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.

Extra notes on CA/PA with regards to scouting:

A lot of the African clubs have very poor reputation and very poor facilities.

PA can be affected by this.

Lets use Nze as a prime example. He may have a ton of actual potential, but while he is at mangasport he will NEVER reach it (will only reach 1.5 stars instead of 5). If he moves to a top club he will be able to fulfill his potential and will show 4.5-5 stars.

I sign a lot of africans and I know this to be a FACT. I've signed 2 star players from Africa who are actually 5 star when they get to my club. The thing you need to know about scouting africa is to look at their attributes and NOT THE STAR RATING. If a player has solid stats (sometimes you can find players with outstanding stats) but a low star rating, SIGN HIM, he will be a wonderkid. Just last season in my save I signed a 1.5 star Nigerian AMC with 18 dribbling 19 technique 15 creativity and 18 passing...He's obviously 5 star now that he can reach his potential.

And while I'm at it, my current team doesn't have the best training facilities. I've had young players who had 4.5 PA lose their PA after a couple of years because my facilities are only adequate. When I sell these players to better teams with better facilities, their PA shoots back up to 4.5 or even 5.


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...ential_Ability
 
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Lol this threads gone down a treat!
 
Would you not say its cheating, viewing players abilities? I'm not trying to create an argument or anything, was just wondering.
 
How do you find out if a player is -9 or -10? On previous games there was a data editor which came with the game, FMRTE only shows the PA for that specific database.
 
We won't be able to find out until the full game is released along with the editor.
 
How do you find out if a player is -9 or -10? On previous games there was a data editor which came with the game, FMRTE only shows the PA for that specific database.

By making multiple saves and comparing the PA on each. If they are the same, it's likely it's a fixed PA, if they are different then it's a '-'PA.
 
Would you not say its cheating, viewing players abilities? I'm not trying to create an argument or anything, was just wondering.
its each persons game, they can play it how they want to, if they want to see players hidden stats or their PA or CA, they can ;) this was just a guide to explain mostly everything you need to know about the CA and PA :D play the game how you want to pal
 
Wilhere

With my arsenal wilshere is playing brilliantly and therefore regular football but he's only 18 if I continue to play him nearly every game will he 'burn out' soz if it is off topic
 
i got a lil discovery i like to share with u guys
I did some calculations and found out that half star potential means the player can improve everything by 1
or some attributes 2 some non depends on how u train them
so saying a player with 4 silver star current potential and 2.5 golden star potential should improve most stats by 5, or depending on the traning hes under some 3,4 some 6
but ur scouts got to have good Judging Player Ability and Judging Player Potential, lets say over 14, with fairly good know knowledge of that area
meaning it takes 15 PA points to improve every attribute
 
its each persons game, they can play it how they want to, if they want to see players hidden stats or their PA or CA, they can ;) this was just a guide to explain mostly everything you need to know about the CA and PA :D play the game how you want to pal

Fair enough, it'd just take most of the fun out of my game, knowing how everyone is gonna develop, who the best youngsters are etc.. :)
 
Hi all, I would like to give you some information about CA/PA that I have found.

How the game implements abilities :

Introduction
As stated in the beginning, each player is assigned with two values Current Ability and Potential Ability. CA can be considered as ability points which are distributed using some mathematical formula (which I have been working quite hard to derive but still can’t) into abilities. So, CA can be used, although not always, to reflect how good a player is. On the other hand, PA is an upper limit of CA, so a player will never pass his potential, which perfectly makes sense in real world.

Current Ability

1. CA and abilities

We may think CA as ability points to be spread. However, unlike most games, ability points are not spread evenly.

Some stats such as flair, determination and natural fitness do not take points. In other words, a player with all 13 in stats with 1 flair will have the same CA as a player with all 13 in stats with 20 flair.

Some stats take a lot of CA points, for example physical stats take a lot of CA points. That is why, a player with poor technique and very good physical stats may have the same CA as a player with good technique and poor physical stats.

Some stats take points depend on the position of a player. For example, tackling for striker does not take much point, while tackling for defenders take a lot of points. The position of player is also determined by his secondary position, so van Nistelrooy and Totti will have different weight of abilities due to Totti can also play as AMC.
Some stats take little points, such as influence, bravery, free kicks and corners. In fact, one has done a research that increasing one point in jumping takes as 6 times CA as increasing one point in bravery.

Oh, I forget, weaker foot also affects CA. Very strong weaker foot takes about 20 to 25 CA points compared to weak weaker foot.

This result encourages us to forget about CA when judging the player as in the match, CA has nothing to do with performance. Hence, a player with high CA may not be good if all CA points are distributed into wrong abilities. I would prefer Rivaldo with about 130 CA if he can control my midfield well rather than a player with all 20’s in physical abilities but very poor passing.

2. How the game implements CA

When we start new game, all players abilities will be recalculated by the game. For each player, if the stats is too high, i.e it takes too much or too little CA points, then the game will readjust stats with correct CA. For every period of time (I believe about one and half month), each player will have its CA readjusted. The date at which CA will be readjusted is fixed. For example, I notice that my created player’s CA is readjusted at 13 August 2010. I reload a save game before 13 August 2010, and the CA will be adjusted exactly at 13 August 2010.

At that time, young player’s CA might be added by +2 or +1, while the old player will be decreased by -1 or -2. The value of addition (or subtraction) of CA depends a lot of things, such as professionalism, ambition and determination attributes, whether the player has playing a lot or not, whether the player is tutored or whether the player is injured or not or whether the player has reached his peak or not. I don’t know whether quality of training facilities actually matters or not, haven’t done the research. But I heard that quality of coaches does not have any effect in increasing the CA points. Furthermore, I also reload several times before 13 August 2010 and noticed that my created player’s CA increase varies between 0, +1, and +2 with most of the time +1. This suggests that at that time of CA readjustment, the increase of CA is given by probabilities, not by hard code.

The increase or decrease of CA points certainly has effects on the abilities. So which abilities should we add one or subtract one point? This is when good coaches come to mind. They help spreading ability points according to the one we like. They help us to build a player. Certainly, we don’t need to teach Theo Walcott how to run anymore but maybe we can help him to finish CCC we get. A player tendency or role in a club may also affect the distribution of change of CA points. A player who is not training free-kicks in training but takes all free-kicks in the match may have a significant increase in his free-kick stats. Finally, for old players, physical stats will decline first with a little increase in mental stats. After that, technical stats will decline.

Potential Ability

A player potential ability is simply an upper limit of how high CA can reach. That means, on many players, their CA will not reach PA due to lack of good environment, lack of facilities, lack of luck or lack of personality. Other than what Raiken has mentioned, I noticed that most players in their peak will have CA = PA – 1. This may be the reason that Messi can hold his skill for quite long. I create a 22 year old player with CA = PA and his skill declines at December. Scouts also said that he may not have much more left... Maybe if CA=PA, then that player is considered of having reached his peak, regardless of his age.

That is all I know. Hope this helps.
 
One player has a potential rating of 3 1/2 stars, according to a scout with 18 rating for judging player potential. So this player will be able to increase his stats by more than 5? That's alot.
 
One player has a potential rating of 3 1/2 stars, according to a scout with 18 rating for judging player potential. So this player will be able to increase his stats by more than 5? That's alot.

Well, that depends of his current potential.
 
I have a question regarding PA/CA. Player like Pato and Aguero reach their PA about the age of 23. But people state, even in-game that a player is at his best at the age of 27-ish. As an example if the CA of Pato won't go any higher at 23 year due him reaching his peak, how can he be at his prime at 27 when there is no CA difference?

I hope you can answer my question, english is not my native language.
Thanks in Advance
 
there mental attributes will develop with age thus making them a better player
 
Mental attributes do use up PA except for Flair and Determination. And how can the Mental abilities grow if the PA is already reached?
 
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