Zimbabwe Time?

The FML economy is basically out of hands. Inflation rates did sky rocket. No cure was delivered before reset, though people geniunely believed that the economy would be tight in the start. Perhaps it was, but the only visible end result was that the most active teams would take the largest part of the money cake when inflation set.

Anyway. I think the economic situation in the GWs is the main reason for me not playing the game now. So I introduce a cure for the disease. Let SI move the servers to Zimbabwe, slice a 0 from everyones bank account, and move the servers back.

At the same time money flowing into the gameworld should be tightened and controlled. Add some transfer taxes, introduce some floating taxes. I mean, how hard can it be. Money in = Money out. It's not like our teams take up subprime loans or that SI Bank is Icelandic.

But back on topic. Moving the comma one step to the left probably favour teams who invest in assets (players). Well. So what? We need a solution, and we need it now. I'm quite sure the richest teams have a bank account of some 30m+ already. Well. I'll tell you a secret. They can live happy on their interest income the rest of their FML career. Is that fair to the newcomers? I think not.

I've probably reached the point where you say that I should get my education money back, because I'm introducing new problems. But at least I try to fix something broken. And it needs fixing. NOW.

Thanks.

Andreas F
MSc in Industrial Economics

The ultimate recipe..

Since I've basically stopped playing the game, I'll spit out all my findings through the last year for any of you number geeks out there.

The higher the number, the more important the attribute is for the given position. Con means Team Goals Conceded, Sco means Team Goals Scored.

Now it doesn't take much to see that Pace/Jumping is way too overpowered for strikers/defenders, and that high Jumping sky rocket any ratings.

Some simple number crunching from SI's part could easily have identified these issues long before we saw some 300 posts about this stuff on the official forums. I hope they take the time to balance the ME a bit more in the future. Heck, I'll even crunch these numbers for free for them if they send the proper data in my direction.

Apologies for bad formatting. 

 +------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| att  | pos  | Con  | Sco  | AvR  | GpG  | ApG  |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+
| Acc  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 1.3  |
| Agg  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -0.2 |
| Agi  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -0.8 |
| Ant  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -1.6 |
| Bal  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 1.6  |
| Bra  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -1.7 |
| Cnt  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -2.8 |
| Com  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 0.1  |
| Cre  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 0.9  |
| Cro  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -2.7 |
| Det  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 1.5  |
| Dri  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 3.6  |
| Dsc  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 1.3  |
| Fin  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 4.1  |
| Fir  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 2.7  |
| Fla  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 3.1  |
| Hea  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -0.8 |
| Jum  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 1.1  |
| Lsh  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -0.9 |
| Nat  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 1.1  |
| Off  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 4.8  |
| Pac  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 2.5  |
| Pas  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 1.0  |
| Pos  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -2.5 |
| Sta  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 3.4  |
| Str  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -0.4 |
| Tea  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -2.4 |
| Tec  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | 0.8  |
| Wor  |      | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL | -2.0 |
| agg  | AM   | NULL | 1.0  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| agi  | AM   | NULL | 0.6  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| ant  | AM   | NULL | 0.8  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| bal  | AM   | NULL | 0.9  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cmp  | AM   | NULL | 0.2  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cnt  | AM   | NULL | 1.3  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cre  | AM   | NULL | 0.1  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cro  | AM   | NULL | 0.3  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| det  | AM   | NULL | 0.2  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| dri  | AM   | NULL | 0.4  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| dsc  | AM   | NULL | 0.6  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| fin  | AM   | NULL | 0.6  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| fir  | AM   | NULL | -0.2 | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| hea  | AM   | NULL | 1.3  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| inf  | AM   | NULL | -0.4 | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| jum  | AM   | NULL | 0.5  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| lsh  | AM   | NULL | -0.9 | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| off  | AM   | NULL | -1.4 | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| pac  | AM   | NULL | 1.0  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| pas  | AM   | NULL | 0.2  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| pos  | AM   | NULL | 1.3  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| sta  | AM   | NULL | 0.8  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| str  | AM   | NULL | 1.8  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| tec  | AM   | NULL | 0.8  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| wor  | AM   | NULL | 0.6  | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| acc  | DC   | 1.2  | NULL | 7.0  | NULL | NULL |
| agg  | DC   | -0.0 | NULL | 4.7  | NULL | NULL |
| agi  | DC   | 1.9  | NULL | 2.8  | NULL | NULL |
| ant  | DC   | 2.0  | NULL | 0.8  | NULL | NULL |
| bal  | DC   | -0.2 | NULL | 0.2  | NULL | NULL |
| bra  | DC   | -0.6 | NULL | 4.1  | NULL | NULL |
| cmp  | DC   | 0.8  | NULL | 0.5  | NULL | NULL |
| cnt  | DC   | 1.7  | NULL | 4.3  | NULL | NULL |
| det  | DC   | 0.7  | NULL | 2.6  | NULL | NULL |
| dri  | DC   | -0.3 | NULL | -0.6 | NULL | NULL |
| dsc  | DC   | 0.5  | NULL | 3.1  | NULL | NULL |
| fin  | DC   | -0.0 | NULL | 0.2  | NULL | NULL |
| fir  | DC   | -1.0 | NULL | -0.5 | NULL | NULL |
| fla  | DC   | -0.2 | NULL | 6.1  | NULL | NULL |
| hea  | DC   | -2.8 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| inf  | DC   | -0.5 | NULL | 3.9  | NULL | NULL |
| jum  | DC   | 3.1  | NULL | 22.2 | NULL | NULL |
| mar  | DC   | 0.4  | NULL | 6.3  | NULL | NULL |
| nat  | DC   | -0.8 | NULL | 3.3  | NULL | NULL |
| off  | DC   | -0.9 | NULL | -1.9 | NULL | NULL |
| pac  | DC   | 2.5  | NULL | 8.2  | NULL | NULL |
| pas  | DC   | 1.1  | NULL | 1.2  | NULL | NULL |
| pos  | DC   | 0.2  | NULL | 4.1  | NULL | NULL |
| sta  | DC   | 0.9  | NULL | -1.6 | NULL | NULL |
| str  | DC   | 0.2  | NULL | 3.6  | NULL | NULL |
| tac  | DC   | -0.1 | NULL | 7.1  | NULL | NULL |
| tea  | DC   | 0.2  | NULL | 3.9  | NULL | NULL |
| wor  | DC   | 0.5  | NULL | 6.0  | NULL | NULL |
| acc  | DL   | 1.4  | 1.2  | 5.5  | NULL | NULL |
| agg  | DL   | 0.1  | -0.2 | 4.4  | NULL | NULL |
| agi  | DL   | 0.8  | 0.6  | 3.6  | NULL | NULL |
| ant  | DL   | 0.7  | 0.7  | 1.2  | NULL | NULL |
| bal  | DL   | -0.2 | -0.0 | 0.1  | NULL | NULL |
| bra  | DL   | -0.9 | -1.0 | 3.8  | NULL | NULL |
| cmp  | DL   | 1.3  | -0.6 | 2.6  | NULL | NULL |
| cnt  | DL   | 2.0  | 2.6  | 3.3  | NULL | NULL |
| cre  | DL   | 0.6  | 1.0  | 1.3  | NULL | NULL |
| cro  | DL   | 0.3  | 0.7  | 3.0  | NULL | NULL |
| det  | DL   | 1.3  | 0.8  | 3.5  | NULL | NULL |
| dri  | DL   | 1.4  | 0.5  | -0.4 | NULL | NULL |
| dsc  | DL   | 0.9  | -0.4 | 2.5  | NULL | NULL |
| fla  | DL   | -0.3 | 2.4  | 5.7  | NULL | NULL |
| inf  | DL   | -1.2 | NULL | 3.7  | NULL | NULL |
| jum  | DL   | 2.7  | 3.0  | 16.8 | NULL | NULL |
| mar  | DL   | -0.8 | -0.0 | 4.3  | NULL | NULL |
| off  | DL   | -1.1 | -0.8 | -3.1 | NULL | NULL |
| pac  | DL   | 2.8  | 1.3  | 8.8  | NULL | NULL |
| pas  | DL   | -0.5 | 0.5  | 2.4  | NULL | NULL |
| pos  | DL   | 0.6  | -0.7 | 3.3  | NULL | NULL |
| sta  | DL   | 2.0  | 2.4  | -0.5 | NULL | NULL |
| str  | DL   | -0.3 | -1.6 | 2.2  | NULL | NULL |
| tac  | DL   | 0.7  | 1.4  | 7.8  | NULL | NULL |
| tea  | DL   | 0.7  | 1.6  | 6.5  | NULL | NULL |
| tec  | DL   | 0.9  | 0.3  | 0.9  | NULL | NULL |
| wor  | DL   | -0.5 | -0.3 | 5.7  | NULL | NULL |
| acc  | DM   | 1.5  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| agg  | DM   | 1.3  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| agi  | DM   | 0.4  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| ant  | DM   | 1.4  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| bal  | DM   | 1.5  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cmp  | DM   | 0.8  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cnt  | DM   | 1.2  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cre  | DM   | 0.8  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| cro  | DM   | -0.7 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| det  | DM   | 3.5  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| dri  | DM   | -0.5 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| dsc  | DM   | -0.5 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| fla  | DM   | 1.2  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| inf  | DM   | 0.7  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| jum  | DM   | 3.1  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| mar  | DM   | -0.1 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| off  | DM   | -0.8 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| pac  | DM   | 1.6  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| pas  | DM   | 1.2  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| pos  | DM   | 0.2  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| sta  | DM   | 0.9  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| str  | DM   | -1.4 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| tac  | DM   | 0.3  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| tea  | DM   | 0.6  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| tec  | DM   | -1.2 | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| wor  | DM   | 0.6  | NULL | NULL | NULL | NULL |
| acc  | GK   | 3.9  | -1.1 | 5.3  | NULL | NULL |
| aer  | GK   | 1.8  | 0.5  | 9.9  | NULL | NULL |
| agg  | GK   | -0.4 | NULL | 1.1  | NULL | NULL |
| agi  | GK   | 0.9  | -1.0 | 1.3  | NULL | NULL |
| ant  | GK   | 0.7  | 0.3  | -4.2 | NULL | NULL |
| bal  | GK   | -0.1 | NULL | 1.5  | NULL | NULL |
| bra  | GK   | -0.8 | 1.3  | 9.7  | NULL | NULL |
| cmd  | GK   | 1.5  | -0.1 | 0.9  | NULL | NULL |
| cmp  | GK   | 1.1  | -0.1 | 2.5  | NULL | NULL |
| cnt  | gk   | 1.8  | 1.0  | 1.9  | NULL | NULL |
| com  | GK   | -0.7 | 0.5  | 0.7  | NULL | NULL |
| cre  | gk   | -0.6 | 0.8  | 6.2  | NULL | NULL |
| det  | GK   | 0.4  | 0.8  | 6.0  | NULL | NULL |
| dsc  | GK   | 0.5  | -0.6 | 3.7  | NULL | NULL |
| ecc  | GK   | 0.4  | 0.3  | 1.8  | NULL | NULL |
| han  | GK   | -0.4 | 1.9  | 5.5  | NULL | NULL |
| inf  | GK   | -0.1 | 0.6  | 3.4  | NULL | NULL |
| jum  | GK   | 0.1  | -1.1 | 2.9  | NULL | NULL |
| kic  | GK   | -1.2 | -0.9 | 2.7  | NULL | NULL |
| off  | gk   | -2.2 | -0.0 | 2.6  | NULL | NULL |
| one  | GK   | 1.0  | -0.8 | 1.7  | NULL | NULL |
| pac  | gk   | -1.8 | 2.0  | 1.2  | NULL | NULL |
| pos  | GK   | -0.0 | 0.4  | 3.7  | NULL | NULL |
| pun  | GK   | -1.0 | -2.3 | 4.0  | NULL | NULL |
| ref  | GK   | 3.0  | 4.7  | 4.7  | NULL | NULL |
| rus  | GK   | 0.4  | -0.3 | 7.1  | NULL | NULL |
| sta  | GK   | 1.5  | 1.5  | 1.4  | NULL | NULL |
| str  | GK   | -0.2 | -0.4 | 2.3  | NULL | NULL |
| tea  | GK   | 2.1  | NULL | 2.2  | NULL | NULL |
| thr  | GK   | -0.9 | NULL | 0.6  | NULL | NULL |
| wor  | GK   | 0.9  | NULL | -8.7 | NULL | NULL |
| acc  | M    | 2.6  | 1.9  | 4.3  | NULL | NULL |
| agi  | M    | -1.2 | -0.1 | 0.3  | NULL | NULL |
| ant  | M    | -1.6 | -0.1 | -5.2 | NULL | NULL |
| bal  | M    | -0.5 | 2.2  | 4.8  | NULL | NULL |
| bra  | M    | 0.7  | 0.1  | -0.3 | NULL | NULL |
| cmp  | M    | -0.2 | 1.8  | 2.5  | NULL | NULL |
| cnt  | M    | 2.5  | 1.4  | -1.5 | NULL | NULL |
| cre  | M    | 0.2  | 0.2  | 0.7  | NULL | NULL |
| cro  | M    | -1.5 | -0.5 | 4.8  | NULL | NULL |
| det  | M    | -0.2 | 0.6  | 6.1  | NULL | NULL |
| dri  | M    | 1.2  | 0.6  | -0.6 | NULL | NULL |
| dsc  | M    | -0.4 | -1.8 | 0.2  | NULL | NULL |
| fin  | M    | 0.7  | 0.4  | 0.6  | NULL | NULL |
| fla  | M    | 0.4  | -2.8 | 15.7 | NULL | NULL |
| hea  | M    | 3.0  | 2.1  | 5.7  | NULL | NULL |
| inf  | M    | -1.8 | 0.4  | 2.0  | NULL | NULL |
| jum  | M    | 1.6  | 0.6  | 8.3  | NULL | NULL |
| off  | M    | 0.3  | 2.3  | -0.2 | NULL | NULL |
| pac  | M    | 3.7  | 2.5  | 9.1  | NULL | NULL |
| pas  | M    | 0.9  | 2.2  | 1.7  | NULL | NULL |
| pos  | M    | 1.0  | 0.9  | 0.6  | NULL | NULL |
| sta  | M    | 0.4  | 3.1  | -0.6 | NULL | NULL |
| str  | M    | 0.6  | -0.6 | 0.5  | NULL | NULL |
| tea  | M    | 1.8  | -0.0 | 10.6 | NULL | NULL |
| tec  | M    | 0.5  | -0.8 | 5.4  | NULL | NULL |
| wor  | M    | 0.1  | -1.1 | 6.8  | NULL | NULL |
| acc  | S    | NULL | 1.3  | 8.2  | 0.9  | NULL |
| agg  | S    | NULL | 0.5  | 3.6  | -2.1 | NULL |
| agi  | S    | NULL | 0.2  | 1.5  | -0.3 | NULL |
| ant  | S    | NULL | -0.3 | -0.8 | 0.5  | NULL |
| bal  | S    | NULL | 1.6  | 4.9  | 2.4  | NULL |
| Bra  | S    | NULL | -0.1 | 1.7  | -0.2 | NULL |
| cmp  | S    | NULL | 0.8  | 4.3  | -0.4 | NULL |
| cnt  | S    | NULL | 1.4  | -1.0 | 2.1  | NULL |
| cre  | S    | NULL | 0.9  | 0.8  | -0.0 | NULL |
| cro  | S    | NULL | -0.1 | 2.6  | -0.2 | NULL |
| det  | S    | NULL | 1.4  | 3.2  | 1.1  | NULL |
| dri  | S    | NULL | 1.5  | 1.0  | 0.6  | NULL |
| dsc  | S    | NULL | -0.1 | -0.1 | 0.4  | NULL |
| fin  | S    | NULL | -0.2 | 5.0  | 0.2  | NULL |
| fir  | S    | NULL | -2.1 | 4.1  | -1.5 | NULL |
| Fla  | S    | NULL | -3.3 | 11.9 | -1.7 | NULL |
| hea  | S    | NULL | 0.4  | 2.3  | 0.4  | NULL |
| inf  | S    | NULL | 0.7  | 1.6  | -0.4 | NULL |
| jum  | S    | NULL | 1.9  | 15.4 | 0.9  | NULL |
| lsh  | S    | NULL | 0.5  | 0.4  | 0.6  | NULL |
| off  | S    | NULL | 0.1  | 3.2  | -0.3 | NULL |
| pac  | S    | NULL | 3.8  | 11.6 | 2.7  | NULL |
| pas  | S    | NULL | -0.3 | 1.1  | -0.3 | NULL |
| pos  | S    | NULL | 0.8  | -2.8 | 0.3  | NULL |
| sta  | S    | NULL | 1.8  | 1.4  | 2.6  | NULL |
| str  | S    | NULL | -0.2 | 0.9  | 0.5  | NULL |
| Tac  | S    | NULL | NULL | NULL | -1.0 | NULL |
| Tea  | S    | NULL | -0.3 | 2.7  | -1.2 | NULL |
| tec  | S    | NULL | 0.8  | 2.4  | -0.1 | NULL |
| wor  | S    | NULL | -0.1 | 6.6  | -0.5 | NULL |
+------+------+------+------+------+------+------+

Still alive..

Still alive. Well. Sort of.

I just cancelled two of my three active subscriptions today. And the reasons? Same as I've been complaining about the last couple of years. Give me something fun to do in the game.

One subscription should be enough anyway. I guess many people take on several subscriptions just because managing one team simply gets boring in the long run as things are now. Maybe the PvE post in the forums can bring some playability back to the game if it is implemented.

I'm really not that concerned about the faults of the ME as many other bloggers/forum posters. I'll just adapt to whatever it takes and play the game for the current ME. After all, this is a numbers game, so if pace 20 is what I need, then pace 20 is what I'll buy. If 433 is the winning formation, then 433 is what I'll play. But I'm really disappointed by the lack of clarity shown by the developers when forum users raise genuine concerns. There are countless examples. My biggest gripes being lack of transfer taxes, uncontrolled flow of money in and out of the Gameworlds, way to much money floating up to the top (trading) teams and generally the fact that the game is quite linear and uninspiring most of the time.

I don't know what it takes to truly fix the game, I'm not a games developer. But I know what it takes to fix the game for me. I know why I was addicted to CM in it's early days. Make it interesting. Make it something I want to play. Make it an alternative to watching movies. Make it into a talking point with my friends. Make it keep me constantly checking my email to see if anything interesting has happened in the game. And ultimately. Make me play FML hour after hour. Just one more match. Just one more win. Just five more minutes. Until I force myself to go to bed only to be totally excited about getting up in the morning to check for any changes that might have occurred while I was asleep.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!?!

So 6 hours a day with vuvuzela isn't enough to annoy the hell out of your girlfriend?

Well here is the solution: Bring the vuvuzela to FML!

1. Install match sounds from add ons in FML
2a (Mac). Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/Sports Interactive/Football Manager Live/fml_live_v1/add_ons/match_sounds/
2b (Win). Navigate to %appdata%/Sports Interactive/Football Manager Live/fml_live_v1/add_ons/match_sounds/
3. Backup/rename FM_loop2.wav
4. Download and replace with this file FM_loop2.wav
5. Restart FML & wave goodbye to your girlfriend when she moves out so you get more time to play FML! :)

Either footed strikers

Numbers pulled from GW Vald, 2001 observations:

An either footed player hits target 1.8% more often than a one foot/one foot only player (41.8%)
An either footed player scores 1.6% more often than a one foot/one foot only player when the shot hits target (31.3%).
An either footed player scores 1.4% more often than a one foot/one foot only player when he shoots at goal (13.2%).

Some numbers on two-footed Passing

Following my last blog, and the heavy, but interesting FM thread about player attributes linked by T-Bag, I decided to take a look at impact of two-footedness in the current GWs.

This data is taken from 2000 players in Vald.
The means of the passing attribute (passing between 8 and 17):
One Foot Only: 12.5
One Foot: 12.7
Either Foot: 12.2

Completed passes:
One Foot Only: 70.0%
One Foot: 71.7%
Either Foot: 71.5%

Even though Either Footed players have 0.3 points less in passing they complete 1.5% more of their passes compared to One Foot Only.

An interesting observation is that it the difference between One Foot Only and One Foot seems to be bigger than the difference between One Foot and Either Foot.

But let's compare apples and apples. As described in the thread from the FM forums, attributes will most likely be lower when a player is two-footed, and that is also why the mean from my test sample is lower for two-footed players.  So how does a player with One Foot compare to a player with Either Foot when they have the same attribute points for passing?

I'd say One Foot has about 1.5 % higher percentage of passes completed than One Foot Only when the passing attribute is equal. And Either Foot has around 0.5% higher than One Foot.

So how much do 2% translate to in terms of the Passing attribute? Well, that is the interesting thing. It seems like there is a clear threshold when reaching Passing 15 and Decisions 14, independent of footedness.

Below Passing 12 the passes completed rise very slowly, then there is a big jump of 5% up to Passing 15 before it again reaches a plateau. The same is true for Decisions, from 12 to 14 the passes completed jump up by 4%.

So to summarize, I started investigating two-footedness under the assumption that it impacts passing a lot. I've found that it improves around 2% of passes completed, but that getting a player who is not One Footed Only is probably a better bet. I've also found that having a total sum of Passing + Decisions above 28 is very important for completing passes, more so than how many feet they use...

So my next midfielder will probably be a one-footed player competent with his other foot, with Passing 15 and Decicions 14!

Sorry if this post didn't make too much sense, I just wrote down stuff as I found them so it might have ended up a bit unorganised.. :)

Wanted: Low Attributes!

Somewhere online I found a data file consisting of 290 000 FM players.
Well, what is more natural than to deep dive into the numbers to try to find something interesting?

For all you youth managers out there, here are the attributes you don't want a high score on if you plan to let your guys develop to the next wonderkids of the world. The higher these attributes are, the less of the CA points can be spent on other attributes.

1: Natural Fitness
From what I've found, Natural Fitness in FML doesn't really help much with anything except probably postponing the player aging a bit.  However, it eats up a decent amount of points that could otherwise go to more vital attributes. Next time you get a new graduate, you should pray to the FML-lord that he gives you a 5* potential player with Natural Fitness 1.

2: Two-footedness
I'll admit I haven't checked the impact of two-footedness in the ME yet (something for an upcoming post I guess). But what I can tell you is that two-footedness takes points from other attributes at the same rate as Natural Fitness.

3: Flair
As I've mentioned before, Flair does not help a player's team score more goals, neither will it help the team concede less. Flair does improve the average rating, but so does high jumping, and I know which one I would prefer. ;)

4, 5 and 6: Aggression, Workrate & Teamwork
The usefulness of these attributes depends a bit on the position your players play on the field. But for an attacking player, I'm quite certain I could do without these attributes and rather see the physical attributes sky rocket to fulfill the Potential Ability available.

On the other end of the scale, here are the main attributes that impact the CA in a positive way.
For strikers:
Pace, Off the Ball, Decisions, Crossing, Dribbling, First Touch, Heading, Acceleration, Anticipation

And for DCs:
Tackling, Marking, Positioning, Decisions, Heading, Anticipation, Jumping, First Touch, Passing

I'm sure someone somewhere must have blogged/forum posted the same results within the FM community. If you know where to find more information, feel free to post some links down in the comment field! :)