Ballerz FM Guide

Part 1

Hello Ballerz. Today we will start a series where I go in-depth on the things a casual player might not realize are essential but are. I’ll start with something I believe many people overlook, which is the importance of personalities and hidden attributes.

What are Hidden Attributes and Personalities?

Hidden attributes are the ratings given to players that are not visible from the manager’s standard view (thus, hidden). There are 11 hidden attributes in the game that will affect everything about your player from his training to his match performance, and they are:

• Ambition – How much a player wants to succeed.
• Controversy – How often the player will make headlines in the press.
• Dirtiness – How willing a player is to break the rules in a game.
• Important Matches – How effective a player is in high-pressure matches.
• Injury Proneness – How likely a player might suffer an injury during training or in a game.
• Loyalty – How much a player wants his current club to succeed.
• Pressure – How great a player is mentally at handling stressful circumstances, such as a run of poor form.
• Professionalism – How well a player approaches training and matches.
• Sportsmanship – How moral a player will be on the pitch.
• Temperament – How readily a player will flare up during games. The higher it is, the less likely he will.
• Versatility – How well a player will perform in a new position, and how fast he will get accustomed to a fresh one.

Now, out of these 11 hidden attributes, only 7 affect one’s personality. Versatility, important matches, dirtiness, and injury proneness, while valuable in their own right, do not affect a player’s personality. I will talk about them more in this section before moving on to personalities. Let’s call the extra four attributes hidden, while we call the other seven personality attributes to create a distinction. To an extent, you can discover a player’s hidden attributes from the scouting or coach reports.

I will use the fine specimen in James Maddison on my Watford save to demonstrate my point. From the coach report I’ve been given, in the Pros section, Maddison is fairly consistent, versatile, and enjoys the big games. In the Cons, though, I see he is fairly susceptible to injuries. Though this doesn’t give the exact value of the consistency rating, it tells me enough to know who I am signing. Of course, you may not see this information or even be misinformed if the person sending the report has a low Judging Current Ability rating, but Bryan Klug has a 16 there, so I assume I’m safe. 

Those are the hidden attributes. Pretty self-explanatory. Now, for the other 7.

Personality Attributes in Depth

Nine attributes affect personalities: the seven personality attributes, determination, and leadership. You can access the Determination and Leadership attributes easily as they are, well, not hidden. But for the other 7, finding out ALL of them is usually impossible in most cases. 

Why? Firstly, it is not realistic that one would know everything about a player’s intrinsic traits, no matter how long you’ve spent with him. Secondly, and more importantly, these traits are, in a way, a lot more valuable than player attributes, and as such, exposing them would allow the game to be exploited pretty easily.

So, even though it is difficult discovering all seven of the nine personality attributes, you can easily pick out 2 or 3 that stand out:

• Their personality (not surprising), and
• Their media handling style

These tell you the standout personality attributes of the player. To further explain, I will break down the distinct personalities, and the personality attributes they highlight. I will do that by separating the personalities in Football Manager into three: the positive, neutral, and negative.

The Personalities

To find out a player’s personality, simply click on the player:

On the right side, a widget will hold your player’s personality. With the personality, you can use the list below to find out what it tells you.

Key

• Perfect: 20
• Excellent: 17-19
• Good: 13-16
• Average: 8-12
• Below average: 5-7
• Bad: 2-4
• Horrid: 1

Positive Personalities

Model Citizen – At least excellent determination, ambition, loyalty, pressure, professionalism, temperament, and sportsmanship

Perfectionist – At least excellent ambition, professionalism, and determination

Resolute – Good to excellent determination and professionalism

Spirited – At least good pressure, good to excellent professionalism and at most average temperament

Model Professional – Perfect professionalism and at most average temperament

Professional – Excellent professionalism and at most average temperament

Fairly Professional – From good to excellent professionalism OR excellent to perfect professionalism and at most average temperament

Driven – Perfect determination and at most average ambition

Determined – Excellent determination and at most average ambition

Fairly Determined – From good to excellent determination OR excellent to perfect determination and at most average ambition

Very Ambitious – Perfect ambition and at most average loyalty

Ambitious – Good to excellent ambition and at most average loyalty

Fairly Ambitious – Good ambition OR good to perfect ambition and at most average loyalty

Born Leader – Perfect influence (a rating denoting how high in social standing one is at a club at a particular time) and determination

Leader – Excellent influence OR perfect influence and at most excellent determination

Iron-Willed – Perfect pressure and at most good determination

Neutral Personalities

Devoted or Very Loyal – Perfect loyalty and below-average ambition

Loyal – Excellent loyalty and at most below average ambition

Fairly Loyal – Good to excellent loyalty OR excellent to perfect loyalty and average to good ambition

Honest – Perfect sportsmanship

Sporting – Excellent sportsmanship

Fairly Sporting – Good to excellent sportsmanship

Realist – Bad sportsmanship

Unsporting – Horrid sportsmanship

Jovial – At least good pressure and at least average temperament

Light-Hearted – At least good sportsmanship and pressure, and at least average determination and temperament

Balanced – Does not fit in any category

Negative Personalities

Temperamental – Horrid to bad temperament

Casual – Bad professionalism and at most average determination

Slack – Horrid professionalism and at most average determination

Low Self-Belief – Bad pressure at most average determination

Low Determination – Bad to below-average determination

Spineless – Horrid pressure and below-average determination

Easily Discouraged – Horrid determination

Wow. That was a pervasive list. But before I move on to the next section, I’ll just point out that some players may meet the requirements for more than one personality. In this situation, they still only get one. So, unless you want to extrapolate all player’s personality attributes, just use this list as a reference point. Now, unto the last section: media handling styles.

Media Handling Styles

To find media handling styles, go to the Overview tab, and from there, click information. His media handling style will be under Personal Information.

There are a lot less media handling styles than personalities, and they don’t provide as much information. However, they are still useful for determining personality traits because, unlike personalities, a player can have more media handling styles based if they fit the bill. With that in mind, here is what the handling styles tell you:

Unflappable – At least good temperament and pressure

Outspoken – At least good controversy

Evasive – At least good professionalism and pressure

Volatile – Bad to below-average temperament

Level Headed – At least good professionalism and at least average loyalty

Reserved – At most bad controversy and at least good professionalism

Short-tempered – At most bad temperament

Confrontational – At most below average temperament and sportsmanship.So, these are the ways you can determine a player’s hidden attributes. These attributes provide a wealth of information outside of their playing attributes and demand serious attention, especially in youth. You should be able to, at least, tell their high and low attributes by looking at their coach report, personality, and media handling style.