It is starting to get annoying the number of transactions in which friends team up to bid for a player, making the player’s morale critical and sending him to the TL. I do not see much difference between this and creating 2 accounts to sell players from one to the other…

The higher price asked by CPU is a mitigating factor but is far from enough.

1) How about changing the rule so that the number of bids would not add up? What would matter for the player to decide to be transfer listed would be only the “highest” bid (not in amount, but in importance).

2) Or perhaps a tougher punishment on players from human managers with critical morale: if a human-managed player has a critical morale due to bids for other players, he goes straight to the TL, and morale would not change for 4 ticks unless the bid(s) is (are) withdrawn. Then the manager helping out a friend would have a lot at stake…

3) Last suggestion – which I do not like, but would be a mitigating factor – is unifying the transfer lists. At least then newly listed players would be out in the open for everyone to see. I do not like this because (i) it is the least effective, and (ii) it would make the game easier (managers that want to excel should be able to differentiate themselves by putting extra effort, such as by going from TL to TL)…

I agree with you Fabio and my idea of how to change this is more aligned with option 1. I believe the status system is not adding much value at the moment and I’m considering replacing it completely with the player priority system just introduced. It is still one-dimensional but easily extensible in the future to allow players with multiple priorities if need be. In summary my draft proposal is:

1) Purge the player status system as it is
2) Limit the number of non-listed offers you can make in a given period
3) When you make an offer to a non-listed player, your offer is weighed individually against the player current situation in terms of wage and priority
4) The transfer amount of your offer is evaluated by the team’s board taking into account the club’s financial situation

There can be four outcomes:
a) Your offer satisfies the player (much better compared to his current wage and priority) and the board (the amount of transfer money will make the board happy): in this case the player the player goes to “critical” and is automatically transfer listed by the amount you offered, even for human managed teams. You cannot change your offer and other teams cannot make an offer.
b) Your offer satisfies the player, but not the board: CPU teams will renew the player’s contract, human managed teams will be alerted the player wants to renew or be transfer listed and will have x number of turns to action it, if they don’t the player won’t renew anymore and will either have to be sold or let go by the end of his contract
c) Your offer satisfies the board, but not the player: for CPU teams nothing will happen, for human managed teams the manager will be advised to transfer the player by the board, if he doesn’t action it in x turns his manager performance will be reduced by a given % amount, but nothing else will happen
d) Your offer does not satisfy the board nor the player: for CPU teams your offer will be rejected and for human managed teams it will just stay there for the manager’s knowledge, but will have no other effect

This is just a draft idea and needs deeper analysis and explanation. In addition to addressing the “friends bidding together” issue we want to make it possible for more managers to “steal” players by themselves, but without making it too easy. Happy to receive feedback, as always!

I think this would be a great improvement!

One thing to think hard about is that chance of acquiring a player that belongs to another human manager. This part is very debatable and would need to be done very carefully, with a lot of buy in from the community of managers….

I agree Fabio, it would have to be a situation where the money offered would make a lot of difference to the club, so having a lot of money would also work as a “defense” against this kind of offer. I’m also thinking that of changing scenario “a” above (where the player and the board are satisfied with the offer), instead of automatically transfer listing the player the offer becomes a pre-contract with the player and he’ll be transfer listed when the contract is almost ending (maybe 12 turns before), so that the manager losing the player has some time to plan for a replacement if needed (especially important for goalkeepers). During this pre-contract period the offer cannot be withdrawn, the player contract cannot be renewed, other teams cannot bid for the player and the owner can decide to transfer list him earlier (for the price of the pre-contract offer, of course).

It would then be very similar to the way it is today, where you can still make a player from a managed team critical but he is not immediately transfer listed, just won’t renew contract. We need to be very clear about the rules, maybe a message on the offer screen when you’re trying to buy a non-listed player.

Gabriel, any updates status?

Sorry to keep bothering about this, but wanted to following up now that family members are also being used for “joint bidding” :-(

Don’t rush it! It needs to be properly done…plus I have done nothing during the long weekend (public holiday here in Aussie on Monday) :-)

I have pretty much done the logic that determines when the player and club will accept a forced transfer, now I need to put all the boring restrictions around it.