Update 0.6.0: Current vs Potential Stats & the 1–99 Rating Scale

The way Goalcrest grades footballers has been rebuilt from the ground up. Two changes land together in 0.6.0, and they touch every player in the game — your squad, the AI rosters, your youth academy, and the transfer market.

First, the rating scale. Every attribute — goalkeeping, defense, midfield, and attack — now runs from 1 to 99 instead of the old 1–9 band. A Premier Division star sits in the 80s, a solid Championship performer in the 60s, and your starting amateur squad somewhere in the 30s and 40s. The finer granularity means the gap between a good player and a great one is finally visible at a glance, and it gives training room to mean something every week instead of only at the band boundaries.

Second, and the bigger change: every attribute now has two values — a current rating and a potential ceiling. The current rating is what the player is today; the potential is the absolute ceiling that player can reach through training, set by their age and talent. A 17-year-old with high talent has a ceiling well above where he starts, so he has years of growth ahead. A 29-year-old is already close to his ceiling — what you see is roughly what you get.

Training now drives a player toward his potential, not past it. Each week, a player in training gains in the attribute you focused on, but the gain is capped the moment the current rating meets the ceiling — so a veteran stop improving, and a wonderkid keeps climbing until he hits his limit. The Master Coach skill and the Fast Learner trait still accelerate the climb; they just cannot push a player beyond his potential.

The split is visible everywhere you scout a player. On the Team page, the squad roster, the youth academy, and the transfer market, each attribute now shows as "current / potential" — for example a young midfielder might read 42 / 68, telling you he is a 42 today with room to grow into a 68. When the two numbers match, the player is fully developed; when the ceiling is well above the current rating, there is real headroom to unlock. It is the single most important number when you are deciding whether to sign a prospect or stick with what you have.

Existing careers are fully supported. The moment you load a save, every player in your squad, your academy, and every AI club across all five divisions is migrated to the new 1–99 scale and given a potential ceiling derived from their age and talent — so nothing is lost and no one is left without a ceiling to chase. Start a fresh save and you will see the new scale and potentials from day one.

Head to the Team page, expand a young player, and look for the slash — that is the growth left in your squad, and the next few seasons of training are now about closing that gap, one week at a time.