Chat Achieving player potential

[Dan Dare]

Can anyone help with how to achieve player potential please? I signed Nnamdi Collins a few years ago and he used to have a potential of 4.5 stars, it seems to have just dropped to 2.5 stars though. What am I doing wrong?

 

 

[JamesVilla]

It could be that your team has improved, therefore higher rated players at the start will be less rated. For example, a championship striker in League 2 will probably have 5 stars, but the same player, same club, in the premier league wont.

Also, as long as he is performing and stats look good, I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the star ratings. Always been abit flawed in my opinion. 

[DanEnglish]

You see that 'currently in below average form' comment? Well in last year's FMM, that 'negative' on the coach report would always decrease the ability + potential stars for that player (at least for me). When the player is in better form, and that 'negative' disappears from the coach report, then you'll see the stars jump back up. I'm willing to bet that's the reason (or at least part of the reason).

If this is part of a longer term downgrade of that player's potential / stars (e.g. over a few seasons), then maybe (A) the player hasn't been playing enough in the past few seasons (15-25 games / season, mostly with <7 ratings = not much development), and so isn't realising his potential. Or alternatively it could be your (B) coaching setup isn't good enough, (C) training setup isn't good enough, or (D) you keep training him into new positions (which he's not ideally suited to), which makes him more positionally flexible but at the risk of harming his development elsewhere.

I'm willing to guess / bet the 'currently in below average form' comment is part of (or the main) reason. 

[Dan Dare]

Ok thanks. That line about form has gone now and his potential ability has gone up to 3 stars. Seems a bit weird that they would change so easily. He’s still listed as a wonder kid so I guess he must still have a fair amount of potential.

[Scratch]

The stars assigned to players by staff in the game are only their opinion and change depending on player form, the league you are in, the quality of the other players at the club, etc etc. And yes, they fluctuate wildly. Also worth saying that by design, they are supposed to be inaccurate - they are only the staff member's opinion.

If you purchase the In-Game Editor, you can see the real star value for CA/PA. And if I ever release my scouting app (Android only, not free), you'll be able to see the actual 0-200 values for CA/PA. Those are both the real thing, but the staff stars are just the staff's guess and they can be pretty inaccurate (like the time my staff member rated Messi's regen as 1.5 star potential, despite him having 200 out of 200 PA).