Raikan007

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This thread will deal with all questions you may have about Current and Potential Ability of the players within Football Manager... :D


In the Editor, there are tens of thousands of players and they all have Current and Potential Abilities. These two attributes can define a player and most of the times they give you an accurate description of how good a player is. We will call Current Ability: CA and Potential Ability: PA


Current Ability Defintion:

CA is an indicator of how good a player is at the moment. Usually at the beginning of the game CA will be less than PA (example CA of 160 and PA of 190). Both attributes range from 0 - 200.

Current Ability is a hidden value assigned to every player and staff within the game. It ranges from 1 – 200 and the higher this figure is, the better the player is. The general level of attributes assigned to a player seen within the game is directly correlated to the CA of this player. CA can change depending on game variables, generally increasing as a player gets older and more experienced. However it can also decrease when a player is past his peak or receives a serious injury for example. The maximum CA of any player is capped at a certain value, known as Potential Ability (PA).

Notes on CA:

The CA can improve by correct guidance and correct amount of games until the maximum figure, which is PA, at the correct time. If you use players who are under 19 too much then he is going to reach his PA too fast and therefore, it causes "burn out." Usually CA will drop when the player gets older or at some moment after he reaches his PA.


Potential Ability Defintion:

is an attribute for players in Football Manager games. It dictates the maximum that a person's CA attribute can ever rise to, and therefore how good they can possibly become. It can be a value between 1 and 200 (with 200 being the best).

The value of this attribute can also be a value between -10 and 0 (in the pre-game database) which tells the game to assign a random Potential Ability value within a certain range when creating a new game. For example, a player with PA set to -10 (the best rating), tells the game to use a random value between 170 and 200 for that player's Potential Ability.



Potential Ability is a hidden value assigned to every player and staff within the game. It ranges from 1-200 and the higher this figure is, the better the player potentially is (or, in the case of old players who have past their peak, the best they were). However within the pre-game editor it can also be a negative figure. A negative PA will result in a random PA between a certain range being assigned to the relevant player on starting a new game:
We also need to know that PA’s have two types as well:


  • fixed PA
  • negative potential

Players with fixed potential:


These players have a fixed PA of say 184 (instead of the negative rating of -10) A high fixed PA is set to players like Pato, Aguero and Bolatelli due to the fact that they are already playing at the top of their games and in competive leagues, this ensures that these types of players will (most of the time) reach their PA instead of having a random PA.

Players with negative potential:

These types of players are assigned negative PA scores in the editor so that the game can randomly generate their potential each game (so it will most of the time always be different)
Now this is done so that they will either become World Stars or they will fade away (the developers cannot assume that Areola is going to become the next Buffon)


The minus ratings in the Potential Ability was introduced seeing as Potential Ability is probably the hardest rating to determine in the set of ratings that exists inside Football Manager, seeing as researchers are asked to judge how good a player could become in the future. This is pretty difficult, so the minus ratings create a bit more flexibility.
Actual PA’s which can be generated by the negative numbers:


  • -10 = 170-200
  • -9 = 150-180
  • -8 = 130-160
  • -7 = 110-140
  • -6 = 90-120
  • -5 = 70-100
  • -4 = 50-80
  • -3 = 30-60
  • -2 = 10-40
  • -1 = 0-30

Notes on PA:

The age in which a player reaches his full potential is up to different influencing factors. We need to take in consideration the standard of your facilities, your training schedules, the standard of your coaches, the amount of first team football the respective players gets and of course the actual difference between the CA and the PA. If he can improve a lot, then there is a high chance that he will.

Unlike CA, PA is generally a static figure that does not change once a game has been started. However if a player has a serious injury in the game their CA can decrease so much that they will never potentially be the player that they they could have been. PA is the maximum CA that a player can achieve and it is not possible for a player’s CA to ever surpass his PA. This system reflects well on real life, as a player who can be promising in real life may never reach his potential. It also helps to maintain a relative balance of player quality throughout the gameworld as time progresses.


Additionally, a PA of zero is completely random, with the value based on the player's CA.


NB:
(this is not all my own work, I have used alot of defintions etc I have found around the Internet, mostly from WikiFootballManager and other sites)
http://www.footballmanagerwiki.co.uk/index.php?title=Current_and_Potential_Ability
 
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If you use players who are under 19 too much then he is going to reach his PA too fast and therefore, it causes "burn out." Usually CA will drop when the player gets older or at some moment after he reaches his PA.

Didnt know that bit, great post ^^)
 
If you use players who are under 19 too much then he is going to reach his PA too fast and therefore, it causes "burn out." Usually CA will drop when the player gets older or at some moment after he reaches his PA.

Didnt know that bit, great post ^^)
me neither to be honest, got to stop playing my 17yr old Cannavaro regen then ;)
thanks guys, thought it needed to be done, especially as Fm11 is around the corner, lots of pointless threads started in the last couple of days about CA and PA ;)
 
me neither to be honest, got to stop playing my 17yr old Cannavaro regen then ;)
thanks guys, thought it needed to be done, especially as Fm11 is around the corner, lots of pointless threads started in the last couple of days about CA and PA ;)
lol you're gonna have a lot of work to come FM11, a lot of changes in player roles and training, expect an absolute flood of threads and requests
 
What do you mean by "burn out"? Is that where he reaches his peak too quickly and decreases just as quickly? Or is it about getting stuck somewhere near the top, but not quite reaching his full potential? Or his attributes are not distributed properly?
 
on op it says -9 150-180 and -10 170-200 is it supposed to be like that?
 
Brilliant work Raikan. Cheers.
 
Cheers for this mate,really helped me understand this aspect of the game alot better
 
Good guide there Raikan, will help alot of people out and stop some needless threads. :)
 
in genie scout i find growth rating, it range from 1 to 5 stars, what makes that?
 
Might be slightly off-topic but, how many CA points is used by each of the three big attribute categories? Someone said Physical Attributes cost more CA points than the other. True or False?

---------- Post added at 08:45 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:44 AM ----------

in genie scout i find growth rating, it range from 1 to 5 stars, what makes that?
Determination, Professionalism and Ambition.
 
Just wondering if somebody could name a few -10 potential players?
 
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