Thanks for your reply.
Accordingly, three notches on the strength slider equals training for each attribute within that category (Stamina, Strength, and Work rate) at a"factor of one", in lack of better terms, whereas the ball control slider requires five notches to achive the same factor of training of the attributes within that category (Dribbling, First touch, Flair, Heading, and Technique). Correct?
That's not exactly true. Close but not entireally accurate.
Strength at notch 3 means 3 notches for 3 attributes, and Ball Control at notch 4 means 4 notches for 4 attributes. This means both Categories have the same ratio of training quantity : attribute numbers. Like two different sized cups that are the same percentage full.
Within/between those Categories, different types of attributes will behave differently at different Ages. At exactly the same levels of Training for Aerobic and Tactics, the Physical Aerobic may decline while the Mental Tactics improve and the Technical Ball Control remain fairly static. And so for the Strength Category that contains a mixture of Physical and Mental attributes, their specific rates of change within the same Category will be different and will vary with time.
For all Training Categories that contain a mixture of attribute types, the actual growth/decline rates of specific attributes will be different and will be variable with time. An unchanging level of Training for this category throughout a players career will see the individual attributes themselves within the category grow at different speeds and decline at different speeds, with the different attribute types benefitting more or less at different ages from the same quantity of Training.
What bothers me is the goalkeeper training. I'm a big fan of intelligent footballers who know where to be and what to do, and that goes for goalkeepers as well. With the formula used in your traning system, which makes perfect sense to me, a goalkeeper can never train with a "factor" of more than three plus 1/8 (25 notches is maximum on the slider / the goalkepper category includes eight attributes - Anticipation, Command of area, Communication, Decisions, Positioning, Rushing out, Team work, and Composure). This in not in anyway qritique aimed at your reasoning or your formula, it's only a reflection and something that makes me frustrated. Hopefully, the training system will be improved in the coming versions of the game.
You are quite correct that there is an absolute limit on the rate of growth of individual attributes defined by the size of the Category they are a part of. The key thing to realise here is that the exact makeup of Training Categories is designed with gameplay balance in mind.
Take for example the Attacking training category. It contains Passing and Creativity and is the smallest category in the game. This makes it very easy to train all players in the ability to improve their awareness of passing options and delivery of a simple pass. However to train a genuine playmaker in superior attacking passing you need to train Anticipation for the timing of the pass to an anticipated forward run, and you need to train Technique for the execution of difficult lofted, chipped or curled throughballs, and these two vital components of a genuine playmakers game require the training of attribute heavy Tactics and Ball Control categories. The supreme playmaker also requires Composure, Decisions, Teamwork, First Touch and Flair which requires the training of yet another category in this case Shooting, but also requires an Attribute that cannot be trained and is incredibly difficult to improve.
In other words the Supreme playmaker, for example Xavi, requires natural ability and talent that cannot be trained as well as a significant head start in key attributes, and an immense quantity of specialised Training. The genuine playmaker requires vision and passing ability but also Anticipation and Technique, while the defender you wish to boost in his basic possession play only requires additional attacking training.
As for the Goalkeeping Categories, these are a rather strange set of attributes. First of all the Goalkeeper has more "Heavy Categories" of 5 or more attributes than any other player, yet at the same time has significantly less Categories containing vital attributes, and the goalkeepers largest Categories both contain a mixture of Goalkeeping Technical + Mental. The Goalkeeper also has the longest career and longest "peak" by far of any other player and has very little need to do anything other than minor training in Strength and Ball Control.
This leaves a large Aerobic category containing 6 Physical attributes, a large Goalkeeping category containing 5 Technical and 2 Mental attributes, and a large Tactics category containing either 3 Mental + 3 Technical or 6 Mental attributes. I am not sure precisely whether the Goalkeeping attributes here fall under mental or technical.
What we have here is 3 key Categories containing roughly 6 Physical, 6 Technical, 6 Mental attributes or there abouts. Throughout the Goalkeepers career these attributes will start growing rapidly, come to the fore and "peak" and then start to decline at different rates at completely predictable and different points. With the Physical attributes all being in one Category you cannot favour any particular subset of them for additional training at their peak growth rates, however because the Mental Attributes are seperated into 2 distinct Categories, you CAN favour a particular subset of these attributes for additional growth at peak Mental growth rates.
Because different types of attributes come to the fore in terms of growth rates at different times, you can manipulate categories that contain a mixture of attribute types or manipulate different categories containing the same type of attribute.
I know it seems rediculously complicated, but it is ultimately all about Training the right attributes at the right time. If your Striker severely lacks Mental ability you would be better off focusing on Tactics when he is younger and then developing his Shooting and Attacking when he is much older to maximise Mental development. If he lacks Technical ability then focus on Shooting and Attacking and Ball Control when he is younger and then increase his Ball Control at the expense of Shooting and Attacking as he ages.
However what I do as a personal preference is aim for Physical Development in youngsters, slowly moving towards a focus on Technical Development in mid-20's players, then aim for Mental Development as they approach 30. Maximising natural growth trends while understanding and utilising players in their natural capacity and their natural ability shape allows you to develop players with much less "swimming against the tide" and encourages you to look for the right players to maximise rather than the wrong players to try and mould into an unnatural shape.
Players are designed to be "individual characters" in FM and while you can alter this to a certain extent, you are not for example supposed to be able to turn Almunia into Reina, van der Sar or Petr Cech. You can maximise his talents, try and reduce his weaknesses, but you cannot fix a fundamentally broken player. If he is seriously weak in some area, you have to accept it, deal with it through tactics, or suffer the consequences. This "individual player character" gameplay is a huge part of the game, pretty much the whole point of the game.
