FM22 Regen Issues

[Talmansen]

I've noticed a dramatic decrease in the average quality of top-level regens from FM21 to FM22, and I have searched it across this forum and on other sites on the internet and it seems the general consensus is that youth development is rather different to FM21, owing to changes in how players reach their potential. I am unsure if this change is working in a great way however, as I have found in two separate saves over ten years saves that regen development has almost completely failed in historically rife regions such as the Netherlands. Using this example, Ajax, for instance, in two different saves with all Eredivisie players loaded but not the league itself, routinely fail to produce good enough players to maintain their standing in the game, and after selling off their real life prospects have only produced a couple of players worth selling to larger European clubs and only a handful that can even start for their first team (this is applicable in both saves), effectively contributing to a sharp decline in their club's stature.  This extends to the national team of the Netherlands too, in 2034 the Netherlands only boasts under a quarter of the squad being regens, with the majority being old non-regen players, and comparing to my FM21 saves, where this fraction of the national team being regens could be replicated even by 2026, it seems the AI are having trouble developing youth as effectively as they had before.

 

This trend is noticeable in most traditionally strong national teams in both of those saves, with regens making up a far smaller amount in their respective teams, irrespective of whether the national team's own domestic leagues are loaded or not, and older, real, players still make up the a very significant majority of their national teams ten and more years on, and nations renown for their youth production, both in previous games and in real life, have stagnated significantly. I have checked this too against my FM21 saves and again, like with the Netherlands, far more regens inhabit every national team even before the ten year mark, which, in my mind, is more realistic age wise as most of these teams in FM22 over ten years on are inhabited by a significant majority of players in the latter stages of their careers, which does not align with most national teams in real life.

 

Is the AI just worse at developing their players now, with this new system of development altering the path of regens? I have noticed this in nations both with leagues not loaded and those with leagues loaded to clarify, and I can share screenshots of what I have described in FM22 if anyone is curious, and I do admit that my sample size for noticing this trend is only a couple of long term saves on both FM21 and FM22, but I understand that it is generally understood that significant changes to regen development have occured since FM21. It just seems that the general volume of talented regens has decreased between the two iterations. Thanks.

[fc.cadoni]

What you load in database (nation, leagues etc) directly affect various things. One of them is developing. 

[Dotsworthy]

It's a known issue in this FM. It's not really down to the slower development but because older players with high natural fitness degrades much slower, perhaps too slowly now. Because the AI value player reputation highly it fills it's squads with high reputation veterans who are still at a high level whereas young players rot in the reserves. As the older players retires it will balance out though.

Davidincid has a DB that makes all the managers focus on youth development a bit more and bumps up the reputation of younger players to counteract this, but I haven't played for long enough to say how successful it is.