Suggestion - Give Prize Money More Importance

[Ov Collyer]

Introduction

The general idea behind this suggestion is to tie more of your income into your performances in competitions in a given season, and as a result increase both the sense of a 'dangling carrot' where performance in a single season leads directly to greater purchasing power for the next, and a heightened sense needing to perform to maintain your status for those teams choosing to live on the edge of their budget.

Essentially, reputation would account for 50% of your income (via your stadium) with the remaining 50% accounted for directly by competition performances.

As part of this, we can simplify the financial system a little by removing FA media money and General Income entirely; managers then have two simple income streams to keep an eye on - their stadium (longer-term) income and their competition (shorter-term) income.

Income Under The Current System

Firstly, here is a summary of the main income streams under the current system:

General Income

Minimum - 25k (can decrease down to 5k as total wages decrease from 100k down to 0k for low reputation clubs)
Maximum - 75k

Stadium Income (default stadium)

Minimum - 75k (can decrease down to 20k as total wages decrease from 100k down to 0k for low reputation clubs)
Maximum - 90k

Stadium Income (top stadium)

Minimum - 75k (can decrease down to 20k as total wages decrease from 100k down to 0k for low reputation clubs)
Maximum - 300k

FA Media Money

All clubs receive around 17k

League Prize Money

Top of top division - about 800k (29k)
Bottom of lowest division - about 250k (9k)

Summary

0k wages, default stadium:

Minimum: 5k+20k+17k+9k=51k
Maximum: 75k+90k+17k+29k=211k

100k+ wages, default stadium:

Minimum: 25k+75k+17k+9k=126k
Maximum: 75k+90k+17k+29k=211k

0k wages, top stadium:

Minimum: 5k+20k+17k+9k=51k
Maximum: 75k+300k+17k+29k=421k

100k+ wages, top stadium:

Minimum: 25k+75k+17k+9k=126k
Maximum: 75k+300k+17k+29k=421k

Income Under Possible New System

Now here is how things might look under the new system:

General Income

Removed completely

Stadium Income (default stadium)

Minimum - 50k (no longer dependent on wages)
Maximum - 75k

Stadium Income (top stadium)

Minimum - 50k (no longer dependent on wages)
Maximum - 200k

FA Media Money

Removed completely

League Prize Money

Top of top division - 5.6m (200k)
Bottom of lowest division - 0k (0k)

Summary

0k wages, default stadium:

Minimum: 50k
Maximum: 75k+200k=275k

50k+ wages, default stadium:

Minimum: 50k
Maximum: 75k+200k=275k

0k wages, top stadium:

Minimum: 50k
Maximum: 200k+200k=400k

50k+ wages, top stadium:

Minimum: 50k
Maximum: 200k+200k=400k

How The Miller CFA Might Shape Up

Leagues:

Premier League (20 clubs) - 5.6m down to 4.48m (16th place 4.72m)
Championship (20 clubs) - 4.7m down to 3.58m (16th place 3.82m)
Division One (20 clubs) - 3.81m down to 2.69m (16th place 2.92m)
Division Two ( 20 clubs) - 2.91m down to 1.79m (16th place 2.03m)
Division Three (20 clubs) - 2.02m down to 896k (16th place 1.07m)
Conferences (19 clubs) - 1.12m down to 0k

Cups:

CFA Cup - 1.87m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 Premier League winner)
Premiership Cup - 933k down to 0k (winner gets 1/6 Premier League winner)
Non-Premiership Cup - 1.57m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 of Championship winner)

How The Miller XFA Might Shape Up

Leagues:

Premier League (20 clubs) - 5.6m down to 3.45m (16th place 3.9m)
Championship (15 clubs) - 3.88m down to 1.72m (12th place 2.18m)
Division 1 (15 clubs) - 2.15m down to 0k

Cups:

XFA Cup - 1.87m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 Premier League winner)
Premier Cup - 933k down to 0k (winner gets 1/6 Premier League winner)
Non Premiership Cup - 1.29m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 Championship winner)

Additional Notes On New System

- starting squad wage cap for a new club would be reduced to 50k (but the budget remains at 500k).
- all stadium costs would be reduced by 1/3 in-line with the reduced income produced.
- an additional fans expectation aspect would be brought into stadium income calculation; essentially different fan types would react differently to a rise or fall in club reputation. For example a fall in reputation would see a higher than usual drop off in income from corporate/glory-hunter fans for the following season.

Possible Variations Of New System

- a compromise might be to keep general income, and have it split 50/50 with prize money. So prize money would account for 0-100k, general income 25-100k, with stadium 25-200k.
- should the prize money rise more steeply as it nears the top and less steeply near the bottom? This might introduce an even greater risk/reward element (e.g. you might spend your increased winnings for winning the Prem on wages, but then when you finish 4th next season you get hit harder) but the danger is it could lead to clubs breaking away at the top?

What are peoples' thoughts on these suggestions? Do you think income should depend more immediately on performance like this, and would the game be better for it?

Finally, apologies for the number overload, and on behalf of the development team I'd like to wish you all a Happy New Year

Update 6th January

Thanks to all who have taken time to respond.

Mixed reaction to this one, some people thinking it's a good thing to reward performance more directly, and others concerned that it would lead to further separation of rich teams and poor teams. Worth pointing out though that the overall range of income under this is not significantly different to the overall range currently in live GWs, just that this suggestion more immediately links income with performance.

One pertinent point was the 'zero prize money for finishing bottom of the lowest division' aspect of the suggestion, several people commented that this seemed harsh, even though when compared to the existing system (i.e. in live GWs) the base overall combined income a team might expect hadn't changed significantly. However, it would seem sensible to modify the proposal so that stadium income started at 25k and minimum prize money started at 25k, to avoid the perception that a team could earn nothing for their season's performance.

The more negative comments were less aimed at the proposal itself than the fact that they felt there are other more important areas of the economy that should be addressed, a point which I cannot argue with, and this led to an interesting debate about wage demands and wage auctions with some good suggestions put forward.

Finally, we managed to have one person sneak in a match engine rant in the middle of the thread. Good work!

Update 7th January

I've moved the discussion about wage demands and wage auctions into its own thread:

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=181986

[mao]

i like the income to be related with perfomance but what will happen after 1 year when new teams will have less money and top teams in premier will have more income.

Are you prepared to accept that the top100 will hardly change with new teams? (one of the reasons of the reset)

[Ov Collyer]

Yeah, forgot to mention - at the start of a GW, the prize money would be 'phased in', so while the maximum in the illustration above is 200k, it would only reach this level after, say, 5 seasons.

The idea would be that the top 100 would actually be more likely to change because a bad season would be more costly than it is now, especially if the fans expectation element is brought into stadium income.

At the moment, a team with a high reputation have something of a cushion, and can get away with under-performing.

The above suggestion isn't so much making things *more* dependent on performance, but a bit more dependent on *shorter-term* performance.

[Superowl90]

great ideas there ov, much needed in my opinion as it is really too easy to stay a top dog, this system would allow for such teams in a lower league to be able to get above those that have a bad season and need to sell to keep there profit going as lower rep means lower wages.

i also like the 50% rep and 50% Comp Cash, the game would be much better with the focus on the FA, the rep changes have enforced this and this change will make FA Matches even more important. and as a knock on effect there may well be less AI in the FA Games as less people will want to dodge such important games

[Rafael Popovic]

I like the idea in general, but considering even the academies that cost a bit I would like to have in addiction to this new income system a fixed general income for all, I think 50K should be enough. so my summary is (just for the top stadium and 50K+ wages cos it's the same even for default stadium and 0K wages:

50k+ wages, top stadium:

Minimum: 50k + 50K
Maximum: 200k+200k+50K=450k

In general I think that the stadiums should generate more money adding merchandisig and sponsorship!!!

---------------------
King Krimson FC
GW Clough

[Superowl90]

i dont know, i mean some of these things like the stadiums and academies are good money sinks, dont think we should get 50K a day so we can keep the academies up, the risk is paying for your academies but the reward is uncovering a gem and using him or selling him to fund your academies etc

[JDiddy]

Sounds like a good idea, though I have a slight concern, would playing in a FA with less teams give a manager a slight advantage in potential income streams over a relativly short period of time (e.g. 2-3 seasons) since it is possible for the team to rise to a higher domestic FA level, and maintain that level in a less competitive FA?

e.g. successive promitions in a less competitive Miller XFA over 3 seasons from the bottom compared to successive promotions in a more competitive Miller CFA from the bottom?

Thanks

Jonathan

[skipmonk]

Ok, is this another step back towards 'gain the advantage in season 1 and get ahead forever'?

as basically, the better more expensive players give better performances over a season this would lead to a 'Premiership style' dominance of the few

[ManchesterTigers]

so the bottom club in the FA will get nothing?? would this not lead to that club getting further and further behind and most likely quitting???

media money is part and parcel of football and should be in FML!

[20leGend99]

So are you in effect saying newer teams who join the GW's after a year will be stuffed on 2 fronts just like currently? They won't be able to compete for prize money as they will get owned by older teams and won't have a stadium because they are new. Seems a but risky having a system that depends 100% on subscriptions being consistantly high considering what we have seen in the past. If there are not enough new teams then they will surely remain poor as their access to 50% of potential prize money is severely limited...

If you keep rewarding those that do well then surely they will become better leaving everyone else miles behind. Rewarding the few successful people is not going to get anyone very far because as everyone has realised only a handful of teams are truly successful.

Overall i think the above system will prove to be too inequitable and will drive people away. There is rewarding success and then there is handing success on a plate...

[Rb]

I much prefer this simpler system. It should take the onus off the user having to learn so many financial aspects of the club (Which is sorely needed in my opinion)

It also then provides a clear goal for users to where they need to be going, which currently can be very vague within gameworlds. As long as new users are given suitable goals I think this could really work.

[trainspotter]

I think it's a good step to reward teams for competing in a higher division. As it stands it's often more beneficial to play in the bottom division and smash every team you play rather than play in the top division against teams of an equal standard (if nothing else the higher average ratings of your players and everything that brings EASILY outweighs the relatively small drop in prize money). A steeper gradient between the top division and the bottom division, as you've outlined, would solve this problem.

I also think lowering the importance of the stadium income is a good step as is increasing the likelihood of attendances dropping if the team is playing poorly. I would even argue that 50% of the potential income being stadium based is still a bit high. Some form of "general income" would seem necessary to me as otherwise a new team, no stadium developments and who finished bottom of the "Conference" would have a horribly tiny income!

Where I'm not wholly convinced is the argument that it will make the top places in the GW more volatile. In the short term it could do as teams spend big in an attempt to build the infamous FML dynasties which dominate every current GW. Every team which spends big and underachieves would fall back so in that regard, yes, it's more volatile. Those who spend big and succeed though will still be on their way to a dynasty and, if anything, will find things progressively easier as the financial rewards of their success will fuel them in their attempts to move further clear. We've all seen the signatures of people who have won five consecutive premier league titles and such like; those teams in this system would just disappear over the horizon!

Hopefully any such changes will run long enough in beta to thoroughly test them - even if that involves running a season a week. Anything less than 10 seasons worth of figures is not going to show anything really!

[20leGend99]

I like the current system but would change how stadiums are priced to ensure greater fairness over time. As it currently stands providing you have the demand for corporate seats you get a giant pay-off for adding them. I would change it so the more corporate seats you add the greater price that you pay for them, as this reflects the decreasing marginal benefit that you get as a user for adding more seats. The same principle can be applied to all seat types. If implemented correctly this could mean that those building stadiums beyond the average get heavily penalised in terms of cost, so it is of far less benefit of them to do so, which helps keep the playingfield far more level.

This can also work the other as well though. Say you are a new team and behind the average stadium for the GW then for you the marginal benefit of adding new seats would be greater than someone at the average. Therefore to reflect this the price of adding new seats should be less for you than a team at the average until you have caught up.

In theory it should be possible for the average stadium (in terms of income) to move so overtime the boost to newer teams becomes greater whereas for bigger teams this slows the ridiculous stadium development that we have experienced already. Overall it should allow teams to become richer together as everyone gets linked together.

[Thorstein]

I thought with the new reputation system, the longterm managers were already hit pretty hard.
With the removal of all the other kinds of income, you'll make the system a lot clearer. But in my opinion both kinds of income have now become shortterm.
Unless you have saved up, there seems no way to make investments which will payout over years - you have got to earn them back in 1 to 3 seasons....

I agree with upping the importance of the prizemoney system and the benefits for its incentives, to let games make a difference. I think it's exactly the same step as you did with the repsystem though.
Most logical would be to change the repsytem again and let things like stadium, history, youthsetup and financial state count again, instead of those games, from which you already earned your pricemoney!!!!

My Miller team already has a hard time as it is after the new repsystem - down from 275 general plus stadium to 175. Even as a team with 120k wages, and ending midtable in the third division I would have to see about downgrading if I did not have such a healthy bankbalance (stadium and academy construction payments, and running costs, and 1 or 2 players I paid in installments) or I'd have to spend a lot more time then the one or two hours a week I usually spend.
Maybe that's allright, but no need to cut it down even more, or I would have to cut my academy, my youth and reserve team and everyone that is asking over around 7k wages.

I know my performance is not as good as it's supposed to be but it seems there should not be a place for extremely casual and avaricious managers in FML?

my Miller team income:
- in retail (1.3.2): 300+
- in BETA (1.4/5): 200+
- with the new prizemoney system: 100k if I'm lucky

[Jakswan]

Where I'm not wholly convinced is the argument that it will make the top places in the GW more volatile. In the short term it could do as teams spend big in an attempt to build the infamous FML dynasties which dominate every current GW. Every team which spends big and underachieves would fall back so in that regard, yes, it's more volatile. Those who spend big and succeed though will still be on their way to a dynasty and, if anything, will find things progressively easier as the financial rewards of their success will fuel them in their attempts to move further clear. We've all seen the signatures of people who have won five consecutive premier league titles and such like; those teams in this system would just disappear over the horizon!

Hopefully any such changes will run long enough in beta to thoroughly test them - even if that involves running a season a week. Anything less than 10 seasons worth of figures is not going to show anything really!

What he said!

The system proposed sounds great, nice progression via performances on the pitch. The top end though it remains easy. Don't have any solutions as anything I've suggested someone says it's fatally flawed in some way

- should the prize money rise more steeply as it nears the top and less steeply near the bottom? This might introduce an even greater risk/reward element (e.g. you might spend your increased winnings for winning the Prem on wages, but then when you finish 4th next season you get hit harder) but the danger is it could lead to clubs breaking away at the top?

No if the same teams can win every season. Yes if put those teams in same Leagues and ensure a high proportion are relegated.

I think the entire system should be pretty kind on teams lower down, nice soft progression no disasters possible relegation not much to worry about. At the top it should be the opposite, high pressure, highly competitive, complete disaster if you get relegated.

[a_wade]

Hi Ov,

I like the idea, I have always thought that prize money needed to be a larger chunk of people's finances to give FA competitions and extra significance and stopping people doing things like FA hopping just to get easy games.

However I'm not so sure about the bottom clubs getting ZILCH. This could make it very hard for new teams coming in if they are getting nothing from this 50% pot of their potential income.

One idea I've had to overcome this is Parachute Payments. These would work by giving teams a financial boost to augment the two lines of income you have drawn up here over their first couple of seasons in the gameworld. These would wind down over the course of 3 seasons as teams are fed into the game. Going off the numbers you have put in the original post I think reasonable amounts would be 1.5mil in 1st season, 1mil 2nd season and 500k 3rd season. After this the payments would stop and you would be on your own. I think the benefits of this would be that it would prevent new users feeling at a massive disadvantage to established sides, but on the other hand it would force people into action when they join a gameworld. They would have to make their team good within these 3 seasons so that they can make enough money through prize money once the parachute payments stop.

I can appreciate the concerns about how this would work in tow with the new rep system though as they would now both punish teams for doing badly, even though rep changes are damped out over 3 seasons so are slightly longer term, there is still the possibility of teams going into a negative spiral where they do badly one season, miss out on prize money so have to cutback for next season meaning they can't turn their form around leading a couple more seasons of bad form, which will then cause a rep drop and further loss of money etc.

However looking at the prize monies Ov has listed, the teams getting relegated from the division above will still have received more prize money than all the teams staying in the league below, so with some shrewd business they should be able to turn themselves around and get promoted again quite quickly, provided they hadn't done a Leeds and been living on the financial edge which is their own risk in the first place

[itfc rules]

NO NO NO...

Why is it the same four at the top of the premiership? Because of the prize money that comes from sustained involvement with the champions league. This system would enable the top teams to stay top and the rest of the teams scraping for the leftovers.

If they have a bad season then they would lose income... thats in the first couple of seasons after that their bank balances would be able to compensate for a loss in form by buying a new top player.

I really really hope this doesnt come in, it would kill off competition. I havent seen any of the top teams have a bad season, a bad result yes, season.... dont make me laugh.

[Dragokenshin]

The reset was to bring new players to the game and make them stay??? Wasn't your excuse?? This will never work !!!
The good performance in a season would bring more spectators, of course, but not rise immediately your reputation (Actually the reputation should take effect only after 3,4 seasons) the Reputation should always be consider trough 4, 5 last Seasons, isn't a good or a bad season, who makes you a good or bad team, and this is the real problem. You could stupidly waste all your money to have the best team, and that wouldn’t make you a High reputation team Like "Real Madrid, Manchester, etc", they have history.
ONCE FOR ALL!!!! This is a game of a long term strategy (Build a squad, stadium, youth squad, skills and finances), and all of you propose is short terms options and immediately success.
That is so WRONG!!!!!!!!

[Steve Atherton]

Hi Ov,

I like the idea, I have always thought that prize money needed to be a larger chunk of people's finances to give FA competitions and extra significance and stopping people doing things like FA hopping just to get easy games.

However I'm not so sure about the bottom clubs getting ZILCH. This could make it very hard for new teams coming in if they are getting nothing from this 50% pot of their potential income.

One idea I've had to overcome this is Parachute Payments. These would work by giving teams a financial boost to augment the two lines of income you have drawn up here over their first couple of seasons in the gameworld. These would wind down over the course of 3 seasons as teams are fed into the game. Going off the numbers you have put in the original post I think reasonable amounts would be 1.5mil in 1st season, 1mil 2nd season and 500k 3rd season. After this the payments would stop and you would be on your own. I think the benefits of this would be that it would prevent new users feeling at a massive disadvantage to established sides, but on the other hand it would force people into action when they join a gameworld. They would have to make their team good within these 3 seasons so that they can make enough money through prize money once the parachute payments stop.

I can appreciate the concerns about how this would work in tow with the new rep system though as they would now both punish teams for doing badly, even though rep changes are damped out over 3 seasons so are slightly longer term, there is still the possibility of teams going into a negative spiral where they do badly one season, miss out on prize money so have to cutback for next season meaning they can't turn their form around leading a couple more seasons of bad form, which will then cause a rep drop and further loss of money etc.

However looking at the prize monies Ov has listed, the teams getting relegated from the division above will still have received more prize money than all the teams staying in the league below, so with some shrewd business they should be able to turn themselves around and get promoted again quite quickly, provided they hadn't done a Leeds and been living on the financial edge which is their own risk in the first place

I think there is some merit in this idea - for new starters (After the 1st season). Not sure how the teams that were in from the beginning but are low in the rankings would view it though if they see a new team come in with 1.5m? Perhaps they shpuld have performed better?

Still, as I said, I think there is something in this idea.

[Steve Atherton]

I am in favour of an increase in prize money, so the idea seems fair to me. My reservation (s) would be the small/zero sum for the poorer teams - if I have read it correctly (Not sure I have followed all the numbers!).

I take the point, made elsewhere, that the rich could get richer, but maybe there is an increased risk involved as Ov says?

What would happen with the 28 day forecasts - with an indeterminate income?

Overall I think there should be greater monetary incentives to succeed. Normally IRL in the EPL most teams would get enough prize/TV money to buy one or two very good players and I think this should be mirrored in the game. I suppose the difficulty here is the difference between prize and tv (Media?) money.

I believe that getting the right finance set up is vital to the games chances of success and, although I have mentioned IRL above, how many teams IRL who have been in eg. Leagues 1, 2 and the Blue Square leagues for many seasons would give up/start again if the same happened in FML? I suspect quite a few.

Giving the lower ranked teams and new, late starters the motivation to continue to play, with achievable goals, is a major challenge and finance forms a big part of this. If I think of a better solution I'll post it!!

[rikstewart]

How would this work in a single tier FA of 16 teams?

[Ov Collyer]

I guess the prize money would just be scaled from 5.6m down to 0k for that division.

But I think we should avoid being a situation where we have a single tier FA of 16 teams.

[Geezer13]

What we need is a system whereby unlike the current GW setup, the richest teams with the best players are not in an unreachable position. At the same time there has to be a feeling of progression for smaller clubs through smaller leagues and of course there must be a hierarchy otherwise (as currently in Stjohn) the system does not work at all.

In terms of income, I've always strongly believed that the premiership should receive the most cash, however previously I think FA payments have always been a minute portion of a clubs income (500k or so in my last season) which is nothing compared to stadium.

FML is fairly unique where without a big input of new managers every season into each FA, the whole system falls down somewhat. In terms of the economy working correctly, the new starter is as important as the no1 ranked side (if not more important) and I think there are loads of lessons to be learned certainly from my GW's current situation and the way it devolved into a bit of a joke and in terms of 'normalisation' of the entire GW.

What I mean by normalisation is that loads of sides released top players to go into the novelty FA and subsequently even poor sides were able to pick up players previously worth several million for in some cases £1. Which in turn has meant everyone is about as good as each-other with no clear advantage at all. Those who invested millions in stadia are much worse off because money doesn't really mean anything.

My point is, there has to be a hierarchy with money, whether we like it or not - otherwise I believe we will be in a similar situation as we are now although perhaps not to the same degree.

The problem with this though, is that nobody wants to be a lower league side in FML. When I joined, I had a great time rising through the leagues - because it was active and there were a group of about 20 of us who all had a great laugh. Now, and even 2-3 seasons before the announcement, lower leagues are clogged full of AI, second accounts etc.


.

[Ov Collyer]

I am in favour of an increase in prize money, so the idea seems fair to me. My reservation (s) would be the small/zero sum for the poorer teams - if I have read it correctly (Not sure I have followed all the numbers!).

I take the point, made elsewhere, that the rich could get richer, but maybe there is an increased risk involved as Ov says?

What would happen with the 28 day forecasts - with an indeterminate income?

Overall I think there should be greater monetary incentives to succeed. Normally IRL in the EPL most teams would get enough prize/TV money to buy one or two very good players and I think this should be mirrored in the game. I suppose the difficulty here is the difference between prize and tv (Media?) money.

I believe that getting the right finance set up is vital to the games chances of success and, although I have mentioned IRL above, how many teams IRL who have been in eg. Leagues 1, 2 and the Blue Square leagues for many seasons would give up/start again if the same happened in FML? I suspect quite a few.

Giving the lower ranked teams and new, late starters the motivation to continue to play, with achievable goals, is a major challenge and finance forms a big part of this. If I think of a better solution I'll post it!!

We could certainly start at above zero prize money for teams, though the idea in the suggestion was that every team would get at least 50k from 'stadium' income regardless of performance. So this is the baseline income.

What I'm a bit wary of is a situation where by giving too much money, we just give everyone false hope that they can quickly rise to the top - clearly not everyone can quickly, so in the end if we're not careful all we do is just fuel inflation by throwing in too much cash.

My feeling is that maybe having a wide range of incomes/wealth in the GW is actually good for the transfer market, and if we combine this with a fluid enough FA/division system whereby you have to stay on your toes to stay in your division (and if you don't, you'll feel the effects financially) then we end up with a more fluid game, with teams interchanging, rising up, falling away, etc.

Rather than most teams be 3.5 star, all chasing after the same players, few teams really needing to sell, and most of them banging their heads on the glass ceiling above

[Chauzu]

How would this work in a single tier FA of 16 teams?

Who says we'll have such small FA's in the future?

And to those worried about the low income for lower rep - as long as you try to do your best to get the best players you possibly can, you will always have a decent team rep (at least 5 perhaps), which will give you a general income.

What this leads to is that we give money to those who, say, go all Youth - they're free to do that, but they'll have to finance it in other ways (mainly selling the players they produce!).

And some have said they've rarely seen "big" clubs have bad seasons - this of course varies from GW to GW, but with all changes to FML in 1.4 and on, plus the fact we'll have much more active GW's after the reset, should lead to a better competition. The managers who are genuinly good won't be punished, and with this module will still make less money than in the current system (400k total, as opposed to around 280k+ from Stadium alone in the current climate).

A lot of interesting things said so far too, looking forward to reading more what people think.

[trainspotter]

What I'm a bit wary of is a situation where by giving too much money, we just give everyone false hope that they can quickly rise to the top - clearly not everyone can quickly, so in the end if we're not careful all we do is just fuel inflation by throwing in too much cash.

Just out of interest, if a new manager joined a GW which had been running for 10 seasons what would you consider to be a realistic timeframe (in terms of seasons) before the new manager could have a realistic chance of winning the top competitions?

[101011]

I like all these ideas although I'd personally like stadium income limited to 150k rather than 200k (and also a type of building for progression in stadiums which I'll put in a Beta thread a bit later) and 0k for coming bottom of the bottom division does seems slightly unfair as 75k income only from stadiums would make paying wages and trying to improve very difficult. In terms of initial squad wages I'd prefer 75k cap to a 50k cap as 50k could cause people to get 11 players and 5 £200 wage players who they plan to release when they buy better ones which possibly isnt how initial squads should be done.

[Braumiller]

Stadia need to be drastically fixed.
Corporate boxes are too 'key' currently.

And zero prize money is just plain silly. I appreciate the need for change, but in a game that sorely needs 'stickability', to basically tell the lower teams (who are more likely to walk away from the game) to go screw themselves is mind boggling....

[Eldonko]

Um, never? Kinda hard to catch up with no income and your competition gets 5-6 million.

Just out of interest, if a new manager joined a GW which had been running for 10 seasons what would you consider to be a realistic timeframe (in terms of seasons) before the new manager could have a realistic chance of winning the top competitions?

I really dont get the thought process for this change. I like the idea in theory but it will just lead to the rich getting richer and the poor or new teams quitting the game because there is no way to catch up. Can you explain how poor teams will ever become competitive? I mean one guy gets 5.6 million and the poor guy that has crap players gets nothing? It makes 0 sense to me. You make all these efforts to provide an even playing ground to keep people with poor teams playing and then you suggest this change where they get no money.

[oestevao]

you're making it even more newcomer unfriendly than before, good clubs remain good and will get all the money, give every team the same amount of money, from the best to the worst team, and you'll have a super game, because every team is at least financially equal.

[Eldonko]

I wouldnt go that far. If I got the same $ no matter what I wouldnt even bother playing. There has to be a balance, similar to how it works now.

you're making it even more newcomer unfriendly than before, good clubs remain good and will get all the money, give every team the same amount of money, from the best to the worst team, and you'll have a super game, because every team is at least financially equal.

[Ov Collyer]

Um, never? Kinda hard to catch up with no income and your competition gets 5-6 million.

I really dont get the thought process for this change. I like the idea in theory but it will just lead to the rich getting richer and the poor or new teams quitting the game because there is no way to catch up. Can you explain how poor teams will ever become competitive? I mean one guy gets 5.6 million and the poor guy that has crap players gets nothing? It makes 0 sense to me. You make all these efforts to provide an even playing ground to keep people with poor teams playing and then you suggest this change where they get no money.

It's actually not really much different to what we have now though if you look at the figures, the difference between rich and poor I mean.

However, more of it would be coming more through competition performances in one season, and less of it through a combination of stadium income and general income, both of which are slower to react to changes in the club's fortune.

The more cash that comes through long term performance, the more financially secure the successful teams become, surely?

Conversely, a new team joining in season 10 in the bottom division of the CFA (in the example) - were they to have a super debut season and get promoted, that's up to 1m in the bank (35k a day) a boost which they'd not be able to get via a default stadium and the reputation boost you might expect after 1 season.

Main point of the debate is really whether shorter-term FA performance (i.e. prize money) should be a bigger factor than it is currently.

The figures are there to be played with.

(Having said that, maybe it is a bit too extreme at the lower end, and we could maybe start it a little higher!)

PS Not sure if I wasn't clear in the original post, but everyone would be getting 50k a day minimum from their stadium, it was only prize money that started at zilch. Under the existing system, it goes down to a minimum of around a 25k combined general+stadium income plus media money of 17k = a total of about 42k. Plus around 9k of minimum prize money (250k for finishing bottom) = 51k....so we're about even stevens.

[Eldonko]

Um ok. So when a successful team gets 5 million plus and puts it into his stadium and world class players every season and the poor guy that has a crap team or that just joined the server loses every game and gets no money do you really think this poor club will ever "change his fortune"? I dont get it. What about 5+ seasons down the road when a successful club is filthy rich and has a large stadium and a new guy joins the server. He gets to look forward to making very little money and will have nothing to put into stadium until he wins a few games somehow. The gap between the rich and the poor would grow exponentially each season.

I just think the amount of people that would get discouraged and quit would be alot higher than currently, especially those that join late.

[Ov Collyer]

During the first 5 seasons, it would all be scaled up gradually - so for the 5m, read maybe 1m in season one, 2m in season two, 3m in season three etc.

I think it should be a much more gradual process than currently when a GW starts, where I think too much cash enters the GW.

Someone joining after 5 seasons, or 10 seasons, would join in the bottom league, and because we haven't artificially boosted *everyone* with lots of income (which actually doesn't really boost anyone and instead just makes everyone richer, boosting inflation and making it harder for latecomers to join the party) there are teams at all financial levels and an overall more fluid system.

Fluidity would be helped by an unforgiving promotion/relegation system - it should be tough to stay in a league, maybe 5/6 teams in a 20 team division could be relegated, and under this suggestion, relegation would immediately become costly. Not a couple of seasons later when its worked through the system.

That's how I saw it working anyway.

Youth academies exist as one way for a newcomer to get a foot in the door, as do returning stars in those types of GW, which provide a boost but in a more interesting way.

My feeling is we shouldn't get too hung up on how far up it is for a new team to catch up with the top team in the top division but definitely get hung up on creating a fluid enough system for teams to rise and fall and thus have the opportunity there for the good manager to exploit.

Whether what I have suggested is fluid enough, or would in fact lead to the opposite as some of you are suggesting is obviously the point of opening this discussion!

[Jakswan]

There are two issues in this thread I think

1) Inflation - Needs to be addressed, £500k starting has the same value season 12 as it did in season 1, prize money same value on an ongoing basis and retains it's value.
2) How the GW is structured.

Assuming Eldonko you agree that inflation needs to be addressed are you saying the gap should be narrower so you can only earn £3m max a season and starting squads earn £1m?

That is the way I thought SI would go but they want a rags to riches type game (which is good imho) so for there to be riches there needs to be rags.

What exactly you do when a mass of teams hits the rich times I'm out of ideas and I've had loads

[Eldonko]

Well if the main point of the debate is whether shorter-term FA performance should be a bigger factor than it is currently then I agree, yes it should be. Inflation needs to be addressed and I also agree that giving everyone the same $ is not helping. BUT I think it is farfetched to think a team that joins 6+ months after a server opens will ever even make it to premiership with that kind of difference in FA money. So yeah it should be smaller at the minimum. It’s bad enough to be so far behind in stadium income but when you take away the FA money too it just seems too much of a difference financially. The effect will be a bit less in returning star GWs but most people will be joining regen GWs where there are no measures for the new guy to become competitive.

You say we shouldn't get too hung up on how far up it is for a new team to catch up but I think you need to keep the big picture first and foremost when proposing such changes. The mandate to keep in mind for any major change in FML should be to retain as many players as possible by providing opportunity for new and poor teams to catch up before they become frustrated and quit. Retention is key here.

Also could you elaborate on:
- all stadium costs would be reduced by 1/3 in-line with the reduced income produced.

By stadium costs do you mean maintenance costs or costs of building?

I dont have the answers either, I just wanted to add my 2 cents on this issue. It's a big change you are proposing here

[Ov Collyer]

I meant the cost of construction - if we were going to be reducing income by about 1/3 then reducing the cost of construction by an equivalent amount would seem sensible unless we want stadiums to become poorer value for money as something to invest in.

[T-Bag]

Could do with some kind of solution to avoid easy FAs and have all the best teams in the same FA really, but other than that i'm fairly happy with the suggestion and rewarding football results is great step forward. Unless this is somehow addressed I'm finding it hard to imagine a situation whereby the top clubs wont be even richer and more dominant than they are now. I think it could almost lead to real life (England) situation where teams are always coming up into prem then going straight back down etc.

Returning stars will help teams a lot joining season #10 etc so I don't think it would lead to late joiners being forever stuck at the bottom.

[Eldonko]

Hmm that is an important and interesting point then. Can you explain how this would be calculated? Like say I finished mid of div 3 and made say 1m from your example above, What stadium discount do I get?

Would there be any difference in stadium cost reductions in the two GW types?

I meant the cost of construction - if we were going to be reducing income by about 1/3 then reducing the cost of construction by an equivalent amount would seem sensible unless we want stadiums to become poorer value for money as something to invest in.

[myheadhurts]

My post on this is going to run to pages. I'm warning you all now.

Cliff notes: this system makes it harder for new teams to catch bigger teams than the current system. Not everyone thinks that's a bad thing, but it's totally at odds with everything SI have come out with so far.

[mdbussen]

First of all let me say that I am 100% behind this proposal. Anything that will financially reward a team's PERFORMANCE rather than a team's REP is going to be a good change to the game.

I do share some of caution that others are expressing about the knock-on effect this will have in the long-term game - particularly whether it will be too easy to stay at the top and too hard to start at the bottom. I think you should get these changes into beta ASAP (with a view towards 1.5) so that this system can be present at FML re-launch in March (fingers crossed). The easiest way to see if the system will work or not and what kind of loopholes may need to be closed is by popping it into some gameworlds and seeing what happens!

- starting squad wage cap for a new club would be reduced to 50k (but the budget remains at 500k).

What is the thinking behind this? Is there a starting squad wage cap at present?

- all stadium costs would be reduced by 1/3 in-line with the reduced income produced.

Do you mean that costs will be reduced to be in-line with income on a team-by-team basis or that costs would be scaled down globally? I think this could lead to a very slippery slope if we have stadium improvement costs linearly related to team rep/cash and introduce a lot of possible loopholes. It also creates a lot of user confusion if different clubs have different costs for the same absolute "reward".

- a compromise might be to keep general income, and have it split 50/50 with prize money. So prize money would account for 0-100k, general income 25-100k, with stadium 25-200k.

I would rather see general income disappear if these new changes were implemented. part of the attraction of this new solution is that it streamlines and simplifies the club income and leaving the ambiguously-named "general income" intact will reduce some of that simplification.

[Chauzu]

Many seem to think this will lead to big teams getting bigger but that's what SI's working against, and this partly address - basically, this will work against any team saving up money, and thus not be "guaranteed" long-term success more easily. Also, if a big team fails to reach his level, his finances will hit and to go around, he'll have to sell. Whereas teams coming from below can buy.

Of course, at hand it might look like the case, but if most money coming in goes out again, the 1m the winner of the bottom division in CFA gets will be around as valuable in season 10 as season 1. And also, with this it will ensure not all teams have a "3.5*+" quality team like it is now, but to get such a good team, you have to earn it by your on-pitch performances. And to keep it, perform as well. Or to get better, perform better.

New teams won't face Prem teams from Day 1 in their league either - what this will mean is basically that the bottom division is consisted of basically as good quality teams, and those going up can expand due to it while the others have to stay put with what they have! they can't buy Fabregas, but do we really enjoy this game now, when players who aren't playing on Premiership level IRL is practically useless? Everybody wants the same players, and it happens like Ov suggested. This works against it, and is a big improvement in my eyes.

[Ov Collyer]

@mdbussen

There is currently a starting wage cap of 100k, but if we were reducing base income down then there is no point having a wage cap higher than what you would be receiving as minimum income. Since under the suggestion this would be 50k, then the wage cap makes sense at 50k.

Stadium costs - no, I mean across the board, globally. If we're reducing stadium income from a range of 75k-300k down to a range of 50k-200k, roughly a 1/3 drop, then it's logical to reduce the cost of building one accordingly.

[DeathsKamikaze]

I plan on going all youth, so will win nothing senior, so would that mean im constantly poor?

[Ov Collyer]

Not if you sell your youth for millions, no

[DeathsKamikaze]

But with the youth academies bringing in random youth, and the chance of getting high pot youth harder, (as no filter for pot) the chance of making these amazing kids is less, so the chance of selling for millions is harder. and with youth comps carrying little to no prize money, we would never be able to make any decent cash.

[Ov Collyer]

I'd say that recent changes make it easier for poorer clubs to get hold of high potential youth:

- youth academies, as you say are random, so don't favour the rich, other than they can set up more of them.
- judging potential isn't instant, so no longer will the rich clubs monopolise those known to have high JP so easily making their wages unaffordable to weaker clubs

[Chauzu]

And why should you be able to have a team with only Youth, and expect to make money from it? :s

You're not really aiming to be competetive if you do that, usually you do it nowadays to save up a few millions, and then when you're youths are developed, start your "world domination" plan. I agree this will be harder now with Academies, but still, I don't see any reason, a team full of kids should make money.

[Eldonko]

Oooh so the poor teams dont get to build stadiums cheaper.. That doesnt help then and we are back to square 1. Bottom line is with the proposed changes late joiners will never be able to catch up, get frustrated and quit (especially in regen worlds with no draft). I see nothing to suggest otherwise.

Stadium costs - no, I mean across the board, globally. If we're reducing stadium income from a range of 75k-300k down to a range of 50k-200k, roughly a 1/3 drop, then it's logical to reduce the cost of building one accordingly.

[DeathsKamikaze]

removal of general income and media money?

Would that not be the death of some youth teams? - They dont get enough prize money as it is, as we usually finish bottom in senior comps. so with literally 0 income we dont stand a chance surely?

[Chauzu]

It sounds like the death of Youth teams who only want to have youth, but also want to make a lot of money, without selling any of their players, while accomplishing nothing in Senior football, where the money is.

Whether that is a loss or not is subjective I guess.

[mdbussen]

removal of general income and media money?

Would that not be the death of some youth teams? - They dont get enough prize money as it is, as we usually finish bottom in senior comps. so with literally 0 income we dont stand a chance surely?

If you have a youth team it means your wages and expenses are practically nothing. The minimum income is 50k daily so I should think you would be doing fine anyways?

[20leGend99]

How are you going to spin this so new users don't see this as a reason not to join older GW's? I can imagine this going straight to the top of the pile of reasons why joining older GW's is not a good idea, alongside the retaining of skills.

We have returned to the battle of perceived unfairness and actual unfairness again...

Also isn't it a bit late to be fiddling with the financial system with only 60 days until the start of March

[DeathsKamikaze]

It sounds like the death of Youth teams who only want to have youth, but also want to make a lot of money, without selling any of their players, while accomplishing nothing in Senior football, where the money is.

Whether that is a loss or not is subjective I guess.

So how are we going to run these youth acadmies with no money? especially when the big ones are 1) expensive to build and 2) expensive to run...

[Ov Collyer]

Yeah that's right:

Under the current system: wage bill of practically nothing, plus a low reputation means you'll get around 25k stadium+general income plus 17k media money +9k minimum prize money = 51k.

Under the suggested system: wage bill of practically nothing, plus a low reputation means you'll get 50k stadium income.

However, if you have a half-decent season in your lowest league under the suggested system, you'd start increasing your income (via prize money) quicker than you would by having a half-decent season in your lowest league under the existing system.

[Chauzu]

So how are we going to run these youth acadmies with no money? especially when the big ones are 1) expensive to build and 2) expensive to run...

If you have a youth team it means your wages and expenses are practically nothing. The minimum income is 50k daily so I should think you would be doing fine anyways?

And even with Academy prizes, you should be able to live on that minimum income I'd imagine. Depends on how much the Youths wages increase with time - but as they do, the quality of the team should as well I guess.

[DeathsKamikaze]

so with (well an average team for me around 40 players) all on base wage of £200 for the youths, im looking at 8k a day in wages, so that leaves 42k for youth academy running costs (not including the building costs) with 550k (thats what i paid for my 5(*) acad) and the 12k a day running costs, it doesnt leave you that mcuh room for youth academies, unless you spam the small 1/2(*) acadmies

[Ov Collyer]

Well, arguably a new team setting up a five star youth academy in the Seychelles on day one is a bit much to expect....?

[Ov Collyer]

How are you going to spin this so new users don't see this as a reason not to join older GW's? I can imagine this going straight to the top of the pile of reasons why joining older GW's is not a good idea, alongside the retaining of skills.

We have returned to the battle of perceived unfairness and actual unfairness again...

Also isn't it a bit late to be fiddling with the financial system with only 60 days until the start of March

I guess it depends if you consider the existing system to be good enough or not.

What are your thoughts on the existing system?

[DeathsKamikaze]

Well, arguably a new team setting up a five star youth academy in the Seychelles on day one is a bit much to expect....?

Its a beta, im testing the system :P

But seriously the point is that we find these kids in unknown countries (and in live ill pick "proper" countries, although atm it sound like we wont be able to afford that many YA

[mdbussen]

So how are we going to run these youth acadmies with no money? especially when the big ones are 1) expensive to build and 2) expensive to run...

I've beaten this point into the ground on the beta forums but, to reiterate, 5* YA as they currently stand are an awful investment anyways. Especially if you want to run a youth-only team you are better off building multiple 1* academies.

[DeathsKamikaze]

I've beaten this point into the ground on the beta forums but, to reiterate, 5* YA as they currently stand are an awful investment anyways. Especially if you want to run a youth-only team you are better off building multiple 1* academies.

I decided to go for the 5* mainly because i needed over 1 months worth of skills before i could build multiple YA, but yes, atm they do need sorting.

[Eldonko]

I agree with removing general and media $$, it is not needed and just gives inflation. I just think the span of 5.6 million to 0 is way too wide and will make too large a difference between rich and poor. Ov, you have academies as a way to equalize teams but when a rich club can spend $ on maxing out the academy and a poor one can hardly pay their 50k in wages then that doesnt really help.

[MichaelP]

It be stupid to give bottom lower teams no prize money at all. When the top clubs take all the best players they will become disheartened and quit the game more than they do now.
Money has to be pretty even to entice new managers when they join and current managers to keep on playing.

[Ov Collyer]

Incidentally something I've seen suggested before would be dividend payouts as a way of stopping any mass accumulation of cash if it was about to happen.

75% of profits above some value just paid out as dividends to imaginary shareholders.

Truly evil, but effectively would give a rich club the choice of spending their profits or saying goodbye to a large chunk.

If they spent it on wages then they'd then be at risk of slipping up in the league and not being able to afford their wage bill.

If they spent it on players then that keeps the transfer market moving.

If they spent it on stadiums then fair enough they'd boost their income and be able to afford higher wages but they'd never be able to accumulate cash and the higher they pushed their wage bill the more risk they'd encounter - but with no cash reserves to bail them out.

Tied in with the above system where income could change very quickly plus an aggressive relegation system (say relegate 6 clubs in a top division of 20).

I'm sure the rich clubs wouldn't like it though.

[DeathsKamikaze]

How about making youth comps as important as the senior ones, or close to them, with larger prize money, allowing the better youth teams to make some money from the work they are putting into their youth system?

[mdbussen]

that does sound truly, truly evil

[mdbussen]

How about making youth comps as important as the senior ones, or close to them, with larger prize money, allowing the better youth teams to make some money from the work they are putting into their youth system?

Sorry but this is a ridiculous suggestion. I'm alright with youth comps being granted a bit of money but senior football is where the money should be at.

[JamboLad]

Incidentally something I've seen suggested before would be dividend payouts as a way of stopping any mass accumulation of cash if it was about to happen.

75% of profits above some value just paid out as dividends to imaginary shareholders.

Truly evil, but effectively would give a rich club the choice of spending their profits or saying goodbye to a large chunk.

If they spent it on wages then they'd then be at risk of slipping up in the league and not being able to afford their wage bill.

If they spent it on players then that keeps the transfer market moving.

If they spent it on stadiums then fair enough they'd boost their income and be able to afford higher wages but they'd never be able to accumulate cash and the higher they pushed their wage bill the more risk they'd encounter - but with no cash reserves to bail them out.

Tied in with the above system where income could change very quickly plus an aggressive relegation system (say relegate 6 clubs in a top division of 20).

I'm sure the rich clubs wouldn't like it though.

I love that idea as generally as soon as money comes into my club it goes straight back out in some form

On the subjecty of the giving out prize money I like the sound of that as well.

It will still be possible to do a youth team but at the end of the day a senior team really is mandatory and a youth team is optional.

Originally Posted by DeathsKamikaze View Post
How about making youth comps as important as the senior ones, or close to them, with larger prize money, allowing the better youth teams to make some money from the work they are putting into their youth system?

Senior teams should always be where the money is. As I said, surely a senior team should be a must have and the youth teams will always be optional.

[Ov Collyer]

I agree with removing general and media $$, it is not needed and just gives inflation. I just think the span of 5.6 million to 0 is way too wide and will make too large a difference between rich and poor. Ov, you have academies as a way to equalize teams but when a rich club can spend $ on maxing out the academy and a poor one can hardly pay their 50k in wages then that doesnt really help.

5.6m is still just 200k a day though - the overall range in the current system is around 50k-421k under the suggested one it would be 50k-400k but faster moving on performance.

[DeathsKamikaze]

I love that idea as generally as soon as money comes into my club it goes straight back out in some form

On the subjecty of the giving out prize money I like the sound of that as well.

It will still be possible to do a youth team but at the end of the day a senior team really is mandatory and a youth team is optional.

Thats because you put out a new starting 11 every other day :P

[Chauzu]

That does sound truly evil Ov. I like it.

And maybe even essential, if tied in with this system. Would ensure that the prize money is basically worth as much whichever season it is in the GW, and the new users would be able to catch up if they were good enough, without having the weight of "but the guys at the top have 10m saved up too" on their shoulders.

[trainspotter]

How The Miller CFA Might Shape Up

Leagues:

Premier League (20 clubs) - 5.6m down to 4.48m (16th place 4.72m)
Championship (20 clubs) - 4.7m down to 3.58m (16th place 3.82m)
Division One (20 clubs) - 3.81m down to 2.69m (16th place 2.92m)
Division Two ( 20 clubs) - 2.91m down to 1.79m (16th place 2.03m)
Division Three (20 clubs) - 2.02m down to 896k (16th place 1.07m)
Conferences (19 clubs) - 1.12m down to 0k

Cups:

CFA Cup - 1.87m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 Premier League winner)
Premiership Cup - 933k down to 0k (winner gets 1/6 Premier League winner)
Non-Premiership Cup - 1.57m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 of Championship winner)

How The Miller XFA Might Shape Up

Leagues:

Premier League (20 clubs) - 5.6m down to 3.45m (16th place 3.9m)
Championship (15 clubs) - 3.88m down to 1.72m (12th place 2.18m)
Division 1 (15 clubs) - 2.15m down to 0k

Cups:

XFA Cup - 1.87m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 Premier League winner)
Premier Cup - 933k down to 0k (winner gets 1/6 Premier League winner)
Non Premiership Cup - 1.29m down to 0k (winner gets 1/3 Championship winner)

After looking at the figures a bit more it seems the volatility is reliant on a shallow FA structure. In the examples in the original post the potential volatility in the shallow "Miller XFA" is far more than in the deeper "Miller CFA". I don't have a clue what the plans are for FAs after the relaunch but my personal opinion is that deeper FAs are more new-user friendly and have more competitive divisions than shallower FAs. These two things therefore don't fit together particularly well.

One thing which has caught my eye a bit more on second look is the cup prize money, particularly the "Premier Cup". The proposed prize money for this competition would mean some teams getting nothing with the others on a sliding scale up to £933k. In my opinion this is much more fluid and could be a good way to force some volatility into the system.

Could it also be possible to replace the "Non-Premiership Cup" with a "Championship Cup", a "Division One Cup" etc with similar prize money for each as the "Premier Cup" (perhaps scaled down very slightly)? Using the "Miller CFA" example this could mean a team who won the "Championship" and the "Championship Cup" could take home prize money of ~£5.5m, a figure which would genuinely give them a leg up and allow them to perhaps ruffle a few feathers in the "Premier"!

I would also suggest lowering, or even removing completely, the prize money from the FA-wide cups (e.g. the "CFA Cup") as these just seem likely to pour money to the best/oldest teams at the expense of the worst/newest teams which is going to reduce fluidity.

[Eldonko]

Excellent ideas, seconded.

Could it also be possible to replace the "Non-Premiership Cup" with a "Championship Cup", a "Division One Cup" etc with similar prize money for each as the "Premier Cup" (perhaps scaled down very slightly)? Using the "Miller CFA" example this could mean a team who won the "Championship" and the "Championship Cup" could take home prize money of ~£5.5m, a figure which would genuinely give them a leg up and allow them to perhaps ruffle a few feathers in the "Premier"!

I would also suggest lowering, or even removing completely, the prize money from the FA-wide cups (e.g. the "CFA Cup") as these just seem likely to pour money to the best/oldest teams at the expense of the worst/newest teams which is going to reduce fluidity.

[20leGend99]

I guess it depends if you consider the existing system to be good enough or not.

What are your thoughts on the existing system?

The current system is also fundamentally flawed in my opinion. After 6-8 seasons most of the top 200 teams had stadiums which were pulling in massive amounts of money that meant newer teams would never really be able to compete on a financial level. That being said after 10 seasons the top teams had stopped adding to their stadiums and everyone else who was still there was catching up to them. Now most of the top teams have stadiums that pull in over 200k each day as do many of teams are distinctly average. Most of these teams, including mine, can comfortably afford to be in the wage tax zone above 250k and still have a positive sloping graph. Is it necessarily wrong that average teams are earning loads from stadiums despite not winning anything? No it isn't because they have forgone buying players earlier on to have more later. The real problem is that new teams that joined could not catch up on stadium income within a reasonable amount of time. They were behind and too far behind for it to be realistic for them to see light at the end of the tunnel. In this system, however, the top teams are rewarded through higher prize money. If the 10m max prize money was removed from leagues this could be even more the case. If profit tax was tighter it would remove alot of the incentive to build corporate seats (which are essentially the problem). Or perhaps a corporate seat tax should be introduced ie 5% on all earnings from first corporate seats block, 10% from second block, 15% from third block etc. This system in my eyes is still fixable, which makes me wonder why this approach has not been followed. I mention in a previous post above how if stadium costs were adjusted to reflect trends in the GW how it may be possible to boost new poorer teams whilst slow the expansion of richer teams and thus put a more equitable spin on things.

The proposed system doesn't solve the problem of teams being left too far behind imo. It is fair to say some new teams come in after 5 seasons and take the GW by storm resulting in them getting some decent prize money. However, unless there is a constant flow of new teams, which will have to be seen to be believed, most teams will stay towards the lower end of the prize money indefinetly. Surely they need to be able to see some more progress than in just 50% of their income. Sure this system rewards success which is fine but it also further penalises failure and I don't see that as a good method of keeping teams staying active. I want to see as many new teams stay as is possible but i'm of the opinion that this proposed system will drive people away or stop them joining older GW's. The problem of perceived unfairness and actaul unfairness has been well documented in FML and in my eyes this falls into the same category as not being in from the first minute etc. I feel the proposed system goes too much towards handing future success on a plate rather than rewarding success.

I think most people want a system that rewards success but also doesn't prevent new users from coming in at such a level that they can never compete. It is probably fair to say that many people would give the concession of helping newer slightly and keeping their GW alive indefinetly over having to restart every 12 months. On the whole a system needs to be found that is fair on everyone, whether the be the first person in the GW or the last, the best or the worst. Striking the right balance is key and for me this is not at the right equilibrium.

[myheadhurts]

My post on this is going to run to pages. I'm warning you all now.

No, seriously, I wasn't kidding.

(1) Imbalance

Before we talk about solutions to imbalance, we need to agree what imbalance is. Everybody agrees that DYM comps or the opening day goldrush cause imbalance, though there is some disagreement about the extent.
Another issue is that it's hard to show how succesful solutions will be. For example, in Ov's idea above, he suggests that a failure by a bad team might force them into a downward sprial, allowing smaller teams to catch up. But how do we know how long it will take? How many seasons of failure, and to what extent?
What we need is a way to identify and quantify imbalance.
I would suggest that imbalance is basically anything that prevents two equally skilled managers from competing on a level playing field. I think there's a very simple way to measure it too: team values.
Think of a teams value as the sum of the following:
- The total value of the players in the team (really it should be the true value of the players – for example a 15 y/o with a 5* potential would have a value of £1m+, while a household name on £140k/day might have zero value - but the game's MV is a good approximation)
- The cash held by the team
- The value of any assets bought such as stadiums or youth adacamies.
- You could also add a notional value for skills.
Now, IMO, this is a very good measure of the medium term potential of a team. A high valued team either already has a good squad of players, has the cash to buy a good squad, or has the assets to produce the income/youths neccessary. If you have two equally skilled managers, with two equally strong playing squads, but with team values of £50m and £25m, it is inevitable that in the short to medium term the rich team will pull away (because of extra transfer funds, extra top quality youths, etc etc), until the poorer team can close the gap. But an equally skilled manager (or even a slightly better one) can't close the gap on the pitch until he increases his team value. That's imbalance.

(2) Changes in team values

OK, let's think about how team values change. Obviously, income increases cash and wages decrease it. Money spent on stadiums comes out of cash and into stadiums, so there's no movement there. There are two other methods: buying/selling players at below/above MV, and training players to increase their values.
What's the maximum increase in value you could reasonably achieve in a season? Well, for the first few seasons, you'll have a seasonal income of about £5m. On top of that, you can make a profit on players, but you'll have to pay wages too. Smaller teams will be in the market for cheaper players, so they'll be looking to buy players for say £200k and selling them on for £400k, or something similar. Let's be incredibly generous and say that you can make enough profit to 100% offset your wages. The maximum profit you can make is then about £5m a season.

Note that if the richer teams values are growing at a faster rate than the poorer teams, then it's essentially impossible for the poorer team to EVER catch up without a massive skill advantage. Some people would argue this is the current position.

The important point to take away here is that in practice there is a limit on how far you can improve the value of your team in a single season (unless you cheat!).

(3) Inflation

This idea also clearly shows why inflation causes imbalance. Two things occur: first, all teams get richer, and hence the gap between all existing teams and an initial starting squad gets larger and larger over time; and second, more subtle, is that the larger teams grow at a quicker rate than the smaller teams in £ terms. For example, let's say over 10 seasons the value of every player doubles. If two teams were initially valued at £50m and £25m, they are now valued at £100m and £50m – i.e. The richer team grew by £50m, the smaller team grew by £25m. This is important because income DOESN'T grow with inflation. Let's say the smaller teams income is £5m/season before wages. The gap between the two teams has grown from 5 seasons worth of income to 10 seasons worth of income - the gap has doubled.

Essentially then, inflation because a hidden source of income to the richer teams.

(4) The current system

The most important thing to note about the current system is this: every teams value increases year on year, unless you are a HORRENDOUS manager. Like, you have to be truly awful. Even if you make zero profit and never improve your team, your team's value STILL increases due to the drag factor of the gameworld's overall inflation.

As a result, by far the biggest cause of imbalance facing late joiners was simply time. The later you join, the further behind you are. Just looking at a example gameworld (my gameworld – note I did this a few weeks ago).

The top team has a squad of players with a total MV of around £20.1m. On top of that, they have a 33,000 stadium with great corporate factilies. I'll have to guess how much that cost, but I'd guess around £25m. I obviously can't see their cash balance, but it is in credit and they recently sold a couple of players. So let's assume they have somewhere betwen £0 and £5m. Their total value is somewhere around £50m.

Second example: me. My team just under two seasons old. The total MV of players is £4.1m, I have a cash balance of £(1m), and I've spent about £5m on my stadium. My team is therefore worth a total of £8.1m. This was achieved using the youth route, with incredibly low wages, and essentially only buying players in wage auctions and never for MV. I lost virtually every game for the first season.

Third example: a brand new team. It has a value of probably around £1m, depending on the age of the gameworld (this is based on the assumption that they are able to obtain at least one player of around £250k AV, who will have a MV of 2x or 3x that).

Note that my team has increased in value by £7m in almost 2 seasons, which isn't far off the best case scenario mentioned above. Now, this wasn't my first team in FML, so I had a significant advantage there. I also have background in maths and finance, so I had a head start in exploiting the economy of the game there too. I'm certainly not going to claim to be a great manager, and a long way shy of perfect, but I don't think it's unreasonable to say that I am going to be better than almost any new manager who has never played FML before, simply because it takes time to understand the game. So I think that this is decent evidence that £4m-£5m a season is the maximum increase you can reasonably expect. In any case, I had to sacrifice a seasons worth of results to reach that level.

(5) Why the new system suggested by Ov won't achieve the stated goals

- Essentially, by stripping out general income and most of the stadium income, you are increasing the disparity between rich and small teams. By decreasing the relative income of the smaller teams, you are decreasing the rate at which their value increases, which increases the minimum time to obtain a level playing field.

- The suggestion is that by having a large disparity of income, that increases the risk of failure for a top team, thus increasing the churn rate of top teams. This fails on several counts:

(a) Real world evidence suggests that in every league where income is less evenly spread, the top teams are harder to displace, dispite the risk of paying market wages on lower income;

(b) In FML, there isn't an open market for wages. Assuming that top teams will have to pay high wages to obtain the top positions in the first place ignores the current gameworld positions, where the top teams obtained the top positions with players on very LOW wages. THIS is the issue with current gameworlds, the one that we are having to reset to fix. Increasing the amount of money given to top teams just makes this worse.
I'll repeat, at the risk of being ignored, that we shouldn't even be talking about anything else until we (or rather you) have decided upon a model for the game.

(c) You appear to be aiming for a situation where failure forces teams to drop down the rankings if they fail – i.e. A small failure is exacerbated by a loss of income, which causes a chain reaction. However, this is contradicted by any suggestion that all teams will have the budget to buy one or two players over and above their wage budget. This immediately creates a buffer, whereby a failure merely means a season without a transfer budget. Using the idea of team values, say we have two teams with values of £50m and £25m. If the £50m team has a bad season, their value would not increase, but it wouldn't fall either, so there is no enforced team breakup. That allows the £25m team a chance to catch up slightly – but it doesn't change the fact that they were already £25m behind. Essentially, if the richer team loses £2m/season in income as a result of poor performance, which appears to be the suggestion, it still takes 12.5 seasons to close that gap. It's just too tiny a difference to actually force churn.

(d) In fact, the values used in (c) refer to values in gameworlds under the old system. The larger disparity in income results in a larger disparity in team values; as a result, it takes even more of a movement in value for two teams to swap places.

(e) Looking entirely at income and prize money ignores a very significant area of profit for rich teams: player trading. Good managers will always be able make a profit from player trading, and richer teams will naturally be able to trade in high priced assets, resulting in higher profits; in addition, as stated earlier, inflation is a hidden source of income that favours the teams with more expensive players. There's every likelihood that these factors will offset any reduction in income.


- Somebody will find a way to get the best team on very low wages. You might think that's impossible; it never is. Even if it means taking out a 12 month subscription, losing every game on minimal wages for that period, saving up all the cash, then finally buying the best players on the lowest wages, somebody will find a way. You might think that idea is dumb, as do I, but there's always SOMEBODY willing to do it. If you come up with a system that falls apart if/when that happens (as this system does, because giving the best team on the lowest wages the highest income is a design for long term domination), it's only a matter of time before the gameworld dies.

(6) What needs to change

I don't claim to have all the answers. But here are a few points which, IMO, are vital to the success of a gameworld:

-If you want new joiners to have a chance, you need zero inflation. Not low inflation, not controllable inflation, not consistant inflation, but ZERO.This means on average, teams spend as much as they earn. Anything else, and the gameworld as a whole pulls away from new teams – the older the gameworld, the worse the problem.
-You need a method that knocks a team off the top even if they have the best team on very low wages. Aiming to prevent this from happening is fine and good, but accept that eventually it will happen, and you need to stop it resulting in long term domination.
- There needs to be a plan for how a new team can, potentially reach the top. As they rise up the rankings, who do they displace? Is it supposed to be possible for a good manager to stick in the top 10/top 50/top 100 or whatever? If so, what happens in a mature gameworld where 100 managers follow roughly that strategy? Wouldn't that result in exactly the situation we have now?

I have my own ideas about the specifics, as I sure everybody else does. But I really think it's important to have an acceptance of what the game is supposed to be first, and then decide from there things like income distribution. Otherwise you are just throwing things together and hoping everything sticks.

[20leGend99]

Out of interest how would you propose 0% inflation is achieved? Your only tool is tax so please tell me how?

[myheadhurts]

Out of interest how would you propose 0% inflation is achieved? Your only tool is tax so please tell me how?

I deliberately left out exact suggestions because I'm trying to get across the importance of the principle rather than getting it lost in people arguing over methods.

However, to show it's possible, my suggestion is to ensure wages match income in the gameworld as a whole over the long term, either through an entirely open market on wages or through a dynamic system of wage demands that is specifically linked to the cash in the gameworld in the whole to ensure that any inflation is headed off. I'd have wage demands linked entirely to player reputations, and I'd have player reputation linked far more to the reputation of their respective teams. This would result not only in inflation being removed, but would also decrease the resale value of the top teams' players (because their wages would become inflated), and hence at the same time act to redistribute wealth downwards.

I'm sure there are far, far better ideas than that; however, I hope at least it shows 0% inflation is achievable through a simple fix that does not require permanent monitoring.

[morten andersen]

in theory a great Idea anything that simplifices the economecy part of the game is a welcome change.
But unfutunatly I don´t see it to solve anything at all,(save making the income system abit more unstandleable.)
IMO you are fixing the wrong part of the econmics in the Game.
the part theire really need a fix is the wage system.
So that players being signed for top premierleague teams Demand more in minimum wages by default,than the same player signing for a bottom confrence team.

IRL: Lets say Michael Owen hasn´t been picked up by Man U.
having been forced to sign with a 1 or 2 division team instead,surely he wouldn´t be able to
get the same wages (unless the club was loaded or greatly overspend)
The Notts co syndrom

FML: my idea would be to modify the basic wage demand so that the wage demanded by the player wasn´t soley based on rep but also based alot on the rep and curent league positions of the club.
The idea in this should be that if a team wining the higest tier with a max income stadium is making roughly 100 % more money than a team in the lowest division wining the tier with an max income stadium, (basically achiving the same on his own level.)
he should pay double the money in minimum wages for the same player.
(players expecting more money the biger a team they get signed for.)
this should ofcourse include players bought on transfer market by bigger teams expecting wage raises and protected player the same.

This way the bigest team would still win the most money in comps but would also need to
pay theire player higher wages simply because they are top teams,
the would still have the more cash to outbid the smaller team for a player,
but profit wise the difrence wouldn´t be so big if you see it in relation to the wages the need to pay if the was to have a team of equal ability.

In theory a small team could get a ronaldo on lower wage than a top team
(if no top team would want him)
as the top team simply have a higher wagedemand of the player,
while in reality theire would probally be a 100 team wanting him before the bottom team
wich was not only able to but also forced to paying a higher wages on him.

All this should ofcourse help to level the playing field you could also make a standard promotion and relegation wage raise / drop in all player contracts.
or even making the player demand wage raises with next contract renew or if really wicked in a midle of a contrct period (posible makking him unhappy if not gething it or maybe even spreading unhapyness or end up leaving or refusing to renew contract.)
also if you have won alot lets say you have won the preimership 3 times in arow why not let the players demand even higher wages compared to a newly promoted team (same division)
again simply because a player at a top team IRL lets say MAN U
would demand alot more in wages than a lets say burnley player.
And in FML to avoiid long unbreakable dynastys by one team
or the same 3-4 teams in the top fighting for it every single season.
(wich might keep those player happy but what about the 996 other players in the GW)
think we have allready seen once that most of those will end up leaving.

we need Imo way shorther dynastys like in the NFL where they are talking about 5 year dynastys. (wich are really trully rare) (after that its allmost imposible to stay at the very top due to wage cap masive wage demands of the players the minimum wage guarantees for players the draft ect.)
I see make it imposible or atleast nearly imposible for a guy to stay at the top in the long run, simply by making the players wanting more wages the better a team the play for
(they trully great managers might even stay at top with low rep players even while they are demanding very high wages.)
If you want this game to be a sucess and new player to stick around.
You don´t want someone to be in the top 5 of the preimierleague for the 20s year runing especially not than if in 19 out of those 20 years 4 out of 5 teams have been the same .

A whole other thing about this is the FA structure wich Could do with a major overhaul to IMO.
as it is right know every single FA has the same Goal to be at the top at the world
(basicly)
What about making "small nation" FA where the money rechicved
from stadium and placed would never be as great (wich would end up with people competing for preimier titles with lower rep players )
as they can´t aford many big names ones given people an opertunity to play with low rep /quality player favorites and still be in the runing for trophys.
alot of managers IRL will never be good enoug to win the preimierleague some don´t even have the ambition or realizing very early on theire limitations.
But why should they be limited from wining some preimieleague championship trophys.
in Wales or iceland.
(ofcourse translated to FA´s where money is alot thighter.)
this way people have the option to choose theire own dificultlevel sort of in game
something the game clearly needs as alot of people leaving over acomplishing zit.
secondly theire is only so many top player to go around Why not let some of the FA´s
Batle for the top tier titles on lower ability and repplayers just as in IRL
(every FA is basically the same save structure wise (playtime amount of matches envolment AI allowance)
Another option would be to leave the one nation FA be for the relaunce
adding yet another aspeckt to the game.

Realishing FA being a whole other discusion just thought the lower cash amount FA idea had some relevance in the economic tread.

in sumary bigermore sucessfull teams higher player minimum waqes reason
we need to give every one a go at the top both to chalange the top players not to make it boring and to not make it boring to everyone else watching the same players wining all the time.

2ndly Money tight / Small Nation FA´s is neeeded badly reason diverserty to be able to choose dificulty level. to give poor ability managers a chance to compete for the trophys
¨(even if not at the strongest fa´s)
To give peple a Choiche not everyone enjoying starting 5 -6 tiers down in a "english style"
Fa struckture where the top teams are miles away.
and finally to give the midle low rep player a higher value to the game as theire are only a limitied number big star players avariable.

PS the small nation Fa could posible alternative be one with a salary/ mv Cap

im not against your ideas I just think you are focusing at the wrong aspect its the wage strukture that need an overhaul the bigest IMO not the income one
not that it isn´t positive.

[Ov Collyer]

I do agree about the importance of wages - my solution to that would be the open market approach.

Maybe:

a) locks removed (except maybe youth) and have wage auctions for all players
b) end of contract auctions take place when the owner chooses, anytime during the last two weeks of the contract
c) owner doesn't bid in the auction but instead has last matching rights to the highest bid

The idea being clubs with money would push the wages up of other clubs with money, so the margins at the top end are reduced.

The main concern when I raised something like this in the beta forums recently was the potential for people spitefully pushing up the wages of rivals or people who they know want to keep a particular player.

For me though the extra security it would give you (you could keep any player if you could afford it) and the benefits to the economy would outweigh the instances if this happening, which, in any case is not a strategy without risk. Arguably if you're so emotionally attached to a player that you'll be susceptible to paying any wage demand for him then that constitutes a weakness in your approach.

The other concern was in general pushing up wages at the top was seen by many as punishing the top teams.

So adjustments to the wage system is one way to deal with inflation, another way is by reducing income/profits, perhaps by something bold like the dividend payout (to all intents and purposes a tax dressed up as something else).

Happy for all that to be debated here too though, or other ideas such as linking wage to club rep - my question with that is how would that tie in with wage auctions where you bid what you want to pay...?

In terms of the suggestion I made in this thread, I don't claim it's meant to solve all problems with the economy, and I haven't said we're not looking at any other areas of the economy. The suggestion is intended for a better and more interesting risk/reward aspect to the game and a more obvious path upwards for a team if they can see what a given performance would achieve. We've already come along this path to an extent with the new club reputation which I think works well.

But to reiterate; the minimum income under this proposal is not lower as some posters are saying. It's virtually the same. Whereas before it was 5k (general) + 20k (stadium) + 17k (media) + 9k (prize) = 51k, it's now simply 50k stadium.

However by reducing the proportion of stadium income in favour of prize money, we tone down the 'I've invested in my stadium so now, forever, I don't have to perform so well to get the same income' element in favour of a stronger 'I need to keep performing to maintain my level' element. I am of the view that it's a bit too skewed towards stadia being important at the moment, and this suggestion aims to re-address the balance a little.

Finally it would be essential that the full 5.6m or so prize money didn't kick in season 1 when the leagues are sorting themselves out. I'd advocate phasing it in over 5 seasons, so max for season 1 is 1m, season 2 2m etc. So the Gameworld economy grows gradually at the start, rather than resembles a high-speed race, at the end of which, the losers just give up and walk away.

[Alex Harris]

I agree stadium income needs to be slightly lower (150k a day max - I think it should give a little less in general than prize money; currently the max is still higher) or this system may end up giving some bigger teams more than they currently have (a high end combined daily income of £325k a day currently gives 9.7 milion, the system proposed would give a max of £11.6).

Agree with posters that you can't start on 0 for bottom but like the overlapping otherwise - I think it gets things about right. I think if you make it 25k for bottom and change the minimum stadium income to 25k but reduce the max to 150k that would be better.

Re dividends for top clubs - I think the aim should be for a system where things like that don't need to go on. No new 'taxes' please!

I think people are overlooking the effect an agressive 'fan expectation' system could have on clubs. Even big teams could see stadium income slashed by a significant % if they stop progressing/keeping the fans happy.

I also think people overlook that in a RS GW at least, a new manager evades inflation by getting a very valuable starting squad very cheaply. I'd say some managers in Miller are getting a squad pushing £10 mill in worth. The key for me there is to get a league system dynamic enough for them to push on before the effect wears off (an extreme example is the NFA where our top flight included 50% RS squads this season, as it allows 4 promotions a season).

[Ov Collyer]

If you make it 25k for lowest prize money, and reduce stadium income to start at 25k, you still end up with 50k minimum though?

Is it just a psychological thing, I'm wondering

It's a very valid point about starting squads/inflation though Alex - once you confirm your squad, your players (who you paid non-inflation-affected AF for) are now worth whatever their MV is in the GW climate...so you've taken advantage of inflation in an instant, in this respect.

[Alex Harris]

If you make it 25k for lowest prize money, and reduce stadium income to start at 25k, you still end up with 50k minimum though?

Is it just a psychological thing, I'm wondering

It's a very valid point about starting squads/inflation - once you confirm your squad, your players (who you paid non-inflation-affected AF for) are now worth whatever their MV is in the GW climate...so you've taken advantage of inflation in an instant, in this respect.

It is a psychological thing, but without the 'just' ; to give someone 0 in their league is very bruising; I think it's asking for trouble....

I think that stadium income should not exceed prize money income - at 200k it does, but the span needs to be large enough for fan expectation flexing to have an effect - so the base prize money uplift allows base stadium income to be lowered so there's still a decent range involved.

[Ov Collyer]

Yeah, fair enough, maybe I underestimate the importance of the psychological aspect.

Would make sense to me, just another 700k (25k x 28 days) or so added to the baseline for each league, and stadium income dropped to 25k minimum.

Incidentally the top prize money of 5.6m = 200k a day over 28 days, so it was actually identical to the maximum stadium income I had suggested, and in fact in practice would be higher than the stadium income, as reaching the theoretical 200k would be almost impossible.

[Jakswan]

Pretty much agree with MyHeadHurts.

After thinking bout this more the money needs to be drastically cut at the top end, I'd run with scale £5m - £1.4m total combined income otherwise you will end up with teams sitting pretty at the top of a GW. There will be teams that do this anyway but at least they won't be able to get too far ahead.

You could create a really competitive elite tier and relegate half the teams but there is a lot of resistance of this idea.

I don't think it's a good idea to pump an excessive amount of money into the economy then tax or trick it out.

With regard to new wage auctions you could still sell players? So wouldn't managers just swap players to avoid?

[Ov Collyer]

I actually quite like the idea of relegating half the teams in the top division, I'm guessing most resistance would come from....the top teams...

[Chauzu]

That could work if the top division is 16 teams and we have two Championships.

Actually, I'd argue for that being the natural solution in that case.

[Alex Harris]

Half would look a bit silly I think, and leave alot of teams feeling doomed to relegation fairly on in a season, but maybe 1/4.

Re prize/stadium - fair point although I'd still like prie money to be a bit higher than stadium because it's the more volatile income form, and I think a slight bias towards that ain't necessarily a bad thing.

[ManchesterTigers]

Looking at the whole picture here and comparing with RL

The manchester utds of this world make more money from the Champions league then they do from the premier league.

You want to make having high wages a risk? and allow teams to rise and fall?

Solution?
Make UFFA leagues money orinated, strip out a lot of the top money in the prem of each FA, (Im thinking on the miller example here 4.2mil(rather then 5.6mil) down to 3.5 mil) so they are still making a little bit more then most of the championship. And stick the rest of the pot into a "champions league" sort of comp. Thus unless you finish top 2/3 each season then you cant achieve over 4.2mil the next season thus making it a much bigger gamble then it is as present.

And yes I totally agree the physcologiacal effect of winning nothing and winning 200K is a major problem even if in reality you are no better off then if you won nothing

[Twahn]

Firstly, most certainly this is the way to go. Pull income in line with FA performance as closely and immediately as possible. Isn't this what everyone has been clamouring for when saying "give us something to play for?"

I'm 100% with you here, Ov. Exciting times, and I think this is definitely the right direction.

A couple of thoughts...


Promotion / Relegation

You talk about a larger relegation zone at the top, or indeed larger relegation zones in general. I think this is essential, but if we're going to stay with a linear league structure this would also mean a larger promotion zone.

If you're relegating 6 managers from a division then you're also promoting 6 managers from the division below. This only leaves 8 managers to stay on for next season in all but the top division.

I don't know whether this should be considered a bad thing necessarily, but personally I prefer a little more stability in my division, so rivalries can be developed and so that promoting feels a little more like an accomplishment.

Trainspotter made a good point earlier...

After looking at the figures a bit more it seems the volatility is reliant on a shallow FA structure. In the examples in the original post the potential volatility in the shallow "Miller XFA" is far more than in the deeper "Miller CFA". I don't have a clue what the plans are for FAs after the relaunch but my personal opinion is that deeper FAs are more new-user friendly and have more competitive divisions than shallower FAs. These two things therefore don't fit together particularly well.

I think he's right. The shallow structure appears to offer much more of the volatility that will really make this system mean something, but then deep FAs offer a much better environment for new clubs to be matched against opponents of an equal calibre.

An elegant solution to this, in my opinion, is the Pyramid League structure. If we have a structure of 1 Premier League, 2 First Divisions, 4 Second Divisions etc, you get;

a) 6 relegated clubs but only 3 promoted clubs in each of the lower divisions
b) A league structure that is shallow enough in terms of movement between divisions that a new club does not have a mountain to climb, and also provides real consequences for relegated clubs (eg. using your example figures, a change in the decrease of top prize money possible from $5.6mil -> $4.7mil to $5.6mil -> $3.88mil)
c) A league structure that is deep enough in terms of population that a new club is much more likely to be greated in their opening season by a group of 20 managers that range in reputation from 1* to 6* (say) instead of 1* to 12*.


Promotion Bonus

I don't know if this is just an error in your example model, but it seems that the top prize money from a lower division outstrips the lowest prize money of the division above in every instance except... the top division? Not sure why we'd want to offer the clubs at the top, who likely need the most shaking up, a little step up in finances here?

I'll assume that's just an anomaly and move on. In my opinion all the divisions should have higher prize money awarded for the promoted clubs than that received by the clubs relegated from the division above.
Finishing 3rd in Division 1 and promoting is a better result than finishing 18th in the Premiership and falling isn't it?
You'll certainly be better placed in the season that follows your prize money allocation... If the relegated club gets more prize money than you do, and is competative with your team on most levels (you'd have to hope to at least be competative with last season's losers when you promote), shouldn't it be you who is receiving the greater reward for your achievement? Especially if we want a potential slippery slope of management challenges to confront the underperforming relegated team...


Stadiums and Money Sinks

One thing, though not directly related to the proposed changes, that I think particularly provides a divide between rich established clubs and their poorer up and coming counterparts is established clubs reaching a point where the stadium ceases to act as a money sink.

Even at what I think is a very conservative cost of $50k per day for stadium building ($1.4mil for the season, a corporate box and not much else), this cost already makes the gap much larger than it appears in the numbers presented.

My suggestion here would be to increase stadium income but also increase maintenance costs by the same amount. This obviously has no effect on anyone with a stadium that's got 100% attendance every match, but potentially becomes a significant cost to any team that finds themselves with a stadium that's half empty.

This achieves a number of things...

Firstly, it increases the potential impact of underperformance for an established side and makes the stadium far less of a 'build & forget' mechanic.
So at the moment (the actual numbers aren't important, but to illustrate) max stadium income of $200k would be replaced with, say, max stadium income of $300k but increased maintenace costs of $100k to go with it. So now when the club cops a reputation hit for underperformance and attendance drops to only half what they were previously getting, instead of income dropping from $200k to ($200/2)=$100k we'd be looking at income dropping from $200k ($300k-$100 maintenance) to ($300k/2 less $100k maintenance)=$50k, equal to the minimum stadium income.

This is likely to have a significant impact on the club, and creates a dilemna for the manager...
-Does he downsize the stadium to match what he can realistically fill, throwing some time and money spent down the drain (though potentially being compensated somewhat with a small percentage of the build cost reimbursed)?
-Does he work through with the decreased budget, hoping the club will quickly return to it's former glory but knowing that the gamble is actually acting against his chances of doing just this?
-Does he skimp on the maintenance during these lean times and maximise his chances of regaining his reputation by freeing up money for wages, but knowing that the longer he refuses to pay the cleaners the worse state the stadium gets into, the less income it brings in, the less money he might get when he inevitably has to give in and start selling stands?

I think the idea has merit (obviously )...
-It provides a larger slippery slope of doom for highflying underachievers while still allowing for good prize money to other clubs at the same level (ie. the drop from Premier to Championship is a bigger financial blow to the relegated club without having to make the actual prize money gap between the two divisions any larger).
-It provides some interesting managerial risk/reward challenges for the out of form top club.
-It reintroduces a potential money sink to clubs who've already finished their stadium. As it stands presently, we have a great money sink dynamic that affects all except the most established clubs which essentially only gives a much stronger position from which to build upon the wealth they already have.
-It reinvigorates the whole stadium arena (pun), introducing some real decision making into stadium building. It becomes less of just 'build it as big as you can realistically expect to fill in the medium term and do that as soon as you're able to'.


That Dividend Thing, or Taxes

Ov, I reckon you should seriously consider something like you're suggesting (or, if not suggesting, bringing to light).

75% of profits above some value just paid out as dividends to imaginary shareholders.

Rich successful clubs whose income outstretches the costs required to maintain their dominance is the one thing that will render this system ineffective. If a dominant club is allowed to amass large reserves of money in the bank they will potentially become too hard to shake from their top spot and the temporary slips in form (which will be the only possible opening, given they are dominant) will not sufficiently affect them due to their big fat safety net of a wallet.

Don't be worried about the rich clubs not liking it. They have plenty to like already (for example, their dominance and the rewards that go with it ). It's the poor clubs we need to worry about liking it the most. They're the ones who get frustrated and leave.

[trainspotter]

With regard to new wage auctions you could still sell players? So wouldn't managers just swap players to avoid?

They would. Player swapping is one of the biggest problems with the current system as the clique of top teams ensure the best players never go into wage auctions (and as such never end up on wages which reflect their ability) by swapping between themselves before the contracts ever get to the renewal stage. As you rightly say, removing player locks will just mean the swapping becomes more frequent.

[Millie]

Not read through entirely, but surely the top, top prize money should come from winning the UFFA Gold Cup, not from winning the "domestic" federation?

But on the whole I agree with what has been said. PROVIDING it is made more difficult for people to continue to perform highly in the Premier Divisions over a long period of time, unless they are good at the game (whatever that means ). One season of poor form could seriously dent people, which can only be a good thing.

I think also people fail to see that it's very rare for an active n00b to be bottom of the conference. I think providing you show up, you're going to get some prize money.

[Chauzu]

I have a hard time seeing how we could give the Gold Cup Prize Money, since we'd basically need the current structure as well, and on that add Prize Money to the UFFA comps.

That if anything could create situations like we have in the Premiership in particular, with "uncatcheable" top teams.

[Ov Collyer]

Firstly, most certainly this is the way to go. Pull income in line with FA performance as closely and immediately as possible. Isn't this what everyone has been clamouring for when saying "give us something to play for?"

I'm 100% with you here, Ov. Exciting times, and I think this is definitely the right direction.

A couple of thoughts...


Promotion / Relegation

You talk about a larger relegation zone at the top, or indeed larger relegation zones in general. I think this is essential, but if we're going to stay with a linear league structure this would also mean a larger promotion zone.

If you're relegating 6 managers from a division then you're also promoting 6 managers from the division below. This only leaves 8 managers to stay on for next season in all but the top division.

I don't know whether this should be considered a bad thing necessarily, but personally I prefer a little more stability in my division, so rivalries can be developed and so that promoting feels a little more like an accomplishment.

Trainspotter made a good point earlier...



I think he's right. The shallow structure appears to offer much more of the volatility that will really make this system mean something, but then deep FAs offer a much better environment for new clubs to be matched against opponents of an equal calibre.

An elegant solution to this, in my opinion, is the Pyramid League structure. If we have a structure of 1 Premier League, 2 First Divisions, 4 Second Divisions etc, you get;

a) 6 relegated clubs but only 3 promoted clubs in each of the lower divisions
b) A league structure that is shallow enough in terms of movement between divisions that a new club does not have a mountain to climb, and also provides real consequences for relegated clubs (eg. using your example figures, a change in the decrease of top prize money possible from $5.6mil -> $4.7mil to $5.6mil -> $3.88mil)
c) A league structure that is deep enough in terms of population that a new club is much more likely to be greated in their opening season by a group of 20 managers that range in reputation from 1* to 6* (say) instead of 1* to 12*.


Promotion Bonus

I don't know if this is just an error in your example model, but it seems that the top prize money from a lower division outstrips the lowest prize money of the division above in every instance except... the top division? Not sure why we'd want to offer the clubs at the top, who likely need the most shaking up, a little step up in finances here?

I'll assume that's just an anomaly and move on. In my opinion all the divisions should have higher prize money awarded for the promoted clubs than that received by the clubs relegated from the division above.
Finishing 3rd in Division 1 and promoting is a better result than finishing 18th in the Premiership and falling isn't it?
You'll certainly be better placed in the season that follows your prize money allocation... If the relegated club gets more prize money than you do, and is competative with your team on most levels (you'd have to hope to at least be competative with last season's losers when you promote), shouldn't it be you who is receiving the greater reward for your achievement? Especially if we want a potential slippery slope of management challenges to confront the underperforming relegated team...


Stadiums and Money Sinks

One thing, though not directly related to the proposed changes, that I think particularly provides a divide between rich established clubs and their poorer up and coming counterparts is established clubs reaching a point where the stadium ceases to act as a money sink.

Even at what I think is a very conservative cost of $50k per day for stadium building ($1.4mil for the season, a corporate box and not much else), this cost already makes the gap much larger than it appears in the numbers presented.

My suggestion here would be to increase stadium income but also increase maintenance costs by the same amount. This obviously has no effect on anyone with a stadium that's got 100% attendance every match, but potentially becomes a significant cost to any team that finds themselves with a stadium that's half empty.

This achieves a number of things...

Firstly, it increases the potential impact of underperformance for an established side and makes the stadium far less of a 'build & forget' mechanic.
So at the moment (the actual numbers aren't important, but to illustrate) max stadium income of $200k would be replaced with, say, max stadium income of $300k but increased maintenace costs of $100k to go with it. So now when the club cops a reputation hit for underperformance and attendance drops to only half what they were previously getting, instead of income dropping from $200k to ($200/2)=$100k we'd be looking at income dropping from $200k ($300k-$100 maintenance) to ($300k/2 less $100k maintenance)=$50k, equal to the minimum stadium income.

This is likely to have a significant impact on the club, and creates a dilemna for the manager...
-Does he downsize the stadium to match what he can realistically fill, throwing some time and money spent down the drain (though potentially being compensated somewhat with a small percentage of the build cost reimbursed)?
-Does he work through with the decreased budget, hoping the club will quickly return to it's former glory but knowing that the gamble is actually acting against his chances of doing just this?
-Does he skimp on the maintenance during these lean times and maximise his chances of regaining his reputation by freeing up money for wages, but knowing that the longer he refuses to pay the cleaners the worse state the stadium gets into, the less income it brings in, the less money he might get when he inevitably has to give in and start selling stands?

I think the idea has merit (obviously )...
-It provides a larger slippery slope of doom for highflying underachievers while still allowing for good prize money to other clubs at the same level (ie. the drop from Premier to Championship is a bigger financial blow to the relegated club without having to make the actual prize money gap between the two divisions any larger).
-It provides some interesting managerial risk/reward challenges for the out of form top club.
-It reintroduces a potential money sink to clubs who've already finished their stadium. As it stands presently, we have a great money sink dynamic that affects all except the most established clubs which essentially only gives a much stronger position from which to build upon the wealth they already have.
-It reinvigorates the whole stadium arena (pun), introducing some real decision making into stadium building. It becomes less of just 'build it as big as you can realistically expect to fill in the medium term and do that as soon as you're able to'.


That Dividend Thing, or Taxes

Ov, I reckon you should seriously consider something like you're suggesting (or, if not suggesting, bringing to light).



Rich successful clubs whose income outstretches the costs required to maintain their dominance is the one thing that will render this system ineffective. If a dominant club is allowed to amass large reserves of money in the bank they will potentially become too hard to shake from their top spot and the temporary slips in form (which will be the only possible opening, given they are dominant) will not sufficiently affect them due to their big fat safety net of a wallet.

Don't be worried about the rich clubs not liking it. They have plenty to like already (for example, their dominance and the rewards that go with it ). It's the poor clubs we need to worry about liking it the most. They're the ones who get frustrated and leave.

Re: promotion bonus - I'm not seeing this? In all cases the winning amount for the second level division overlaps the bottom 25% or so of the league above.

Re: stadium running costs - I assume you mean the repair costs. Or do you mean we should add running costs as a new outgoing?

[Twahn]

Re: Promotion Bonus... hey yeah, either I'm going bonkers or you've insidiously gone and fixed it without editing your post... never mind that comment then, carry on. All is good in the world.

Re: Stadium Running Costs... Yeah, the repair costs. Or adding a running cost as an outgoing, sure, would make it more transparent for people than a potentially large repair cost might (especially after someone just spends every penny on their new signing).
Either way, and whatever works to the ends I'm suggesting with bringing something into stadium management and continuing the money sink dynamic a little.

[Ov Collyer]

Third possibility is I'm going bonkers, maybe the most likely one!

I like the concept of the stadium costs, I suppose my question would be would the costs we'd need to make it an effective tool be unrealistically high?

In any case, I suppose it doesn't have to be as extreme as you suggest, just something to take the wind out of your sails.

Will raise it with the lads.

[Twahn]

Yeah, only made it so extreme so the idea was clear.

Don't know what the figures should look like in reality. If nothing else, it acts as a handy way to not have the potential loss of income tied only to changes in prize money. Gives greater freedom on setting prize money without this having to directly effect whatever you decide a good 'wind out of your sails' knock is for underachieving clubs. Creates a variable that can operate independently... if you get what I mean...

[bazrah99]

I agree with the ongoing running costs idea. I don't think many like the pain of repairing every day or so and it will also make it black and white for any new managers how much a stadium is going to bring in and take out of the bank balance. I would stress however that any stadium upgrades should clearly state how much it will increase the running costs afrer completion of the works.

On another note Ov, I no longer see the beta forum but regularly contribute to discussions there. Is it possible to gain access back (I no longer beta test but have contributed to the ideas and dev where applicable for many months)?

[Ov Collyer]

Shouldn't be a problem - just email Mr Duffy, and hopefully he can sort you out.

[Dawsey]

Hi Guys

Just been looking through the thread and in principle it looks like a good idea. However maybe we need to link a clubs reputation in terms of money sinks to at least stop successful teams from amassing so much money that nobody can ever catch up.

1) The higher the rep of your club the higher wage demand that players will want from you (They will want a slice of the nice pie you have won in prize money)

2) Supporters will be much more fickle at a top club so any poor performance is punished by supporters staying away thus reducing stadium income.

In short if you keep having success that's fine but your costs will increase to keep you in check. But if youlive the dream like Leeds and then start to falter the masses of teams waiting will catch you up big style!

Final point is that a team starting from scratch will now at least have a half decent player pool to choose from.

Plus will a decent draft pick they can sell that player to fund a better squad and move on up the FA earning more money as they go.