While we finish implementing this feature I decided to create this topic to give a quick overview of how it is going to work.

We’ll have 6 star levels: 1 bronze star, 2 bronze stars, 3 bronze stars, 1 silver star, 2 silver stars and 1 gold star. During the season players may earn star points towards one or more of the categories (bronze, silver and gold) and in the season tick the ones with more points in a category will earn one or more stars in that category. The number of players in a dimension for a given star level will have a top limit, but it is possible (although unlikely) to have less than the limit in a given level.

Star players will have a better estimated value and will demand higher salaries in exchange of a bonus for the team. Initially the possible bonuses will be increased marketing revenue, match performance boost or positive influence in player negotiations from other teams or free transfer to yours (meaning they may accept a lower wage in comparison to another team’s offer just to have the chance to play alongside your star). The bonus a star player provides will not be revealed to the managers, maybe we’ll give the scouts a chance to reveal it if you request a report for the star player, but this chance will never be 100% even on level 10 of scouting.

That’s it in a nutshell. I’m very excited about this change as it adds another level of complexity to the player market. And don’t worry if you don’t like the actual numbers involved in the star player calculations (number of stars, wage increase, marketing boost, etc), we are implementing it in a way that makes it very easy to adjust as needed.

Cheers

So the amount of stars a player gets is strictly based on how well he performs on the field?
Which means I can have a 95 average player, but if i don’t use him properly and he only scores 3 goals per season, his star level will be low?

We won’t reveal all the details of the star player calculations and remember we are still running the three different formulas in parallel as a test in both dimensions. Performance and player quality will most likely play a role and we will also introduce a natural star factor later on that may positively or negatively influence the likelihood of a player becoming a star. Scoring only 3 goals per season may not be an issue, especially if the player in question is not an attacker :-)

Really looking forward to this! Bring it on!

Good. Let,s see/try..:)

I see that the stars have replaced the national flags in the players screen?

Not exactly, the flags are now hidden by default instead of displayed by default. If you click the hide/show flags link on the right hand side they will be displayed. Personally I don’t want to always see the flags, not until player nationality has some effect on the team overall.

Fun stuff!

I can’t tell the difference between bronze and gold (or have not seen a gold star yet) though

Never mind, just saw a gold star…those are very rare, apparently :-)

Hidden flags by default is fine, but I like to see them, and I notice that I have to click show flags again and again. It is possible to have it work like a switch (on/off) and/or a setting?

@Fabio: yes they are :-)
@Dimitri: it’s probably an easy thing to do, added our task list

Well, well…now that both dimensions have their stars I’m not too happy about the result. I mean, it’s still exciting and something new to think about while playing, but we definitely need to put the country ranking into play here so that things make more sense and we don’t have so many stars in low ranked countries. The good news is I already have a plan to put in action, hopefully for next season.

Just one doubt in the new “star system”, will young players with no stars today, get a star in next seasons? I mean, does it evolve?

Stars are redistributed every season so a player that has no stars in a season may get any star level in the following one, as long as he deserves it. Players that have stars will, in the worst case, lose one level from one season to the next. So yes, young players with no stars may evolve into stars in the future.