Free Online Football Manager Game

Assistance with DV & ME

Since the introduction of the development value and the increased importance of match experience for the player's development there has been a lot of discussions and theories based on misunderstandings and false assumptions. To put this straight and get rid of the most common false assumptions we will in this article try to explain and comment on the most common issues.

The purpose and our intentions
The reason why we have introduced the development value and increased the importance of match experience is mainly to make a better simulation of the real world. Players playing in a weaker surrounding should not develop as easily as equally skilled players that play in a high skilled surrounding. We also wanted to enable several different ways to get a great development of a team. With the old system there was more or less only one way to get a great development and that was get a team full of youngsters and then just pump them with form trainings. After this change there are several ways of getting great development of a team.

We have since the development value and increased importance of match experience was released made some slight adjustments in the match experience reducing the differences between the players a little bit. This means that fewer players will end up with minimal or maximum match experience during the matches. There were a little bit too many players ending up with minimal and maximum match experience in the matches initially after the implementation.

We will below comment and explain common misunderstandings and arguments heard in the forums.
Here are first some explainations for the abbreviations used below.
AF = Average form
DV = Development value
ME = Match experience

“A player that plays all matches should be guaranteed to get a DV at least equal to the AF”
This is a very common argument that is the same as the following argument:
“Theo Walcott should be able to develop just as easy playing in Leeds Utd as if he would playing in Arsenal FC if he just plays all matches during the season.”
We disagree with this opinion. We do not think a player playing with weaker teammates and facing weaker opponents should be able to develop as well as when playing with stronger teammates and facing stronger opponents. He can still develop in a weaker surrounding but it would require him having a higher form throughout the season compared to playing in a high class surrounding. It is also likely that the player would be able to sustain a higher form easier in a lousy surrounding as he probably would perform better which would have a positive effect on his form.

“This change just benefits the teams with all young players”
This is a common belief, but there are no real evidence for this theory. We have been running a lot of tests previous to the implementation and in our development environment those teams that has benefited most from this are teams with a good mix of players in more or less all ages young and old. Teams with all young players has not been represented among those that has benefited most from this change. Teams with only very low skilled youngsters facing much stronger opponents can find themselves developing better now than before though. So there may be exceptions.

“This change only benefits the teams with all old players”
Surprisingly this is also a common belief. Teams going all old would probably be the teams that lose most from this change as old players are more likely to have their skill reduced after this change. But old highly skilled players would still be valuable to have in a squad as they would give a lot of experience to their teammates. But a team with a squad full of old players without any young talents are not likely have any success.

“This change only benefits the teams with smaller squads”
This is also a false assumption that many believe is true. We can also here refer to our tests previous to the implementation. The teams that benefited most was not the teams with smaller squads. It is easy to believe that this would benefit teams with smaller squads. And if each match experience would be of equal weight then it would benefit smaller squads. But a player's first match experiences in the season weigh more than the last match experiences and that is why this change does not make any significant difference between smaller or larger squads.

“The skill differences will be equalized and all teams will have the same skill”
There will of course be some equalization between the teams. Especially in leagues where the same teams faces each other all the time. But this should not be exaggerated as it will be very marginal and only noticable when there are big differences in skill between the teams. It will still be a lot of differences between how managers manage their teams. Some will do it better than others and that will show.

“The skill differences will be equalized and all players will have the same skill”
There will of course be some equalization between the players. But this should not be exaggerated as it more or less only will be noticeable on players that have very low skill or very high skill compared to its teammates/opponents. It will still be a lot of differences between how players develop and some players will be have a better season than others and some players are given better opportunities than others by the manager.

“It has become too complicated”
Well it should really be easier now than it was before as you now only have one value to look at instead of having to keep track of the average form and match experience separately. Now you only need to look at the development value. And the development value is just like the average form. If the player has a DV above 10 before the season update then his skill will increase. If it is below 10 then the skill will be reduced. But the match experience before was really no concern as it was very easy to get 100% on all players. Now there are no limit to strive for anymore and that is probably what makes everything complicated for the common manager.

Thing is that the common managers really doesn't need to keep more than this in mind:
1)The more matches a player plays the better
2)The higher form a player has the better
3)The better skilled players the player plays together with and against the better it will be for that player.
4)If the DV is above 10 right before the season update then the player's skill will increase.
5)If the DV is below 10 right before the season update then the player's skill will be reduced.

Currently a lot of managers are now striving for a DV equal to AF on all their players believing that would be the optimal for development of their team. If the player fail to reach that then they look at it as a failure. But that is an illusion. A player getting DV equal to AF may not at all benefit the team most. It may be better to let another player get a DV beyond the AF instead. For example if you have a player that is 30 years old that has an AF of 15 and a DV of 11. Then it is probably not the optimal thing to strive for him getting a DV equal to AF as he won't develop his skill very much anyway. And for that player to have a DV of 11 even though his AF is 15 that would be just fine.

But anyway we do understand the desire for something easy and concrete for the manager to hold on to and provide better guidance. We don't want to introduce indicators that will make managers chase illusions though. So in order to make it easier for the managers to decide if a player isn't getting enough playing time we will now introduce the assistant coach.

Recommendation from the assistant coach
To help you when choosing the starting lineup you will now find recommendations from the assistant coach in the player tooltip on some players on the page where you select your lineup. The assistant coach will tell you which players that would be roughly most efficient to give more playing time in terms of actual skill development at the season update assuming the player will sustain the current average form and be given the same share of match experience the rest of the season as he has been given so far. This means that the recommendations may change during the season if the players average form changes or if the players share of match experience changes. The assistant coach will always recommend more playing time on those players that would gain most of playing the next match under the assumption that the factors up til now remain the same the rest of the season.

2010-06-15 12:56	26996 Vizualizari		iwe

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