Too Many Wonderkids?

[Ste]

I've always thought that FM generally generates far too many wonderkid regens compared to real players. I finally got around to looking into the numbers on my current save.

I am in my 5th season. I used FMRTE to search for players PA >=170 and noted the numbers per age. Not super scientific but good enough to have a cursory view.

Generally speaking there were about 3+ players at 170+ PA between the Age of 30-39 for each year. So about 20 players in total above 170 in that age bracket.

Between 21-29 there are about 10 players at each age that were 170+.

Then it explodes 

Age

1. 20       32 players
2. 19       34 players
3. 18       48 players
4. 17       51 players
5. 16       60 players
6. <=15   22 players

I wanted to know is this the norm for others and if so can SI look into and reduce this? Yes a lot of these won't reach their potential but it's way too high compared to real players in the DB.

[Spurs08]

2 hours ago, Ste said:

I've always thought that FM generally generates far too many wonderkid regens compared to real players. I finally got around to looking into the numbers on my current save.

I am in my 5th season. I used FMRTE to search for players PA >=170 and noted the numbers per age. Not super scientific but good enough to have a cursory view.

Generally speaking there were about 3+ players at 170+ PA between the Age of 30-39 for each year. So about 20 players in total above 170 in that age bracket.

Between 21-29 there are about 10 players at each age that were 170+.

Then it explodes 

Age

1. 20       32 players
2. 19       34 players
3. 18       48 players
4. 17       51 players
5. 16       60 players
6. <=15   22 players

I wanted to know is this the norm for others and if so can SI look into and reduce this? Yes a lot of these won't reach their potential but it's way too high compared to real players in the DB.

The thing is a real player in the database is likely to have his potential set somewhat above his current ability, especially if he's already past the age where he's likely to improve. A player who perhaps had a lot of potential and wasted it, and is now at an age where they're never going to reach it, probably won't have a high PA value given - think the likes of John Bostock, Nile Ranger, even Wayne Rooney who was talked about as potentially one of the world's best and never really got there. A regen might be more likely to be assigned such a high value, but they're probably more likely not to reach it due to personality, injuries, poor development etc. It'd be more pertinent to look into whether the rise in high PA players leads to more high CA players in later years.

[Nacaw]

It's way more important to look at how many at are CA 170+ as the game progress. That's the number PA is aiming at keeping steady

[sirmikey]

I agree with this completely, I made a comment on Reddit recently saying exactly the same.

In my save in 2019 there are four players with a PA of 199. You can say "there's loads of players that never reach potential" all you like, but there are never four players in the space of 2 years that are capable of reaching Lionel Messi's potential.

It is truly distorted and I hope SI fix it for their next instalment. 

[Esco91]

> I used FMRTE to search for players PA >=170 and noted the numbers per age.

 

By FMRTE you mean the in game editor on the scouting screen?  I'll give my results, from an absolutely massive database in Jun 2026:

 

All players in search (both in editor and filters) + PA over 170:

15: 3

16: 9

17:  11

18: 14

19: 13

20: 18

 

30: 8

31: 9

32: 8

33: 8

34: 8

35: 3

 

Those numbers look about right to me, once retirements and players losing PA due to injury are taken into account.

 

[enigmatic]

Regens have had higher PAs (and less likelihood of reaching them without significantly improving their personality or giving them a lot of game time) for a long time.

I assume it's quite deliberate in order to make youth development actually mean something. If it was weighted realistically so you could manage a big club for ten seasons and see no youth products with the potential to become world class, and only about five with the potential to ever be good enough for your senior squad (usually with very professional approaches and a higher starting ability than the rest, so they get there regardless of how you treat them) it'd be pretty dull.

the flip side, as others have pointed out, is that the balance of players who actually reach those kind of levels is a lot closer to real life

[Spurs08]

On 2017-4-28 at 18:24, sirmikey said:

I agree with this completely, I made a comment on Reddit recently saying exactly the same.

In my save in 2019 there are four players with a PA of 199. You can say "there's loads of players that never reach potential" all you like, but there are never four players in the space of 2 years that are capable of reaching Lionel Messi's potential.

It is truly distorted and I hope SI fix it for their next instalment. 

How do you know that? Would Messi have reached his potential if he'd been spotted a little later than he was and wasn't treated for his hormone deficiency while still a young teenager - highly unlikely. Reaching the top is part natural talent, but it's also a large part hard work and a large part luck.

[mack4ever]

On 4/28/2017 at 18:24, sirmikey said:

I agree with this completely, I made a comment on Reddit recently saying exactly the same.

In my save in 2019 there are four players with a PA of 199. You can say "there's loads of players that never reach potential" all you like, but there are never four players in the space of 2 years that are capable of reaching Lionel Messi's potential.

It is truly distorted and I hope SI fix it for their next instalment. 

How would you know?

How do you know how much potential a player has in real life? How do you know that there aren't a number of players who have ended up being nothing special but could have, with the right training, the right moves and the right luck, have been as good as Messi is now?

[Guest El Payaso]

1 hour ago, mack4ever said:

How would you know?

How do you know how much potential a player has in real life? How do you know that there aren't a number of players who have ended up being nothing special but could have, with the right training, the right moves and the right luck, have been as good as Messi is now?

Yes but how likely it is on FM that these 'could have been' won't reach their potential? The scouts are right from the beginning able to tell how good a 15-year-old can be, you can see from the attributes that this one is quite exceptional, you have tutoring available, only need to be keeping the player match fit no matter what level games he plays and so on.

You cannot really replicate the situations that happened to Michael Johnson, John Bostock, Ravel Morrison and many more examples because you won't run into same kind of problems in the game. 

The main thing I see trouble with newgens is that they are too easy to develop and right from the beginning it's really easy to spot the talented ones. Also I would still claim that the newgens are really too good in terms of physical attributes straight from the beginning with most of the good ones having over 10 rating for every physical attributes at the age of 15,

[Cougar2010]

1 hour ago, El Payaso said:

Yes but how likely it is on FM that these 'could have been' won't reach their potential? The scouts are right from the beginning able to tell how good a 15-year-old can be, you can see from the attributes that this one is quite exceptional, you have tutoring available, only need to be keeping the player match fit no matter what level games he plays and so on.

According to SI in long term testing only a small % of players in the game reach their potential.

Not sure thats something I entirely agree with from my playing experience but it suggests either there is something wrong with the way SI test or that our impression of what happens is wrong.

 

 

1 hour ago, El Payaso said:

You cannot really replicate the situations that happened to Michael Johnson, John Bostock, Ravel Morrison and many more examples because you won't run into same kind of problems in the game. 

Situations like that are replicated all the time in FM for different reasons.

 

 

1 hour ago, El Payaso said:

The main thing I see trouble with newgens is that they are too easy to develop and right from the beginning it's really easy to spot the talented ones. Also I would still claim that the newgens are really too good in terms of physical attributes straight from the beginning with most of the good ones having over 10 rating for every physical attributes at the age of 15,

I would agree that its too easy for a human user to pick out the players who have the ability to reach their potential and pass over other players with high PA but are unlikely to reach it.

[RBKalle]

As others have pointed out, the huge amount of high-PA newgens is balanced by often terrible mental traits, or by weak starting CA/attributes.

Both factors will hamper a player's development to the point of having plenty of "doomed wonderkids", broken prospects you won't ever be able to turn into world-beaters, or even into decent top-flight players.

However, due to the predictability and linearity of the development process, human managers can easily spot the good ones and sign them, while the crappy ones will "fool" the AI into signing them for years, at least til they'll reach the age of 21-23. Then the AI too will see that a PA 189 player with horrid attributes will NEVER reach his potential as he's a waste of money.
Anyway, until then, AI will squander millions on those no-hopers, giving the human player a double advantage.

You can sign all sorts of wonderkids and sell the poor ones for a healthy profit.

 

It's fine to have many prospects, so the gameworld can balance the Messis, the Riquelmes, the Jefferses and the Ravel Morrisons... Too bad there's so little room for unpredicatability.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

18 hours ago, Cougar2010 said:

According to SI in long term testing only a small % of players in the game reach their potential.

Not sure thats something I entirely agree with from my playing experience but it suggests either there is something wrong with the way SI test or that our impression of what happens is wrong.

Since the scouting changed a few versions back, scouts tend to base their potential rating on what level they think a player will reach, so for example a player comes into the game with CA10 and PA200 but at a tiny non-league club the chances are when he is scouted your scouts are only going to return a 3/4 star rating instead of raving about him so unless the end user is using a scouting program they'd never see that this player could have become a world beater, whereas if he was generated at a bigger club (or with a higher CA) then your scouts would likely rate him better.

There is also likely a fair bit of confirmation bias from end users as I expect most of us sign the almost guaranteed hits rather than take a chance on a lower rated player, so we only ever see players developing not stalling (or develop enough to be sold on for a profit so their failure to make it is disguised by us making a profit on them) - for example how many of us keep the full class of Academy regens each year against just signing up the better couple, or sign a promising regen who is injury prone, has poor determination, cannot jump or is wrong footed for example

[Cougar2010]

34 minutes ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

There is also likely a fair bit of confirmation bias from end users as I expect most of us sign the almost guaranteed hits rather than take a chance on a lower rated player, so we only ever see players developing not stalling (or develop enough to be sold on for a profit so their failure to make it is disguised by us making a profit on them)

I imagine so, the human users are more likely to look further ahead and recognise players who won't improve.

That said in my own saves in the last couple of years I've had more & more players (Mostly youth) who haven't developed as hoped, slowly losing 0.5* PA each season to a point where they get released/sold at 21-23yo.

34 minutes ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

for example how many of us keep the full class of Academy regens each year against just signing up the better couple, or sign a promising regen who is injury prone, has poor determination, cannot jump or is wrong footed for example

Urm me and I would hope most FM users tbh.

Ok there are some things that put me off signings but its rare to sign a perfect player so normally you are assessing the pros & cons of each and deciding which of the options is the pick of the bunch.

[mack4ever]

On 4/29/2017 at 20:44, El Payaso said:

Yes but how likely it is on FM that these 'could have been' won't reach their potential? The scouts are right from the beginning able to tell how good a 15-year-old can be, you can see from the attributes that this one is quite exceptional, you have tutoring available, only need to be keeping the player match fit no matter what level games he plays and so on.

You cannot really replicate the situations that happened to Michael Johnson, John Bostock, Ravel Morrison and many more examples because you won't run into same kind of problems in the game. 

The main thing I see trouble with newgens is that they are too easy to develop and right from the beginning it's really easy to spot the talented ones. Also I would still claim that the newgens are really too good in terms of physical attributes straight from the beginning with most of the good ones having over 10 rating for every physical attributes at the age of 15,

I've seen countless high potential players come into the game and bomb out at a relatively young age. Of course I do have a better success rate when it comes to developing players than the AI does but I don't view that as being particularly relevant to the accuracy of the game world.

However I've had two players whose career paths almost exactly matched those of Michael Johnson and Ravel Morrison.

Ravel Morrison - Playing as Sunderland, about 5 years in and as one of the best clubs in England, I had a newgen come into my team who had the potential to be a truly world class striker. However he was not as far along in his development as a number of less talented players were and my team at the time was very strong so he very much struggled to get first team appearances. By the time he was 19 he'd made about a dozen appearances without doing very much, always showed glimpses of his talent but was too inconsistent. I was planning on sticking with him because I still had hope for him but that didn't work out. That summer I had a few bids from mid-table teams for him and he decided he wanted out so I sold him to Stoke. Well he played a few first team games in his first season, then had a few years of loan spells, then got sold and loaned again and last time I remember checking he was about 28 and had never settled. He'd had about 9 or 10 different clubs and at each he'd done the same thing. He'd have the occasional run of games where he was outstanding but then he'd return to being mediocre, get dropped, get unhappy at his lack of playing time and push through a move to somewhere else.

Michael Johnson - Again with the same Sunderland save, a few years on from the previous player. Very talented defender comes into my youth team. He makes his first team debut at 17 and over the next two years racked up about 20 starts and probably 30 more substitute appearances. Then he breaks his leg, his attributes dropped pretty badly but when he came back I persisted, got him back into the team, he started playing well again and then he got another bad injury, can't remember what it was but it kept him out for about 7 months. Almost as soon as he came back from that he was out injured again, and again, and again. By the time he was about 22 he was completely done. Even when I could nurse a decent period of time without an injury out of him he was a shadow of the player he was and it was clear he'd never even come close to fulfilling his potential. I released him, he got picked up by a team a division or two further down, was with them for two years and barely played due to repeated injuries. They then released him and he retired after nobody else would sign him.

I'd say that they were pretty similar players to two of the ones you mentioned, wouldn't you?

[Guest El Payaso]

10 hours ago, mack4ever said:

 

I'd say that they were pretty similar players to two of the ones you mentioned, wouldn't you?

Well that is a good thing and I think that in terms of youth development the game has changed. I have to admit that on FM 2017 I've had zero long term saves so I don't have that much of experience on this version. But I think that on previous versions I have never failed on developing a newgen and I've gotten them to a great level on really young age (18-19-year-old). The only mistake I remember was on FM 2015 where with Oviedo I developed two strikers a bit too physical which ate away their technical abilities and they had their potential reached at the age of 18 or 19. Well they did perform maybe because the game values physical attributes really high or because of their high CA. 

And this is also a good example on how good the newgens almost always are in terms of physical attributes. Both of these had really high physicals even when they first appeared while IRL many Spanish and Latino Americans are physically quite weak especially when we talk about midfielders and wingers. This is what the game doesn't produce.

 

[enigmatic]

17 hours ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

Since the scouting changed a few versions back, scouts tend to base their potential rating on what level they think a player will reach, so for example a player comes into the game with CA10 and PA200 but at a tiny non-league club the chances are when he is scouted your scouts are only going to return a 3/4 star rating instead of raving about him so unless the end user is using a scouting program they'd never see that this player could have become a world beater, whereas if he was generated at a bigger club (or with a higher CA) then your scouts would likely rate him better.

There is also likely a fair bit of confirmation bias from end users as I expect most of us sign the almost guaranteed hits rather than take a chance on a lower rated player, so we only ever see players developing not stalling (or develop enough to be sold on for a profit so their failure to make it is disguised by us making a profit on them) - for example how many of us keep the full class of Academy regens each year against just signing up the better couple, or sign a promising regen who is injury prone, has poor determination, cannot jump or is wrong footed for example

Confirmation bias also tends to involve humans not paying that much attention to young players at all unless their starting CA is good enough for the cup with a fair bit of PA to spare, paying no attention to "too many doubts, avoid signing this player" raw youngsters even if they do have four gold one black star potential and kicking their whining-about-training teenagers out of the squad early without wondering what might have been.

Plus the first thing anyone that cares about youth development tries to do with a player rated highly by the HOYD who has personality problems is to "fix" them with tutoring.

[Guest]

59 minutes ago, enigmatic said:

Plus the first thing anyone that cares about youth development tries to do with a player rated highly by the HOYD who has personality problems is to "fix" them with tutoring.

The ability for staff to instantly pinpoint the not so hidden mental attributes of players is something I'd like to see addressed, there were a few ideas that I proposed at the end of the FM16 dev cycle & hopefully there are plans to implement them for FM18