Adjusting PA levels for regens

[Dorin]

This started out after the discussion in the "Reevaluation of the CA - PA system" thread and moving this here since it's somewhat different issue.  

I'd like to see a better solution to have a club produce new players of closer quality to those they have been having playing for them (home grown at the start), at least for lower clubs... not looking for a big team to create constant star players or anything like that.

I'm giving an example from my game to explain a bit more what I am referring to: I am in the 5th season of a new game and recently took over Lillestrøm after starting unemployed, a team that came second in the league in the last season, qualified for CL and is one of the best teams in Norway consistently (in game, pretty crap in real life unfortunately). The youth setup and youth coaching is adequate. Youth intake day comes, I checked the PA of the youth trialists (with an external scouting tool) and to confirm here, all their PAs were in the range of 40-55. Now, my average player CA for this league should be somewhere around 100-110 I assume (didn't check), and if my young players would reach their potential they wouldn't even be good in the Norwegian third division. I don't find this level of PA for regens to be realistic in this scenario.

It's not much fun knowing I can't really use my own club youth players to develop them more.
I'm looking for a solution here other than  "improve the youth setup" ...because that's something I believe most of us do anyway and in game it takes time too, but it doesn't mean that a lower club shouldn't produce players of at least a similar quality they've been having playing for them before (club-grown/home-grown at the start of the game).

I've found these stats in an article:
There are 12,500 players in the English academy system, but only 0.5% of under-nines at top clubs are likely to make it to the first team. There are also suggestions that drop-out rate in football is similar to other sports, such as rugby union, which can lose 76% of players between the ages of 13 and 16.

Since in FM most regens are around 16 (and we're not even talking about young players making it at top clubs in a top football nation), this means that it should be already a fairly trimmed out youth player selection by that point when they are 16... if out of the remaining players that come through in FM as regens maybe a higher percent should actually have a chance of becoming a decent player at least for a lower club in the same league? In my example the discrepancy seemed a bit too much in my opinion. If this is modeled on real life stats of players after 15-16 not making it when turning pro, maybe the model is affected too much by the nation youth rating that's set in the game?

Since I'm sure all these levels of PAs are tied in with the nation youth rating, maybe those should be more fluid too in case a nation develops, the clubs within the nation improve or the nation rankings and competition rankings change further in the game.

Any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

[Maaka]

I don't know the stats, but it would be interesting to see how many player who - IRL - gets to where the FM has the "regen date", and then, out of this number, how many who a) breaks into the first team squad at said club, or b) makes the first team of a team of similar stature (or higher), or c) becomes a first team player of teams in the same league (but lower rep teams), d) becomes first team regulars in 1-2 divisions lower, e) becomes lower league players, or f) simply doesn't make it at all as a footballer. Then, those number can be compared to the FM numbers. If the FM numbers differs significantly from the real world, then there's an issue.

But keep in mind, you can hardly judge your issue based solely on one year's youth intake. Each year, most top level clubs (in Norway as well) releases several players who just ain't good enough. Some (in Norway) signs for Obos-teams, some even lower, and even some either quits or becomes amateur players.

[enigmatic]

Good idea starting a separate thread

I can't speak for Lillestrom specifically, but the general tendency seems to be for regens to have somewhat higher ranges potential relative to real players and starting youth setups. Have always assumed this is a deliberate policy to allow (i) gamers to successfully complete "youth only challenges", in which they often succeed - given lots of time - in getting small clubs to win everything using only their own youth teams  and (ii) to counterbalance regens' personalities being a little less correlated with their potential than real life senior players, which means ultimately you often have to work a lot harder to get them there.

IRL the world's best academies tend to produce about one first-team standard player per year and a surprising amount that for whatever reason don't even make it as professional footballers. I'd imagine the proportion who would be lucky to make it as professional footballers is a lot higher at a middling Norwegian side, with no guarantee they're going to get a player with first team potential in a particular year. Suspect Rosenborg hog most of the brightest prospects too. It's possible there is an imbalance, but you might need more than a season's worth of evidence to show that

I do hope they've made Youth Recruitment easier to upgrade than in FM17 though

[Dorin]

I know one season is not enough, definitely, but it's one of the reasons that triggered my interest in the topic. I'll keep checking also in the next seasons, but I'm only checking my own team youth candidates as I don't want to 'break my game' by getting more info. 
I had similar problems with the youth regens in the previous seasons while managing a team in Iceland, again lower level team from a football nation with low youth rating. There I relied heavily on players from other countries.
@Maaka , all those questions are really good ones and the comparison is an approach I hope SI looked at when modeling the regen balance in the game.

[Maaka]

Keep track on the youth intakes, and bear in mind that for a club of LSK's level, you should see roughly one average first team player every 3-4 years, fringe players maybe one every 2-3 years, and most players through I'd guess either ends up in the lower divisions or quit.

[Neil Brock]

Reviewed so locked.