retired_ella67

I was wondering what effect a player's position actually has in the match engine.

Do players suffer a penalty to their attributes when they wander into an unfamiliar zone? Eg If a defender goes up for a set piece.

Or do positions not have a direct effect, are they just an assessment of the player's abilities?

retired_thejivemachine

I don't know about actual gameplay but it sure gives a penalty to the player's ratings.

Play an striker in goal and he can get a 1 no problems even without conceding.

A goalie up front can not put a pass out of place and only play there for 10 mins and get a similar score.

That's my experience.

retired_cRankLin

in a word......no. If a defender moves up for a corner and is beaten to a header this will go against him, but it won't go against just for being in the opposition box.

retired_ella67

That's why I was curious. I once put John Terry up front for England, and he was the best target man I'd ever come across. I'm not sure if you should ignore positions and just look at player attributes instead.

leftfoot

I have a theory on it but that's all it is. Based on what various researchers in the Data Issues have said in response to posters questioning particular players positional ratings, generally they have said things about how 'comfortable' the player is and how well he will perform to justify the ratings they have assigned.

Basically my theory on it is that the positional ratings modify mental attributes only. For example a full back who can dribble can do so in any part of the pitch. But if you take a Defensive Midfielder with positioning 20 and play him as a centre half the match engine needs to reflect his discomfort in the position a la Essien for Chelsea last season.

According to FM Modifier positional ratings are given a nominal value between 1 and 20. This is probably inputted into an algorithm that reduces mental attributes relative to their comfort in the position.

As an example let's say that there is an inverse relationship. So a DM has a positioning attribute of 20 (the in game value that you don't see is between 1 and 100 according to FM modifier so 20 = 100) and is a natural DM but has no rating as a centre half (positional rating = 1). So when you play him as a centre half the match engine treats his positioning attribute as [100x(1/20)] which essentially means he behaves as if he is a centre half with positioning of (5/100) or 1 in his visible profile.

The above example is an extreme one but I would say it is something similar but with the minimum value not quite so low.

retired_ella67

Thanks Isuckatfm, interesting. If correct that seems to me quite a clever way of implementing positions.