SFraser's Training Schedules for FM10

[SFraser]

This post is a direct copy from the thread I posted in the SI main forums. It is the result of a long period of work involving multiple different contributors and a hugely successful training discussion that was posted here in it's infancy.

The original information that sparked this end result came from this forum. However through testing, debate, discussion, further investigation and a years effort, it is my opinion and the opinion of many others with valuable and detailed arguements that the basic conceptions underlying training are fundamentally wrong, that the general take on training is erratic, lacking solid foundation, and prone to a basis entireally unfounded and undescribed assumption.

The following post is a set of schedules designed with as much knowledge on player mechanics as I have found possible to discover, but more than that it is an explanation of the underlying mechanics combined to the assumptions I have made in designing them. The following thread is essentially an experiment, but one with sterling results and a few problems that come not from a lack of comprehension but such simplicity as miscounting attributes.

I hope you take the time to read it, I hope it helps to reveal the details of game mechanics you have misunderstood or found difficult to find, and I hope it is as useful to this forum as it has been to the official SI mainsite. Above all else I hope it can spark discussion and investigation that is useful to all.



SFraser's Training Schedules for FM10

Despite writing at great lengths about the topic of how players work and how training works I have never released any Training Schedules to the wider public. This is partly because I do not believe that "one-shoe-fits-all" schedules exist, partly because I had never taken the time to develop a broad range of general schedules that could be used by other people, and partly because I did not know enough detail about certain key aspects of Training and player mechanics to produce what I would consider accurate schedules.

While the first remains true the latter two have changed and I am now confident of releasing a comprehensive set of powerful and accurate schedules for community use. More than that however I would like to encourage and engage the community to assist me in developing these schedules further, in greater depth and detail, and in fine tuning the basic underlying principles.

Should you download these schedules you will be a guinea pig, but do not be alarmed for I have already received very positive feedback and observed some very impressive results already from these schedules. However I do not simply wish to release a bunch of schedules for your use, I wish to get your help to further explain the details of training, further improve and develop superior schedules, but also help users to construct their own ideal individual player schedules based on what is understood about training and player mechanics, and based on the underlying premise of these schedules.

The following screenshots are the kind of results you can expect after a year, under ideal conditions, and with a well balanced schedule. However I will be the first to admit that not all the schedules are well balanced and this is where I need your help. I need your help to design and test better balanced versions of these schedules, indeed to design and test whatever schedules you can think of for players. To do this you will need to understand the rules I am following when designing these schedules, understand the key factors to pay attention to, understand the ratios I am working from, and hopefully you will also pop up with some new and more accurate information of your own.






The now 32 year old Jamie Carragher has improved in almost everything except his Physical Attributes and his Physical Attributes have not gone down. Atleast that is how it looks on the surface. Underneath all this his Physical Attributes have gone down but not by enough to register a change. The schedule predicts this and trains him intensively in Physical Attributes so as to slow down the rate of change while at the same time favouring Tactics and Defending slightly more than Ball Control, Attacking and Shooting to receive the lost CA. The schedule also anticipates that his Ball Control Attributes and Shooting Attributes will require less CA to go up than Tactics and Defending, and so we have a near perfect spread of small increases in his Technical and Mental attributes while his Physical attributes barely change.

Looking at this screenshot perhaps I should have reduced his Ball Control and favoured his Tactics or Attacking more but then this is where I need your help to test the balance of these schedules on different players and make suggestions for improvements to the balance, or even design your own superior schedules based on the information I will give you.

Now lets take a look at the 25 year old DM/CM Mascherano. This 25 year old powerhouse midfield destroyer has improved his Stamina, Strength, Teamwork, Decisions and Concentration. How is that for some Central Midfielder training? A 25 year old clearly improving his physical attributes is not something you see very often, and to improve the key physical attributes at the same rate as his other vital positional attributes are improving is something I am sure everyone wants to see in their own players. Why is his Composure bouncing around? Because there has to be concessions made and for this schedule the concessions are unfortunately in his Defending, Attacking, Shooting and Set Pieces. No free lunch I am afraid. Do you want to change this balance? I will tell you how to do so.


The Schedules



Before I give you the link to download these schedules it is important to explain how they work, how to tell if they are working for you, and to tell you how to change them as you see fit.

As we can see from the screenshot above, these do not in any way follow the "Number Line Theory" of Training you can read about in certain training threads or in other forums. This "Number Line Theory" suggests that if you place one slider at precisely a certain notch, 7 I think, then those attributes will not change. Likewise if you place the slider at notch 18 or 19 or something then those attributes will increase. Well that's rubbish.

Take a look at Vidic, Ferdinand and Brown. They are all fit, at 100% match experience and they are all on the same schedule with huge variations between sliders. Yet for some reason they are not all behaving exactly the same, and for some other reason that shoots the "Number Line Theory" out of the sky, all of them are powering through Shooting Training which is at notch 9 while barely making a dent in Tactics that is at notch 20. The only guy improving his Tactics is Vidic.

So what is going on in this screen? Well a number of things are going, you just can't see all the individual details so it makes it hard to figure out what the arrows mean.

Wes Brown and Ferdinand are both at 100% Match Experience and have been at that level for a while and they are both at or close to their PA. Ferdinand cannot gain any more CA so his attributes cannot go up unless CA is removed from other attributes. Ferdinand is also a Centreback and this means that certain attributes go up faster or slower for the same amount of CA. For Ferdinand his Age, CA/PA, Match Experience and his particular Attribute CA needs means that this schedule is almost perfectly balanced to do nothing. The amount of CA being shared by this schedule between his Strength, Aerobic, Tactics, Ball Control, Defending and Attacking is exactly enough to prevent any change while he is at 100% Match Experience. However we are not training his set peices and his Shooting Attributes dont need much CA to improve because he is a Centreback. This means that while his other attributes stay the same, his Shooting Attributes are improving.

Yes you read that correct. His Strength, Aerobic, Tactics, Ball Control, Defending and Attacking Categories are all perfectly balanced for his Age and his Position.

Vidic is not only younger which changes the balance for him, but he has also just reached 100% Match Experience after being injured. He will have lost a small amount of CA when he was injured and will now be gaining all that CA now he is at 100% Match Experience. So ontop of his zero Set Piece Training freeing up CA for his Shooting Attributes to improve, he is also gaining CA which means all of his other attributes instead of being perfectly balanced to do nothing, are perfectly balanced to increase at the same rate.

This 1st Choice CB Schedule is designed to "Maintain" Centrebacks that are near to their peak Ability level while favouring only minor increases in key attributes. Composure in this case because in my first attempt at a CB schedule I forgot to consider Composure and Concentration in my schedule (thank you for the omission SI) and lo and behold down went Ferdinands Composure after a months training. The above schedule for a Centreback that is close to their PA and not yet suffering from heavy Age penalties is very close to a perfect "Maintain" schedule. It wont prevent CA from going up or down or shifting around during a season, but it wont speed up or slow down these naturally occuring changes.

The Developing CB and Veteran CB schedules above and below this one are completely different. For each position their is an U-17 Schedule, a Developing Schedule, a 1st Choice Schedule and a Veteran Schedule. The U-17 Schedule emphasises key attributes for the position at the expense of any nonesense young players do not need to learn. The Developing Schedules are for players between 17 and 24 or those than need a crash course in the Senior Basics. They are Physically Intensive and they focus again on vital areas of the game for that position. The 1st Choice is generally a more rounded, more "Maintain" Schedule aimed also at reducing intensity and maintaining condition and Morale. The Veteran Schedule is aimed purely at players who are starting to decline Physically. It attempts to halt the destructive drop of Stamina while channeling Aerobic CA into Mental and Technical attributes in order to build a Maldini or Giggs.

The exact shape of the schedules for each position is my own view on what the position should look like and how best to deal with different ages. They may be far from your own liking and may also be poorly balanced in certain respects.

The exact design of each schedule is based on two fundamental ideas. Designing Category intensities based on numbers of attributes contained within each Category and designing Relative Category Intensities based on ratios.

Let me try and explain for you clearly.

Strength has 4 attributes in the Category, Aerobic has 6 attributes in the Category. Therefore to train Strength and Aerobic equally I place Strength at notch 4 and Aerobic at notch 6. Attacking has only two attributes so to train attacking equally with Strength and Aerobic I place Attacking at notch 2. If I want Attacking to receive twice as much Training as Strength I place Attacking at notch 4, the same as Strength. Strength has 4 attributes while Attacking has 2 attributes, so now each Attacking attribute should receive twice the CA as each Strength attribute.

The complicated part comes from the fact that certain attributes require more CA to improve than others, based on Age, Position etc. There are some rough and ready rules but no exact figures so there can be no exact science to training.

The Strength and Tactics Categories for a Centreback will require more CA to increase than the Ball Control Category. If he is young then his Strength Category naturally receives more CA anyway, if he is old his Strength Category naturally tries to shed CA. This means that you will always have to consider Strength Training much higher than others to achieve the same rate of increase, but this is not true when a player is very young nor very old.

I have developed a Test Schedule containing the basic ratios of a balanced schedule independant of Position and Age.



This Test Schedule (ignore Vidic here as he has been on it 5 minutes) is the basis on which all my schedules are designed and you will find the Test, GK Test and U-17 Test schedules in my schedule pack.

To avoid overcomplication all schedules have been kept precisely to these ratios. There are no half Strength increases, only an increase or decrease by 4 every time I wish to increase Strength training by "a balanced notch".

A Centreback Schedule may for example increase Strength by 4 "notches" to position 16, Aerobic to 24, Tactics to 20, Ball Control to 10, Defending by 4 to 12, Attacking to 4, Shooting to 6. Once this achieved, a rough pattern for the shape of a Centreback's Training of important attributes 2x less important attributes, you will then have to take Attribute Weights and Age into account, so perhaps Increase Strength by another 4, Tactics by another 5 and Defending by another 3.

These schedules seem to work and seem to work well, although there are plenty of rough edges and areas that could be much better balanced. I would appreciate as much feedback on these issues as you can give me, and as much feedback on any others issues as well.


Download Link

http://www.mediafire.com/?z2ftnmzazmm

[SFraser]

Please be aware that during the course of the discussion based upon this post, it has become clear that I have made some errors in calculating Aerobic and Strength Attribute numbers.

For both Aerobic and Strength I have accounted for a single attribute each that does not require CA to improve. Therefore the CA going into each of those categories is 1 part in 6 or 1 part in 4 higher than necessary. Each of these Categories receives additional CA.

Ontop of this comes the fact that the intensities for the Categories do not need to be so high. In over calculating the attribute numbers I have overcalculated the intensities required, and this has resulted in reports of excess injuries, as would be expected.

To quickly and easilly adapt these schedules to the accurate quantity of CA relevant attributes, simply count how many times Aerobic has gone up by 6 points and reduce Aerobic by 1 point per 6 point increase. For example if Aerobic is at notch 24 then it has gone up by 6 points 4 times, so reduce Aerobic by 4 points.

For Strength it is multiples of four. I counted 4 Strength attributes while only 3 require CA. Therefore reduce Strength by 1 point for each 4 point increase. If Strength is at notch 16, then it has gone up by 4 points 4 times. So reduce Strength by 4.

This is the first installment of these schedules, containing some calculation errors and containing some personal position Training style biases. The second installment will correct these errors, and will also produce positional training schedules based on how the GAME considers positions.

Thank you for your time, and I hope you take the time to study the Position relevant Attributes spread, as this is the hallmark of a great schedule more so than the sum of attribute increases which is a hallmark of general ability increase, which training has no influence over.

[Rodace]

Very Interesting concept and thanks for the detailed explanation Sfraser. Wondering if I get the concept right:

1) Each training category base weight (from your test schedule) is based on the number of CA trainable attributes in that category. 3 for strength, 5 for aerobic and so on.
2) To increase training intensity for one category, just increase in multiples of the base weight for each category.
3) CA for each attribute to increase is different and contrary to the number line theory, it is still possible to increase attributes if your training in that category is light but be at least at the base weight.
4) To maintain physical attributes for older players, training intensity for physical attributes has to go up as compared to previous belief of keeping at x=7,8.


i have some other queries:
1) For your example on Vidic, ferdinand and brown, you mentioned that with no arrows, you mentioned that the training is balanced for ferdinand. Does that mean that these corressponding attributes do not increase or decrease? I went into my game and find some players wiht no arrows but when I click on their personal profile, I see that there are some increment in stats.
2) I have alwats wondered why stamina and aerobic training contribute more to workload than the other categories. If based on your approach that each category weight is different as there are differing number of attributes in each category, shouldn't the workload varies based on the number of attributes in each category? But we all know there are 5 attributes in set pieces training but its workload contribution is less than attacking training which has only 2 attributes.

Thanks

[SFraser]

Very Interesting concept and thanks for the detailed explanation Sfraser. Wondering if I get the concept right:

1) Each training category base weight (from your test schedule) is based on the number of CA trainable attributes in that category. 3 for strength, 5 for aerobic and so on.
2) To increase training intensity for one category, just increase in multiples of the base weight for each category.
3) CA for each attribute to increase is different and contrary to the number line theory, it is still possible to increase attributes if your training in that category is light but be at least at the base weight.
4) To maintain physical attributes for older players, training intensity for physical attributes has to go up as compared to previous belief of keeping at x=7,8.

1) Sort of. The basic weight for each training category is always going to be one notch of training, but in Aerobic for example which has 5 CA attributes there will always be 5 attributes sharing that single notch of training CA, whereas Attacking only has 2 attributes sharing that same single notch of training CA. The end result being that each Attacking attribute should therefore receive 2.5x more training CA.

Thus a balanced schedule must take into account how many attributes are sharing the same overall quantity of training.

2) This is the easiest way to do it to work in clear multiples of training effect per attribute. Aerobic at notch 10 and Attacking at notch 2 would mean each Aerobic attribute receives 2 notches of training effect while each Attacking attribute receives 1 notch of training effect. You could work at Aerobic 5 and Attacking 1 for the exact same overall ratio of 2:1 per attribute, but it then becomes tougher to balance the other categories, such as Strength with 3.

Increasing by entire groups means the ratios between categories are always perfectly balanced and easier to judge and use, at the expense perhaps of being able to produce wider ratios or more detailed and accurate schedules.

3) CA required for each attribute to increase is most certainly different, but also the amount of CA certain attributes naturally receive changes with Age. Physical Attributes generally require a lot of CA to improve, and during early years they naturally receive lots of CA. However as a player ages his Physical Attributes naturally receive less and less CA, and eventually start to naturally shed CA. This occurs without ever changing how much CA is required to shift that attribute +/-1 point. This remains constant per position.

The second point here is that any large influx or decline of CA will always result in attribute increases or declines, irrespective of training. Training simply shifts this CA around according to the pattern you design. It cannot prevent vast gains in developing players, or vast drops in declining players. It can only reinforce or counter-act growth and decline of particular attributes with the caveat that some other set of attributes must provide the balancing reinforcement or counter-actment of their growth or decline.

4) Absolutely, and eventually no matter the extent of physical training, the natural decline of physical attributes will over-power the schedule and they will drop.

i have some other queries:
1) For your example on Vidic, ferdinand and brown, you mentioned that with no arrows, you mentioned that the training is balanced for ferdinand. Does that mean that these corressponding attributes do not increase or decrease? I went into my game and find some players wiht no arrows but when I click on their personal profile, I see that there are some increment in stats.
2) I have alwats wondered why stamina and aerobic training contribute more to workload than the other categories. If based on your approach that each category weight is different as there are differing number of attributes in each category, shouldn't the workload varies based on the number of attributes in each category? But we all know there are 5 attributes in set pieces training but its workload contribution is less than attacking training which has only 2 attributes.

The Training screens do not show the impact of a players Age and Position, they show the impact and overall effect of the schedule. All of the training screens are essentially indicators of how the schedule is functioning as a schedule.

For Rio Ferdinand, most of his schedule is doing exactly what it did last week. The only difference is an increase in Shooting training that I explained, which is now increasing in terms of how much CA the schedule is putting into Shooting, at the expense of Set Pieces. Everything else is unchanged in terms of what it is doing to Ferdinand compared to last week.

What the schedule is actually doing to Ferdinand as player, rather than what it is doing to the CA, depends on his Position and Age and any gains/decreases in overall CA. Ferdinand is 30, a Centreback and not gaining or losing any CA, therefore the schedule is overall doing nothing to him as a player, despite the hugely varied levels of his Categories, because certain categories need more CA regularly compared to others to "maintain".

You can only see this exact impact of the schedule through watching his attributes over time. However any changes the schedule is doing to him are so minor as to be extremely longterm tiny changes. The difference is his Shooting, where I made a small error and then corrected it, and saw a small decrease then increase in his relevant attributes.

Vidic on the other hand has been injured and was not on this schedule. Putting him on this schedule has had the effect of hugely improving the amount of CA I am adding into most of his Categories. This may ultimately result in a "maintain" schedule for a Centreback like Ferdinand, but it also means had I not put him onto this schedule he would likely have seen a decline in some of his key attributes, and this is often seen just after a longterm injury.

The arrows represent changes in Training Progress. Training Progress represents the relative amounts of CA you are putting into each Category. Each Category requires different relative amounts of CA depending on Age and Position to increase/decrease or "maintain".

Training arrows and Training Progress are not indicators of end result. They indicate only the process that is currently being carried out for a particular player with his particular attribute weights and particular attribute rates of increase and decline. You can use them to judge how to adapt a schedule for different results, but only once you know what those results will be for X player by watching his attributes change over a period of time.

[SFraser]

Apologies for the double post but I wish to explain the basic premise of these schedules and my training concept in clear details.

The basic premise and the one that will be easy to test for differences one way or the other, is that each Category Notch for each slider provides roughly the same overall effect for shifting CA through training. If you ignore coaches etc. then each Notch should add or subtract a similar quantity of CA or a similar relative quantity of CA from addition to that Category.

In effect, if we maximised the sliders for Aerobic and Strength and left all others at zero, we should be attempting to put all of this players CA changes through Training into his Physical Attributes. If we maximised Strength and Aerobic, and placed Tactics and Ball Control half way up the slider, and left the rest at zero then we should be attempting to take CA from his Categories at zero, while giving one third of that CA to his Tactics and Ball Control, and two thirds to his Aerobic and Strength, for a ratio of 2:1 increase for Strength and Aerobic verus Tactics and Ball Control, at the expense of his other attributes.

The key issue here is precisely how much CA does Training shift? What are the precise factors involved in determining how much CA the training shifts, and how much is the maximum it can shift. I believe that Training can account for the entirety of all Shifted CA in a player that is not gaining or losing CA, but I do not know precisely how much CA training can and does shift under any circumstances.

However no one needs to know these figures if it is true that Training can account for all CA shifting. All we need to know is that Training is how we shift CA and accept that it cannot be an exact science over X period of time.

I have a further theory that Overall Training Workload determines how much monthly occuring CA shifting is "handed" to Training, i.e. a 50% workload means Training controls 50% of that CA shift. This is just a theory.


To get back on track however.

If each training Notch shifts the same amount of CA for each Category, then because there are different quantities of attributes in different categories, each slider notch will shift a different amount of CA for each attribute. Equally balanced Categories might shift equal quantities of CA in the same direction, but larger categories will receive less CA per attribute. This is what in my opinion breaks most contemporary schedules. The basic idea most people have is correct, but they fail to consider the impact on attributes.

By giving each attribute an entire slider notch in our training schedules, we can develop superior schedules based not on the CA given or removed from Categories, but given or removed from individual attributes.

By accounting for individual attributes in our schedules, we can also account for attribute CA weight caused by position, and natural attribute CA growth/decline caused by Age.

If these assumptions are correct, using this principle of "notch-per-attribute" we can design schedules based on the attributes we wish to see improve, based on the attributes easiest/hardest to improve through position, and the attributes easiest/hardest to improve through Age.

We still cannot target attributes within the same Category for preferential gains/loses, but we can control the relative growth/decline of attributes in different categories with superior ability.


As I said before, this simple premise of counting attributes per category and combining it to generalistic biases for position and age has produced superb results. Such a simple premise can also be used to eventually discover most of the factual details of the training system, one way or the other.

I invite anyone to try these schedules or design schedules based on this principles, and give me their feedback.

[b_mack_]

This is marvelous work. 
I have examined the original SI thread over and over and I am starting to wrap my head around it...I think. 
I will implement them tonight into my save game and I look forward to your updated schedules. 

[SFraser]

This is marvelous work. 
I have examined the original SI thread over and over and I am starting to wrap my head around it...I think. 
I will implement them tonight into my save game and I look forward to your updated schedules.

There is a lot to wrap your head around. This doesn't avoid issues like Age, Position, CA gain/loss. It is an attempt to build reasonably accurate schedules based on everything that is factualy known about training and player mechanics.

Thank you for your support, and I look forward to your feedback. Whether positive or negative, the more feedback that is given the more details that can be resolved.

[supermini]

This is an amazing piece of work and it is certainly a lot to wrap your head around.

I do have a couple of questions.

Should I train both my ball-winning midfielder and my advanced playmaker that play in the CM position with the same schedule(1st choice CM for example)?  To me it would make more sense to focus on what attributes are the most important for their roles rather than their position on the pitch. 
 
My advanced playmaker's key attributes all seem to fall into the attacking, ball control and tactics categories.  To me it would make more sense to train him more in those categories, than, say, the attributes in the strength category, which I would try to maintain but not increase.  I don't see that being the same for my BWM.  But it would be the same for an advanced playmaker playing in the AM position, as with that role they both have the exact same instructions and key attributes (at least what the game tells me the key attributes are), only different mentalities.

What are your thoughts on this?  Have you considered focusing on specific roles?

[SFraser]

Should I train both my ball-winning midfielder and my advanced playmaker that play in the CM position with the same schedule(1st choice CM for example)?  To me it would make more sense to focus on what attributes are the most important for their roles rather than their position on the pitch.

Precisely.

The key with all Training is to find what improves your player according to your wishes.

The CM schedule in these schedule sets are essentially designed for Physical Ability, Tactical Ability and Ball Control. Someone that can dominate the central area of the pitch with physical ability and tactical ability, can operate in tight areas and in tight timeframes, without necessarilly having much of an end product. In effect a DM schedule.

Your advanced playmaker may benefit from that "mould" of CA distribution or he may not. Likewise your Ball Winner may benefit from a more offensive "mould" if he is already physically and tactically adept.

Your player may even benefit from a "Fullback" schedule, if he is in need of some Physical and Tactical improvement but you also wish some Set Piece improvement.

My advanced playmaker's key attributes all seem to fall into the attacking, ball control and tactics categories.  To me it would make more sense to train him more in those categories, than, say, the attributes in the strength category, which I would try to maintain but not increase.  I don't see that being the same for my BWM.  But it would be the same for an advanced playmaker playing in the AM position, as with that role they both have the exact same instructions and key attributes (at least what the game tells me the key attributes are), only different mentalities.

What are your thoughts on this?  Have you considered focusing on specific roles?

The key to this issue is your players precise Position ratings. A Natural DM playing in an Accomplished MC role will react differently to the same schedule as a Natural AMC playing in an Accomplished CM role. If both players are on the "CM" schedule for example then it likely that your AMC will develop his defensive skills faster than offensive skills, while your DMC will develop offensive skills faster than defensive. Therefore to focus on and improve their key Positional attributes you will have to place the DMC on a relatively intensive DM bias schedule (Defending, Tactics, Strength etc.) while your AMC is relatively intensive AMC bias schedule (Ball Control, Attacking, Aerobic etc.).

It is one of the quirks of the game mechanics that certain attributes become progressively easier to improve (or maintain) while others become progressively harder to improve (or maintain). All players will tend towards increasing levels of improvement in mental aspects of the game while decreasing physical levels. Eventually ball control and attacking will begin declining etc.

Thus a young DMC will be easy to develop physically, relatively easy to develop his defensive technical skills (tackling, marking, heading) and will have to work hard on the Mental side of the game. As he ages he will have to work hard on the physical side of his game to keep his peak physical ability, while his mental ability requires far less work in training.

So it is not just a question of Position, but also of Age. You need the right schedule for the right Position, but also at the right time.

Ideally each schedule for each player should evolve as the player ages, while generally attempting to shape the player in the desired fashion. A schedule to do X at 19 is different from a schedule to do X at 29. Ofcourse as he ages you may wish to evolve your schedule to do Y instead. It is also important to try not to fight this natural progression and natural pattern of development unless it is absolutely vital. Otherwise you are stunting and battling against natural progression, rather than going along with it and taking advantage of it.


So to (finally) answer your question you can do two things.

1: Select a schedule whose name corresponds closest to his Natural position for reasonable results.

2: Make a rough plan of what you want to do to the player. Factor in how his Position modifies what is needed to be done to achieve those results (increased shooting for Strikers is necessary for gains compared to a Natural DM). Factor in how Age modifes what is needed. (Increased Tactical to train youngsters in Mental, increased Physical to improve Physical attributes in older players). Then select a schedule that corresponds to this pattern.


As for your final question, I intend to design a set of schedules based Natural Positions with the options for improving Technical, Mental and Physical aspects of the player. This should be a much more robust set of schedules.

[supermini]

Thank you for your answer.  I doubt I'll see monumental gains since I'm managing in brazil 2nd league at the moment (not so good facilities), but I'll try to give some feedback.

[Rodace]

How do I post jpg file in here? I uploaded a jpg to a file host and use the img tags and insert the link in between. Doesn't seem to work. Want to share some results using the Sfraser schedule.

[Millie]

Just put:

Code: [Select]

[img]URL OF IMAGE[/img]
And it should show.

[samy moenis]

I've read your post over and over, yet i can't seem to grasp the full picture yet

after checking ur training schedule..ive found that for 1st choice CB... ball control is given more attention than defending.. y is that ? i believe defending should be maximized

also..i need to know what exactly are the " ball control " attributes and the " attacking attributes "
for example..dribbling is considered " ball control" while finishing is considering " attacking "
where can i find a complete list of that ?

[Rodace]

I've read your post over and over, yet i can't seem to grasp the full picture yet

after checking ur training schedule..ive found that for 1st choice CB... ball control is given more attention than defending.. y is that ? i believe defending should be maximized

also..i need to know what exactly are the " ball control " attributes and the " attacking attributes "
for example..dribbling is considered " ball control" while finishing is considering " attacking "
where can i find a complete list of that ?

moj has provided a list in this article: http://forums.fm-britain.co.uk/index.php?topic=10319.0

I think Sfraser point is that there are 3 attributes in defending trainign category and there are 5 attributes in ball control training category. To train both sets of attributes at the same level, the training intensity for ball control category has to be higher due to the higher number of attributes in that category

[b_mack_]

Samy I think I can answer this...SFraser correct me if I am getting it wrong...Rodace answered it while I spent all this time typing so I'll post it anyway.

You can find what training is effects which attributes by looking at any outfield player then clicking the "Training" tab then the "Attributes" button then use the "Training Category" pull down menu to select whichever category you want, you'll see attributes remain which are the ones effected by that training.  Knowing this is important because it unlocks the brilliance of SFraser's system.

So regarding the 1st Choice CB schedule you mentioned it works this way...
Ball control training influences 5 attributes (Dribbling, 1st Touch, Flair, Heading, and Technique) while defending training only effects 3 attributes (Marking Concentration and Tackling).  So by devoting 15 clicks to ball control you are insuring that each one of the attributes effected will receive 3 clicks.  Using only 12 clicks for defending training results in each attribute receiving 4 clicks.  It looks like ball control is being prioritized but it is not...Defending is.

I think a "Natural" defender will more easily processes CA into defensive attributes but I am less clear on that. Either way you'll see that you are building a defensive stalwart.

[supermini]

I think a "Natural" defender will more easily processes CA into defensive attributes but I am less clear on that. Either way you'll see that you are building a defensive stalwart.

As far as I know it has more to do with where the player actually plays and less with his positional rating.  For example, if you have a player that can play in MC and AMC positions, consistently playing him in the AMC position will make him gain AMC-related abilities more easily and vice-versa.

[supermini]

Sorry for the double post.  I said I would try to give some feedback so here it is (for what its worth).

I've been using the schedules for about a game year.  Both my facilities and my coaches are about average.  Overall, the schedules are working great.  I've never seen so many 'such and such player has improved in x,y,z in the last 6 months' in the backroom advice before.  I seem to be seeing improvements across the board.  Attacking, defending, ball control, goalkeeping, you name it, it's gone up on some player.  I don't see a lot of green arrows but I see a lot of improvement. 

The developing schedules work very well.  The biggest hit was one of my 16 year old future stars that's good enough now to play as a substitute in my senior team.  He's gone up in almost every key and every mental attribute(some of it is due to tutoring).  With a few games here and there as a substitute and playing with the reserve team he's doing extremely well.  With slightly older players (22-24) that play on a regular basis either the workload or the fitness training seems to cause training injuries, so I've switched those to 1st choice.

My other youngsters(on youth schedules) are doing okay, but as they have their potential ability much lower (or so my ass. man. tells me) I don't expect them to progress as fast. 

The 1st choice schedules seem to be very good at maintaining the attributes of my players, with a few improvements here and there.  The important part for me is that the workload is sufficient enough to allow them to slowly improve while not causing too many training-related injuries.  I'm not playing a league with a heavy schedule though, don't know how it would work out in those leagues.

The veteran schedules are doing a great job keeping the stamina from going down for those very old players my squad seems full of, which was a serious problem for every set of schedules I used before.  The 35+ decline is still inevitable but at least the stamina of those players stays high enough that I can play them when I need to.

So, a big thank you SFraser for your hard work.  I'm looking forward to the next version.

[Rodace]

Testing

[mantorras77]

hey SFraser...thanks for the work you put  into this.  I have some questions and concerns.  I  just finished my 2011-2012 season and I implemented this training in the off-season.  Now with the 2012-2013 about to begin my team all of a sudden suffered some training injuries to 5 of my starters raging from 5 days to 2 months.    I just had to play my first game of the season without the 5 starters (I lost but I was happy with the performance of the reserves).

I noticed that the workload of most of the schedules is "heavy" to  "very heavy".   Should I be concerned about this in terms of my players getting injured in training?

Also, I noticed two schedules for "Long and Short Term Injuries" ...how do I use them?

Two Final things.....what does the WF schedule stand for?    Also, difference between CF and ST schedule?

Thanks so much!
 

[b_mack_]

Did you lower the Strength and Aerobic training as he suggested in the 2nd post?  It helps with the injuries and heavy workload.

You can also lower the ball control some as well.

His original thread over at SI cover what each position is like, it is worth reading.

here is what it said about WF...
WF Schedules:- Wing Forward or in todays money Inside Forward. This is a Physically Intensive Wide Striker Schedule and moulds players for whom a physical, direct wide game is their forte. Ronaldo, Nani, Valencia, and even some actual Strikers that combine wideplay roles into their forward game such as Agbonlahor etc. These Schedules will not develop clever players, they will develop direct, Technically skilled, Powerful wide forward players.

[mantorras77]

Thanks B_Mack

After reading his 1 post I missed the 2nd post.

Did you lower the Strength and Aerobic training as he suggested in the 2nd post?  It helps with the injuries and heavy workload.

You can also lower the ball control some as well.

His original thread over at SI cover what each position is like, it is worth reading.

here is what it said about WF...
WF Schedules:- Wing Forward or in todays money Inside Forward. This is a Physically Intensive Wide Striker Schedule and moulds players for whom a physical, direct wide game is their forte. Ronaldo, Nani, Valencia, and even some actual Strikers that combine wideplay roles into their forward game such as Agbonlahor etc. These Schedules will not develop clever players, they will develop direct, Technically skilled, Powerful wide forward players.

[SFraser]

I think Sfraser point is that there are 3 attributes in defending trainign category and there are 5 attributes in ball control training category. To train both sets of attributes at the same level, the training intensity for ball control category has to be higher due to the higher number of attributes in that category

Spot on.

Ball control training influences 5 attributes (Dribbling, 1st Touch, Flair, Heading, and Technique) while defending training only effects 3 attributes (Marking Concentration and Tackling).  So by devoting 15 clicks to ball control you are insuring that each one of the attributes effected will receive 3 clicks.  Using only 12 clicks for defending training results in each attribute receiving 4 clicks.  It looks like ball control is being prioritized but it is not...Defending is.

Liewise, spot on.


Over at the SI official forums, the thread for this topic is generating some interesting discussion, and I think one contributor to the thread is designing an Excel application to build schedules according to your personal desires based on the idea of "notch per attribute".

As you both have grasped the basic premise of these schedules, you might interested in using the application, or if not using it then reading about the simple formulae the same guy came up with to describe these schedules, which makes designing them based on the ideas here much easier.

Basically this training "perspective" splits the entire training issue into about 5 different "levels" of training for each attribute. It is almost identical to how everyone usually approaches training, but instead of 25 notches of unknown effect there is instead 5 "levels" of training for each and every individual attribute.

It simply tries to make better sense of training and produce better results. It doesnt really change the basic idea people have when using the training system for the first time, it just makes better sense of it and make it more manageable in a more clear way.

No training line theories or anything else here. Just a "notch per attribute" and the hammering home of the point to pay attention to Position and Age when designing schedules.

Sorry for the double post.  I said I would try to give some feedback so here it is (for what its worth).

I've been using the schedules for about a game year.  Both my facilities and my coaches are about average.  Overall, the schedules are working great.  I've never seen so many 'such and such player has improved in x,y,z in the last 6 months' in the backroom advice before.  I seem to be seeing improvements across the board.  Attacking, defending, ball control, goalkeeping, you name it, it's gone up on some player.  I don't see a lot of green arrows but I see a lot of improvement. 

The developing schedules work very well.  The biggest hit was one of my 16 year old future stars that's good enough now to play as a substitute in my senior team.  He's gone up in almost every key and every mental attribute(some of it is due to tutoring).  With a few games here and there as a substitute and playing with the reserve team he's doing extremely well.  With slightly older players (22-24) that play on a regular basis either the workload or the fitness training seems to cause training injuries, so I've switched those to 1st choice.

My other youngsters(on youth schedules) are doing okay, but as they have their potential ability much lower (or so my ass. man. tells me) I don't expect them to progress as fast. 

The 1st choice schedules seem to be very good at maintaining the attributes of my players, with a few improvements here and there.  The important part for me is that the workload is sufficient enough to allow them to slowly improve while not causing too many training-related injuries.  I'm not playing a league with a heavy schedule though, don't know how it would work out in those leagues.

The veteran schedules are doing a great job keeping the stamina from going down for those very old players my squad seems full of, which was a serious problem for every set of schedules I used before.  The 35+ decline is still inevitable but at least the stamina of those players stays high enough that I can play them when I need to.

So, a big thank you SFraser for your hard work.  I'm looking forward to the next version.

I am very pleased to see the intended effects of my work actually pan out during training. The entire point for me is to put attribute increases in the right places. To use the training system to maximise the natural development of players and minimise the negative effects of age. Again quite simply to put CA into the right places in the right quantities.

These schedules are by no means perfect, and I will be honest and state that these schedules are my first and rather "rash" attempt to put this particular idea into practice, but it is very pleasing to see such feedback because I know my schedules can improve drastically and I also know that I will share all the details of these "experiments" with everyone that reads and tries them and will hopefully help every FM user design the best possible schedules, and appreciate the entire training system.

It is a two-way thing. I tell you what I know and explain to you the basic premise of my schedules. You test them and give me feedback and that increases our combined understanding. Eventually everyone involved will be able to design the perfect training schedules at all clubs, or atleast that is the plan.

Were these your Brazilian league results by any chance? You were not expecting much improvements, so I would be interested to know if you saw critical, key and impressive improvements in that league.

hey SFraser...thanks for the work you put  into this.  I have some questions and concerns.  I  just finished my 2011-2012 season and I implemented this training in the off-season.  Now with the 2012-2013 about to begin my team all of a sudden suffered some training injuries to 5 of my starters raging from 5 days to 2 months.    I just had to play my first game of the season without the 5 starters (I lost but I was happy with the performance of the reserves).

I noticed that the workload of most of the schedules is "heavy" to  "very heavy".   Should I be concerned about this in terms of my players getting injured in training?

Also, I noticed two schedules for "Long and Short Term Injuries" ...how do I use them?

Two Final things.....what does the WF schedule stand for?    Also, difference between CF and ST schedule?

Thanks so much!

Injuries are a common problem on these schedules especially if you do not modify my "attribute miscount" for Strength and Aerobic. On the other hand most injuries tend to occur during the Pre-Season or Off-Season or early Start of the season and I would suggest using lower physical intensity schedules untill your players are both physically fit and match experienced.

The "Injury Schedules" are tenative attempts to micro-manage injuries. I did not explain them very well and it is very likely that they do not work. They are "theoretical" schedules that I included in my schedule pack. You do not have to use them.

Short-term Injury is meant to recover condition after a "knock" or any other small injury. It is designed to maximise condition recovery for players out for less than one month.

Long-Term Injury is the exact opposite. It is designed for players that are out for a period of time long enough where Match Experience drops below 50% and heads towards 0. It is designed for players in real danger of losing CA.

As CA drops, it drops quickest and most out of those attributes hardest to improve. For most players this is physical attributes. Young players have an entire career within which you can "fix CA drops" but for old players a drop in Physical CA is generally permenant. This schedule is designed for players that are "long term injured" and will lose CA. It attempts to reduce the amount of Physical Attribute CA lost untill those players reach "100% Match Experience" and stop losing CA.

It is not very intensive, to reduce the risk of injury and recover condition, but it is hugely biased in favour of physical attributes. Ideally the CA loss would come out of mental or technical attributes, which are easy to replace, but this is not possible during months of "no training" and "low training". So the schedule is designed to minimise CA loss from physical attributes when the player is training, and before he reaches "100% Match Experience".

[supermini]

It is a two-way thing. I tell you what I know and explain to you the basic premise of my schedules. You test them and give me feedback and that increases our combined understanding. Eventually everyone involved will be able to design the perfect training schedules at all clubs, or atleast that is the plan.

Were these your Brazilian league results by any chance? You were not expecting much improvements, so I would be interested to know if you saw critical, key and impressive improvements in that league.

Indeed it was the Brazillian 2nd league.  I wasn't expecting much improvement due to the standard of the facilities and coaches I had at the time.  It turned out that the facilities were probably sufficient for my standard of players and that you basically trip over good coaches in Brazil.

That said, the effects of the schedules had blown me away.  I've never seen so consistent improvement.  It's my second season with the same team and I'm still seeing improvement and I only see serious decline once a player reaches 35 or so.  I can give you a few examples (I don't have the save when I started using the schedules so I can't do a cool before-and-after picture).

These are some 12 month attribute changes:

24 year old CB, now 25, using 1st choice CB, increased marking, anticipation, composure, concentration, decisions, positioning, agility, balance, stamina and strength. 
I guess he had a lot of room for improvement.  Has been almost ever-present in the team, never had an injury.

23 year old AM/FC.  Playing in both positions more or less equally, using 1st choice striker schedule.  Increased dribbling (twice), first touch, composure, decisions, off the ball, acceleration, stamina and strength.

17 year old AM hot prospect using developing AM schedule.  Went through one tutoring session, now on second.  He's playing in the senior team - mostly for the reserves - but I try to give him as many games in the first team as possible.  Went up...everywhere.  In almost every key area more than one point.  A year ago he was at half a star rating, he's now one and a half and his potential is three and a half.  I'm certain he'll go up even more once I send him out on a loan.

I could go on like this for ages, but you get the point.  The schedules seem to be working better than fine. 

I had to tweak the schedules for several developing players who seem to have 'hit the wall' with tactics training.  I was getting monthly reports that they are training poorly in tactics.  I figured that it's as far as I can train them at young age, so I reduced tactics and increased their key technical categories using the number of clicks in the test schedule (I didn't want to increase the physical ones for fear of injuries).  Their tactical attributes didn't start decreasing and those players are still improving. 

So, tweaking them to suit your players seems easy too - unless I got it wrong, in which case, feel free to correct me.

EDIT: I guess it's worth mentioning that my goalkeepers are the only ones that didn't really improve.  I sort of expected that, I know they're notoriously difficult to train due to the distribution of their attributes.

[SFraser]

From the SI main site.

Designing Schedules

Sorry for the double post, but I would like to explain this process and go into depth for those wishing to design their own schedules or wishing to refine the ones already produced, using Prozones excellent guide to understanding the underlying principles.

The basic principle here is to design schedules with "one notch per attribute" in each category. This should first of all make sure that we are designing schedules based on attribute growth and not category growth. As different categories have different numbers of attributes, designing schedules based on category growth will produce attribute growth we have not accounted for. Equal category growth for Tactics and Attacking could well produce 3x more Attacking attribute gains than Tactical gains, when we were actually hoping for equal gains.

As Prozone described:

Baseline - the number of slider notches/clicks is set to be equal to the number of attributes trained in a particular category. This provides each training category with what we'll call 1 training 'unit'. For outfield player's I believe we now have:

1 STR unit = 3 slider clicks
1 AER unit = 5 slider clicks
1 GK unit = 0 slider clicks
1 TAC unit = 5 slider clicks
1 BAL unit = 4 slider clicks
1 DEF unit = 3 slider clicks
1 ATT unit = 2 slider clicks
1 SHO unit = 3 slider clicks
1 SET unit = 5 slider clicks

This would give us a Training schedule giving every attribute the exact same quantity of Training, and would be a perfectly balanced schedule. It would be a low intensity schedule, and because it is low intensity it will:

1: Reduce the CA this player can gain through Training.
2: Reduce the quantity of CA being moved between attributes that we have direct control over through training.

Higher intensity schedules will allow us to:

1: Increase the quantity of CA this player gains through training.
2: Increase the quantity of CA being moved around that we can directly control through Training.

Ofcourse there are penalties for high intensity schedules. These are:

1: Increased injuries.
2: Lowered Condition Recovery.
3: A minor but regularly applied negative morale penalty.


For each schedule you wish to design upon these rules, you must consider a "Focus" for your players, which is precisely a focus on certain attribute categories. Training itself is limited by the maximum number of notches for each Category, and so in the case of Tactics which has 5 attributes and only 25 notches in the slider, you can only give each attribute 5 notches of training. This means that only a maximum "Focus" of +5 for Tactics is possible.



Here we have a schedule where we are training each Category by "one notch per attribute" so each attribute in all categories is receiving the same quantity of training.

We have decided upon a "Focus" for Tactics. The 5 Tactics attributes are now receiving "five notches per attribute" for an overall ratio of 1 of everything else to 5 tactics. Every increase of all other attributes should now be met with 5 increases for each tactics attribute. This is the "Focus". 5xTactics for 1xEverything else.

Now remember that these are not "Category improvements". It is not 5x Tactics Category improvement, it is 5x EACH Tactics Attribute compared to other attributes. Tactics as a category has 12.5x more Training than Attacking, but it has 2.5x more attributes than attacking.

These are the basic rules to be used for designing schedules. There are other vitally important rules to take into account, but they apply to players themselves.


Players

To design good schedules you must take into account the behaviour of players attributes.


General Attribute Rules

The general rule of thumb with player attributes is that each Category of Attributes on the Player Profile screen, Technical-Mental-Physical, have different rates of growth and decline depending on a players age.


Technical Attributes plot a generally steady course and are the "guide" for the other two categories. Technical Attributes start off slightly difficult to increase in very young players, become increasingly easier to increase as a player approaches late 20's and then get tougher to increase as the player approaches 40.

Mental Attributes start off very tough to increase in youngsters and get increasingly easier to increase right up untill a player is around 40, when they will drop rapidly.

Physical Attributes start off tough to increase in very young players but rapidly accelerate in their "ease of increase" and peak around the early twenties. After this they will start to slowly decline, and around Age 33-34 you will fighting an uphill battle to prevent their decline.


Specific Position Rules

I will be completely honest here, this area requires a lot of investigation before anything concrete can be defined.

In practical terms, these issues seem to make little difference to Training but erring on the side of caution and increasing key Position Categories seems to produce the best results.

This implies two things:

1) The underlying mechanics of these issues are attempting to make them irrelevant for general gameplay like Training.
2) The underlying mechanics are slightly out of balance (and were possibly changed for 10.3).
3) The underlying mechanics are complex.

Do not be alarmed here. In my experience it is completely uneccesary to work with these issue through Training, although erring on the side caution if concerned or not receiving the ideal results is advised.

I will explain how to err on the side of caution and how to work with these "unknown details" in my worked example to follow.

Do not panic.



Worked Example

The good old worked example is always useful. In this example I will use the Centreback, as they are the Position with least "opinion" and personal flavour, and least "distractions".

The Centreback is a nice, simple player to Train and it would appear that my Centreback schedules are the ones producing the best results. So here I will explain how I design a schedule for the simplest and most robust of positions, and hopefully explain to you how to go about designing your own schedules for all other positions.


The Young Centreback



This is the player we wish to design a training schedule for. A very good Centreback that my coaches tell me "would be a leading star for most Premier League sides". The very first, absolutely fundamental thing to do is to study his profile and work out what we wish to see occur.

Jonny Evans

Jonny Evans is an excellent Mental and Technical Centreback, he has quality levels for all Technical and Mental aspects of the defensive game, including First Touch and Passing. His key strengths are most certainly in reading the game and dealing with threats early, but he has an unfortunate lack of Physical Ability, and his key Mental and Technical Strengths are not high enough to deal with the best players and best sides in the game. My coaches also tell me that he is "close to his PA" so I will not be getting many more "Free Attributes".

Any improvements to this player are very likely going to have to come at the expense of other attributes. So my judgement and design is crucial. It is fundamentally necessary for me to look at this player and understand what his future potential can be from where he is now.

Jonny Evans is 22. This means his Physical Attributes have a few more years of relative ease of improvement before their decline, while his Technical and Mental Attributes have yet to reach peak levels of improvement. In 5-6 years time his Physical Attributes will start to decline and will migrate to his Technical and Mental Attributes. In 10-12 years time his Technical Attributes will start to decline and migrate to his Mental. His Mental game "could" reach extra-ordinary levels of ability, at the cost of physical and technical ability. By the time he is 26 he could have Vidic or Ferdinand mental ability. By the time he is 32 he could be getting close to Cannavaro levels of mental ability. However this is all going to come at the cost of Physical Attributes.

If his Mental Attributes reach Cannavaro levels he will not need much in the way of Pace and Acceleration. Neither his pace and acceleration and jumping, nor Strength is particular good for a Centreback. Crucially however his Strength Attributes are closest to being quite high, Aerobic will not be necessary, and Strength Attributes require less Training and have Fewer Attributes. I could sacrifice Aerobic not only for Strength Improvements, but also for Improvements in other areas.

Unfortunately his PA is too low to allow him to progress much in terms of overall improvement. He will never become a Ferdinand or Cannavaro in terms of all round ability. But we can instead train him to become an absolute specialist in the Mental and Technical aspects of defending. We should forget about Aerobic, Ball Control, Attacking Shooting, Set Pieces and Focus only on Strength, Defending and Tactics. Ofcourse we dont want Ball Control, Aerobic, Attacking to completely plummit, but we are willing to sacrifice them.

The ideal overall Focus might be something like the following:

STR: 4
AER: 2
GK: 0
TAC: 4
BAL: 2
DEF: 4
ATT: 2
SHO: 2
SET: 0


However we know that in the immediate short term we are running out of time to improve Physical Ability, and it will be atleast another 5 years before Mental reaches its peak gain. If we go with the current Focus then Strength may not improve by much, while Mental slowly grows then accelerates away to daft levels. We also know that his Technical Defending skills do require improvement and although they have a longer time to develop they will still decline before Mental where Evans is clearly already the strongest.

Our second worked Focus might be this:

STR: 6
AER: 2
GK: 0
TAC: 3
BAL: 1
DEF: 6
ATT: 1
SHO: 1
SET: 0

The problem here though is that our Strength Category is getting into the realm of injuries, and we might be encouraging rapid drops in highly useful attributes that we wish to see slowly decline rather than plummit outright.

So we adjust our Focus again and decide upon the final focus of:

STR: 5
AER: 2
GK: 0
TAC: 4
BAL: 2
DEF: 6
ATT: 2
SHO: 2
SET: 0

For a schedule like this:




We may have to accept the sacrifice of key Strength gains for this player, but we have the option to increase the Focus of Strength if we do not see the gains we wish. Hopefully this schedule will work for us in the near future, but if after 6 months we are not seeing what we expect we can knock down Tactics and Defending and go Whole Hog on Strength with a Focus of 6 or 7 or even 8 if we have the cahones.

That is the crux of my own released schedules. A major aspect of Injuries was the miscount of attributes, but the second major aspect was my "erring on the side of caution" when it came to attempting to ensure gains of physical attributes.

You either gain Physical Attributes rapidly and early, or you struggle for the rest of a players career.

Anyway, I hope his helps.

[supermini]

It certainly does.  Thank you for the explanation.