What makes a goalscorer in FMM

We all know that when it comes to scoring goals the most important attribute is shooting and the mental attributes that goes with that are movement and decision.

To prove this I did an experiment, I picked a player, added him to the scrapbook then started a my club save and added him to the team twice. 

I didn't go for three different players because I think for the results to be as accurate as possible I needed to consider the hidden attributes and since for now I don't have the tools to do that I went for the same player son I'm sure the attributes are the same. I named the first player "Movement Decision" because I changed both stats to 20. The second player had 20 for pace and movement so I named him "Pace Movement" and the last player "Pace Decision".

I decided to consider pace because I feel it's also important even if sometimes it's overlooked. So I simulated 3 seasons to see who would perform better if all three players had the same finishing attribute.

Result

After 3 seasons Movement Decision played more than the other two players and he scored 62 goals and 14 assists in 115 matches and his goal ratio was 0.54

Pace Decision played 52 times and scored 5 goals with 3 assist having a goal ratio of 0.10

Pace Movement played 80 times and he scored 24 goals with 1 assist and his goal ratio was 0.30.

The best performer is clearly Movement Decision but as much as I wanted to make the results more realistic I have to take into account that the other players were backups so to get everything right I needed to consider goals per minute played but sadly it's impossible.

The question now is what would be the result if you consider the three attributes separately? 

This time I named the players "Movement", "Decision" and "Pace" then I simulated 2 seasons and the result was interesting.

Result

In the first season Pace played 19 times and scored 7 goals and his goal ratio was 0.37. On the other hand movement played 30 games and scored 12 goals in the first season with a ratio of 0.40.

So in the first season Pace wasn't that far from movement considering he wasn't the one starting.

In 2 seasons pace played 51 times and scored 20 goals (0.39 goal ratio)

Movement played 69 times and scored 33 goals (0.48 goal ratio)

And finally Decision played 16 times and did not score a single goal.

Conclusion 

Movement is unquestionably the most important attribute for a goalscorer after shooting but decision doesn't seem that important as people may think, rather pace stands out more  as we can see from the second experiment. All depend also on the role you are playing such players and as said previously these experiments are not 100% accurate so the results may be different if you were to play the game's yourself.

 

 

[UKFootballScore]

Very interesting read and results for sure! I thought decisions would be the best tbh but obviously its movement 

[Dar J]

14 minutes ago, UKFootballScore said:

Very interesting read and results for sure! I thought decisions would be the best tbh but obviously its movement 

I also taught decision would have more impact at least assist wise

[Dec]

Nice work, not surprised movement and decisions did well but I thought movement would trump decisions as already mentioned.

[veerus]

This is a fantastic idea to try and isolate key stats but I have a few issues with the methodology:

1. In both experiments, it seems to me you were playing all three players at once which may have put them into different systems at different times during the season.  Ideally, each player individually should be the star striker on the team without other players who are also test subjects.
2. I'm not entirely surprised that Decision was the worst of the three categories.  If I had to pick, I would rank physical attributes (movement/pace) over mental (decision).  I think this test would be more informative if you tested Dribbling instead of Decision.
3. I don't know if this is due to how the editor works, but your three test players have different Dribbling/Shooting/Creativity stats.  This is minor because, ironically, Movement/Decision is the one who had those stats lower than the other two and he still did the best in the first test.
4. Do you know which positions these players were played in?  The Pace/Movement and Pace/Decision guys would make a much better Poachers than the Movement/Decision guy who would probably make a better AF or TM.  

Great job overall.  Thanks for coming up with this idea.  If you choose to re-run the tests with my suggestions, I think that would tell us a lot more about which stat combinations are more important.

[Dar J]

19 minutes ago, veerus said:

This is a fantastic idea to try and isolate key stats but I have a few issues with the methodology:

1. In both experiments, it seems to me you were playing all three players at once which may have put them into different systems at different times during the season.  Ideally, each player individually should be the star striker on the team without other players who are also test subjects.
2. I'm not entirely surprised that Decision was the worst of the three categories.  If I had to pick, I would rank physical attributes (movement/pace) over mental (decision).  I think this test would be more informative if you tested Dribbling instead of Decision.
3. I don't know if this is due to how the editor works, but your three test players have different Dribbling/Shooting/Creativity stats.  This is minor because, ironically, Movement/Decision is the one who had those stats lower than the other two and he still did the best in the first test.
4. Do you know which positions these players were played in?  The Pace/Movement and Pace/Decision guys would make a much better Poachers than the Movement/Decision guy who would probably make a better AF or TM.  

Great job overall.  Thanks for coming up with this idea.  If you choose to re-run the tests with my suggestions, I think that would tell us a lot more about which stat combinations are more important.

1. I like the idea of testing each player individually and I would re-run the tests following that method

2. I didn't add Dribbling because I think it's mainly for a creative player

3. I think it's the editor 

4. I not totally sure but the team played the 4-4-2, 4-2-2-1-1 and 4-2-3-1 with DMs

[veerus]

I always thought that Technique/Creativity are more for creative players like APMs whereas Dribbling is a more of a universal stat for ball control.  If it's not too much of a bother, I would be interested in seeing a Dribbling test as well please.

[BatiGoal]

I think the reason pace stands out is because it can make up a lot for players with a little lack of decision. Pace is a great tool for not so talented strikers.

[Dar J]

7 hours ago, veerus said:

I always thought that Technique/Creativity are more for creative players like APMs whereas Dribbling is a more of a universal stat for ball control.  If it's not too much of a bother, I would be interested in seeing a Dribbling test as well please.

No problem I'd do the testa again with Dribbling 

[billy2shots]

9 hours ago, veerus said:

This is a fantastic idea to try and isolate key stats but I have a few issues with the methodology:

1. In both experiments, it seems to me you were playing all three players at once which may have put them into different systems at different times during the season.  Ideally, each player individually should be the star striker on the team without other players who are also test subjects.
2. I'm not entirely surprised that Decision was the worst of the three categories.  If I had to pick, I would rank physical attributes (movement/pace) over mental (decision).  I think this test would be more informative if you tested Dribbling instead of Decision.
3. I don't know if this is due to how the editor works, but your three test players have different Dribbling/Shooting/Creativity stats.  This is minor because, ironically, Movement/Decision is the one who had those stats lower than the other two and he still did the best in the first test.
4. Do you know which positions these players were played in?  The Pace/Movement and Pace/Decision guys would make a much better Poachers than the Movement/Decision guy who would probably make a better AF or TM.  

Great job overall.  Thanks for coming up with this idea.  If you choose to re-run the tests with my suggestions, I think that would tell us a lot more about which stat combinations are more important.

 

 

Number 1. hits the nail on the head. The other players 'may' have done better than the 'winner' but they did not play in the prime position. 

 

A nice  idea but poor execution. The results tell us nothing apart from what stats the AI favours to play up front. The test needs to be run individually to get more consistent results. 

If you do have the time and inclination it would still be a good experiment to carry out.