Guide: How to make a budget on the cost to develop a player?

After several requests in PMs I have made a guide on how you create a budget for the cost in terms of Rests to develop -- ie train and/or add new positions or special abilities to -- fast trainers.

This is a topic that in bits and pieces are covered in many other threads, but as I've understood from the feed-back I have received it is not entirely easy to gather and understand all that information. I will try to be as pedagogic as possible, its hardly rocket science, but it does require a few calculations! Anyway, buckle up, here we go!

1. WHAT IS A BUDGET? WHY IS IT USEFUL?

The purpose with a budget is to allow you to plan the development of your team. This can be useful in many different situations. For example, we have limited resources in this game. Sometime you will maybe wonder if its best to either buy 3 star player for X money and spend a great deal of Rests on him or if it is best to pay more money than X for a 4 or even 5 star player and save rests instead. I especially think that a budget can be helpful to let you understand how many young players you can carry and yet develop to a certain level.

In short, a budget is the sum of resources allocated for a particular purpose and the summary of intended expenditures. In this game, the purpose that we allocate resources at is the development of our team, either by adding new positions ("NPs") or Special Abilities ("SAs"), or by improving your player's quality. There are also other expenditures that does not help you to develop your fast trainers, maybe you have to spend tokens/farming opportunities on getting healing packs to heal an injured players, or tokens to move a game, or Rests to heal your team before an important game.

2. ADDING UP THE SUM OF RESOURCES AVAILABLE DURING A SEASON

The resources that will be available to you is of course dependable on your specific conditions. I cannot give you a number of Rests that you can make available during a season that will fit all type of players in all countries.

But this is how I establish the number of Rests I will have available during a season (I estimate that I buy 1 Rest for 1 token):

+Rests from farming -- 28 days x 30 Rests per day from farming (I get around 30 per day on avg) = 840 Rests

+Rests from making substitutions in games --- 26 League games + 13 Cup games + 13 CL games + 16 FA games = 68 Rests

+Rests from Training Ground -- 4 rests (lvl 6 training ground*) / 4 days x 28 days = 28 Rests

+Rests from Gifts -- 1 gift x 28 days = 28 Rests

+Tokens from sponsor deal -- 1 x 35 Rests = 35 Rests

+Tokens from farming (my aim is 3 per day) -- 28 x 3 = 84 Tokens = 84 Rests

SUM RESOURCES: 1,055 Rests

*Lvl 2 Gym - 2 rests/4 days; Lvl 4 Gym - 3 rests/4 days; Lvl 6 Gym - 4 rests/4 days; Lvl 8 Gym - 5 rests/4 days; Lvl 10 Gym - 6 rests/4 days; Lvl 12 Gym - 7 rests/4 days.

3. OTHER EXPENDITURES

Unfortunately not every resources, Rests/Tokens, you earn during a season can be used to develop your fast trainers. To be able to make a correct budget it is important to estimate how much these other expenditures will amount to during a season.

This is the Expenditures I foresee:

-Tokens used to buy 3 fast trainers and 3-4 cheap subs: 7 players x 3 tokens per player (this is of course hard to estimate, but 3 T per players is my best guess) = 21 Tokens = 21 Rests

-Tokens to move home-games (esp. during FA weekends): 10 games x 2 tokens = 20 Tokens = 20 Rests

-Rest-packs wasted on none prioritized players to get them in shape for Very Important Games (app): (16 FA games + 9 Cup/CL games) x 4 Rests/game (4 Rests per game is very much an avg, sometimes it takes 10 Rests on non prioritized players and sometimes zero for these games depending on when they are played) = 100 Rests

-Tokens wasted on Treatments (app): 4 injuries x 15 Tokens = 60 Tokens = 60 Rests

Total Other Expenditures: 21 + 20 + 100 + 60 = 201 Rests

Net Rests after Other Expenditures: 1,055 - 201 = 854 Rests

4. EXPENDITURES TO DEVELOP A PLAYER

This should not be made any more complicated than what it is.

Step 1 -- What is the target?

First we need to establish to cost for what we want to achieve.

The cost to develop a NP or SA (50) is 50 x 4 = 200 Abilitiy%. What is an Abilitiy%? An Ability% is equal to getting +1% in one of a player's abilities, like speed for example. The cost to develop a SA (40) (like Penalty Specialist) is 40 x 4 = 160 Ability%.

The cost to develop one more star is 20% x 15 Abilities = 300 Abilitiy%.

Step 2 -- At what rate will my player gain Ability%?

To understand at what rate -- in relation to cost of Rests -- your fast trainer will gain Ability% you need to know your kids so called Training-Efficiency Factor ("TEF").

This table includes TEFs for young fast trainers:
Attachment 72053

Be aware that several TEFs will apply for the same player if he gains so much ability that his total ability increases one or more star(-s)

Step 3 -- Adding up the numbers

Ok, lets say that we got a 4 star 70% player that plays MC. We want to turn this player into a 6 star 100% player with the NP AMC and the Shadow-Striker ability as SA.

This is how you add up the numbers (using the TEF for lvl 4 drills):
1 new NP at TEF 0.36 -- 200 Ability% / 0.36 TEF = 555.5 Fitness Loss%
1 new SA at TEF 0.36 -- 200 Ability% / 0.36 TEF = 555.5 Fitness Loss%
From 70% to 80% at TEF 0.36 -- (10 (%) x 15 (abilities) Abilities%) / 0.36 TEF = 416.5 Fitness Loss%
From 80% to 100% at TEF 0.28 -- 300 Ability% / 0.28 TEF = 1,071.5 Fitness Loss%
Total Fitness Loss: 555.5 + 555.5 + 416.5 + 1,071.5 = 2,599 Fitness Loss%

Total Cost in Rests: 2,599 Fitness Loss% / 15 (a rest is 15 Fitness%) = 174 Rests

Since I had 854 Rests available after Other Expenditures, I can easily afford the above under my Budget.

Lastly, I will of course still help anyone that needs help to create a budget despite this guide. But it becomes too time-consuming to do several budgets per day. :)

Al, as always, great summary article.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Al for President

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Originally Posted by Al Svanberg

I will of course still help anyone that needs help to create a budget despite this guide.

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Al's a great guy, just don't even think of changing his match times.

This is really only half a step away from a spreadsheet capable of taking a player's current skills, plus a test for TEF, inputting desired skill levels, and having the spreadsheet return a suggested drill regiment and expected rest costs to improve individual players in whatever way managers think is best.

hey Al, forgot the greens fron training facilities
If you want, check this and add a board depending from the level
http://forum.topeleven.com/top-eleve...prices%5D.html

*good job

Thx guys for the kind words and thanks Niko for th heads up! :)

Excellent work AI :)

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Net Rests after Other Expenditures: 1,055 - 201 = 854 Rests

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I think this number will reduce if we play 2 games a day and very close time gap :)

unless we play second game with 75-80% condition; I face several times 2 games very short time gap, like first game of the day at 10:00 am (my server time) then second game at 12:30 pm or 1:00 pm. so I have to use 11 rests for main team to bring 99% condition or 9 rests to shorten the rest period (or speed up the rest period) so main team can play with at least 85-90% condition.

Your work helping me to calculate my future plan :)

Thanks for sharing your hard work :)

Al, the FAQ guy (sounds weird :p)

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Originally Posted by ibangali

I think this number will reduce if we play 2 games a day and very close time gap :)

unless we play second game with 75-80% condition; I face several times 2 games very short time gap, like first game of the day at 10:00 am (my server time) then second game at 12:30 pm or 1:00 pm. so I have to use 11 rests for main team to bring 99% condition or 9 rests to shorten the rest period (or speed up the rest period) so main team can play with at least 85-90% condition.

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In this situation I use rests on my fast trainers to get them up to 85+% and then I try to have 3-4 decent depth players (3-5 stars) so that I can rotate players.

But then, if I am at 110-130% or something like that, and face someone that is below 75% or something, I don't hesitate to play a game with 4-6 players around 40-60% fitness. That saves a lot of Rests.

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Originally Posted by LeManiaque

This is really only half a step away from a spreadsheet capable of taking a player's current skills, plus a test for TEF, inputting desired skill levels, and having the spreadsheet return a suggested drill regiment and expected rest costs to improve individual players in whatever way managers think is best.

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I think its very easy to do this. Just plug in all drills in a excel sheet, and sort out the formulas. But I am not an excel guy, just know the basics.

I really want to map how a player develops in games though. Then you -- with some labor, but not that much -- can get a complete picture how a team will develop over a season.

Like I only count on Rests used and practices run. But that does not give the complete picture and its the easy part to map. What completely is left out is (i) the 6% recovery, (ii) condition loss from games played and (iii) ability gain from games played.

Its not rocket science to find out that either. But I think to get good numbers, you need to map 4-5 players during 8-10 games maybe -- without -- giving them a single practice. I wouldn't at all be surprised if a study like that would give a very clear picture.

Its like Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity that came 1905 that was quite "basic" lol, "only" adding spacetime more or less to Newton's fallen apple, and then the real complicated General Theory of Relativity that came some 15-20 years later that included just about everything else but atom physics (and nobody have been able to do the 100 years following this). Haha, no comparison made otherwise.

My point is just, its great to understand the training system. But if we included the 6% recovery, fitness loss from games and ability gain from games, into the equation we could with ease in Day 1 of the season look at our team and say, it was 150% yesterday and now it is 130% , if I keep this team together and spend all rests on it, they will be like 145% at the end of this season, 140% at the end of next season, 130% three seasons down the road, 120% four seasons down the road.

With those parameters in the equation, we could also establish what Peak Value ("PV") is for a team with fast trainers on it. Peak Value or PV would be how good a team with Fast Trainers on it can become. Is it 130%? 140%? 150%? 160%? What is the best strategy to get there? Adding 1/2/3/4 fast trainers per season?

You can also learn and develop different Playing Techniques. What is Peak Value if you tank a year? Someone maybe want to build a team really hard for 2-3 Months, and then play a little less for a while. How long will that team stay competetive, when will it really be time to start rebuilding again and so forth.

So mapping the fitness loss and ability gain in games is definitely next on my agenda.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Al Svanberg

So mapping the fitness loss and ability gain in games is definitely next on my agenda.

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Over my limited sample size (4 matches and about 100 condition loss in training) I found no significant differences between condition loss during match or training.
Basically I think you can apply the same TEF and calculate for 48 lost condition daily (8 daily increases of 6%) and however much you want to use with rests

For me the single unknown is the TEF, that you can only find out for sure by waiting a few days or wasting a few rest packs.


Great guides, Al!

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So mapping the fitness loss and ability gain in games is definitely next on my agenda.

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playing in old version :
A 5* fast trainer in 3 bars, practice match, is gaining about +100%/ 1sp (4 skills of new version) with -18% condition loss
In a game he 's gaining about + 130%/1,3 sp (about 5-6 skills of new version) with about 22-24 condition loss.

Just for fun, if we assume that the TEF is the same in games, like lvl 1 drill?, and a game takes 25% fitness, it basically breaks down to something like this for a fast trainer that we do not use any Rests on (and I am tired so need to think this through again tomorrow.... ;)):

-TEF for a 7 star FT (lets say this player has 120% ability in Day 1 of a season) -- 0.11

-Fitness ability recovery during a season -- 24 hours/day / 3 hours in between recovery * 6 % = 48%

-Fitness loss per game on avg -- 24%

-Games played during a season (app) -- 52 (its basically possible to play all games)

Total gain in Ability% a season = 52 games x 24 Fitness% * 0.11 = 137 Ability%

Total gain in total ability = 137 Ability% / 15 abilities = 9.1%

This would mean that it would take around 125 Rests to get that player to 140% and 8 stars on the last day of the season (age 18-21). Meaning that you can basically keep 6-7 players at 8 stars with a ambitious zero buying token budget if you do not power-train any players and use all rests on maintaining ability.

Another interesting conclusion is that its always better to rest a core player as much as possible and train him with lvl 4 drills instead. As a reference point, if all fitness recovery goes into lvl 4 drills instead of games -- ie 48% * 28 days = 1.344 -- the 7 star player would gain 1.344 * 0.14 =188 ability% or 188 / 15 = 12.5% in avg. ability instead. Interesting! ;) Will look more at this tomorrow if I get time!

If I had to guess, I think the match is equal to the lvl 4 training, not lvl 1 - this would also be true from Niko's numbers

Another point is that my players rarely lose 24% condition, more in the range of 18% - I think that's because I play them with low pressing, short passes, zonal marking.
So if you have a busy schedule, it's worth noting you can do stuff to lower their condition loss.

On the other hand, for the purpose of improving skills, if it's indeed equal to a lvl 4 training, maybe it's worth tiring them more, specially if you don't have access to lvl 4 drills (like me)

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Originally Posted by Rautz

If I had to guess, I think the match is equal to the lvl 4 training, not lvl 1 - this would also be true from Niko's numbers

Another point is that my players rarely lose 24% condition, more in the range of 18% - I think that's because I play them with low pressing, short passes, zonal marking.
So if you have a busy schedule, it's worth noting you can do stuff to lower their condition loss.

On the other hand, for the purpose of improving skills, if it's indeed equal to a lvl 4 training, maybe it's worth tiring them more, specially if you don't have access to lvl 4 drills (like me)

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Great insight Rautz! Thanks very much. All very very valid points. Need to sort things out to get a clear picture. There is a 30% difference between lvl 1 and lvl 4 drills, that has a very big input on the end result.

What also can have a big input for sure is like you say the condition loss, full bonuses, power trained fitness ability, only activate the 50% bonus bumper for conditioning, no hard pressure or man-man D. No arrows? Does arrows matter? Maybe you can save like 6-8% in conditioning per game. That is also a good 250-350 fitness% saved per player per season. Say that it is 300%, its like having 20 rests per player additionally each season.

In other words, we need to pin the numbers down! :)

Presumably you've also considered that skill game in matches might be proportional to player match rating.
The match skill distribution may also not have the same grey/highlight factors. It could be dependent solely on what skills have come into factor for how you've engaged that player on match by match basis.

Look forward to Al's empirical data!

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Originally Posted by LeManiaque

Presumably you've also considered that skill game in matches might be proportional to player match rating.
The match skill distribution may also not have the same grey/highlight factors. It could be dependent solely on what skills have come into factor for how you've engaged that player on match by match basis.

Look forward to Al's empirical data!

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Hm, I always had this in the back of my head before, IE wanting good games to get good development. Score a lot, good development.

But I don't know now, it would be a very complicated process if that is the case. I actually wonder if this really is the case. Will keep it in the back of my head, but first start to see if it can be explained by a more simple process, like straight fitness loss*TEF....

What do you guys think? Does rating in game affect ability gain?

This is the first result of a basic study I did. Zero conclusions so far, only results.

Attachment 72133

To explain the table, the circled numbers are -- from the left -- the avg Fitness ability of my players, my Condition Bonus, the Avg. Condition Loss in the game and lastly the TEF in the game compared to the TEF had the same condition loss been put into LVL 4 Drills.

Understanding the Condition Loss in a Game

I did put quite a lot of thought into understanding the condition loss numbers, but I haven't really come close to anything. Thinking this can be pretty hard to figure out, but probably doable if we put some time into it. But it is a bit worrying that the actual numbers seem to vary as much as they do. Right? Like why do some players loose 22 and other 15? Like compare Daily's and Zinidizu's data, that diff is a bit worrying. But lets just keep working those numbers and see what comes out of it.

First of all, my initial assumption is that the Fitness Ability of a player affects how much conditioning he losses in a game. What do you guys think? This is not a given, but it would seem logical. How else would the fitness ability work? Well one alternative could for example be that a player with high fitness ability play better with low conditioning, but I don't really buy the logic behind that. But can't leave any stones unturned so I will try to look at this.

If it does, I think it works something like this. You have a starting point, a presumtive condition loss in a game. Lets call it X, for some reason I think X could be 24 but that is just a hunch. Then X is lowered and made higher by a bunch of factors, and at the end you get the actual condition loss in the game.

I don't really think there is much of a random factor in there, wasn't in training so why should it be one here? But for sure, there could be a lot of factors that are very hard/impossible to track (like does going down one flank affects the condition loss of the players on that flank? Maybe wing-backs always loose more fitness than a striker. Does the opponent's formation/order matter? Possession? Stuff like that). But I am not sure if there are that many factors that extremely hard to establish.

Further to this, the Condition Loss vary, but not 1:1 in relation to Fitness Ability. Like the Condition Loss for a player with 100% in Fitness Ability is not twice as high as the Condition Loss for a player with 200% in Fitness Ability. So there is some kind of artificial reduction of the impact of the Fitness Ability on the Condition Loss in this regard.

One thing I tried was like this (Formula is 24 (The starting point for the conditioning loss) minus 3 (artificial factor reducing the impact of the fitness ability) * Fitness ability = Condition Loss in a Game):
24-(3*1.75)=18.75

It was just one of the formulas that potentially could explain why my players lost the conditioning they did.

With a team with the avg Fitness ability of 200%, you would get:
24-(3*2)=18

With a team with the avg Fitness ability of 100%, you would get:
24-(3*1)=21

The math behind it could be a bit easier like this. Or it can be a lot more complicated. And of course other factors matters, but I do think/hope that some kind of raw fundamental math/pattern can be drawn from only looking at fitness ability and conditioning loss. But more data is a must.

With more factors it could be like:
24 - (3*1) * 1.1 (Hard Press) * 0.9 (Con.Bonus) = 21


I am definitely going to put a lot more time into getting a bigger sample size, because this is only from one game and any random factor could really throw you.

Also, if anyone have a account at hand with -- low -- avg fitness ability, preferbly down towards 100% or lower, 30-50% would be awesome, it would be very helpful if you can dump screen shots of the conditioning loss from a game. Two dumps like this, one right before and one right after the game:
Attachment 72134

Also, if anyone ever plays an association game with stacked conditioning bonus, it would be very interesting to see the results.

Understanding the TEF in Games

The TEF in this game certainly matched up very well to the TEF from a LVL 4 drill. But, with the filling up a container logic, the TEF in a single game can be very misleading. So need more numbers to establish this, but it looks promising.

Great start Al, and does help (though not prove, of course) the match play ≈ level 4 idea. Win/loss end result, motivation, career matches, many things could factor in so the TEF in matches could also have tiers like amateur to world class drills.

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playing in old version :
A 5* fast trainer in 3 bars, practice match, is gaining about +100%/ 1sp (4 skills of new version) with -18% condition loss
In a game he 's gaining about + 130%/1,3 sp (about 5-6 skills of new version) with about 22-24 condition loss.

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regarding to my post #12
- those values still exist today
- The only thing from the new version that affect, is the 4th lv drills and the condition bonus.
- Those numbers above, is the avg
- Except high pressing and man to man marking, none of the orders (hard defense, hard tackling, arrows) affect the condition loss
- Condition loss is different for every player after the game. There is also a roll dice but there is also a relation of condition loss with the performance of a player.
If a player performing good, he loose a little more condition than a bad performer. I was using this tip to find whom I 'm gonna sub during the game, when rates weren't available. If something wasn't working good in my center, I subbed the MC with less condition loss and after the game, I had the confirmation with his bad-mediocre rate.
- I still don't understand how condition bonus is working. Suppose that affects but a couple of times (vs low q teams) I tab only this during the match but after that some players still lost about 22% condition while others lost 18%. I think there isn't a fix X% value.
Anyway, I don't care much as I think it's the more useless (of the 4 bonus)
- and still believe that fitness skill is cosmetic :o

New numbers after Al's game:
Attachment 72140

The Conditional Loss from a game -- indeed -- seem very random in relation to the individual fitness ability (and the rating too, Niko maybe this is something they have updated?).

Its a small sample size, but last game the avg was 18.75 now its 20. Will be interesting to see where we end up as this even outs with a bigger sample size. Does the fitness ability, or ability of the team, has any input on this number? Will a 8 star player loose as much conditioning as a 1 star player? The level of opponents matter? Position? How much effect does that 5% booster have?

The ability gain from the game seem to be on par with lvl 4 drills and Niko's numbers still.

First numbers from this season, will start doing some more tests this year to get a bigger sample size. Just need to remember to dump the condition status before games...

Attachment 72309

Seemingly zero correlation between Fitness Ability and Condition Loss in the game. Also, I had a lower avg. Con.Loss this games than the two other games I tracked, despite a 20% lower fitness ability avg.

The TEF in games keeps being closer to lvl 4 drills.

This is OT for this thread, will probably start a new thread on this topic when I get a bit more time.

I think I more or less can confirm that the gain/TEF in games is exactly the same as from lvl 4 drills.

Based on tracking individual players' gains in 34 games, the players gained 108 ability%. Had the same amount of Condition% as was lost in the games been used in practices, the gain would have been 108.1 ability%.

So on to the topic of how much condition% players looses in games, after tracking each player in about 5 games (some players have been rested a few games), I still have no clue what factors impact how much condition a player lose in games. Basically two explanations remain, (1) the condition loss is completely random in relation to the individual player (ie not in relation to bonuses or orders), (2) the condition loss is impacted by factors I have yet to understand.

The randomness of the numbers suggest alt. (1). But I am starting to see more and more trends that suggest something else. Lets look at this table:

Attachment 72435

The avg. Con.Loss of the players north of the red line -- ie 6 star players -- is 20.53%. The avg. Con.Loss of the players south of the red line -- ie 7 star players -- is 17,6%. This difference is quite significant. Like of the 13 games played by 6 star players, in 9 of them players lost more than 20% in condition. Of the games played by 7 star players, in only 2 of them did a player lose more than 20%. That diff to too big to be a coincidence, I think... Given that the sample size is not that insignificant anymore, this could explain a few things. Could the condition loss in a game be related to the ability gained? This is not the case on a game by game basis.Like a player can lose 22% con. in one game and gain 1 ability%, and another can lose 15% and gain 4 ability%. But this can be attributed to the "container function". We only see "gain" when it results in a container being filled up so that a full ability% is gained.

This also possess a few other questions. If you run condition bonuses that lowers the condition loss -- is the gain also lowered? The same with hard pressure, do you gain more if you play hard pressure and loose more conditioning? Some opts to always use the con bonus booster to save conditioning for development -- but I am not so sure that this helps. If the gain is lowered, nothing is gained by doing so.

What do you guys think?

I really wonder the same about condition loss in match, especially if condition loss ties to skill gain. I don't think the losses are random, as other seemingly random aspects of the game have been stated not to be (like scout recommendations most recently). Pressing and arrows seem like logical, simple contributors.

We know something is calculating the field position or possession during each match (referring to the bar below the field that sways back and forth). So there could be a calculation representing km coverage during a match.

The game could be played "step wise" where each possession has an action tree depending on aspects of the overall team (for example 1amc2st could present different branches or attempt-able plays than aml+amr+st; maybe even allowing certain plays only if the quality of that area of the field is greater than X [explaining why some teams seem to attack in different combinations, especially with a Q difference]). In this way, players condition could drop only if they are involved in one of these branches plays.

Yeah, I will keep building up data.

There are a few numbers that stick out, another one is the diff between games. Some games, like G1, obviously seem to have had a lesser impact on the condition loss than like G5.

If anyone is starting a new account or has some old forgotten account that hasn't been used in a while, it would be interesting to see info on how the condition loss looks in those games.

Somehow I missed post #10, great stuff

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Originally Posted by Al Svanberg

Attachment 73974

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I try to bring your updated info in here, can you please do it :)

mine showing as attachment not the real data, thanks