realistic player progression in MM

[vthallman]

i just put together a set of restrictions that i've been using in my MM for player progression. I always thought PES had the best player progression in master league mode so i tried to somewhat follow that.

This shows per year improvement allowed for each attribute category for different ages. I also put in slightly inflated allowances for "wonderkids"(W column). Rather than focus the improvement on one or two specific attributes, I spread it across all attributes evenly(this is how PES did it). So when it says 1 for Attack...that means I give a plus 1 to all attacking attributes.
------------------------------AGE-----------------------
-------------16-21--(W)--22-26--(W)--27-30-(W)--30+
Attack --------2------3----1------2-----0-----0----0
Defense-------2------3-----1------2-----0----0-----0
Power---------2------3-----1------2-----1----1-----0
Movement-----2------3-----0------0-----0----0-----0
Mental---------2------3----1------2-----1-----1----0


I've made some assumptions here:
-player's athleticism (speed, agility, acceleration) max's out at age 21.
-player's reach their peak ability level at age 26. after that i only increase some mental and physical strength attributes

Also, I've found that usually if you add 1 point to every attribute then a player's overall will go up 1 point....add 2, overall goes up 2, etc. this is not exact but quite close regardless of player position.

So, using this method a 16 yr old "wonderkid" of 70ovr would reach about 95 ovr by age 27. of course, you have to decide who gets wonderkid status.

Please add any ideas. It's not perfect but I'm enjoying MM quite a bit more with these restrictions.

[Kiruk]

Like the idea. I'm tempted to buy PES 2009, even though I promised my self to only spend money on one game this year. I miss a proper MM mode

Some edits I would make:

- Increase the agility, speed, acceleration to 23-24.
- Make older players lose stamina past, say 28.
- As you did increase mental stats when they get older
- Also increase passing/shooting accuracy. A lot of the older players are brilliant passers (Scholes for example) and they just keep improing as they get older.

[vthallman]

Good points. I was thinking about lowering the progression rate of youngsters by a point and then allowing a little more in older players. There's always room for tweaking things. Unfortunately, I don't think you can decrease any attributes manually. I've noticed some old players losing speed and stamina but the loss is minimal.

[Blaxican8504]

I am curious to see how you would apply this to goalkeepers?

[vthallman]

Haven't thought much about keepers. In my current MM I have a 24 yr old keeper and I've just added 2 pts to each goalkeeping attribute each year as well as some others like long pass, reaction, balance, etc. I guess I would give 1pt per year to the relevant attributes until they reach a certain age(say 24-26) then bump it up to 2 per year.

[Qb]

I would think keepers should improve more later in their careers and for a longer time than field players. Since GK is often more dependent on smarts/positioning than sheer athleticism, they should probably progress even once they're past 30. Maybe stop adding points to GK Diving, Reaction and any Movement categories, but Positioning, Handling & 1v1 could improve with age...