Good a player CA/PA Football Manager 2012 Current and Potential Ability FM12 within Football Manager In the Editor there are tens of thousands of players and they all have Current and Potential Abilities. These two attributes can define a player and most of the times they give you an accurate description of how good a player is. We will call Current Ability:
CA and Potential Ability: PA
Current Ability Defintion Football Manager 2012 :
CA is an indicator of how good a player is at the moment. Usually at the beginning of the game CA will be less than PA (example CA of 160 and PA of 190). Both attributes range from 0 - 200.
Current Ability is a hidden value assigned to every player and staff within the game. It ranges from 1 – 200 and the higher this figure is, the better the player is. The general level of attributes assigned to a player seen within the game is directly correlated to the CA of this player. CA can change depending on game variables, generally increasing as a player gets older and more experienced. However it can also decrease when a player is past his peak or receives a serious injury for example. The maximum CA of any player is capped at a certain value, known as Potential Ability (PA).
Notes on CA:
The CA can improve by correct guidance and correct amount of games until the maximum figure, which is PA, at the correct time. If you use players who are under 19 too much then he is going to reach his PA too fast and therefore, it causes "burn out." Usually CA will drop when the player gets older or at some moment after he reaches his PA.
Potential Ability Defintion:
is an attribute for players in Football Manager games. It dictates the maximum that a person's CA attribute can ever rise to, and therefore how good they can possibly become. It can be a value between 1 and 200 (with 200 being the best).
The value of this attribute can also be a value between -10 and 0 (in the pre-game database) which tells the game to assign a random Potential Ability value within a certain range when creating a new game. For example, a player with PA set to -10 (the best rating), tells the game to use a random value between 170 and 200 for that player's Potential Ability.
Potential Ability is a hidden value assigned to every player and staff within the game. It ranges from 1-200 and the higher this figure is, the better the player potentially is (or, in the case of old players who have past their peak, the best they were). However within the pre-game editor it can also be a negative figure. A negative PA will result in a random PA between a certain range being assigned to the relevant player on starting a new game:
We also need to know that Potential Ability have two types as well:Fixed / Negative
Players with fixed potential:
These players have a fixed PA of say 184 (instead of the negative rating of -10) A high fixed PA is set to players like Pato, Aguero and Bolatelli due to the fact that they are already playing at the top of their games and in competive leagues, this ensures that these types of players will (most of the time) reach their PA instead of having a random PA.
Players with negative potential:
These types of players are assigned negative PA scores in the editor so that the game can randomly generate their potential each game (so it will most of the time always be different)
Now this is done so that they will either become World Stars or they will fade away (the developers cannot assume that Areola is going to become the next Buffon)
The minus ratings in the Potential Ability was introduced seeing as Potential Ability is probably the hardest rating to determine in the set of ratings that exists inside Football Manager, seeing as researchers are asked to judge how good a player could become in the future. This is pretty difficult, so the minus ratings create a bit more flexibility.
Actual PA’s which can be generated by the negative numbers:
-10 = 170-200
-9 = 150-180
-8 = 130-160
-7 = 110-140
-6 = 90-120
-5 = 70-100
-4 = 50-80
-3 = 30-60
-2 = 10-40
-1 = 0-30
Notes on PA:
The age in which a player reaches his full potential is up to different influencing factors. We need to take in consideration the standard of your facilities, your training schedules, the standard of your coaches, the amount of first team football the respective players gets and of course the actual difference between the CA and the PA. If he can improve a lot, then there is a high chance that he will.
Unlike CA, PA is generally a static figure that does not change once a game has been started. However if a player has a serious injury in the game their CA can decrease so much that they will never potentially be the player that they they could have been. PA is the maximum CA that a player can achieve and it is not possible for a player’s CA to ever surpass his PA. This system reflects well on real life, as a player who can be promising in real life may never reach his potential. It also helps to maintain a relative balance of player quality throughout the gameworld as time progresses.
Extra notes on CA/PA with regards to scouting:
A lot of the African clubs have very poor reputation and very poor facilities.
PA can be affected by this.
Lets use player X as a prime example. He may have a ton of actual potential, but while he is at Mangasport he will NEVER reach it (will only reach 1.5 stars instead of 5). If he moves to a top club he will be able to fulfill his potential and will show 4.5-5 stars.
I sign a lot of africans and I know this to be a FACT. I've signed 2 star players from Africa who are actually 5 star when they get to my club. The thing you need to know about scouting africa is to look at their attributes and NOT THE STAR RATING. If a player has solid stats (sometimes you can find players with outstanding stats) but a low star rating, SIGN HIM, he will be a wonderkid. Just last season in my save I signed a 1.5 star Nigerian AMC with 18 dribbling 19 technique 15 creativity and 18 passing...He's obviously 5 star now that he can reach his potential.
And while I'm at it, my current team doesn't have the best training facilities. I've had young players who had 4.5 PA lose their PA after a couple of years because my facilities are only adequate. When I sell these players to better teams with better facilities, their PA shoots back up to 4.5 or even 5.Additionally, a PA of zero is completely random, with the value based on the player's CA.