Career Mode Player Potential

[BlackEmperor]

Hey guys,

I've experienced a serious bug in my career mode. I'm in my second season now and I've bought Ginter and Joao Cancelo during my first season and Volland now in my second season. The problem is that the potential of all three players dropped below 80. Joao Cancelo has now a potential of 79, Volland 78 and Ginter 77 (values checked in my save via Internal Master 12).
Volland especially already has an OVR of 79. The problem is that despite playing very well and being my top scorer atm, he doesn't improve a single point because he's already beyond his potential. Same with Ginter, he's grown one point last season from 76 to 77 (which is his current potential) and now doesn't improve either. He literally went from "An exciting prospect" when I viewed his profile while he was still at Freiburg to nothing since he's in my squad.

It wasn't really my intention to spend 20.000.000+ € for young players that don't improve because their potentials are cut down right after being signed for no apparent reason. I thought that their potentials would eventually increase again just like in Fifa 13 when they get good match ratings, but as you can see with Ginter, that doesn't happen at all.

I really feel screwed now and wanted to ask if someone else had similar problems and if there is a way to avoid this crap.

 

[Centre]

This is not a bug. When you buying player in career mode his potential randomly changed. If you buying player with 85 potential he can get potential 79, 85, 90 or other.
You just don't luck!

 

[bangus]

This is not a bug. When you buying player in career mode his potential randomly changed. If you buying player with 85 potential he can get potential 79, 85, 90 or other.
You just don't luck!

Makes sense. It would be unrealistic to know a player's potential. Otherwise you could just buy up all the high potential players knowing they'll all turn out to have great careers, and that's not how it works in real life. Plus it makes career mode a much bigger challenge.

 

[BlackEmperor]

I see, thanks.
Why is it unrealistic though to know a player's potential? Not the exact value of course, but rather a small range similar to youth players.
You can tell for example that Adnan Januzaj is a great talent. And if he doesn't start playing together complete garbage, you would still have that opinion of him. I just don't see the reason why a young player who is regarded as a great talent would suddenly lose that status when he doesn't play badly.
Januzaj has a potential of 89 in Fifa, if I signed him in the second season and he really played shit in the first season for Manchester United, I would understand if his potential dropped to... let's say 84 or so. But those players I have bought didn't perform badly or so, Volland in fact was Hoffenheim's top scorer during the first season. And the fact that his potential even dropped below his current OVR made it seem even more ridiculous.

But I have to admit, I've checked other potential values of bought players as well, Gnabry for example increased to 89. Still, I would have found it better if the generated potential value after I've signed the player was at least in the range of the original potential. So if a player is labeled "An existing prospect" because he has 87 potential, his potential should stay in the 85-89 region or at most stay in the low 80's if it really dropped, but not what happened to me in my career that the player's potential decreased by ~10 points. Especially for players who are still young, it doesn't really make sense for a player who is 21 to not grow a single point despite playing well, just because the game decided to randomly send his potential down to hell when he was signed.

I wish player growth stayed as it was in Fifa 13, that was perfect.

 

[bangus]

Why is it unrealistic though to know a player's potential? Not the exact value of course, but rather a small range similar to youth players.

Because nobody in sports can predict how young players with talent will turn out in the long run. It makes sense to be able to see a player's current skill ratings, to see for example that a player has great speed and agility. But it's impossible to know if his skills will continue to develop or how well he'll adapt to playing at the pro level.

 

[BlackEmperor]

That's true, but why do we even have a preset potential value if it's randomly changed after a transfer anyway then?
This randomness is what drives me crazy. Heck, if I bought one young player who is talented but his potential drops after the transfer because the game decided that he won't turn out so good in this career, fine, that would be realistic. But when the same thing happens to three players I bought within one year who are regarded as very talented in RL, I guess you wouldn't cross with me for being upset about this.

I get your argument though and if my player played very bad in his first season, everything would be okay because this way, he'd for example prove that he'll not adapt properly to pro level. But the thing is, he does play well and there was absolutely no reason to cut a 20 year-old, 76 OVR CB's 86 potential to 77.

Again, Fifa 13 got it perfectly right. If a player played badly, he wouldn't reach his potential, if a player played very good, he would even exceed his potential. You could interpret this either way. That's not the case in Fifa 14 anymore, instead every player has a preset potential value that only randomly changes after a transfer.
Really, just because a player joins another club it doesn't mean that he'll suddenly not reach his potential anymore. This just happens far too often to be seen as realistic. That's my opinion anyway.
I guess when I've started my next career (because I won't be playing this one anymore, thanks EA), I'll just save before I sign a player and reload every time his potential is changed. Until I find a way to turn that off completely in the game files that is...

 

[saintric]

im not saying you are wrong but maybe they drop potential because they have joined a new club and are not familiar with the surroundings and players a bit like PES games where teamwork would drop when you signed a new player until you play them loads to build it back up

 

[BlackEmperor]

That would still be quite random because you also have players who increase their potential after being signed. I've also bought Gnabry and Krychowiak who both increased their potential, again for no apparent reason since they were bought at the start of the first season.

 

[nine3d]

## Sorry, Wrong ##

 

[BlackEmperor]

Small update.

It seems that changing MAX_PLAYER_DROP_POTENTIAL_PERCENTAGE in the playergrowth.ini to 0 (original value 10) eliminates the chances of players having their potential decreased after transfers. At least until now, I haven't encountered any of this in any transfers, instead players' potential stayed the same or increased rarely.