[law90026]

Originally Posted by Brian Swartz

Well I think the formula works well for a player's strength, but it's definitely not perfect. Generally speaking, surface strengths being equal(they play a significant role), I'll usually win against players who are more than 0.3 weaker, and lose if they are 0.3 stronger. Within that +/- 0.3 things are a lot more iffy, but I've also seen losses against players with a gap as high as 0.6 or 0.7 on occasion. There seems to be a hidden 'hot/cold' thing going on. Take a look at Cestmir Marcek in my dynasty, he just has no business being the world no.4 but he is and had a heck of a year, better than when he actually had higher ratings as a younger player. So it's a 'baseline', and works good as a general guideline, but players are humans and stuff happens .

The other thing is, a player with high mentality and low athleticism/technical skill does seem to underperform a bit. I think this is basically because they aren't good enough to get into enough 'key points' with a player who is somewhat better in skill but lower mentality; i.e., their clutchness or whatever doesn't come into play. So I'd definitely suggest that it's better to have a player with good athleticism and mentality then it is to have one with average athleticism and great mentality. Balance is best I think.

The final point; you may be incorrect in assuming you can get a 15 or 16-year-old player to 5.0 skill, 4.0 serve. If they've been misused for a year or two a lot of the potential is wasted. If you have a couple examples of these kinds of players I can take a look at them, but usually I might consider a particularly good 15-year-old, at 16 or more I think it would be rare to find one that was very worthwhile.

.02.

Thanks, very helpful as always!