Taken from the Player Rating Overhaul thread: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6464
- Every player under the Max Age Protected age (by default 23) will have a chance to use Player Potential.
- For each skill that a player would re-rate DOWN in, a check is made against the player's potential. If the check succeeds, the player's re-rate for that skill point would be negated.
- The Potential chance is (MaxAgeProtected - PlayerAge) * 5%. So a player that is 18 years old would have a 25% chance to negate the re-rate.
This is sort of like a safety net for younger players so they don't always re-rate down.