I have been collecting lists of current international players, going through 6 nation squads etc, in preperation to edit the database to make it conform kmore closely to the actual rugby world. I am thinking about what calibres I should use for players that are in international squads, have international caps etc. When I did research into attributes in the game, I found there is a big drop off between a player that is international calibre and those that are national calibre, even with a star. Anyway, to cut a long story short, should players from the main nations who are in national squads but recieved a handful of caps, or perhaps still waiting for their fist caps, be considered international calibre? What about if they have 10 caps? 20 caps? etc
A problem I am having at the moment is that the gap in attributes between a national player and an international player is large - a top national attibute is generally equal to, or just a point or two higher, than the lowest international level attribute, while even the below average international calibre attributes are generally higher than the best national calibre attributes. This means that setting a player at national calibre who, in reality, is a player who gets picked for their international side, or in the nation's squad, even if not a regular, is really going to be far and away second best in attribute levels to any player that you give international calibre to. This gap can be problematic when trying to edit players.
I have thought about a few ways of trying to deal with this:
1. Make all players who in reality are in international squads, have caps etc (at least for the major nations), international calibre (apart from those you viewed as World Class, which stays as a calibre) - they can be given attributes in the lower range of international, but still they would be international calibre. This will have the effect of flooding the game with international calibre players, which will then re-gen at this calibre when the players retire. I am not sure this is bad, and may be my preffered solution, but, like I say, this will create a big pool of international calibre players per major nation, rather than the current smaller ones.
2. Make many of the players who are, in reality, currently international squad players, or have won some international caps, national calibre in the game, with or without with a star, but edit many of them so their attributes can go over what a national calibre player is currently given by the game - i.e. sort of creating a half-way house catagory between the current national calibre and international calibre catagories. The attributes would still be generally lower than those of a player given international calibre, but the gap would be much less, thus allowing a more gradual attribute curve from World class calibre, through international and into national calibre. This is all fine and dandy, but i don't know if once these players retire whether the re-gen players will all go back to having attributes at the lower 'official' range, making the change dissapear as your save game progresses. If they do go back to the standard 'official' attribute ranges for a national calibre player, then eventually your game will go back to the same big differences between national calibre and international calibre, and the advantage gained from the changes would be lost.
3. My third, more radical idea, is just removing World Class calibre. A world class calibre player would now be given international calibre, and all other 'international' players would be national calibre. If the player is, in reality, an international player because they are or have been called up into international squads, have earned international caps etc, then they would be given attributes at or near the top of the national calibre attribute ranges, with the better ones gettting an added star etc. The advantage of this system is that, apart from the super star 'best players in the world' catagory (which is now international calibre), the difference in attributes between international and non-international players is smaller, as all of them are national calibre. The problem with this system is that the game will still create world class calibre players in the the player's colts, but they won't exists anywhere else - so the player would either have to accept this huge advantage or fire them, and, in addition, there are facility mechanisms built around how many world class calibre players your club can handle, which would therefore become irrelevant.
If you don't mind the bit gap in attribute levels between international and national calibre, and the affects it has on the international side of the game, then no need to do anything. However, the large gap does present problems when trying to be vaguely realisitic when editing players, hence my thoughts on what potentially might be done to sort it out. I am inclined to just be more genrous with the amount of international calibre players I create (i.e. option 1) - but at the moment I am unsure what is the best path to go down. I don't want to do a load of editing and then change my mind half-way through, so the edit philosophy really has to be decided upon before any editing begins.
I would be interested to hear what thoughts others have on the percieved problem and potential solutions!
