The game have a system, as always, since the engine needs some basic data to work with, so no changes here IMO.
Now we have team and player bonuses, playstyles, morale etc but the game have a distance that is covered and limited by itself so you cant see a progressive effect of each feature nor barely identify the effect of each one -like the morale, you cant say in what aspect is affecting since the engine still working with lists and numbers basically- like happened with the special abilities years ago, you can try to train 4 players with the same SA but you'll see how the engine assign roles internally, so the well programmed players will resolve your games and, you'll never be able to "create a good player intentionally" just by taking a random player, and training him.
The internal programming sets the limits of each team, always has been like this, and still it is.
This season for example, I bought some scouts, 4 gks, etc because Ive been tanking for long and I had a full squad of retired players. I did a mistake and it was that I didnt sell those reserves that have a good internal role assigned so to liberate key player roles to be assigned for new signings, and i realized late that even with 4 GKs and the attacking players I bought, the good players, those who score are those with 2-3-4* so, here, all is about that... internal roles by default, limited power to each player to create realism etc