Attributes Weights For Positions in FM2021
Observations
The most obvious thing to notice is that aggression, determination, flair and natural fitness do not depend on the player's ability. In addition for goalkeepers, their free kick taking, penalty taking, eccentricity and tendency to punch or rush out also do not depend on their ability.The highest weighted attributes are pace and acceleration for wingers, acceleration for strikers and decisions for goalkeepers and central defenders. Indeed, acceleration and pace are generally highly-weighted attributes across all positions. Agility is also highly-weighted across the board.
Decisions are clearly a highly-weighted (and therefore important) attribute for all positions although it can be seen this it is most important for defensive and central positions.
In a similar manner, the strength of the weaker foot becomes more highly weighted for more attacking positions.
Set-piece attributes are typically the lowest weighted attributes.
It is interesting to note that Heading is also a weighted attribute (albeit low) for goalkeepers despite not appearing on their profile. If you modify your squad view to show the heading attribute, you will find that goalkeepers do indeed have an attribute value for it.
Discussion: The Definitive Guide to Current Ability in Football Manager
25 comments have been posted so far.
The weighting remain the same for FM22. Only GK in FM23 has been changed a little (Passing & First Touch). The others remain the same.
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Because in words I did not understand how to reproduce it.
As for weaker foot, that is from the Overview/Information page. The game doesn't show a numeric value (1-20) for this attribute so we had to work out the range of each category and picked the middle value.
For example, reasonable is 10, strong is 16 etc.
This means there can be a few CA units inaccuracy as someone with reasonable can actually be 8-12.
Thanks!
Where Im going with this, is that this may happen to some degree with other roles and it may be good to know how relativelly good a player is for a certain role where the game can be misleading. Like going back to the extreme example, one striker can be relativelly pretty good as a Complete Forward and worth using as such, but it may show ingame that you aren't using well his potential been only his 3rd/4th best role. But that may not be due to bad attribute alignment, just due to how demanding the role is.
Also, does it seem from the study that some positions thesmelves are more demanding? As in needing higher CA overall to have good stats in that position? Or is that balanced out? Seems like it at first sight, but with so many numbers it may not.
Aside from this suggestion the study does pose me question. Until now I though CA was absolute given the game only has 1 value for each player, and then the quality on a given position depended on the spread of such CA. But with CA been calculated differently based on position, what CA does the game take then to interact with potential and development? Just the best possible for a given player even if its not the position he plays in? Will players whose potential has capped but are not at their max for the poistion they play in start to lose secondary attributes and gain on main ones as training continues?
Also, would you conclude after this study that some attributes may be very worth it to look out for/develop because of their "cheapness" and the little opportunity cost in main attributes? Theres things like flair and agression that, while somewhat double edged, I belive are considered to be net positives by a fair margin, specially if the accompanying attributes for a gvien are good enough.
Then you have things like jumping reach and heading which are very cheap outside of SCT and CD, which may make them very good to have outside those position if you expect the player to use them at all. any kind of attacking midfielder that gets into the box seems great to make a header according to this as it wont cost him much in other attributes.
On a similar note, may this make some duty/role/position combinations more efficient? In the sense of behaving very similar on the field to another combination on a different position, yet been able to have higher attributes with less CA. Like, having a defensive oriented midfielder been cheaper as MC than as DM, or having a attacking oriented winback been cheaper if playing as DRL insted of WBRL.
Those are great questions and to be honest, I do not know the answer! From my current interpretation, it means it is harder to train a striker for an AF position as it is a more demanding role.
I think we need to think in terms of 'spending' CA points. AF has something like 15 key/preferable attributes, so the CA points will be more diluted across those 15 attributes. On the other hand a Poacher is more limited/focussed on 9 attributes, so the CA points can be 'spent' on less attributes leading to higher values.
For example, AF has Dribbling as a key attribute. But it is not for a Poacher. So for a Poacher, any Dribbling points are 'wasted' and could be better spent on attributes required for a Poacher.
p.s. I've never trained a GK for set-pieces but it would be an interesting experiment!
Great analysis.
My question is: how do Key Attributes (highlighted green) and Preferable Attributes (highlighted blue) work then?
I.e. if you put a striker on the Poacher role, the game only highlightes acceleration attribute, basically saying that physical attributes aren't required for that specific role. At the same time the Advanced Forward role got the entire Physical column highlighted blue (except Jumping Reach and Strength). But the sheet you made says physical attributes are the must-have for any striker, since they are all heavily weighted.
Another example is Pressing Forward. The role requires great mental attributes, which are "cheap" for strikers since they are lightly weighted; and only Finishing and First touch is highlighted under Technical.
Yes, it will be. RCA goes up as you add more positions in so as you say, it likely uses the highest weight for those positions. At the moment I've stuck to players with a single position, but am looking at multiple positions now!
Consistency and Important Matches do not affect RCA, you can actually see this in the pre-game Editor - it shows 'Current Ability-Dependent Attributes'. It is only the ones in the chart i.e. visible attributes and foot strength.