Posts that Frenchi Melow is monitoring

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The merchandise bonus star type will be retired, meaning no new players will get it. We found out that it is the star type with less impact, partially due to the fact that some of its benefits are reduced due to the higher wage demanded by star players. As a replacement we have a much more exciting star type: improved youth players.

The new star type will have two main effects: improve the base skills used when generating new youth players (up to what is used in a top ranked country) and immediately increase player skills one or more times as soon as he joins the club. The first effect means that lower ranked countries with such star players would be able to generate better quality youths as if they were better ranked, whereas the second effect means it will be possible to generate players that have already skipped a few steps on their evolution, potentially even reducing the age they will reach their potential. All these details can be found in the game manual page for star players.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The logic associated to penalty kick taking and saving has been simplified in order to better align with reality. We’ve noticed there were too many misses and saves during penalty kick, with the new logic in place should increase the number of goals scored in these situations. In addition to that the goalkeeper trait for “good at penalty kicks” and “bad at penalty kicks” will have a slightly higher impact.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

You may not even have noticed, but since the introduction of the player shirts in the match report screen we were not displaying the * beside the man of the match player’s name. This is now fixed.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Two minor improvements: transfer prices and wages now have proper formatting when displayed in the team and player history ($n,nnn,nnn); negotiation failed messages now include the wage accepted by the player.

Cheers

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

You may want to keep an eye on free transfer list in countries that have inactive teams. From now on, inactive players will be gradually released to the free transfer of their team’s country throughout the season. That means inactive teams will always get a fresh batch of players when re-joining the game as well as having their money balance reset.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

You may have noticed some CPU teams have more than the limit of 40 players in their squads. This was due to a bug that has now been fixed, CPU teams will respect the same limit of players human managed teams have, even if it changes in the future. Of course that any teams currently above the limit will remain so until they sell their exceeding players, but they won’t be able to hire/loan additional players in the meantime.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Players will now improve a higher number of attributes in a single improvement when younger and a lower number when older. Previously all player improvements gave them a random number of points between 1 and 6 (1 and 5 for goalkeepers), but now the earlier improvements are guaranteed to give them more (between 4 and 6 and then 3 and 5) and the later improvements will give them less (between 2 and 4 and finally between 1 and 3). The average number of points a player receives after all his improvements remain unchanged. This change is effective immediately for existing players as well, in proportion to the number of improvements left in his career.

The main goal of this change is to have better players than can be used as first team at a younger age, instead of relying solely on old players. This could also bring a new dynamic to the transfer market as managers may be willing to sell “not so old” players knowing they will have to wait less time to renew the squad.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The age in which players start losing skills will now vary between 31 and 34 depending on the age they reach their potential. Those reaching potential while still young will start losing skills at 31 and those reaching potential in the 30s will start losing skills at 34, with the other two profile types in between. It is important to notice that all existing players that are 31 and over OR that are already fully developed will still keep the current behaviour of starting to lose skills at 31, all the others will follow this new rule.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The auto-generated in-game newspaper is now reborn with news about player movements (transfers, starting career, leaving club). The World News tab will show relevant player movements in the last 3 turns (or last 3 turns where at least one player moved). There is also a complete separate section now for Managers at Risk instead of displaying them at the bottom of the User Articles page.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

I’ve finally tracked down the bug where CPU teams where loaning players that they didn’t really need, and therefore were not using them in matches. If you have a player loaned to a CPU team and you see he is not being used you should call him back and loan list him again. Next time he gets a loan offer he will be much more likely to be used by the team who gets him, now that the problem is fixed.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

International cup matches now give additional ranking points in comparison to national league or cup matches. These bonus points are higher depending on the importance of the competition, i.e. Europa League and Copa Sudamericana give you a smaller bonus than Champions League and Libertadores, which give you a smaller bonus than the Club World Cup. We probably need to have a complete manual page to demystify how the ranking points are calculated!

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

CPU teams have a completely revamped logic to decide which players to sell and which players to buy. They now view players in one of 3 categories: main squad, reserves and future. For selling they will get rid of reserves that they believe will not become main players, mainly due to age, as well as extra future players they may have. For buying each team will have a different priority based on their class, deciding whether to hire main players, future players or loan players.

A key change is that a CPU team will not bid for a player if another CPU team is already bidding. This should increase the number of different player negotiations happening simultaneously. Nothing changed with regards to the values they pay for players.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

New formulas are now in place for ALL club revenues. The main goal is to try and balance the game economy and add a more challenging scenario when managing small clubs. These are the changes:

1) Sponsorship is calculated based on the league class with a small influence of the team quality
2) Merchandise is calculated based on the team class with a small influence of the league quality
3) Match attendance is calculated based on home team class, visitor team class and competition type. For league matches the league class is used, for national cup the team with the highest league class is used, for international competitions we have an almost guaranteed attendance of 40,000 (EL and Sudamericana) or 50,000 (CL and Libertadores).
4) Stadium investment has been replaced by Headquarters. Its role is the same as the Stadium when it comes to limiting how high the level of the other investments can be, but it does not determine stadium size anymore, all clubs have a 100,000 capacity stadium (at least for now).

The thinking is that the revenue from Sponsorship and Merchandise can be used to pay for your main players wages (roughly your 22 best players), the revenue from competition prizes can be used to pay for investments and the revenue from tickets sold can be used to pay additional wages or for buying players.

Hopefully this is the last big change to the economy and we can now focus on a few important improvements to player evolution and potential prediction!

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

A new forced transfer formula is in place. In summary, it does not depend on the target player’s team money balance anymore, but on the player estimated value and his team’s and league’s classes. From our manual:

“The team’s board will evaluate your offer in comparison to the player’s base value. The base value is not displayed anywhere and is the key factor in the estimated value calculation, therefore the estimated value is usually a good indication of the player’s base value. Your offer will have to be between 2x and 12x the player’s base value, depending on the grade of the target player’s team and league. That means it is easier to force the transfer of players from small clubs and/or leagues. If the player’s team has a manager, the amount required to force a transfer is doubled.”

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Don’t be surprised if you see your players’ estimated value radically changing, it is all part of the modifications done to the way we calculate it. It now takes into account the player class, age and the amount of money available to the teams in the dimension. As you can imagine the same player may have different values in FastTicker and MediumTicker.

Another key change is the amount of money CPU teams are willing to pay on player transfers. We’ve noticed a considerable increase in that value and therefore made some adjustments. They will continue taking into account the player estimated value but will now also factor in the player’s class and the buyer team’s class.

Coming soon: improvements to forced transfers that will change the amount of money needed and also include a suggested value for the offer.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Points give for team and manager rankings now take into account the opponent class. That means a victory against an ‘A’ team is worth more points than a victory against a ‘B’ team, for example.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Player limit information is being introduced in “The Board” screen. Nothing is being enforced yet, so have a look at the limits for your team and see if they make sense. These numbers are based on your team’s class and league class and are supposed to limit the number of players you can buy for a given class, but you can still grow players from lower to higher classes to go beyond the limits.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The player traits related to playing better/worse against weaker/stronger teams are now based on team classes. The corresponding trait descriptions have been updated to better explain this change. For example, if you manage an A team and is playing against a B team, your players will have the traits “plays better/worse against teams with a class worse than yours” activated whereas your opponent’s players with the traits “player better/worse against teams with a class better than yours” will have it activated. When both teams have the same class these traits will not come into play.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

The number of votes for inactive teams is now being displayed in the “Inactive Teams” tab from the country screen. At the same time we’re putting in a fix to ensure those votes are really taken into account when promoting clubs into bottom divisions, it seems so far they were not!

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

You can now give numbers to your players using the “Numbers” tab in your team players screens. These number will then be displayed in match reports alongside the player names. This is an optional feature and you can leave players without numbers if you wish (or even remove numbers from currently numbered players).

At the moment the interface used to set the numbers is as simple as possible and there is a single validation that you’re not giving the same number to more than one player. If you do that an error message appears and you have to re-do any changes you had previously done.

Cheers

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

We have added league classes. It can be seen in the league table screen, on the left hand side of the title panel beside the league name, where the season number corresponding to the league stats being displayed used to be (now moved to the right hand side). The team class is now also displayed in the ranking pages.

Another small addition done at the same time is displaying multiple goal icons beside the player name in the match report, when they’ve scored multiple goals. If they’ve scored more than 3 goals during the match we should the goal icon followed by “x” and the number of goals.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Teams now also have a class attribute! This is based on their key players skills and is also relative to other teams in the dimension (except national squads). The team class can be seen in the team info screen, managers at risk and dimension’s free teams list from the Job Centre. We plan to add this into a couple more places such as ranking screens.

As with the player class, the team class is informational only at this point.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Players now have a “class” attribute that is a snapshot of his current skills and star status. This is not yet used to determine any in-game behaviour or logic, but it will be used soon. Please check our corresponding game manual page for more information.

Cheers

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

CPU teams will now start fielding players that need to “play official matches” to improve. They’re not yet handling other more complex requirements such as play abroad or play international competitions, but this change should help improve the overall player quality in the game.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Version 0.01 EARLY BETA of player heatmaps is available. You can access them from the match replay section.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

CPU buying decision was improved slightly. The change aims to avoid the common scenario where a CPU team buys a player that has just slightly better potential than the one in their squads they consider the worst suitable for a given position, and then decide to sell the bought player not long after.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Forced Transfer have just become a bit easier. A player will no longer reject the offer if your team is worse than his current team with regards to his priority, he will only do it if you are below the rejection point (meaning he would reject even if he was transfer listed). That means in the majority of case what you really need to work out is how much to offer as transfer price, and of course continuing to offer an acceptable wage to the player that is higher than his current wage.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

Despite what the game manual says, there was a bug where some players reached their full potential without developing any traits. This has now been fixed and all players generated from now should have developed one positive and one negative trait by the time they reach their full potential. Some of the current players will still have the issue and will reach their potential with 0 or 1 trait instead.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

After recent changes to increase the number of players kept by CPU teams we’ve noticed the logic used to decide which players they loan needed to be changed to ensure such players got match time and were not loaned just to sit on the bench. This has now been done and their loaning behaviour should be back to normal once the league starts.

Topic: [admin_only] Improvements

CPU teams will update their investments following a new logic and schedule. The aim here is to have investment levels more aligned to the team’s financial situation and avoid money waste with upgrades/downgrades.