Collated CR data

For some time, I've been collating data from my change reports in order to work out estimated skill increases for DV values. I believe I've got enough data now that it's worth publishing (with credit to Gildar and Michelep, who have helped me fill a lot of gaps in my own data with their own values). Click on an image to enlarge it.

16-20 year olds

21-22 year olds

23-25 year olds

26-28 year olds

29-31 year olds

32-35 year olds

36-37 year olds

The full spreadsheet (retrofitted to Excel 97-2003 format) is available here.

Training results, and why less can be more

I've been a bit lax putting new posts up recently, but I'd much prefer to find topics that are worth talking about than posting for the sake of it. Anyhow, in this post I'd like to discuss training, and why form gains are not the be all and end all.

I remember of something a friend of mine told me:

Swiss cheese has holes.
The more holes you have, the less cheese you have.
The more cheese you have, the more holes you have.
Therefore, the more cheese you have, the less cheese you have.

In a similar sense, a big form increase from training after a severe drop in form is not necessarily the result you want, and you'd actually prefer to receive a smaller form increase. The rules state that "...if the effect (of form training on form) is small it is likely the player had a negative hidden form tendency which became positive by the form training." Correcting a hidden form tendency with a smaller form boost will have a much better effect on a player's form than just a large form boost that can be cancelled out at the next match.

From my own personal experience, I'm often sceptical when a player gains more than 10% form gain (that is, 10% of 20-form, as that is how training results are calculated), which will be reflected as an upwards and not diagonal green arrow. That would mean a player gaining more than a whole bar on 10 form, or more than 0.5 bars at 15 form for example, may have a negative hidden FT still and may need to go straight back into training immediately.

The science of underevals

"Underevals", or players that gain skill bar on transfer, are starting to become a more popular method of farming players, particularly with the new threads in the forums created for the purpose of advertising players. In a previous post, I discussed what happens when a transfer takes place, but I'll build on that by discussing how you can use that to your advantage when selling players.

The basic premise

Players gain or lose skill on transfer, based on their average form, match experience and the amount the season has progressed. The way the skill increase / decrease is calculated is very similar to the way that it is at the change report, although there is one difference; at the change report, players get a random amount of between 0 and 0.2 as an additional gain (or loss) at the CR, but this is not applied on transfers.

Setting players up to become underevals

Building players up in order to sell them as underevals is a similar approach to training players normally - maintain form and ensure you give enough game time. The higher the form and the greater the match experience, the bigger the skill increase. Selling later in the season will also increase the skill gain a player makes. It's worth noting, however, that you don't necessarily need to get a huge skill increase - just enough so that the player gains a skill bar. You may find that, if you have a player that is high in their skill band, it's easier to try and sell them as an undereval than trying to attain a double jump with them, especially if you have lots of other players that need match experience.

When exactly to sell

There are a couple of things to consider when trying to sell underevals - whether you've earned enough of a skill increase for a visible jump on transfer, and whether there are teams actively looking for players. While selling four days before the deadline will give the maximum increase, you won't want to sell then if there aren't many leagues in silly season (which you can spot in the official leagues, but is mainly down to luck in private ones), and there's not much point keeping a player for extra weeks if you've already done enough for them to gain skill.

Calculating the DV a player needs to be an undereval

This calculator should help you work out what DV you will need to make a player an undereval given a point in the season. Note that I have written the calculator to be slightly pessimistic, in that they should return a DV that will guarantee an undereval, but you use it at your own risk.

Age:	16-20 21-22 23-25 26-28 29-31 32-35
Skill:
Average Form:
Amount of season that has passed (on day of listing):	of days / games