Posts that Frenchi Melow is monitoring

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The team ranking screen now has two tabs at the top: points and strength. The points tab is the one that opens by default and the one everyone is already familiar with, it shows the teams ranked by their performance points. The new strength tab ranks teams by their calculated estimated strength, which at the moment happens at season start only, so this rank remains static throughout the season.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

A new game mode is live on TestTicker! The dimension has been reset and it contains 3 leagues of 24 teams each, distributed in a pyramid (one top division and two lower divisions). Managers are only allowed to apply for teams in one of the two lower divisions.

In this new game mode teams from all over the world compete together in this single league structure, as well as in a global cup (knockout format). There are no international competitions (in the traditional sense, as all competitions are international) and not national squads (for simplicity). You have approximately a day and a half to explore and apply to the teams you like before the first tick, after that TestTicker will be back to its usual schedule.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The work on the new “Pyramid” game mode continues! We are currently in the process of testing out a full season in the new game mode as well as making sure all screens work. No need to rush to check it out just yet, the change is not live.

Some of the cool features in the new game mode:
- all teams from different countries to be part of the same league structure and join the same cup competition
- managers can only join teams in the second division leagues
- planning a way to make sure managers don’t stay at the top for too long and are eventually sacked to start over…not sure yet on the best way to do this

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

We have just introduced some adjustments to try and manage CPU team money balance. The intention is to avoid teams that are too rich or too poor for their respective classes. We’ll continue to keep an eye on it and how it affects overall economy health and player value, especially on FastTicker.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

We wish everyone happy holidays, no matter what you celebrate, what you believe in and where you are! That in 2023 we can continue to have fun and improve the game together.

I didn’t have time to finish the new pyramid league structure to be used in TestTicker but it is well underway and should be ready some time in January. More details in the new year.

Thanks for playing

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

When you leave a team you won’t lose your existing scout reports anymore, they will be carried across and accessible from your new team. They still expire after a few seasons as usual, nothing changed about that.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

When you duplicate a formation, all formation strategies are duplicated as well into the new formation.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The newspaper now has a section called “Managers” where you can see the manager movements in the last 144 turns.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

All forced transfer attempts (failed or successful) will now be stored for future referece. You can see a history of your forced transfer attempts in your manager profile page. For a specific player you attempt to force the transfer from now on, you can also see the history in the bottom right of the player info page.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The player average skill is now displayed in the national player replacement screen, for those who choose to have this column displayed. As a reminder, this column has no direct impact in player value or match performance, it is just a straight calculation of the corresponding skills average.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

You can now pay 5 rubies to re-draw a positive or negative player trait or 15 rubies to remove a negative trait altogether.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Merchandise and sponsorship income formulas have been updated. This should help lower class teams having more money available to improve their squads. Next step is look into how CPU teams manage investments and review adequacy of competition prizes (which were designed to directly support paying for club investments).

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

When a manager leaves a club, any pending loan termination requests are now automatically accepted (as they would have been if the team had no manager when the request was initiated).

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

New mechanisms are being put in place to adjust the economy balance in the game, our usual challenge. It is clear that smaller teams are barely able to pay their player wages, let alone buy players. As a result, lots of decent players are transfer listed and don’t receive a single offer, even when smaller teams could definitely use them in their first squad.

Our intent is to increase the merchandise and sponsorship values, especially for smaller teams, in order to provide a bottom-up boost in the player market. Analysis is still under way and even when the new code is in place it will take some time for the effects to be felt, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The pressure handling trait now affects neutral ground matches (e.g. cup finals). Previously the match engine treated neutral ground as home ground for both teams, but that is not accurate and has now been changed to be considered away ground for both, thus the pressure handling effect coming into picture.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

New option available in the messages screen to mark selected messages as read.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

You are now able to move to a team which has recently bought a player from your current team, as long as the team you’re trying to move to did not have a manager when the transaction happened.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

We have added some filtering capabilities to the team players statistics screen. You can choose to view the numbers for all matches, club matches or national squad matches.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

From next season in each dimension, the Strength and Class columns in the league ranking screen will have a comparison with the previous season. A positive/negative number beside the strength value will tell you how much each league’s strength has increased/decreased from last season. If the league’s class has changed, you will see an arrow beside the current class value.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

In the formations screen you are now unable to put a non-GK player as the goalkeeper. In the unlikely event where you don’t have a goalkeeper available to select (e.g. due to injury) the game will pick a non-GK player to be the goalkeeper during the match.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

TestTicker now uses the concept of manager contracts, where teams offer contracts to managers instead of managers freely applying for jobs. All managers employed in the dimension were automatically given a contract that expires at the end of next season. If you are currently employed there, you can see your current contract in the Board screen.

When the contract is nearing its end, your team will offer a renewal if they’re interested or let you know otherwise. In the Job Center screen you can search for offers from smaller teams (classes C to F), in order to receive offers from A or B teams you need to be performing well in the current team.

At the moment this feature is very simple. If it is well received it can be improved to include specific goals to be met by the manager during his contract.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

A lot of work has been going on behind the scenes to improve admin tools. Our efforts with regards to multi-account detection and penalties had good results, with managers deciding to abandon additional accounts in favour of playing without any penalties. We are now working on better ways for us to analyse the economy health of each dimension, so that we can more quickly act to balance it.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Recently we started recording in the player history when he was loaned to another team and when he returned from loan. These records are now visible in the player history screen along with the transfers. If a player was already on loan when the recording started you may see only an entry saying he returned from loan.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

When attempting a forced transfer you will now see a suggested offer. Similar to the wage suggestion, the suggested value may be above or below the actual value required to successfully force the player transfer, and the error margin is worse when your negotiations level is low.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The rules for forced transfers have changed and the player estimated values are being updated as I write this. Overall I expect the value for top players will remain largely the same or be reduced slightly, whereas the values for C players and lower will have a noticeable increase. This will better reflect the fact that some of these C players will be come great and should not be sold for 1M-2M as you see in FastTicker today.

Regarding forced transfers the rules are going to change immediately to match the new reality. Instead of the usual 2-12 multiplier you will now have a 1-5 multiplier. This multiplier will no longer be related to the player’s team and league classes, but to the stage they are in their evolution. A player that is just “born” would have a forced transfer multiplier that is close to 1, whereas a player that has finished improving would have a 5. As usual, these multipliers are doubled when trying to force players from humans.

We acknowledge there is a big impact on forced transfers, our next step is to include a “suggested offer” when you attempt a forced transfer, similar to the “suggested wage” you get today. WE’LL ALSO RESERVE THE RIGHT TO DECLINE FORCED TRANSFERS ON PLAYERS FROM HUMAN-MANAGED TEAMS UNTIL WE’RE SURE THE NEW MULTIPLIERS ARE FAIR FOR THIS SPECIFIC SCENARIO.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The Player Info screen has had some look and feel adjustments. All the actions you could do from the Contract Information panel are now available in a separate Actions panel, just under it.

In addition to that, the Contract Information panel will tell you how many teams are interested in that player. This information appears only for players you own. At the moment there is no way to find out who is interested and there is no consolidated view that shows all players from your team that have someone else’s interest, that will come later.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

CPU teams will stop making offers for players whose transfer price is more than 10% above their base values. The exact base value for a player is not disclosed, but the estimated value should be a reasonable approximation in most cases, the only exceptions being right after a player is transferred or when the season changes and the player class changes with it.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The list of players in the hall of fame now includes the team logo beside the player name for the team where he spent most of his career.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The lists for top scorers, top assists and average rating in the competition statistics screen can now be expanded to display 50 or 100 records, similar to what has been done to the player’s hall of fame lists.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The average rating table in the competition statistics screen will now exclude players that have not played at least 3 matches in that competition. When no players have played 3 matches yet the table will still include all players as it is today.