway in tricking the CA weighting system. That is, you can't have your DC have high finishing and play them as 18 ST, it doesn't work that way. At best you can give your players a 12 proficiency for 'free', which is useful for saving a sub perhaps, but even this isn't really free because you're spending training time building it up to 12.
A few more tips/info I could have included:
Do not set a 'role' for position training of player, leave as default player position (i.e. AMR). Otherwise it will funnel CA gain to role attributes instead of proven winning attributes such as pace and acceleration. For example, DM 'enganche' role has no focus on physicals at all except agility. Assigning roles weight highlighted attributes a further ~3%. Roles reduce the training efficacy by ~3%.
Train weaker foot if it is 'very weak' (1-4 rating). This can get it up to 9, which is worth it in terms of CA cost/performance tradeoff. The performance/CA tradeoff is best at about ~6 I'd say (so proper dual-foot is a bit bad and certainly a waste of time to train).
CA gain cap per year is ~12.5 CA without matches. ~25.5 CA with matches.
Bill W said: I just wanted to be crystal clear here... So, if I'm filling in an average week of training with a game on Saturday... Your recommendation is basically:
Sun: Rest/travel x3 (assuming game day before) Mon: Quickness / recovery / rest Tues: match practice /recovery / rest Wed: Attacking / Recovery / Rest Thurs: match practice /recovery /rest Fri: rest / recovery/ match focus Sat: Match / rest x 2
Is this correct? Expand
So I had to look into this again to jog my memory, and it appears recovery isn't simply interchangeable with rest when it comes to attribute gain from training. And I should have been more clearer too. I will have to do some more research on rest vs. recovery and edit my post.
Regardless, the schedule is still:
[Quickness]+[Match Practice]+[Attacking]+[Double Intensity]+[Addtional Focus Quickness] I do 'no pitch or gym work' for first 3 health icons, and 'double intensity' for last 2
What I meant with rest/recovery mix was that you should mix it according to the condition & match fitness needs of your players. Match fitness is more important than condition, so I would lean towards more recovery sessions, or otherwise schedule more friendlies.
If you do use rest, I would try and make full days of rest where possible for the double rest effect, and have that rest immediately after the last match.
CryosFeron said: thanks for all your hard work - but how is it that people here seem to be happy and thankful rather than disenchanted and sad (like I am)? Expand
I 100% agree, and you've explained the problem with the game more succinctly than I've thought up. I don't bother posting that thought; I think it's better to just stick the SI simps and sycophants with the truth, which they'd rather silence and gloss over.
Really what motivates me though is that I enjoy much more working out the underlying mechanics than playing the game now. I started doing this with FM19, when I reverse-engineered the newgen mechanics. It turned out SI staff had been giving out a lot of false, even self-contradicting, information over the years, and their attitude when you try to share the data was 'I couldn't replicate that. Did you do 10,000 samples? You did? Well do you have a data science degree, otherwise how do you know what 'average' and 'mean' means?', etc., before closing the thread with 'If you think you've found something, you should email your save to our team for them to look at'.
Brexit rules, press conferences, horrendous newgen faces, health icons, and obfuscating newgen-maxxing in various ways ruined FM19-FM24 for me, but you could get around 90% of it with ~12 hours of custom editing and prep before playing. With knap tactics and now EBFM + HarvestGreen22's info, the game has lost a fair bit of its lustre, but its still playable. FM26 appears to have screwed the pooch.
I think what we need right now is a backport of the FM26 database to FM24. I'm not a believer in those projects that try to fix up the training system or match engine or even those 3rd-party DB updates, I think a big part of the enjoyment is in knowing other people are playing the exact same game as you. As custom skins show, the UI isn't really a necessary part of this shared enjoyment. And FM26 is even largely the same under the hood, so you could play FM26 database on FM24 and legitimately feel you're playing FM26 just with the old UI.
Not even sure I've done it right, trying to translate it to a 0-100 system confuses me, but I've done it comprehensively using careful guesstimates. Any math wizards welcome to critique.
Genie Scout also doesn't always allow negative values, which would be good for attributes such as 'decisions' and 'technique'.
I also heavily buffed up some attributes like set pieces and leadership for certain positions - they hardly matter at all in terms of performance, but it wouldn't feel right for my captain to have 11 leadership.
Oh, this is for FM24 btw, but FM26 doesnt seem like it would be too much different.
This info is valid for FM24, and mostly valid for FM26.
My sources are mainly HarvestGreen22/playGM forum, EBFM, 'FM with Data Science', Zippo's attribute tests here, and my own testing/thoughts. Kudos to 'FMProjects' too, who sent me down the path of reading training_sessions.jsb with a hexadecimal editor, which I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
Aims of this post:
HarvestGreen22's findings show us that the ideal player is a player with 20 pace and flair 1. Problem is, there is not a single player in the database with those 2 stats. And there are also other things to consider, such as that attributes have different CA costs.
HarvestGreen22's training regimes have two prime options: sacrifice mental/technical attributes for fast physical growth with minimal CA gain, or broader and greater overall growth but at the cost of significant CA gain. Both training regimes feature 'rest' predominantly. But once you get into the nitty gritty of it, you'll find that its much easier to find players with more than sufficient CA-PA gaps than to get back those lost mental/technical stats, and all that 'rest' can easily lead to poor performance through low match sharpness.
So I'm trying to do a few things here, some of which are:
- clarifying the relative value of visible and hidden attributes - tie together all the assorted findings to describe the optimal player development method - adjusting relative attribute values according to CA weightings across different positions and taking into account squad composition (i.e. 1 player with high flair is good, whereas 4 in a team is bad) - providing realistic shortlist filters where at least a few players will match it - theorize the potential 'perfect' squad of players
The thing is with this kind of work is that if you explain everything, you end up having to explain everything. If I say injury proneness is fairly insignificant, it isn't satisfying. It's only satisfying when you do the math and realize that you're not actually losing a 140 CA player, you're subbing a 140 CA player to give a 120 CA backup/youth player a few games you'd have to give him somehow anyway. Unfortunately this kind of explanation just can't be put across in the condensed summary.
Ideal growth:
High PA (130-160 ideal) High CA to PA difference (11/11 > 20/20 Pace/Acc = +28 CA. ~50 is typical wonderkid CA-PA gap) 20 training facilities (17 ideal) 25-30 matches/season (28 ideal. 30 safe. 36 max. 15 min. 2520 min exactly. 36matches@70min.) 10+ ambition (16 max. 10-13 ideal. 6 min.) 10+ determination (6 min. 13 ideal. 18 max.) 20 professionalism (15 ideal. 13 min)
Training:
Quick + Attack + Quick Focus + Recovery/Rest mix to max match fitness & condition
Do not do the pure rest thing. Yes it works, but you'll never get those lost technicals back, which includes some key attributes such as dribbling. Even the above schedule suffers some decline on technicals, particularly set pieces, but it's a necessary compromise. Wonderkids also have an adequate CA to PA buffer, so you don't need to crawl towards it at ~6 CA/year.
I did some rough tests with training and found HarvestGreen22's training is indeed superior in just about every way. Go for one that is high pace/acc gain, and low decisions/technique gain, as the latter has highest CA cost relative to its performance gain.
Attribute importance:
1 position proficiency = ~1 pace 1 determination = 0.625 pace 1 dribbling = 0.525 pace 1 professionalism = 0.5 pace 1 dirtiness = NEGATIVE 0.19 pace 1 consistency = 0.06 pace 1 penalty taking = 0.045 pace 1 injury proneness = NEGATIVE 0.02 pace 1 important matches = 0.02 pace 1 temperament = 0.02 pace 1 adaptability = 0.02 pace (foreign players only) 1 versatility = 0.015 pace
1 pace = 2 dribbling/professionalism = -5 dirtiness = 16 consistency = Penaldo = -20 injury proneness on extreme physical training regime = all inferior to 20 AMR vs 18 AMR
Small caveat: 'Important matches' value may be erroneous. From memory, EBFM in one of his videos showed evidence that important matches is more impactful than I realized, and I'm not sure if I updated my calculations. 0.02 pace is at least a minimum value.
Ideal player:
Physicals ~8-20 (8-14 before training) 20 Pace/Acc 14 Bal 12 Jump (20 DC/PF-ST?) 12 Sta (14 DL/DR/DM) 11 Agil (18 DL/DR/DM) 9 Nat 8 Strength
12 Pro 6 Amb 5 Loyal 5 Temper 5 Pressure 1 Sport 15< Controversy 1 adapt (12 for foreign player)
This takes into account performance + weighting + availability (20 professionalism is great.. but hardly anyone has it), and some other things like slight skew towards meta tactic and 'feels'.
Example of existing in-game player that would constitute a potential ideal player:
Template ideal by position:
GK (tentative)
DL/DR Low (~140 PA)
DL/DR High (~200 PA)
DC Low (~140 PA)
DC High (~200 PA)
DM Low (~140 PA)
DM High (~200 PA)
AML/AMR Low (~140 PA)
AML/AMR High (~200 PA)
ST Low (~140 PA)
ST High (~200 PA)
I have these templates written down more accurately and comprehensively, but the point here is just to give you an idea of what attributes to favor/disfavor and to what extent.
Single-sample test results (English Premier League):
More samples are needed, but it would seem optimizing player attribute distribution beyond just selecting for the 4 main attributes does make a difference, I would guesstimate ~10% extra performance in typical play.
HarvestGreen22 training boosts pace/acc +11, other physicals +4, mentals +4, technicals 0 or negative. BULK UP on technicals and pace/acc at age 13.
Shortlist filter:
GK - Age 31 max, Agility/Leadership 12 min, Professionalism 10 min, Pace/Vision/Technique/Determination/Reflexes/Aerial Reach/Anticipation/Concentration/Consistency/Jumping Reach 8 min, Work Rate 6 min, Acceleration/Decisions/Handling/Rushing Out 15 max, Injury Proneness 10 max DL/DR - Same as ST except Agility/Stamina 8 min, no Dribbling 8 min DC - Same as ST except Jumping Reach 12 min, no Decisions 12 max, no Dribbling 8 min DM - Same as ST except no Decisions 12 max, no Dribbling 8 min AML/AMR - Same as ST ST - Age 22 max, 100 PA min, Acceleration/Pace 12 min, Professionalism 10 min, Anticipation/Concentration/Consistency/Dribbling 8 min, Determination/Work Rate 6 min, Decisions/Injury Proneness 12 max
No suitable results? Reduce Acc/Pace (Agil/Lead for GK)
In depth filter:
I will post this sometime later.
Meta tactic (4-2-4) adjustments:
12+ Drib AML/AMR 8+ Drib DC/PF-ST 8+ Cross DL/DR 8+ OffBall/Tack/Aggro/Ant/Pass/Tech/Dec/Team/Vis/Con/Brave/Work/Bal/Strength all outfield <8 Dirt all positions
Tactic familiarity matters little, but tactics matter greatly. So switch up tactics whenever.
Exploits:
Dual position exploit - Train 2nd position up to '12' for 0 CA cost, i.e. ST20/DM12 with ST stats. Useful emergency sub but 5%< use. DM20/ST12 with ST stats to get 130 CA instead of 150 CA WILL NOT WORK, not even with min-max. It will become ST when you hit 131 CA ST role. You've gone too far when it shows 'DM/ST' instead of 'DM'. Only do with existing DM20/ST8, or DM20/ST1 with 15+ versatility, due to training opportunity cost. Do not do ST+DC/DL/DR (+8 CA) nor 3 positions (+3 CA) but up to ~10-12 proficiency is fine.
Recovery exploit - Go to training > schedules > new schedule > create new schedule > fill with 7 recovery sessions, then change one empty day to 'match' under 'match day' that appears as option. Now you can use more than 7 recovery sessions. Fill it with recovery sessions. Save schedule and apply it to your training calendar.
Rest exploit - Full day of rest (3 periods) + 'No pitch or gym work' for first 3 condition options in training > rest. Gives boosted rest effect.
Assistant manager exploit - Set up your training calendar for the season, then delegate 'general training' to a staff member. No more training unhappiness complaints.
More nuances:
Set pieces - Forget'em. High set piece attributes are near useless and are rare, especially for young players, so not worth getting for ANY player. Take penalties: 10 goals/season, ~3 goals lost due to '6' instead of '16' penalty taking, but 70% of ST age 20< have under 10 penalty taking. So sacrificing ~2-3 Acc/Pace (~12 goals) maybe for high penalty taking (~3 goals).
Captain - GK should be captain or vice captain. Your wonderkids will have low leadership and age/reputation, GK wonderkids are less likely, and GK is the only player that can be there 90min every match. High leadership is rare for all positions, but makes minimal performance difference, so if you select say ST captain you are likely sacrificing ST performance for it. DM, or to a lesser extent, DC, is a good captain/vice pairing option.
Get 1 decisions guy (DC), 1 flair guy (PF-ST?), one or two others I forgot. Basically 1 of these guys is good, too many is bad.
Jadedness doesn't matter much, but match sharpness is crucial. It's somewhere up there with tactic choice and pace/acc in terms of effect on performance. So don't discount 'natural fitness', don't overuse rest in your training, and make sure your players are 100% match fit through reserves matches or friendlies before playing them.
Yarema said: I feel there is still some hidden information. Specifically I feel that some effects are immediate as in the day before intake, some before preview and some (and this might be a bit tinfoil hat theory) might take 2-3 seasons to show. Expand I've done some testing of this, just to rule out the possibility that reloading my saves just prior to intake wasn't affecting results of PA testing I was doing. There was no difference, for reloading just before intake as compared to starting new save from scratch each time.
EvensenFM said: Thanks for this! I think I read somewhere else recently (probably Reddit) that Youth Facilities don't impact the PA of newly generated players at all. This is really good to know. Expand
I actually posted a comment on your youtube recently, that was it.
You do pretty good videos, enjoying watching them alongside doing things, even though I wouldn't have thought football history would be my thing.
kvasir said: Great test, man. Thoughts about the affiliate clubs thing:
There are 7 countries with a higher Youth Rating than England(136), highest being Brazil with 163. If my top English club gets an affiliate in Brazil, wouldn't that be a good thing? Seems like swapping an English newgen for a Brazilian should be an upgrade most of the time.
The question is, I guess, how the game makes the Brazilian kid: does he get generated in my youth intake with my own 20/20 JC and YR? or is he made at his own club, with their stats (probably lower than mine), and just moved to my team?
If it's the first option then its a win. If not, then its a gamble. Any ideas? Expand
Yes, you are entirely correct in your first hypothesis. I just removed the affiliates from Man City because I'm trying to work out the newgen mechanics accurately.
To the question, a few days ago I would have said to you that its just Brazil's youth rating + it must be your own facilities, because in some testing I did before on it I found that it only takes the youth rating, not any of the affiliate club attributes.
But recently I was watching EBFM's video on affiliate clubs, and his data shows that while nation youth rating is still the most important factor, affiliate club attributes do in fact influence the quality of the newgen. So now I'm not sure, but I'd say believe what EBFM says on this because it's likely I only took like 5 samples or something in my test, because intake from affiliate clubs isn't really a part of the formula for newgen mechanics that I've been testing for.
tl;dr 'Youth Facilities' have no effect on newgen PA in any way. The 'club reputation' of OTHER clubs in your nation has a small effect on newgen PA. 'Corporate facilities' may also have a minor effect on newgen PA, but this could be just statistical noise.
----------------------------
I did testing before in FM19 and found that youth facilities affect newgen CA but not PA.
I have done a decent amount of testing with FM24 and have found the same, and that median PA continues to be the most reliable measure of newgen quality, with peak PA having much more of a randomness factor.
What I found in my previous testing was roughly the following:
Junior coaching ~40% PA effect Nation youth rating ~25% PA effect Youth recruitment ~25% PA effect Club reputation acts as tie breaker for youth recruitment Either unique nation or division ID ~25% (or perhaps even more) PA effect (a hidden, unchangeable factor - it may be 'Nation attribute template' that is listed as an inaccessible debug option in the editor, which sounds like it would be similar to the 'Nation personality template' before it was removed in recent versions) All other factors no effect
But I wanted to test a few new theories I had this time as well.
First, the data:
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams normal: 141.5 median, 170 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YF1: 138.1 median, 161.4 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YF20: 143.7 median, 171.4 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams JC1: 143 median, 163 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep/Train/YouthImp/Corp 1: 124.3 median, 176.3 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams Train/YouthImp/Corp 1: 137.25 median, 165.5 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YouthImp/Corp 1: 136 median, 171.6 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YouthImp 20/Corp 1: 135.6 median, 164.9 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep1: 130.6 median, 177 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep1/YF1: 142 median, 174 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), premier league normal, all other England teams ClubRep1/YF1/corp1: 138 median, 163.5 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), premier league ClubRep/YF1/Corp1, all other clubs normal: 138.8 median, 177.4 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), north-west local region normal, all other clubs ClubRep1/YF1: 138.4 median, 176 peak Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep/Corp 1: 133.9 median, 167.3 peak
Margin of error I'd guesstimate at ~3-5 median PA. This isn't up to EBFM's standards, but it's 'good enough' in my opinion. I've always been of the view that if you can't replicate it reliably in a few seasons of FM, then its not significant enough of a result to include anyway.
In case you're wondering, keeping the affiliates for Man City reduces median PA by ~15-20, and I deliberately removed them because I know affiliates mess with the newgen intake results as they can replace one or more of them with one from an affiliate club. I wanted to get a pure English club result.
I noticed that Man City often gets some purely Scotland/Ireland only players, and that once their top player (194 PA) was Ireland only. This is notable because Ireland has low enough of a nation youth rating that a 194 PA Ireland player is pretty highly unlikely. It gave credence to the idea that newgens are tied to local region in some way, so I thought I'd re-examine that aspect too (I'd previously tested 'local region' and found it had zero effect on CA/PA).
Hypothesis: Youth facilities have insignificant effect at a single club, but a nations or divisions teams YF contributes cumulatively to a pool of PA that clubs then draw upon. Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Youth facilities don't effect median PA, but they effect peak PA or the skew. Conclusion: False.
Although YF1 always eventually produced a high peak PA, I did notice that YF1 alone had a long run of ~155-160 peak PA. This wasn't the case in other YF1 tests, and YF20 produced peak PAs all over the place from 159 to 194. Skew is difficult to definitively conclude on, but I didn't get the impression looking through the results that youth facilities effected the skew.
Hypothesis: Youth facilities contribute to a division pool only. Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Youth facilities contribute to a 'local region' pool only. Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Junior coaching/Training Facilities/Youth Importance of other clubs has an effect somehow. Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Club reputation of other clubs has an effect somehow. Conclusion: Tentatively, yes.
This was a somewhat surprising finding. From memory, I did find before that club rep had a ~10% CA effect, but not on PA. In this case, we can see that ClubRep1 reduced median PA by ~7.7% alone, and ~12.2% when combined with other low club attributes. I took extra samples to be sure and got the same result.
The strange thing is that ClubRep1 result is normal when combined with YF1. I think there's a clue as to what's going on in the fact that the low median PA results only happened when *all* other England teams had low club rep. But that still doesn't make sense of it.
Hypothesis: Corporate facilities of other clubs has an effect somehow. Conclusion: Unclear.
Corp 1 did produce lower median PAs consistently, but the difference of ~3-7 may not be statistically significant. Consider that the typical variance of a club each year is ~5 median PA, even after stripping away the outliers.
Hypothesis: Starting CA affects PA, say that +20 CA due to factor contributes +20 PA as well. Conclusion: False.
SaMaHaJoGu said: What was the difference in his different Long Throws? Expand Long throws must have increased from 1 lot of 'set piece routines' in my 'mixed' screenshot. Even 'match practice' doesn't seem to do it, as long throws is not a highlighted role attribute. Sessions do seem to train the attributes they say they do. My theory was that sessions with low priority for outfield players, like set pieces, have greater overall growth (which turned out to be wrong).
SaMaHaJoGu said: If you do further testing for set pieces, please do help fill the rest of us in. Expand I'm making another post here soon that will say my conclusion about set piece attributes (and surmising everything else), which is that they're pretty much useless and it doesn't matter even if your best takers have only say '6' attribute.
For example:
A season may have ~10 penalties. The difference between '6' and '16' penalty taking is perhaps ~30% success rate, so 3 goals total. Top teams probably give away less penalties due to better 'decisions', so realistically this may be just 1 key goal over the season - which may be 1 key game win. However this would no doubt be outweighed by the CA cost or rareness of the high 'penalty taking' player. Only ~30% of good striker options age 20 or under have 10 or higher penalty taking. Therefore it should be considered a luxury and a tie-breaker between 2 equal ~180+ PA players.
HarvestGreen22's data shows us that +6 pace = +40 goals. We can guess +10 penalty taking = +3 goals. So +10 penalty taking = +0.45 pace. So you're better off glancing at the pace/acc/dribbling stats and choosing the one that has 1 extra pace/acc/dribbling.
The Zippo data also suggestively shows corners and free kicks only giving +1 season goal each from +12 each.
Two other ways it can be expressed is 1 consistency = 1.25 set piece = 3 important matches, but this is just a fun piece of trivia not useful for deciding between players.
If you do want a good set piece taker for comfort, best to buy one instead of training up one.
I observed in the spreadsheets that set pieces decline -1.00 even when you have CA growth up to 15 with the blue 'general' training sessions. By contrast there is 0 decline when you use many of the other session types.
So I came up with some theories.
The first was that perhaps instead of set pieces & technicals in general being squeezed out by low CA, it was instead the 'general' sessions being usually 80-100% priority while the other sessions are 20-60% priority - perhaps the the remaining 40-80% was directed to a hidden pool of attribute growth, just like how 'rest' increases physicals by default. This hidden attribute growth would be significantly more overall growth, which makes sense, as in games focusing on specific attributes often carries an efficiency cost as a game balance.
Perhaps 'priority' can be stacked up to 100%, but anything more simply changes the proportions of that 100%, and each extra session is an extra session of hidden attribute growth. So for instance, 'attacking' (80%) + 'overall' (100%) = 2 x hidden growth and 100% directed growth, whereas 'goalkeeping' (20%) + 'penalties' (20%) + 'outfield' (60%) = 3 x hidden growth and 100% directed growth. This would make sense from what we know SI does, where they use misdirection to keep the true mechanics unknown - in this case, the best training regime would be what appears the least likely and simplistic.
But I did some rough tests, and can rule all of the above out. HarvestGreen22's Quick + Attack + Rest + Quick focus produced significantly better results with less injuries.
I thought I'd share some screenshots, as this shows what you can expect in reality as opposed to a perfect environment averaged 1000 times - one season, England Div 3, 3-4 star coaches, a generous amount of good but not amazing youngsters actually training at the club, just let the chips fall where they may in terms match experience, injuries and so forth (but I'm still selecting amongst the 'survivors' to show here).
Walters_quickattack = Quick + Attack + Rest + Quick focus. 40 injuries. Walters_mixed = My dense but optimized regime based on theories above. 80 injuries. Walters_extreme = Complete overload on physicals training + 2 x match practice & 'overall' to boost technicals/mentals. 207 injuries.
So in typical play is the HarvestGreen22 training significantly better? Yes, it gives 1-2 extra Pace/Acc in 1 season, halves the injury rate, and might even have an edge in mentals over a more 'balanced' regime
It's "off-the-ball".
I was curious about this so I did a test
20 pace/acc/jump/drib/pass + 8 others = +100, 96
2nd sample = +96, 95
Above + 20 off the ball (for 2 strikers) = +93, 93
2nd sample = +92, 90
Looking at the striker stats specifically, there was no improvement, taken together they were overall slightly worse in line with the overall team result.
what do you think about the find that CA can win games? as mentioned i increased my player’s CA and PA (but not the attributes) directly before a match (so that everything stayed unchanged) and suddenly i started winning against the same team I always lost against (reloaded a savegame many times)
it would mean that mental and technical attributes can make a difference because the game assigns CA to them.
maybe this is sports interactives trick to make attributes matter - even if they cannot show things like passing in the match engine (pace / acceleration are very easy to show in the match engine) they just generally change the odds of winning 😀
that’s why i made another small experiment, i gave a player a 20 in passing/technique/vision/flair and compared this to him having a 1 in these attributes. My team won more games because of higher CA but the “passing match stats” like “passes completed” or “key passes” did not change at all
I did a few tests
---------------
(All outfield) 20 pace/acc/jump/drib + 8 other attributes:
+96, 93
+71, 92 (2nd sample)
(All outfield) 20 passing + technique + decisions + composure + decisions + first touch:
+96, 103
+107, 107 (2nd sample)
(1 DM only) 20 passing + technique + decisions + composure + decisions + first touch:
+127, 102
+55, 85 (2nd sample)
+94, 98 (3rd sample)
(All outfield) 20 passing:
+100, 96
+96, 95 (2nd sample)
---------------
I didn't isolate things 100% or take many samples, but I think it's good enough to draw a few key conclusions.
Those technical/mental attributes don't do much, even in combination. And the extra cost is ~40 CA, which is really the nail in the coffin. ~40% extra cost for ~18% extra performance.
It's more difficult to draw a conclusion about whether attribute combos compound performance, but I would say it doesn't seem so. HarvestGreen22's data showing effect of 12 > 18 of each attribute has ~2-3% increased win rate for each of these attributes I boosted. 5x2.5% = 12.5%. I boosted from 8 to 20 and got ~14%-21% extra depending on how you look at it, which is about the same as you'd expect from each attribute alone.
Also it shows that its not just judging based on CA, and my ideal 140 CA templates which are around about the same CA did significantly better
(EF 424 IF HP V2 P101 AC) very attacking + shorter passing + work ball into box, GK 200 CA, other adjustments + 9 subs = +339, 114
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 8 rest (~100 CA) - 1st, 86 Points, +82
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 12 rest (~150 CA) - 1st, 107 points, +151
Low (~140 CA) Ideal Template - 1st, 108 points, +132
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 14 rest (~180 CA) - 1st, 109 points, +162
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 16 rest (~200 CA) - 1st, 112 points, +214
High (~200 CA) Ideal Template - 1st, 114 points, +268
very attacking + shorter passing + be more expressive + shoot on sight = +259, 114
very attacking = +270, 112
very attacking + shorter passing = +286, 114
very attacking + shorter passing, other adjustments + 9 subs = +306, 114
very attacking + shorter passing + work into box, other adjustments + 9 subs = +309, 114
very attacking + shorter passing, other adjustments + 9 subs = +312, 114
attacking + shorter passing, other adjustments + 9 subs = +312, 114
very attacking + shorter passing + work ball into box, other adjustments + 9 subs = +339, 114
Some observations:
The +339 result was not from the test with the most optimizations. So training schedule, pre-season team talk morale boost, match plans, all that mustn't have mattered much. I'm guessing what made the key difference was match fitness. A repeat of the same settings produced +309.
The changes to the tactic of 'very attacking', 'shorter passing' and 'work ball into box' seemed to produce slightly better results, or at least they weren't worse, whereas some others obviously were.
Biggest premier league game win I saw was 23-0.
I realized that penalty taking, and other set pieces, for goalkeeper has 0 weighting. This is potentially useful. I've said before that set piece attributes are not worth picking for. But you may as well select a goalkeeper with decent penalty taking and composure (which there are quite a few of), and make them your penalty taker. It will also have the satisfying effect of making your GK a goalscorer.
Have you came up with a rating system for those ideal players to implement on GenieScout?
Yes, here
However I think I created this before I created my templates so it will be a little different perhaps, and GenieScout also doesn't allow negative weighting for certain attributes. But overall it should be close enough.
Also is there any way to get player faces in-match (so rather than seeing player shirt numbers you see the player faces?). Thanks
For face size:
WTCS Gold 24 1.3.1 - 9
Sas2025Final-Hidden - 4 (what brought this skin down from no. 1 for me)
Dark Polish FM24 Skins v7 - 6
FusionDB FM24 Classic Dark v1.1 - 9
Chove Skin for FM24 - 9
Tato is a popular skin I didn't rate highly, I gave it 5 for face size.
In my view, WTCS 'profile' page for viewing attributes is usable as your default attribute view page, unlike many skins were its just too cluttered. And I like that it gives you 4 different options (i.e. face with kit behind, or just face, etc.)
Chove has perhaps the biggest face for attribute + profile pages (and its centered on profile page), but its quite non-vanilla.
FusionDB is smallish on profile page, but large on attribute page.
I definitely didn't see any skin with full body, and to me face pic can be too big because it just stretches it too big at a certain point (though I only used the sortitoutsi pack).
I took into account 2 other minor face things when giving my overall score btw, which is face icons on squad list screen, and big photos of the board members on the club vision screen. Many skins don't have either of these at all.
5 or above is good/playable
3-4 may even be great in some ways but has serious issues
1-2 trash
I am strongly inclined towards a default-style skin, but I've tried to be somewhat open-minded.
My criteria is:
font
clarity
responsiveness
hidden attributes (footedness, CA/PA, personality, instant result, fitness %, etc.)
lack of crowdedness
stadium imagery
info/data
lack of logo intrusiveness
comfyness
face size
lack of bugs
For score 6 or less, I just went with overall initial impressions, with the criteria in mind.
WTCS Gold 24 1.3.1 - 7.64
Sas2025Final-Hidden - 7.09
Dark Polish FM24 Skins v7 - 7.09
Chove Skin for FM24 - 7.09
FusionDB FM24 Classic Dark v1.1 - 7.00
--------------
Make FM24 Better Skin v2.5 Desktop - 6
FM.Zweierkette Skin v24.0.55 - 6
Kojuro Skin v6.2.0 - 6
Cheetah Skin 24.1.3 - 6
FM24 Light Skin - 5 or 6 (with fixes)
Tato24 FM24 Skin 2.0 - 5
Classics24 1.3 - 5
Classics24 Dark Version 1.4 - 5
DoubleX Skin - 5
Vincechup FM24 Skin - 5
LIVID 24 - 5
Zealand Skin FM24 - 5
Default skin - 5
--------------
Trung FM24 Skin v1.7 - 4
Jimbo Skin 3.0.1 - 4
Rensie Dark FM24 Skin - 4
NY Light FM24 - 4
Electric Panther - Mustermann Edition - v1.2.0 - 4
Echo Skin for FM24 - 4
OPZ Elite 2024 Blackout 2k (for 1440p) 19.3.0 - 3
Vince Skin 1.2 - 3
Mixed Skin 24.4.1 - 3
Statman FM24 Skin v1.5 - 3
TangFu Skin V24.3.0 - 3
Statman - NUMBERLESS v1.02 - 3
JMFM Base Skin24 2.0 - 3
Royal Crown Skin by Vasf 2025-04-13 - 3
--------------
Mustermann Iconic v1.2 FM24 Dark - 2
FM 2024 Flut Skin Dark 9.0 - 2
Just 24 - 2
Andromeda FM24 Final - 2
Vince Skin 1.2 Star Attributes - 2
Material Skin 2.0.24 V2.0.1 - 2
NARIGON Skin FM24 V1.00 - 2
Dark Gold FM24 Skin v2 - 2
Just 24 Attributeless - 1
Mixed Skin 24.4.1 (Colored) - 1
Priisek Retro 24 Skin Updated 30.12.24 The Final Cut - 1
Ciki Skin FM24 Skin - 1
Enganche Light Skin for FM24 - 1
Priisek Green 24 Skins Updated 30.12.24 - 1
FM24 in 25 LIVERPOOL Edition - 1
Fusion Skin FM24 - 1
No, I will eventually but they're not very useful anyway; it would give you a better idea of what attributes are realistic I guess. It would be basically an in-between of the shortlist filter and the template ideals.
The Genie Scout ratings I posted in the other thread would be a more useful method, as it accounts for all the attributes in its rating system, but doesn't rule out anyone.
The problem with shortlist filters is that the more attributes requirements you add, exponentially fewer players match them. To make this more concrete, here are a few stats in my data:
~20% of players have 8+ long shots
~17% of players have 10+ dribbling
~27% of STs have 12+ finishing
~25% of AMRs have 10+ finishing
~5.4% of STs have 12+ finishing, 10+ dribbling, 8+ long shots
~12.8% of AMRs have 10+ finishing, 10+ dribbling, 8+ long shots
~4.5% of CBs have 8+ long shots, 8+ dribbling
You can see the problem here with my ~140 DC 'ideal template' having 14 long shots; this would be reduced to say ~6-8 in my 'in depth filter', whereas my 'shortlist filter' doesn't set a minimum on long shots at all.
Ensure they're natural in both tactical positions?
Ensure they're natural in at least the IP tactic? The OoP tactic?
Break the above rule and ensure they're like 18 in both instead of 20 in one?
Also. In that last line, what's considered the minimum conditions to hit the 12.5 and 25.5 CA gains in a year?
As someone said in another thread, it may be that having IP and OoP tactic be the same will be the meta due to the player proficiency downside. But who knows at this point.
Roughly speaking, 18 vs 20 proficiency is around -1.5 pace.
For hitting the yearly CA cap, see my 'ideal growth' details. You won't need all of them to hit the cap. High professionalism can largely make up for lack of game time. Professionalism and game time are the two main contributors to growth. From memory, friendlies/youth matches will count as game time to some extent (maybe even 100% up to age 18, I can't recall exactly now), but after 18 proper first team matches is really whats needed. And the game measures the minutes rather than appearances, so putting on the player for last 10 minutes will count as 10 minutes towards the full 2520 minutes that's optimal. How many games will be 'adequate', once they're age 20 say? About half the optimum, say 15 full games. This is why loaning out at that age is so important if they can't get first team games, even if its at crappy clubs.
I didn't just guess the ideal combo of attributes for each position, although it is very much just an approximation. Essentially what I did is I took HarvestGreen22's attribute performance data, the CA weightings for each position, and used ChatGPT to help me distribute attributes accordingly given a certain PA (for instance, 'long shots' is often high because its also often cheap yet performs well). This is a bit of an oversimplification though, because I have also taken into account the availability of attributes to some extent, and some squad-level adjustments (i.e. there should be a captain and ~2 backups). So for instance you will note that even in my 200 PA players, decisions is kept to just 12. This is because decisions does hardly anything (especially in situations where you already have 1 good decision maker it is suggested), yet it has very high CA cost for all positions. So I biased against 'decisions' specifically, and yet you will also notice that it isn't lower than 6 in the lower PA players - this is because few players will actually have decisions lower than 6. In fact in my filter you can see I suggest setting max 12<. The general idea is pick a player with high pace/acc/jump, and ~10 decisions, and then let the training get 'decisions' down closer to the ideal; maybe it will drop to 8 say. This frees up CA for more pace/acc/jump/drib, etc.
Some things need extra context
If you dig into HarvestGreen22's posts there are some things that turn up that aren't immediately obvious. For instance, it seemed that flair was a pure negative, but in another post he noted flair and certain other attributes can be positive, and what its about seems to be whether you have 1 high flair player (good) or 3 (ok) or 10 (bad).
Another trait that needs extra context is aggression. High aggression is good so long as there is low dirtiness, or if it is position where neither come much into play anyway (i.e. AMR). And this one isn't really a nothingburger either, as dirtiness is 10x more important than injury proneness. It can lead to conceded penalty or one man down with no sub which is worse than a mid-match injury.
Some attributes interact, such as finishing & composure, whereas others such as positioning & tackling don't. Pace/acc/drib/finish scale linearly; work rate scales massively from 1-6 but above 6 it doesn't matter so much.
At the end of the day, the main thing to keep in mind is that you want to look for players with decent starting pace/acc/jump/drib, but 5 'decisions' should also look like 20 pace to you because that's what its enabling you to get.
I would reiterate that position proficiency is a very important attribute, so pick players that have 20 natural proficiency, don't get one with '18' or try and train them into it from another position. Another reason not to do the latter is that there's very little leeway in tricking the CA weighting system. That is, you can't have your DC have high finishing and play them as 18 ST, it doesn't work that way. At best you can give your players a 12 proficiency for 'free', which is useful for saving a sub perhaps, but even this isn't really free because you're spending training time building it up to 12.
A few more tips/info I could have included:
Do not set a 'role' for position training of player, leave as default player position (i.e. AMR). Otherwise it will funnel CA gain to role attributes instead of proven winning attributes such as pace and acceleration. For example, DM 'enganche' role has no focus on physicals at all except agility. Assigning roles weight highlighted attributes a further ~3%. Roles reduce the training efficacy by ~3%.
Train weaker foot if it is 'very weak' (1-4 rating). This can get it up to 9, which is worth it in terms of CA cost/performance tradeoff. The performance/CA tradeoff is best at about ~6 I'd say (so proper dual-foot is a bit bad and certainly a waste of time to train).
CA gain cap per year is ~12.5 CA without matches. ~25.5 CA with matches.
So, if I'm filling in an average week of training with a game on Saturday...
Your recommendation is basically:
Sun: Rest/travel x3 (assuming game day before)
Mon: Quickness / recovery / rest
Tues: match practice /recovery / rest
Wed: Attacking / Recovery / Rest
Thurs: match practice /recovery /rest
Fri: rest / recovery/ match focus
Sat: Match / rest x 2
Is this correct?
So I had to look into this again to jog my memory, and it appears recovery isn't simply interchangeable with rest when it comes to attribute gain from training. And I should have been more clearer too. I will have to do some more research on rest vs. recovery and edit my post.
Regardless, the schedule is still:
[Quickness]+[Match Practice]+[Attacking]+[Double Intensity]+[Addtional Focus Quickness]
I do 'no pitch or gym work' for first 3 health icons, and 'double intensity' for last 2
What I meant with rest/recovery mix was that you should mix it according to the condition & match fitness needs of your players. Match fitness is more important than condition, so I would lean towards more recovery sessions, or otherwise schedule more friendlies.
If you do use rest, I would try and make full days of rest where possible for the double rest effect, and have that rest immediately after the last match.
CryosFeron said: thanks for all your hard work - but how is it that people here seem to be happy and thankful rather than disenchanted and sad (like I am)?
I 100% agree, and you've explained the problem with the game more succinctly than I've thought up. I don't bother posting that thought; I think it's better to just stick the SI simps and sycophants with the truth, which they'd rather silence and gloss over.
Really what motivates me though is that I enjoy much more working out the underlying mechanics than playing the game now. I started doing this with FM19, when I reverse-engineered the newgen mechanics. It turned out SI staff had been giving out a lot of false, even self-contradicting, information over the years, and their attitude when you try to share the data was 'I couldn't replicate that. Did you do 10,000 samples? You did? Well do you have a data science degree, otherwise how do you know what 'average' and 'mean' means?', etc., before closing the thread with 'If you think you've found something, you should email your save to our team for them to look at'.
Brexit rules, press conferences, horrendous newgen faces, health icons, and obfuscating newgen-maxxing in various ways ruined FM19-FM24 for me, but you could get around 90% of it with ~12 hours of custom editing and prep before playing. With knap tactics and now EBFM + HarvestGreen22's info, the game has lost a fair bit of its lustre, but its still playable. FM26 appears to have screwed the pooch.
I think what we need right now is a backport of the FM26 database to FM24. I'm not a believer in those projects that try to fix up the training system or match engine or even those 3rd-party DB updates, I think a big part of the enjoyment is in knowing other people are playing the exact same game as you. As custom skins show, the UI isn't really a necessary part of this shared enjoyment. And FM26 is even largely the same under the hood, so you could play FM26 database on FM24 and legitimately feel you're playing FM26 just with the old UI.
The old ones were too small, I couldn’t really see the numbers.
Just right click it and open it in new tab, it will show it in full
I would, but I'm too paranoid that there might be some identifier of me in the file. I'm 99% sure there isn't, but it's a needless risk for me.
Someone here could enter in the numbers and upload the file if they want to.
Not even sure I've done it right, trying to translate it to a 0-100 system confuses me, but I've done it comprehensively using careful guesstimates. Any math wizards welcome to critique.
Genie Scout also doesn't always allow negative values, which would be good for attributes such as 'decisions' and 'technique'.
I also heavily buffed up some attributes like set pieces and leadership for certain positions - they hardly matter at all in terms of performance, but it wouldn't feel right for my captain to have 11 leadership.
Oh, this is for FM24 btw, but FM26 doesnt seem like it would be too much different.
My sources are mainly HarvestGreen22/playGM forum, EBFM, 'FM with Data Science', Zippo's attribute tests here, and my own testing/thoughts. Kudos to 'FMProjects' too, who sent me down the path of reading training_sessions.jsb with a hexadecimal editor, which I wouldn't have known about otherwise.
Aims of this post:
HarvestGreen22's findings show us that the ideal player is a player with 20 pace and flair 1. Problem is, there is not a single player in the database with those 2 stats. And there are also other things to consider, such as that attributes have different CA costs.
HarvestGreen22's training regimes have two prime options: sacrifice mental/technical attributes for fast physical growth with minimal CA gain, or broader and greater overall growth but at the cost of significant CA gain. Both training regimes feature 'rest' predominantly. But once you get into the nitty gritty of it, you'll find that its much easier to find players with more than sufficient CA-PA gaps than to get back those lost mental/technical stats, and all that 'rest' can easily lead to poor performance through low match sharpness.
So I'm trying to do a few things here, some of which are:
- clarifying the relative value of visible and hidden attributes
- tie together all the assorted findings to describe the optimal player development method
- adjusting relative attribute values according to CA weightings across different positions and taking into account squad composition (i.e. 1 player with high flair is good, whereas 4 in a team is bad)
- providing realistic shortlist filters where at least a few players will match it
- theorize the potential 'perfect' squad of players
The thing is with this kind of work is that if you explain everything, you end up having to explain everything. If I say injury proneness is fairly insignificant, it isn't satisfying. It's only satisfying when you do the math and realize that you're not actually losing a 140 CA player, you're subbing a 140 CA player to give a 120 CA backup/youth player a few games you'd have to give him somehow anyway. Unfortunately this kind of explanation just can't be put across in the condensed summary.
Ideal growth:
High PA (130-160 ideal)
High CA to PA difference (11/11 > 20/20 Pace/Acc = +28 CA. ~50 is typical wonderkid CA-PA gap)
20 training facilities (17 ideal)
25-30 matches/season (28 ideal. 30 safe. 36 max. 15 min. 2520 min exactly. 36matches@70min.)
10+ ambition (16 max. 10-13 ideal. 6 min.)
10+ determination (6 min. 13 ideal. 18 max.)
20 professionalism (15 ideal. 13 min)
Training:
Quick + Attack + Quick Focus + Recovery/Rest mix to max match fitness & condition
Do not do the pure rest thing. Yes it works, but you'll never get those lost technicals back, which includes some key attributes such as dribbling. Even the above schedule suffers some decline on technicals, particularly set pieces, but it's a necessary compromise. Wonderkids also have an adequate CA to PA buffer, so you don't need to crawl towards it at ~6 CA/year.
I did some rough tests with training and found HarvestGreen22's training is indeed superior in just about every way. Go for one that is high pace/acc gain, and low decisions/technique gain, as the latter has highest CA cost relative to its performance gain.
Attribute importance:
1 position proficiency = ~1 pace
1 determination = 0.625 pace
1 dribbling = 0.525 pace
1 professionalism = 0.5 pace
1 dirtiness = NEGATIVE 0.19 pace
1 consistency = 0.06 pace
1 penalty taking = 0.045 pace
1 injury proneness = NEGATIVE 0.02 pace
1 important matches = 0.02 pace
1 temperament = 0.02 pace
1 adaptability = 0.02 pace (foreign players only)
1 versatility = 0.015 pace
1 pace = 2 dribbling/professionalism = -5 dirtiness = 16 consistency = Penaldo = -20 injury proneness on extreme physical training regime = all inferior to 20 AMR vs 18 AMR
Small caveat: 'Important matches' value may be erroneous. From memory, EBFM in one of his videos showed evidence that important matches is more impactful than I realized, and I'm not sure if I updated my calculations. 0.02 pace is at least a minimum value.
Ideal player:
Physicals ~8-20 (8-14 before training)
20 Pace/Acc
14 Bal
12 Jump (20 DC/PF-ST?)
12 Sta (14 DL/DR/DM)
11 Agil (18 DL/DR/DM)
9 Nat
8 Strength
Mentals ~8-13 (8-12 before training)
13 Ant/Con
12 Comp/OffBall/Work/Det/Aggro
12 Brave (8 DL/DR/DM)
10 Vis/Team/Dec
8 Pos
Technicals ~8-12 (8-14 before training)
12 Drib/Tech/Touch
12 Fin AML/AMR/ST (6 DL/DR/DC/DM)
12 Head (6 DL/DR/DM)
10 Long
10 Pass (6 DL/DR)
9 Cross
8 Tack (12 DC)
8 Mark (6 DL/DR/DM)
Hiddens & Misc ~1-12
6 Pen
6 Corner
4 Free Kick
5 Lead (15 DC/DM)
8 Flair (12 PF-ST?)
9< Dirt
9< Injury
12 Consist
1 Versatility
12 Pro
6 Amb
5 Loyal
5 Temper
5 Pressure
1 Sport
15< Controversy
1 adapt (12 for foreign player)
This takes into account performance + weighting + availability (20 professionalism is great.. but hardly anyone has it), and some other things like slight skew towards meta tactic and 'feels'.
Example of existing in-game player that would constitute a potential ideal player:
Template ideal by position:
GK (tentative)
DL/DR Low (~140 PA)
DL/DR High (~200 PA)
DC Low (~140 PA)
DC High (~200 PA)
DM Low (~140 PA)
DM High (~200 PA)
AML/AMR Low (~140 PA)
AML/AMR High (~200 PA)
ST Low (~140 PA)
ST High (~200 PA)
I have these templates written down more accurately and comprehensively, but the point here is just to give you an idea of what attributes to favor/disfavor and to what extent.
Single-sample test results (English Premier League):
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 8 rest (~100 CA) - 1st, 86 Points, +82
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 12 rest (~150 CA) - 1st, 107 points, +151
Low (~140 CA) Ideal Template - 1st, 108 points, +132
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 14 rest (~180 CA) - 1st, 109 points, +162
20 pace/acc/jump/drib, 16 rest (~200 CA) - 1st, 112 points, +214
High (~200 CA) Ideal Template - 1st, 114 points, +268
More samples are needed, but it would seem optimizing player attribute distribution beyond just selecting for the 4 main attributes does make a difference, I would guesstimate ~10% extra performance in typical play.
Glance filter:
8+ Pace/Acc
10+ mentals
12+ relevant technicals (drib, long, tack, cross, fin, etc.)
HarvestGreen22 training boosts pace/acc +11, other physicals +4, mentals +4, technicals 0 or negative. BULK UP on technicals and pace/acc at age 13.
Shortlist filter:
GK - Age 31 max, Agility/Leadership 12 min, Professionalism 10 min, Pace/Vision/Technique/Determination/Reflexes/Aerial Reach/Anticipation/Concentration/Consistency/Jumping Reach 8 min, Work Rate 6 min, Acceleration/Decisions/Handling/Rushing Out 15 max, Injury Proneness 10 max
DL/DR - Same as ST except Agility/Stamina 8 min, no Dribbling 8 min
DC - Same as ST except Jumping Reach 12 min, no Decisions 12 max, no Dribbling 8 min
DM - Same as ST except no Decisions 12 max, no Dribbling 8 min
AML/AMR - Same as ST
ST - Age 22 max, 100 PA min, Acceleration/Pace 12 min, Professionalism 10 min, Anticipation/Concentration/Consistency/Dribbling 8 min, Determination/Work Rate 6 min, Decisions/Injury Proneness 12 max
No suitable results? Reduce Acc/Pace (Agil/Lead for GK)
In depth filter:
I will post this sometime later.
Meta tactic (4-2-4) adjustments:
12+ Drib AML/AMR
8+ Drib DC/PF-ST
8+ Cross DL/DR
8+ OffBall/Tack/Aggro/Ant/Pass/Tech/Dec/Team/Vis/Con/Brave/Work/Bal/Strength all outfield
<8 Dirt all positions
Tactic familiarity matters little, but tactics matter greatly. So switch up tactics whenever.
Exploits:
Dual position exploit - Train 2nd position up to '12' for 0 CA cost, i.e. ST20/DM12 with ST stats. Useful emergency sub but 5%< use. DM20/ST12 with ST stats to get 130 CA instead of 150 CA WILL NOT WORK, not even with min-max. It will become ST when you hit 131 CA ST role. You've gone too far when it shows 'DM/ST' instead of 'DM'. Only do with existing DM20/ST8, or DM20/ST1 with 15+ versatility, due to training opportunity cost. Do not do ST+DC/DL/DR (+8 CA) nor 3 positions (+3 CA) but up to ~10-12 proficiency is fine.
Recovery exploit - Go to training > schedules > new schedule > create new schedule > fill with 7 recovery sessions, then change one empty day to 'match' under 'match day' that appears as option. Now you can use more than 7 recovery sessions. Fill it with recovery sessions. Save schedule and apply it to your training calendar.
Rest exploit - Full day of rest (3 periods) + 'No pitch or gym work' for first 3 condition options in training > rest. Gives boosted rest effect.
Assistant manager exploit - Set up your training calendar for the season, then delegate 'general training' to a staff member. No more training unhappiness complaints.
More nuances:
Set pieces - Forget'em. High set piece attributes are near useless and are rare, especially for young players, so not worth getting for ANY player. Take penalties: 10 goals/season, ~3 goals lost due to '6' instead of '16' penalty taking, but 70% of ST age 20< have under 10 penalty taking. So sacrificing ~2-3 Acc/Pace (~12 goals) maybe for high penalty taking (~3 goals).
Captain - GK should be captain or vice captain. Your wonderkids will have low leadership and age/reputation, GK wonderkids are less likely, and GK is the only player that can be there 90min every match. High leadership is rare for all positions, but makes minimal performance difference, so if you select say ST captain you are likely sacrificing ST performance for it. DM, or to a lesser extent, DC, is a good captain/vice pairing option.
Get 1 decisions guy (DC), 1 flair guy (PF-ST?), one or two others I forgot. Basically 1 of these guys is good, too many is bad.
Jadedness doesn't matter much, but match sharpness is crucial. It's somewhere up there with tactic choice and pace/acc in terms of effect on performance. So don't discount 'natural fitness', don't overuse rest in your training, and make sure your players are 100% match fit through reserves matches or friendlies before playing them.
I've done some testing of this, just to rule out the possibility that reloading my saves just prior to intake wasn't affecting results of PA testing I was doing. There was no difference, for reloading just before intake as compared to starting new save from scratch each time.
I actually posted a comment on your youtube recently, that was it.
You do pretty good videos, enjoying watching them alongside doing things, even though I wouldn't have thought football history would be my thing.
kvasir said: Great test, man. Thoughts about the affiliate clubs thing:
There are 7 countries with a higher Youth Rating than England(136), highest being Brazil with 163. If my top English club gets an affiliate in Brazil, wouldn't that be a good thing? Seems like swapping an English newgen for a Brazilian should be an upgrade most of the time.
The question is, I guess, how the game makes the Brazilian kid: does he get generated in my youth intake with my own 20/20 JC and YR? or is he made at his own club, with their stats (probably lower than mine), and just moved to my team?
If it's the first option then its a win. If not, then its a gamble. Any ideas?
Yes, you are entirely correct in your first hypothesis. I just removed the affiliates from Man City because I'm trying to work out the newgen mechanics accurately.
To the question, a few days ago I would have said to you that its just Brazil's youth rating + it must be your own facilities, because in some testing I did before on it I found that it only takes the youth rating, not any of the affiliate club attributes.
But recently I was watching EBFM's video on affiliate clubs, and his data shows that while nation youth rating is still the most important factor, affiliate club attributes do in fact influence the quality of the newgen. So now I'm not sure, but I'd say believe what EBFM says on this because it's likely I only took like 5 samples or something in my test, because intake from affiliate clubs isn't really a part of the formula for newgen mechanics that I've been testing for.
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I did testing before in FM19 and found that youth facilities affect newgen CA but not PA.
I have done a decent amount of testing with FM24 and have found the same, and that median PA continues to be the most reliable measure of newgen quality, with peak PA having much more of a randomness factor.
What I found in my previous testing was roughly the following:
Junior coaching ~40% PA effect
Nation youth rating ~25% PA effect
Youth recruitment ~25% PA effect
Club reputation acts as tie breaker for youth recruitment
Either unique nation or division ID ~25% (or perhaps even more) PA effect (a hidden, unchangeable factor - it may be 'Nation attribute template' that is listed as an inaccessible debug option in the editor, which sounds like it would be similar to the 'Nation personality template' before it was removed in recent versions)
All other factors no effect
But I wanted to test a few new theories I had this time as well.
First, the data:
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams normal: 141.5 median, 170 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YF1: 138.1 median, 161.4 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YF20: 143.7 median, 171.4 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams JC1: 143 median, 163 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep/Train/YouthImp/Corp 1: 124.3 median, 176.3 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams Train/YouthImp/Corp 1: 137.25 median, 165.5 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YouthImp/Corp 1: 136 median, 171.6 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams YouthImp 20/Corp 1: 135.6 median, 164.9 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep1: 130.6 median, 177 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep1/YF1: 142 median, 174 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), premier league normal, all other England teams ClubRep1/YF1/corp1: 138 median, 163.5 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), premier league ClubRep/YF1/Corp1, all other clubs normal: 138.8 median, 177.4 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), north-west local region normal, all other clubs ClubRep1/YF1: 138.4 median, 176 peak
Man City normal (no affiliates), all other England teams ClubRep/Corp 1: 133.9 median, 167.3 peak
Margin of error I'd guesstimate at ~3-5 median PA. This isn't up to EBFM's standards, but it's 'good enough' in my opinion. I've always been of the view that if you can't replicate it reliably in a few seasons of FM, then its not significant enough of a result to include anyway.
In case you're wondering, keeping the affiliates for Man City reduces median PA by ~15-20, and I deliberately removed them because I know affiliates mess with the newgen intake results as they can replace one or more of them with one from an affiliate club. I wanted to get a pure English club result.
I noticed that Man City often gets some purely Scotland/Ireland only players, and that once their top player (194 PA) was Ireland only. This is notable because Ireland has low enough of a nation youth rating that a 194 PA Ireland player is pretty highly unlikely. It gave credence to the idea that newgens are tied to local region in some way, so I thought I'd re-examine that aspect too (I'd previously tested 'local region' and found it had zero effect on CA/PA).
Hypothesis: Youth facilities have insignificant effect at a single club, but a nations or divisions teams YF contributes cumulatively to a pool of PA that clubs then draw upon.
Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Youth facilities don't effect median PA, but they effect peak PA or the skew.
Conclusion: False.
Although YF1 always eventually produced a high peak PA, I did notice that YF1 alone had a long run of ~155-160 peak PA. This wasn't the case in other YF1 tests, and YF20 produced peak PAs all over the place from 159 to 194. Skew is difficult to definitively conclude on, but I didn't get the impression looking through the results that youth facilities effected the skew.
Hypothesis: Youth facilities contribute to a division pool only.
Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Youth facilities contribute to a 'local region' pool only.
Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Junior coaching/Training Facilities/Youth Importance of other clubs has an effect somehow.
Conclusion: False.
Hypothesis: Club reputation of other clubs has an effect somehow.
Conclusion: Tentatively, yes.
This was a somewhat surprising finding. From memory, I did find before that club rep had a ~10% CA effect, but not on PA. In this case, we can see that ClubRep1 reduced median PA by ~7.7% alone, and ~12.2% when combined with other low club attributes. I took extra samples to be sure and got the same result.
The strange thing is that ClubRep1 result is normal when combined with YF1. I think there's a clue as to what's going on in the fact that the low median PA results only happened when *all* other England teams had low club rep. But that still doesn't make sense of it.
Hypothesis: Corporate facilities of other clubs has an effect somehow.
Conclusion: Unclear.
Corp 1 did produce lower median PAs consistently, but the difference of ~3-7 may not be statistically significant. Consider that the typical variance of a club each year is ~5 median PA, even after stripping away the outliers.
Hypothesis: Starting CA affects PA, say that +20 CA due to factor contributes +20 PA as well.
Conclusion: False.
Long throws must have increased from 1 lot of 'set piece routines' in my 'mixed' screenshot. Even 'match practice' doesn't seem to do it, as long throws is not a highlighted role attribute. Sessions do seem to train the attributes they say they do. My theory was that sessions with low priority for outfield players, like set pieces, have greater overall growth (which turned out to be wrong).
SaMaHaJoGu said: If you do further testing for set pieces, please do help fill the rest of us in.
I'm making another post here soon that will say my conclusion about set piece attributes (and surmising everything else), which is that they're pretty much useless and it doesn't matter even if your best takers have only say '6' attribute.
For example:
A season may have ~10 penalties. The difference between '6' and '16' penalty taking is perhaps ~30% success rate, so 3 goals total. Top teams probably give away less penalties due to better 'decisions', so realistically this may be just 1 key goal over the season - which may be 1 key game win. However this would no doubt be outweighed by the CA cost or rareness of the high 'penalty taking' player. Only ~30% of good striker options age 20 or under have 10 or higher penalty taking. Therefore it should be considered a luxury and a tie-breaker between 2 equal ~180+ PA players.
HarvestGreen22's data shows us that +6 pace = +40 goals. We can guess +10 penalty taking = +3 goals. So +10 penalty taking = +0.45 pace. So you're better off glancing at the pace/acc/dribbling stats and choosing the one that has 1 extra pace/acc/dribbling.
The Zippo data also suggestively shows corners and free kicks only giving +1 season goal each from +12 each.
Two other ways it can be expressed is 1 consistency = 1.25 set piece = 3 important matches, but this is just a fun piece of trivia not useful for deciding between players.
If you do want a good set piece taker for comfort, best to buy one instead of training up one.
So I came up with some theories.
The first was that perhaps instead of set pieces & technicals in general being squeezed out by low CA, it was instead the 'general' sessions being usually 80-100% priority while the other sessions are 20-60% priority - perhaps the the remaining 40-80% was directed to a hidden pool of attribute growth, just like how 'rest' increases physicals by default. This hidden attribute growth would be significantly more overall growth, which makes sense, as in games focusing on specific attributes often carries an efficiency cost as a game balance.
Perhaps 'priority' can be stacked up to 100%, but anything more simply changes the proportions of that 100%, and each extra session is an extra session of hidden attribute growth. So for instance, 'attacking' (80%) + 'overall' (100%) = 2 x hidden growth and 100% directed growth, whereas 'goalkeeping' (20%) + 'penalties' (20%) + 'outfield' (60%) = 3 x hidden growth and 100% directed growth. This would make sense from what we know SI does, where they use misdirection to keep the true mechanics unknown - in this case, the best training regime would be what appears the least likely and simplistic.
But I did some rough tests, and can rule all of the above out. HarvestGreen22's Quick + Attack + Rest + Quick focus produced significantly better results with less injuries.
I thought I'd share some screenshots, as this shows what you can expect in reality as opposed to a perfect environment averaged 1000 times - one season, England Div 3, 3-4 star coaches, a generous amount of good but not amazing youngsters actually training at the club, just let the chips fall where they may in terms match experience, injuries and so forth (but I'm still selecting amongst the 'survivors' to show here).
Walters_quickattack = Quick + Attack + Rest + Quick focus. 40 injuries.
Walters_mixed = My dense but optimized regime based on theories above. 80 injuries.
Walters_extreme = Complete overload on physicals training + 2 x match practice & 'overall' to boost technicals/mentals. 207 injuries.
So in typical play is the HarvestGreen22 training significantly better? Yes, it gives 1-2 extra Pace/Acc in 1 season, halves the injury rate, and might even have an edge in mentals over a more 'balanced' regime