Comparing players: grey skills vs white skills

[Toxcatl]

You are asking the right questions no one knows answers for. But the main question is

do individual skill matter or not?

There're two main opinions:
- skills don't matter, only average in each category (attack, defence, phys & mental);
- every skill matters.

Nik is from the first group, I am from the second.

My argument. The system is elaborated and clever: all these key and non-key abilities with tricky experience distribution, and stuff. It has some weak points (for example, you can't train Crossing to ML/R without training a grey skill), but in general it is pretty well balanced. I don't see why Nordeus would create such a detailed system of skills, drills and positions, and don't use it. It is like "build a house, live in a tent in the yard".

I've been thinking how to prove one point of view or another, and maybe I have an idea. We need to take two players from the same or symmetrical position (for instance, DC and DC or AML and AMR) with the same age, same Quality, same average value in Physical & Mental, but their Fitness should be very different, the more the difference, the better. Ideally one of them should have Fitness significantly less than 100%, while the other -- significantly more. We just have to compare their average Condition Loss from 8-10 games. If they have the same CL, that would mean Nik is right, and only the average value matters or Fitness doesn't affect Condition Loss (what it affects then?). If the player with higher Fitness has less CL, that would mean individual skills matter... Well, at least Fitness does =]
I'm going to try to test this. What do you think?

But if Nik is right, I'm going to feel like I was fuuu~d in the ass by Nordeus, and I probably will stop playing. This would be totally unfair: to give us such a beautiful, but completely useless toy. If the skills doesn't work individually, then devs are cheaters, and that house is made from papier mâché.

I think the game engine uses these attributes when calculating the chances of a particular event in the game.
E.g. shooting skill (and others?) of a ST against one or more of the keeper’s skill, to determine if the shot gets in (distance and position must also matter in this example).

I think exactly the same.
And I also think that there's a cap for every skill difference, so 500% Speed wouldn't run 5 times faster than 100%, because the difference cap is, let's say, 50%. So the difference coudn't be more than that.

Sorry for the wall of text.

P.S. Do you believe Jeeves?

He barely ever loses his matches mind you! But the guy is like a damn encyclopedia about football strategy, history, all that good stuff. (The only folks that are just as enthralled by the sport are the actual devs.

(bold highlighting is made by me)

I do =]