Testing: does individual skills matter?

One of the main question of this game is the following: do the individual skills of a player matter or do the average values in each category play the role instead?

After this discussion I made a desicion to test it in, you know, scientific way. This is a tricky thing though. It could be that some skills matter while other are pure cosmetic, and I don't know how to test every skill. But I have an idea how to test Fitness. It suppose to reduce Condition Loss during the game, doesn't it?

First hypothesis:
The higher Fitness skill, the less Condition Loss (CL).

Second hypothesis:
The higher average value in Physical & Mental (AvgPM), the less Condition Loss.

Two players with the same position, same age, same quality, but different average value in Physical & Mental (AvgPM) and different Fitness should have different total Condition Loss (CL) after a several games.

For that testing I have two Chilean señores:

Attachment 77749

Attachment 77752

I also have this Polish pan to control wtf is happening. He is going to have high Fitness and high AvgPM and therefore should have low CL:

Attachment 77747

Their age is different, but not that much. I don't have better candidates, so let's hope that CL is not affected by age strong enough to ruin the results.
I am going to train the Chileans so they have equal quality, but Jiménez is going to have high Fitness and low AvgPM, while Arriagada -- low Fitness and high AvgPM. After that I am going to put all three of them on the field for 8-10 games to count and compare their total CL.

If Jiménez will have low CL, that will mean Fitness is working individually. We won't be able to say that any skill works individually, but this theory will get some evidence by it's side.
If Arriagada will have low CL, that will mean AvgPM matters instead of Fitness, and skills are cosmetic.
If the Chileans will have the same CL, and Wieczorek will have low CL, that will mean... hm... both Fitness and AvgPM matter?
If all of them will have the same CL, that will mean nothing matters. Guten Tag Herr Nietzsche! =]

Comments? Questions? Criticism? Please, do me a favor, don't be shy.
And stay tuned.

You don't have to read this post. It can be boring, and probably doesn't contain anything useful.

Arriagada
He needs as much XP in P&M as possible, but without training Fitness. Here's a table of efficiency for him. Numbers in cells are experience points (not represented here) divided by Condition Loss (in %) and multiplied by 100. In other words, divide a number by 100, and the result will be the amount of experience that skill gets for every 1% of Condition Loss.

Attachment 77763

Carioca is ideal. All of it's XP goes to P&M, and nothing to Fitness. Easy.

Jiménez
He needs Fitness, but he doesn't need any other skills in P&M. Unfortunately, there're no drills that train Fitness without training at least one another skill in P&M.

The table for Jiménez is exactly the same.

So I need a drill that trains no more than 2 skill in P&M, and trains Fitness effectively, and trains another skill non-effectively (to reduce amount of XP goes to P&M). Warm-up is the best choice: 50% of XP goes to Fitness, 25% to Aggression and 25% to Heading. All the rest drills are less efficient.

If I'm going to train Arriagada with Carioca, he will get 100% XP to P&M, but Jiménez will get 75% XP to P&M! The difference is not that big. Nothing can be done here, unforunately.

Almost all the drills are lvl 1, except Defensive (lvl 2 up to GK Training including). I am using the following schedules:
4x GK Training + Carioca for Arriagada
4x GK Training + Warm-up for Jiménez
5 drills instead of 6, because this team is not lvl 17 in training, therefore I have only 5 slots open.
Why I use GK Training you can read here.

Let us see where it will bring me. I have ~100 green packs and about 200 tokens on this team, a lot of clicking ahead =]

UPDATE 18.02.2017
What I have after some training:
Arriagada: Fitness 62%, AvgPM 64%, Quality 72%
Jiménez: Fitness 85%, AvgPM 64%, Quality 66%

Now I'm going to train Jiménez with Defending Crosses so he has the same quality. Why DefCross? It's the only drill I have on this team that trains no skills in P&M.

UPDATE 19.02.2017
Ok, I'm done for today. Tomorrow is another day.
Arriagada: Fitness 62%, AvgPM 64%, Quality 72%
Jiménez: Fitness 85%, AvgPM 64%, Quality 72%
Wieczorek: Fitness 110%, AvgPM 78%, Quality 85%
None of them is going to play in the upcoming games for the experiment purity sake.

UPDATE 23.02.2017
Arriagada: Fitness 62%, AvgPM 87%, Quality 80%
Jiménez: Fitness 143%, AvgPM 81%, Quality 80%
Wieczorek: Fitness 131%, AvgPM 89%, Quality 89%
Arriagada is going to continue his training: Carioca, Carioca, Carioca...
But I'm going to train Jiménez with Def Crosses: he has enough Fitness, but he needs to have less AvgPM than Arriagada at the same Quality level.
I train Wieczorek with Stretch, but only beause I don't have Long Run, which would be a better option: 100% XP goes to AvgPM with half of it goes to Fitness. With Stretch only 33% of XP goes to Fitness.

UPDATE 08.03.2017
Ok, I'm back home from my business trip, and tomorrow will continue my experiments. Finally. Sorry for the delay.

UPDATE 16.03.2017
Testing is going well, but slow. I am playing frendlies against Mourinho, and I can't play more than one per day. I am currently playing with Low pressing and Zonal.
Results will be ready at the end of current season.

UPDATE 23.03.2017
I realized I made a couple of little mistakes in the testing method. Nothing serious, and anyway it's too late to change something now, so I continue.

Good luck

Nik, or any other moderator, can you please change "does" in the thread name to "do"? Because I can't.

It should be:
Testing: do individual skills matter?

Thanks in advance.

A study case i would like to see

- I bought a nordgen f.t./ academy / recommended (all those players are nordeus generated with untouchables skills and almost equal the three categories).
I made some training to him and he has high 6* quality (115% for example).
He is playing as ST but doesn't score much, 1 goal every 2 or more games (we must not choose him as a F-K or penalty specialist).

- The second season, I train him mostly in scoring-finishing skills which increased a lot.
As a result, I can see that he 's scoring a lot now.

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Originally Posted by nikolgiorgos

A study case i would like to see

- I bought a nordgen f.t./ academy / recommended (all those players are nordeus generated with untouchables skills and almost equal the three categories).
I made some training to him and he has high 6* quality (115% for example).
He is playing as ST but doesn't score much, 1 goal every 2 or more games (we must not choose him as a F-K or penalty specialist).

- The second season, I train him mostly in scoring-finishing skills which increased a lot.
As a result, I can see that he 's scoring a lot now.

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To make a research we need to get rid of the influence of other factors.

First of all, the team is changing, so the guy won't be playing with the same team all the time. You could not step twice into the same rivers. Maybe he didn't score because passes/crosses from AML/R were bad, but on the next season this situation will change.
How exactly do you want to train him on the first season? Without training Shooting and Finishing? What about other Attack skills?
His age will change. Many managers say that 18 y/o don't play with their full potential, maybe it's just a legend (I haven't noticed such a thing). But age may have an influence on player's performance.
Two players would solve this problem, but, obviously, their internal programming would be different. No way either.

In other words, we can try something like that, but I don't see how we can separate flies from the soup in this case. The results won't be trustworthy. Maybe I have an idea, but I need to think more about it.

First of all, very well work, congrats.

As far as I have seen the scoring strikers have higher creativity, shooting and finishing abilities than other abilities of them. Additionally, fitness is also important, according to my observations, for all the players but I cannot comment on how effective it is for the performances.

Opponent's players and their performances affect condition loss of your players... If you play 2* team, your players will lose much less condition than if you play 5* team...

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Originally Posted by Steppenwolf

Opponent's players and their performances affect condition loss of your players... If you play 2* team, your players will lose much less condition than if you play 5* team...

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Yes, of course! I know that. That's why I need to put them on the field simultaniously, all three of them, and make them play for a several games.

It is a good test althougn it will need many samples to consider it a proof (either way)

I guess through friendlies will be the best to check this, sticking to one opponent , same counter formation same tactics both ways etc. So you exclude the oppo factor.

Just a small check i had. I power trained with same drills simultaneously 3 defenders.
I was expecting that the one with higher condition skills would be affected less by training
This did not happen so I stopped bothering :D.

Looking forward to your outcome good luck

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Originally Posted by Cloverfield

I guess through friendlies will be the best to check this, sticking to one opponent , same counter formation same tactics both ways etc. So you exclude the oppo factor.

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This is a great idea, thank you!

Great idea, thanks for the effort.

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First hypothesis:
The higher Fitness skill, the less Condition Loss (CL).

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So far I was with Al Svandberg on this

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-I see zero correlation between -- individual -- fitness ability and conditioning loss in a game.

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One impact of the Fitness Ability can be that a player plays better with a high fitness ability if he has low conditioning, IE that a player for example with 200% in fitness ability will perform better with 50% conditioning than a player with 50% fitness ability and 50% conditioning.

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Interesting if you can prove or disprove your first hypothesis.

don't research too much ;)
then all gonna lost you like AI :(

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One of the main question of this game is the following: do the individual skills of a player matter or do the average values in each category play the role instead?

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My understanding both, based on match situation, player's position, formation etc.

I'm posting here my two great players, both I work lot for their sp and their position.

AML+ST+AMC : he mostly play ST position but sometime I use him to play amc position, all depend on the formation, like when I use one st formation I use him st, and when I need amc based formation I use him, he is really good on both position, but he used to be not that good. I give him FK sp too which he did good too when work some of his skills.


when I bought him he was 4* ST FT, as I working on him I bring his positioning+heading (with some others) skill high enough to play good as ST, to make score as FK I work on his shooting+finishing+creativity and he make me happy; same time when I feel I can use him as AMC, I add more point on his passing skills and he work good on that position too. this season (only played less than a week I believe, until new update and mass trolling started) he already got some yellow card, don't know I should work on his aggression or not although I stop playing and waiting to sell him,

ML+DML+MC: I bought him as 4* mc FT, I give him ck sp but he was not scoring good, but when I work on his passing+crossing+creativity then he make me happy (last season 15 assist on league, it might not very high but as a home made ck I'm happy about his assist); when I try to use him as dml on 3-6-1 butterfly formation, he was not doing good but as soon I add more def skills point, he start to work good as dml too.

Attachment 77907

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ps.: I could explain those players story on

https://forum.topeleven.com/tutorial...as-thread.html

but I explain here because it might help on your research. Good luck

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Originally Posted by ibangali

don't research too much ;)
then all gonna lost you like AI :(

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We must know, we will know. Or die trying =]

About tests. It goes very slowly, because I can't play more than one friendy each day against the same opponent, and I need to have the same starting conditions for every game. I wanted to do several tests with different orders and bonuses, but with current speed of testing the idea with bonuses best to be left forgotten.
I'm doing it with Zonal and Low pressing. I don't see any correlations between Fitness, AvgPM, Quality and CL. Maybe with High Pressing and Man-2-man there will be difference, but I tend to think that either nothing reduce CL (and high Fitness just negate invisible condition penalty or something like this) or individual skills don't matter. Yay.

One interesting thought - can anyone point to a character who has improved notably from training?

I can't think of a thread about a "well trained" player. My own experience is that highly capable players are identifiable pretty quickly. I can train players to keep up, but can a player go from average 6.5 to 8s? Lots of noise in that, many managers probably don't keep players long enough to develop, or don't have a plan for training or tactics.

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Originally Posted by LeManiaque

I can't think of a thread about a "well trained" player. My own experience is that highly capable players are identifiable pretty quickly. I can train players to keep up, but can a player go from average 6.5 to 8s? Lots of noise in that, many managers probably don't keep players long enough to develop, or don't have a plan for training or tactics.

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Well, quality definitely matters.
If by "developed" player you mean a player with high difference between white and grey skill, I haven't noticed that. It seems the only way to improve rating of a player is to improve his overall quality. But I usually sell my players when they turn 22, maybe the improvement is slow and not very noticeable.

I don't mean a big difference between grey and white skills, I think each player might have a best skill balance based on position, tactics, and opponent. For example, my DR had a great goal scoring rate for his first 5 seasons or more (would have to check screenshots of his stats and skill). While he's an effective enough defender, I couldn't maintain his skill balance, specifically the grey skills, and he scores rarely now.

My attackers are doing very well at near retirement, lowest Q ever, very unbalanced skills grey: white, but still I focus on individual skill balance. My philosophy - mixing unbalanced, older, low %Q players with higher %, younger players yields a team that is most effective at a lower team Q than your opponents. (My current season is proving that out).

I look it from a resource management perspective, I can fast train a few u-21 players each season, and save resources that won't go very far with older players anyways. I pick someone up at 18-19 and have a few seasons to see if theyre consistently effective in matches, and at 21 I can make sure they get to whatever %q I choose.

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Originally Posted by LeManiaque

My philosophy - mixing unbalanced, older, low %Q players with higher %, younger players yields a team that is most effective at a lower team Q than your opponents. (My current season is proving that out)

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Interesting strategy.
How old and how low %Q are these older unbalanced players?
Like 24-25yo?
4* 70-80% - or rather 5* 80-90%?
When do you finally dump them?

https://forum.topeleven.com/top-elev...tml#post447406
https://forum.topeleven.com/top-elev...tml#post447464
^^^ details for my old attackers

They're old and will almost certainly be starters until retirement. My 3rd old player is my DR, same range about 70q and 29 years. My attackers both do as well as ever (I have a second striker about 26 and 90%, also playing like always, but he is fielded less often, better off the bench). My DR has dropped off quite a bit, 1-2 MoM per season, down from a high of 14 in one season, about 1:3 matches played; and his goal scoring has dropped enormously. However, his ratings are equal or better whoever has played DL, usually with much higher quality (currently 100 left , 68 right). Here's a shot of current and many seasons ago.
Attachment 79241
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Edit: his current stats. I approve of these ratings, they used to be more 9-10, but if you've read, I've taken 1st in CL group and QF cup both with mostly favorite teams from a level up.
Attachment 79243

thanks for sharing.

It seems to give credit to my intuition that the global q%/ star rating can be misleading. When grey skills fall very low, they pull the player's quality% down. While It might well be that a player is still performant if his white skills are 100% or higher, regardless of the grey skills.

(Sometimes I also check the white skills of 4* players on the TM just in case it'd be such kind of player)

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Originally Posted by LarryC

It seems to give credit to my intuition that the global q%/ star rating can be misleading.

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That's part of my "mental game", I think every team is thrown off by my formation and meager attacking %. In my cup and CL matches, my +1 level opponents will see me having like 50%Q attacking... It's easy to underestimate, easy to overlook the goal scoring rate of my attackers, or that my midfield also accounts for a lot of attacking effort.

Similarly, I assume some people look at 4411 or 4141 and assume I'll play pure central attacking or low defending, respectively. I really have come to like playing an "ambiguous" formation.

That's smart. Nice power of unbalanced skills.
How do you keep players with high white skills beyond 22yo? Shoot them up to 8* or 9* when they are 21 then let's them land slowly season after season, or do you power train them every season?

It depends on the resources I've got and the form and effectiveness of the player over the few seasons I've played him.

I buy 18-19, and anyone who is making a real impact I'll get to 120 when he's 21 years. If he's good, but replaceable, it'll be under 120, we can win without him. I've had a few players higher in the mid 120s when they were clearly special at age 19-20, so they get to 120 then and still have year 21 to win MoM, train with high efficiency, and get back over 120 quickly.

I like having a few, 1-3 starting 11 players who can be fast trained and are known to be reliable starters, in case of wanting to bump team Q up. But if the season is clinched, like I'll win league but out of cup and cl, why bother. I'll hold resources one season to the next until there's a good option for it.

I did that with my star player at 21yo, he's got indeed very unbalanced skills at 24yo, 97%q. I'll see what it gives when he get to 26-27. Hope I won't have to give him too many serious training sessions (admittedly I pushed him a few q% this season).
Thanks for having shared your method.

My testing team is 60%. Mourinho, with whom I play friendlies, is 82.2%.
But sometimes my guys manage to get a draw. That means extra time, more condition loss, ruined results and a wasted day...

Also, message №444