Tiers of Playing Time

[gunnerfan]

These are listed in the manual for FM24, but they are only qualitative descriptions. As we all know, the quantitative drives FM24. Which means that there are numeric equivalents to each tier of playing time. I have tried before to discover what those equivalents are, but to no avail. I've asked here and only gotten crickets in return. I'm not sure why this is regarded as top secret, but apparently it is. 

So, if anyone knows what percentage starts separates a star player from an important player, or an important player from a regular starter, please post it. Thank you.

[Hovis Dexter]

If you go to This thread during FM20 and scroll down to the fifth comment you'll find @XaW's thoughts which seem sensible to me

[NineCloudNine]

2 hours ago, Hovis Dexter said:

If you go to This thread during FM20 and scroll down to the fifth comment you'll find @XaW's thoughts which seem sensible to me

Other comments in that thread suggest that only starts count towards player contentment with their playing time. If that was true then, I don't think it's true now. I regularly keep players happy with 80% of their appearences coming off the bench. I do try to bring subs on before 75mins as much as possible, so they get a rating. It might be that this makes a difference.

[gunnerfan]

8 hours ago, Hovis Dexter said:

If you go to This thread during FM20 and scroll down to the fifth comment you'll find @XaW's thoughts which seem sensible to me

Looks good as a guide, but it's still descriptive rather than quantitative. And that strikes me as odd, given that this is a game driven by numbers and percentages. It's as if AI wants to keep us all in the dark. 

[Dagenham_Dave]

28 minutes ago, gunnerfan said:

Looks good as a guide, but it's still descriptive rather than quantitative. And that strikes me as odd, given that this is a game driven by numbers and percentages. It's as if AI wants to keep us all in the dark. 

One of these times when it's correct not to have exact numbers for something. Because if you did, it would become extremely easy to 'game' the system and never have any players complaining about game time, which isn't very realistic. 

[gunnerfan]

2 hours ago, Dagenham_Dave said:

One of these times when it's correct not to have exact numbers for something. Because if you did, it would become extremely easy to 'game' the system and never have any players complaining about game time, which isn't very realistic. 

Actually, you would likely have players complaining about playing time, not based on promises made, but on poor performance by someone ahead of them on the depth chart, which I would think is quite common.

[XaW]

8 hours ago, gunnerfan said:

Looks good as a guide, but it's still descriptive rather than quantitative. And that strikes me as odd, given that this is a game driven by numbers and percentages. It's as if AI wants to keep us all in the dark. 

I think it's pretty clear that SI wants the game to be a bit opaque in general, and I suspect this is the same, but you also have to take into consideration that player personality will impact it too. So two players with the same status and same playing time might lead to a situation where one is happy and one is not. And since that overview was made by me, and not by SI, it's not really on them!  I mean, I'm not an SI employee, so I'm just writing it based on my experience, not some deeper knowledge. But I can show my current team and their playing time status:

As you can see on the "agreed playing time", I have no one that have any role higher than regular starter, as I plainly refuse to give any more promises than that. Most are young and I don't change their status to higher unless I have to. The one who is concerned is a player I'm actively trying to get rid off, and I just changed his agreed playing time to try to keep him docile until I can get him to move.

But the interesting part to note is that the players can have expectations based on history too. Look at a few of the players:

Their expectations are higher than their agreed playing time! Why? Because I use them more than the agreed one, so they think tehy are entitled to continue in that vein. And if I want to try to give them a new contract they would expect the agreed playing time to be increased. While I doubt any of these players would complain if I dropped them now and not played them much the next few months, keep in mind that their expectations are also linked to actual playing time and not just the agreed one.

I would also note that how likely the player are to come to you with an issue depends on the MANAGER too! If you have a good relationship with the player, they will come less. The same if you have a high "Level of discipline" attribute, as evident by the tooltip for it:

And the new FM actually give more tools to keep players satisfied. If you have a player come to you asking for more playing time, tell them to prove it by having high training scores. While not all players agree, the ones who do will either train well and then improve and perhaps be good enough to actually play, or they will drop the complaining, so getting them to agree on targets will help a lot here.

[gunnerfan]

5 hours ago, XaW said:

I think it's pretty clear that SI wants the game to be a bit opaque in general, and I suspect this is the same, but you also have to take into consideration that player personality will impact it too. So two players with the same status and same playing time might lead to a situation where one is happy and one is not. And since that overview was made by me, and not by SI, it's not really on them!  I mean, I'm not an SI employee, so I'm just writing it based on my experience, not some deeper knowledge.

I understand. I was referring to the lack of any comment by SI on the matter.

I also agree that there are more tools for addressing player issues in FM24. Thanks for replying. I enjoy your posts.

[Sunstrikuuu]

Still think they should be reduced to simply Star Player / Regular Starter / Squad Player / Backup.

[brod_104]

I wonder what the quantitive amount is for "Cup Goalkeeper"? In my 1860 München save, I still have Marco Hiller who was first choice for the first three seasons, but has been replaced by Dennis Seimen in season 4. I reduced his playing time to "Cup Goalkeeper", and have played him in every DFB Pokal tie so far (we're into the semi finals). He complained about not starting enough in February, and I told him he would play cup games, which he accepted. He has since played the Pokal quarter final (which is the only game we've played in that competition since), and even played him in the Champions League against Barcelona (as I wasn't expecting to win that tie). He's now saying time running out to play in cup games. But I've literally played him in every single one!

*Edit - and immediately after posting this, he gets injured for 5 weeks...

Edited January 8 by brod_104

[NineCloudNine]

That’s clearly not working as intended. Sounds like something to post in the bugs forum.

[soft tofu]

If there's still no answer, I did some table.

Out of 26 games.

This may not be accurate as there are some players who came in after the season started so they may not be available for all 26 matches, will do it from the start of the season if I can remember. Cheers.

[fc.cadoni]

I have asked Perplexity AI to help me, in LaLiga 2, with 41 season matches (exc. cup). Here what said:

[Hzano123]

Very curious where the source maybe? No digging or sarcasm. Just want to know if you can ask which source the ai drawing from? 

26 minutes ago, fc.cadoni said:

I have asked Perplexity AI to help me, in LaLiga 2, with 41 season matches (exc. cup). Here what said: