(I've edited my question and added a picture to make things clearer)
Greetings everyone, I'd like to know which positions on the field can players play without any penalty.

You can click the image to see it bigger.

[i] Positions represented with an (*) require 5 Flexibility.

I tried to create a visual representation of the answer below. My questions now are:

1. Is this the official information or a personal opinion? Is there a mention of that anywhere in the official capacity besides the tutorials?
2. Notice how most positions can be covered by 2 types (i.e AML position by WF and WM) but some are one (i.e. ML or AMC). What's your personal experience with those positions?

For example, can a CF with 5 Flexibility be used ad a AMC, or a CB be used as DMC? Have you used either WF or WB as ML or ML?

The reason I'm asking this is, I've created an advanced spreadsheet, which calculates ratings of my players for each position.

My personal opinion is that currently, the player rating system is not the best. For example, it doesn't take Stamina into account. Players with 5 or 80 stamina with the same stats would have the same rating. That's why I've created my own rating system.

My sheet has many uses, one of which is to give me the best outline for my players. However, in order to do that, I need to know in which positions can these players play and how Flex affect those ratings.

For example, if I used a CB with a "rating" of 50 as DMC, what would his rating would be in that position? Or my WF as LM?

I hope things are clearer now. Thanks in advance.

GK: Play as GK only. All other positions have high penalty. This applies to playing outfield players as GK too
CB: Can play at DC/DLC/DRC
WB: Can play as DL/DR/DML/DMR
DM: Can play as DMC/DMLC/DMRC/MC/MLC/MRC
AM: Can play as AMC/AMLC/AMRC/MC/MLC/MRC
WM: Can play as DML/DMR/ML/MR/AML/AMR
WF: Can play at FL/FR/AML/AMR
CF: Can play at FC/FLC/FRC

Apart from these, CB can play at DL/DR without penalty and WB as central defense positions if they have maximum flexibility. Similarly CF can play FL/FR and WF can play central if maximum flexibility.

All other positions will have penalty. Penalty is more when they are played farther away from their natural position, and also for wide players playing central and vice versa. Penalty is reduced as flexibility of the player increases.

I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

Engin Demir wrote :
I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

why wait for anyone else answering?
Fathima gave you quite a good and complete answer, I probably have simply pointed you the advanced tutorial :)
https://www.f4football.com/tutorial/advanced/players/positions

Engin Demir wrote :
I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

No one else has answered because you’re not going to get a better answer than Fathima’s.

Adam wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :
I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

No one else has answered because you’re not going to get a better answer than Fathima’s.

Adam wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :
I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

No one else has answered because you’re not going to get a better answer than Fathima’s.

Yeah, Fathima put this on page 3 the "Newbie Questions" thread, too, and I've gone back to it a lot while learning this game.

Adam wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :
I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

No one else has answered because you’re not going to get a better answer than Fathima’s.

Why not? Are those opinions or official information? So far, she's been wrong in pretty much everything she said to me. So, I believe, it's my right to expect different answers from different people.

DarthCloud wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :
I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

why wait for anyone else answering?
Fathima gave you quite a good and complete answer, I probably have simply pointed you the advanced tutorial :)
https://www.f4football.com/tutorial/advanced/players/positions

I've already read the whole thing. But it doesn't answer my questions. Or, maybe I didn't ask it clearly. I'll try to make a picture to create a visual representation of what I'm expecting.

Engin Demir wrote :

Adam wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :
I'm still waiting for an answer to my question, from someone else, anyone else.

No one else has answered because you’re not going to get a better answer than Fathima’s.

Why not? Are those opinions or official information? So far, she's been wrong in pretty much everything she said to me. So, I believe, it's my right to expect different answers from different people.

Alright. Well my answer is the same. If anyone has been quoted exact penalty amounts, it’s Fathima.

But you’re not going to find them posted anywhere because there’s too many variables: assigned position, flexibility rating, foot ratings, etc. So many aspects of the game are the same for every manager that some have to be left to manager discretion. Watch how your players perform in and out of position and you’ll get an idea of the penalty incurred.

I've updated my question, with a simple picture of the field. You can click the image to see it bigger

Engin Demir wrote :1. Is this the official information or a personal opinion? Is there a mention of that anywhere in the official capacity besides the tutorials?

I compiled it based on the tutorial and from what Tegimus had said on the forums before. He usually doesn't give out too much about positional penalties, so no one actually knows the exact number (like how much %). But he clearly said that there IS a penalty for playing out of the above mentioned positions, and the actual penalty % varies based on Flexibility skill of the player and how far he is playing from his natural position. So a CF playing as DC will have more penalty than a DM playing there.

Engin Demir wrote :2. Notice how most positions can be covered by 2 types (i.e AML position by WF and WM) but some are one (i.e. ML or AMC). What's your personal experience with those positions?

Since you don't know the exact numbers, it is very hard to find out the exact impacts of playing out of position. As some have already mentioned, there are just too many factors - individual skills of the player, team tactics, opponent's players and tactics, and even the random factor - which makes it pretty much impossible to single out performance drop due to position played. You also need to have the specific skills to succeed in that position, for example a WB with 5 star flexibility might have no penalty at DC, but if his Heading is low then it might still impact his performance.
But what I can tell you is that the penalty is not small at all (from what I have seen). The way it is calculated (Tegimus confirmed this before) is, a penalty % is calculated based on flexibility and distance from natural position, and then applied to each of the skills except stamina and speed. So the safest thing to do is to avoid playing players out of position.

Engin Demir wrote :
I've updated my question, with a simple picture of the field. You can click the image to see it bigger

You can surely do a bunch of friendlies so you can experiment and see for yourself how one specific player of yours perform in a different position or what is the penalty, keeping in mind that, because of random factor and all of the variables Fathima said, the rating and penalty can be different in each match you play

Anyway, answers for your questions

Engin Demir wrote :1. Is this the official information or a personal opinion? Is there a mention of that anywhere in the official capacity besides the tutorials?

Like Fathima said apart from tutorial infos, there is no exact number to read (and i like it like that!), we all did some experiments trying to figure out things

Engin Demir wrote :2. Notice how most positions can be covered by 2 types (i.e AML position by WF and WM) but some are one (i.e. ML or AMC). What's your personal experience with those positions?

I tried to put players in their given position, the only personal experience I can share in a few friendly matches (a few seasons ago) are:
- WB on CB position, 3.5 Flex, a little penalty was given (honestly I don't remember how much).
- WF on CF position, 5 Flex, i saw the rtg a little lower than usual, so i assume a little penalty was given (honestly I don't remember how much).
- WF on WM position, 5 Flex, i recall i was given a little penalty, but i didn't write it down so I'm not sure about this
- DM (4.5 Flex) or AM (2 Flex) in CM position, I don't remember i calculated any penalty

Engin Demir wrote :My personal opinion is that currently, the player rating system is not the best. For example, it doesn't take Stamina into account. Players with 5 or 80 stamina with the same stats would have the same rating. That's why I've created my own rating system.

I think that stamina and set pieces have to stay out of the AVG rtg system (if you are talking about that), stamina will affect how much time the players will play at his best performance, hence it's "passively" calculated on the rating/performance of a single match

Engin Demir wrote :The reason I'm asking this is, I've created an advanced spreadsheet, which calculates ratings of my players for each position.

The best way to collect data is to see for yourself and asking the community to share data about matches with players out of their given position.
Anyway, good luck on this!

DarthCloud wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :My personal opinion is that currently, the player rating system is not the best. For example, it doesn't take Stamina into account. Players with 5 or 80 stamina with the same stats would have the same rating. That's why I've created my own rating system.

I think that stamina and set pieces have to stay out of the AVG rtg system (if you are talking about that), stamina will affect how much time the players will play at his best performance, hence it's "passively" calculated on the rating/performance of a single match

Just to add on this:
The way stamina works is independent of the rating, so it should be kept out of the average rating. Two players with the same rating and fitness level should perform the same way (theoretically) regardless of their stamina. But the player with lower stamina gets tired faster and so as the match progresses, the performance drops faster for him. But this can be addressed by subbing him earlier. Yes there is an overall impact on performance but it is not direct, and also depends on the intensity of play and the involvement of the player too. For that reason, I rarely train GK to stamina above 30.
Set pieces, for the same reason, doesnt need to be in the calculation of rating. Not all players need that, even though it's handy on those who are involved in set pieces.

Excellent answers. Thank you.

About stamina, I see it as a "negative acceleration" (or deceleration) of the performance. And if I had to create an Empirical Formula for that, I'd say it was inversely proportional to (100-Stamina).

First, determine our assumptions:
1. Player plays 90 minutes (as you can only substitute 3, the other 8 players must remain 90 minutes anyways so this assumption is not completely wrong)
2. Performance drop is (100-Stamina)/10 % per 10 minutes.
3. Performance rating decrease is linear and first-degree. In other words, it goes down like 100%, 90%, 80%... etc. The decrease per time is constant.
4. The performance is based on rating. I know this is not true at all in the simulation, but I will simplify the situation for the sake of this brainstorming.

CASE 1. 50 Stamina.
Performance drop: (100-50)/10 = 5% per 10 minutes.
At the 90th minute, this player will perform at (100 - 9*5 =) 55% rating.
The average performance will be 77,5%

CASE 2. 10 stamina.
Performance drop: (100-10)/10 = 9% per 10 minutes.
At the 90th minute, performs at (100 - 9*9 = ) 19 %
The average performance will be 59,5 %

And, that indeed correlates with my observations of the match performance. Especially 2 of my very good players had 10 stamina and they were both dead in the 2nd half. I trained them to 30 and now they are a lot more effective.

In conclusion, I believe even tho stamina does not affect the quality of the player at the start of the match, it certainly affects his overall performance, hence affecting his 90-minute quality.

Hmm. Maybe I should name this "Quality" or "Q90" instead of an alternative rating system.

Also, My table calculates ratings for each position separately. Rating ratios for each player position are already given in the tutorial, so that part was easy.

For example, if I have a WB, I don't use his WB rating for other positions like CB, where heading is taken into consideration.

I also consider foot ratings from the scout reports. A player with 5-5 foot rating should play better than a 1-1 rating player. Also, A WM with 5 Right foot and 1 left foot rating will have a higher Q90 as RM. What do you think?

I'll also consider Aggression for defenders and flair for attacking players while calculating Q90

I calculate leadership values separately, so that doesn't affect any quality.

I am playing my AMC as a FRC and he is having a fantastic season.

Rhino909 wrote :
I am playing my AMC as a FRC and he is having a fantastic season.

Indeed, he seems to be having a very good season, especially considering he is not your best player.

Would you mind sharing his flexibility rating?

Engin Demir wrote :

Rhino909 wrote :
I am playing my AMC as a FRC and he is having a fantastic season.

Indeed, he seems to be having a very good season, especially considering he is not your best player.

Would you mind sharing his flexibility rating?

I can share his whole scouting report:
Jaden Servania
Potential Amazing Star Rating: 5
Learning Great Star Rating: 4.5
Aggression Average Star Rating: 2
Leadership Average Star Rating: 2
Flair Average Star Rating: 2
Flexibility Great Star Rating: 4
Right Foot Amazing Star Rating: 5
Left Foot Good Star Rating: 3.5
https://www.f4football.com/players/show/189099

Rhino909 wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :

Rhino909 wrote :
I am playing my AMC as a FRC and he is having a fantastic season.

Indeed, he seems to be having a very good season, especially considering he is not your best player.

Would you mind sharing his flexibility rating?

I can share his whole scouting report:
Jaden Servania
Potential Amazing Star Rating: 5
Learning Great Star Rating: 4.5
Aggression Average Star Rating: 2
Leadership Average Star Rating: 2
Flair Average Star Rating: 2
Flexibility Great Star Rating: 4
Right Foot Amazing Star Rating: 5
Left Foot Good Star Rating: 3.5
https://www.f4football.com/players/show/189099

Nice, Thank you! I was looking at Ledesma earlier.

Engin Demir wrote :

Rhino909 wrote :

Engin Demir wrote :

Rhino909 wrote :
I am playing my AMC as a FRC and he is having a fantastic season.

Indeed, he seems to be having a very good season, especially considering he is not your best player.

Would you mind sharing his flexibility rating?

I can share his whole scouting report:
Jaden Servania
Potential Amazing Star Rating: 5
Learning Great Star Rating: 4.5
Aggression Average Star Rating: 2
Leadership Average Star Rating: 2
Flair Average Star Rating: 2
Flexibility Great Star Rating: 4
Right Foot Amazing Star Rating: 5
Left Foot Good Star Rating: 3.5
https://www.f4football.com/players/show/189099

Nice, Thank you! I was looking at Ledesma earlier.

Ledesma https://www.f4football.com/players/show/224138
Potential Great Star Rating: 4
Learning Great Star Rating: 4.5
Aggression Good Star Rating: 3
Leadership Average Star Rating: 2.5
Flair Great Star Rating: 4.5
Flexibility Good Star Rating: 3.5
Right Foot Great Star Rating: 4
Left Foot Great Star Rating: 4