I feel this has been asked before, but I don't remember the answer, so here goes:

Does work ethic itself factor into work ethic improvement?

I.e. I start a guy with 20 WE and he receives 25 minutes per game and I also start a guy with 70 WE and he receives 25 minutes per game, will their WE's improve at the same rate? If not, will the 70 WE player improve faster?  Will the 20 WE player improve faster?  Is it random?  Is there more to it than playing time and starting versus not starting? 

I believe the guy with 70 WE will improve faster than the 20 WE player all things being equal.

Posted by reddyred on 9/25/2012 10:51:00 AM (view original):
I believe the guy with 70 WE will improve faster than the 20 WE player all things being equal.

I think this is accurate.

If we're talking just about improvement in WE itself, I don't believe a 75 WE guy will improve faster than, say, a 45 WE guy, because the 75 WE guy has less space to improve in that category. I recently had a 75 WE freshman who improved dramatically in his high-potential ratings by his soph year, but whose WE only went up slightly despite a lot of playing time.

I'm not sure about 75 vs 20 though - when you're at a low starting WE, that also seems to become difficult to improve. (I've tried getting a 1 WE guy to ever improve his WE significantly - I don't recommend it.)

WE doesn't work the same as the other ratings. I think that's why it's greyed out. If I start both of those guys and they played the same amount of minutes, the 70 WE guy may grow 8-10 pts throughout the course of the season while the 20 guy would grow 4-6 maybe. Just rough estimates but this is what I have noticed with my high/low WE players.

Development is slowest when it is closest to its min / max.  Development is fastest when it is at the midpoint between min and max.

The min WE is 1.  The max is 99. 

20 - 1 = 19, 50 - 20 = 30
99 - 70 = 29, 70 - 50 = 20

The WE of the 70 rated player will improve at a faster rate because the 70 rating is farther from the min / max and closer to the midpoint rating.

Over the course of the season, there might not be any difference in the two because once each player has gained 6 points of WE, the player with 20 will start to improve WE faster.

Posted by reddyred on 9/25/2012 1:06:00 PM (view original):
WE doesn't work the same as the other ratings. I think that's why it's greyed out. If I start both of those guys and they played the same amount of minutes, the 70 WE guy may grow 8-10 pts throughout the course of the season while the 20 guy would grow 4-6 maybe. Just rough estimates but this is what I have noticed with my high/low WE players.

agreed.

Posted by kujayhawk on 9/25/2012 1:19:00 PM (view original):
Development is slowest when it is closest to its min / max.  Development is fastest when it is at the midpoint between min and max.

The min WE is 1.  The max is 99. 

20 - 1 = 19, 50 - 20 = 30
99 - 70 = 29, 70 - 50 = 20

The WE of the 70 rated player will improve at a faster rate because the 70 rating is farther from the min / max and closer to the midpoint rating.

Over the course of the season, there might not be any difference in the two because once each player has gained 6 points of WE, the player with 20 will start to improve WE faster.

this is good advice. only thing i have to add, its not a simple bell curve. WE grows WAY slower from 1-10 than 90-99, WAY slower from 10-20 than 80-90. i think most of us can attest to this. i would say it functions more like a bell curve with its median at 60, cut off at 100 and 0. but really, i think the true WE improvement curve is not a perfect bell curve.

I would have totally agreed with the above, but then I looked at my Hobart team.

Through 22 games, my starters have each gone up 6 in WE (one guy started less games, has gone up 5): 

starting WE: 25, 58, 69, 51, 39

Hobos

So there isn't much difference, at least once you get to 25...

That's interesting, especially since the guy with the 25 starting WE has played less minutes per game than the guys with the 51 starting WE and the 69 starting WE.

I think the start has more effect on WE than actual minutes played but I would like to see how your numbers progress when the CT ends.