When do players stop improving in football manager

[PoolFan]

I have a question regarding how players improve in FM 2012. I am aware that the improvement of a player is based on their Ambition, Professionalism, Determination and obviously game time and quality of the games they play. I have been using FM Genie to track my players progress from season to season, seeing how much a players CAs has gone up in a year etc.

Improving young players seems to be relatively easy if you get the right players with the correct attributes but I am confused by the players over the age of 24. For example I have someone like Luis Suarez, who the previous season had a CA of 170 (end of third season), now at the end of the fourth season his CA is still only 170 and yet his PA is 178 showing a small area where he can still grow. I am wondering now at what age do players simply stop improving? I wish I had kept the records from my first two seasons, as I vaguely remember Suarez was around 165 so that's only a 5 CA growth in four seasons and yet he's been in a very successful team winning the title and CL multiple times.

So my question is why has he stopped improving at age 28, will his mental stats fill out that missing 8 ability points or will he just slowly drop off now? Also at what age does player growth slow down as to be honest this will make a massive difference in terms of who to buy and what to expect from them.

[teknokryptik]

Based on my own experiments and analysis in FM2011 there are a few things to take note of.

1. There are pretty arbitrary age limits for player development. Bulk of their development is done from ages 15-24, mostly physical before 21, and technical 21-24. After 24 it's mostly mental stats that improve (though other stats can and do improve, just slower). At 32 players start to decline no matter what.

2. The speed at which a player increases their CA is proportional to how close they are to their PA. For your Suarez situation, because he is so close to full potential then the speed at which he gets those last few CA points (if he gets them at all) is slower. This counts for a player who is 21 - take Mr. Faux Playa, at age 20 his PA is 133 and his CA is 128. you'd think that, because he is still young and developing he should keep stacking on improvement, but because he is so close to reaching his PA his development slows down to a trickle.

What you want is your players to be within 10% of their PA by age 24. If not, they are unlikely to ever reach their PA.

HOWEVER, if they are first choice players, then chances are they will still improve and get close to their PA eventually. Had a player once who improved right up to age 32, when he hit his full PA, just because he was my captain and started every game.

[PoolFan]

Thanks for the feedback, this really helps and explains a lot.