Quote Originally Posted by khris View Post
[B]
"white or gray would be the same - so they would be equally capable at playing"

Here there's a big mistake of perception of what is "equally capable" because you hidde the internal programming of each player, as I always write as example, and as you suppose, 2 exact STs, same age same all, one scores 40 goals with 5* but the 2nd with 8* scores only 3.
So, nope, the behavior of the players is not relative to what you see as a obvious visual quality, or whatever you see. What you see is a pure illusion.
My point was to create a ceteris paribus scenario with all things remaining equal other than positions of two players. Every game is different, I know, but I'm talking about probabilities. Can a player be programmed so that he would be more efficient in one of his positions than in another? If his visible skills would make him equally suitable for DR, MR and AMR (cue the every skill 100% example), could he be programmed to be more useful as AMR than as DR and MR? If yes, formation does matter indirectly.

Your rationale for the match engine is really good, but I feel like this part is an exaggeration:

"2 exact STs, same age same all, one scores 40 goals with 5* but the 2nd with 8* scores only 3.
So, nope, the behavior of the players is not relative to what you see as a obvious visual quality, or whatever you see. What you see is a pure illusion."

My experience is pretty anecdotal, but I play with mostly the same guys every season in the top of server. The teams in the league are 6/7, sometimes the best are 8, and I'm yet to see an efficient 5 star player in this level, they're all garbage. I've seen a lot of continuously underperforming high quality players and had some of those myself, so I don't deny the internal programming thing outright.

However, the players with the best key skills and teams with players as such are constantly doing the best regardless. Even the best teams tend to just buy players they find useful, train them into quality players without experimenting much beyond the surface on hidden factors and all that, and succeed with them nonetheless. So player's visual quality and real efficiency obviously has a high correlation.