hosh13 wrote: So then, it seems that what you want is a game that is like this, instead of one where you will never get any player anywhere near max stats by careers end and so you choose specific sorts of skills to train and thus get a specific sort of team. Training a stat that appears relevent, only to find out later that it isn't, is dumb. Only argumentative fanboy fanatics think otherwise.

I know you're not a fan of time, but it takes time to experiment and develop the skills that you determine are most effective at each position. Using logic, greasemonkey or the myriad of topics in the forums that can assist you with this.....it can be done. In the end, it's a subjective science that some managers may disagree about and yet it keeps the game interesting.........much more so than having everyone build in the exact same manner. It takes management to determine this and then set the appropriate skill numbers so that your salary does not get out of hand and you go bankrupt.

Gatr22 wrote: hosh13 wrote: So then, it seems that what you want is a game that is like this, instead of one where you will never get any player anywhere near max stats by careers end and so you choose specific sorts of skills to train and thus get a specific sort of team. Training a stat that appears relevent, only to find out later that it isn't, is dumb. Only argumentative fanboy fanatics think otherwise. I know you're not a fan of time, but it takes time to experiment and develop the skills that you determine are most effective at each position. Using logic, greasemonkey or the myriad of topics in the forums that can assist you with this.....it can be done. In the end, it's a subjective science that some managers may disagree about and yet it keeps the game interesting.........much more so than having everyone build in the exact same manner. It takes management to determine this and then set the appropriate skill numbers so that your salary does not get out of hand and you go bankrupt.

Yeah... I used to play another online football game and everyone was building the same builds... That is putting all your eggs in the developers basket. And made the teams and game boring...

I kinda love the uncertainty and pure chance of luck you get from this engine.

hosh13 wrote: Again, the suggestion that all teams will be the same is wrong. So long as there are enough stats per position, then managers will choose to put the emphasis on certain things. There is - Strength Speed Agility Stamina for starters. So if we had another 5 that were relevent then that's 1800 Training points to get everything to max (less what the player had to start with) So as long as a player gets nowhere near 20 in all these then players will vary from manager to manager depending on what they chose to emphasize. This makes a lot more sense then wasting time training thin air as you try to read the devs mind - crazy.

As far as skills are concerned, all the teams would be pretty much the same if the developers were to tell us just what skills to train. Yes there would be some differences in physicals, but if you train enough players, eventually, if you are patient enough, you can get physicals to where you want for virtually every position.

As far as physical skills (i.e. speed, strength and stamina), it's not that hard to cap your players and then max out the 3-5 skills long before they retire. When I say "max out the skills," that means max them out to the number that makes sense for your team to not go bankrupt. As I have already stated, I have players that are maxed in physicals and anywhere from 14 to 18 for the skills I think are valued by position. It can be done and it's much better pitting my skills against what others think are important as opposed to just all of us building the same way.

If you had all of your players at 20 for the 3-5 skills, you would surely go bankrupt in short order. So perhaps you just need to do some math and figure out what the max skill level for each position will work best with your projected income. Then start with 16-17 year old players and go from there, but it can be done.

Lastly, the 1800 training points don't apply to all players. I'm not even sure how you arrived at that, but all players will be different and by a large margin. That is why there is a premium on 16-17 year olds that start out with higher speed, strength, agility and stamina. You can save a couple seasons of training right there. Also, a high teamwork number greatly increases the training gain. I never buy a player off the transfer market with 7 speed and strength for example. I rarely buy anyone under 10 for either. There are a lot of managers who like to buy speed and strength already maxed or at least where they are happy with them already. Factor in their current age and how long it will take to train them to your desired skill level and then you know to buy or not.

The crudeness of the game engine is not my doing.

If the player attributes are such that what you're saying is correct, then they are pretty ordinary. The attributes relevent to a given position should never be able to be maxed out by the end of a player's career.

Then to say that making them mysterious is best is just laughable.

One of the things I like to do is look at the Trade Market for very well developed players. If they have been on a very successful team for a long time (that way you know who developed them). It is a very good learning tool for what it takes at each position. A perfect example of this was a few month ago when Sierre sold his entire team. I spent a few hours catagorizing the order of importance for each skill based on each position. It was very interesting, and it did not all match Spilling the Beans ( it is still a must read for any one that wants to get a real grip on this game though ). Of course it did help that his starting QB was 20 int 20 cons and 20 vis