The Economy - Stopping The Top Clubs Breaking Away

[Ov Collyer]

I thought it would make sense to split the part of the debate relating to the economy in general currently going on in this thread...

http://community.sigames.com/showthread.php?t=181251

...into a new thread here, leaving the former to continue the discussion regarding the emphasis that should be placed on prize money as a source of a club's income and how that should be broken down per competition, division, UFFA, etc.

Introduction

Something we've debated a lot in the beta forum in recent weeks and months is the possible need to ensure that the successful clubs at the top of the Gameworld do not have the luxury not only of their success, but also of being able to bring in high profits, thus cementing their success further and making it increasingly hard for clubs to break into this 'inner circle'.

Firstly it would be sensible of me to clarify the kind of progression system/economy that we actually want in FML, as a number of people have asked for this.

- teams should not all be the same! A thriving Gameworld will have clubs at all financial and reputation levels. If every club is the same, then everyone competes for the same players, there is little reason to trade between clubs, and the game becomes boring. A gap between the rich and the poor is only a bad thing if a club cannot close the gap in a reasonable time frame (see below). The satisfaction of a giant-killing can't happen if there are no giants.

- crucially though, it should be possible for someone arriving at any stage of a Gameworld's existence to, given sufficient time, become one of the best teams in the Gameworld. A reasonable timeframe might be for a Gameworld that is 10 seasons old or greater, it could, if you were a good manager, take 10 seasons to work your way up from the bottom (the day you first sign-in) to the top (winning the UFFA CL three times in a row to gain the maximum rep of 20). For a Gameworld that is 5 seasons old, I think it would be reasonable to be able catch up in 5 seasons.

- perhaps more importantly than the above, however, a club should be able to see an immediate opportunity to progress up to the next level as a new club, and the potential for progression should be ever-present. Of course, that doesn't mean they will progress, because obviously not everybody can, but it should be within reach, and never appear impossible through some long-term effect of the economy. Most important of all, it should be fun trying to reach the next level!

- to achieve the above, we need a fluid economy where teams can rise and fall, and interchange with each other at all levels in the Gameworld. That doesn't mean that managers shouldn't be able to stay at their level, just that a drop in performance should have a bigger effect than it does currently in the game. To stay at the top of the Gameworld should require a near faultless performance from the manager and shouldn't be overly reliant on some prior investment/decision that means they are no longer properly tested. i.e. investment in something like your stadium should buy you the chance to afford to pay the top players, but not hand you no-strings-attached financial security.

So, how do we achieve that?

The most obvious thing to aim for is profit margins that are reduced dramatically for teams at the top of the Gameworld.

Essentially, if it cost so much to maintain your success to the extent that you cannot make a profit, then you start to live life on the edge. Your performance at that level starts to require you to continue to perform at that level in order to continue to be able to pay the bills, and if the mechanics are weighted correctly (and this is why I have proposed a greater emphasis on your performance during a single season for your income) then a slip-up will be more costly and potentially open the door to another club taking your place.

Some suggestions made in both the beta forums and in the prize money discussion thread identify the situation where locked players (generally the best ones in the Gameworld) are prevented from receiving a 'market wage' and so you end up with a situation where you have teams sitting pretty, with talented squads on low wages making substantial profits, whereas if those players had the opportunity to be properly 'valued' (in wage terms) on the open market they would ask for much more and thus reduce the profits being made.

Why don't we remove the locks?

This would appear at first-glance to be the purest solution; every player would then be regularly valued on the open market and command what the economy deems him to be worth and you would expect that as a result, profit margins would reduce.

However, there are a number of problems with this approach.

Firstly, the obvious one, locks were there for a very good reason! Namely, to enable a manager to keep a certain number of 'favourite' players indefinitely, players who he/she most likely has a bond with and who are important in keeping the manager interested in playing the game.

Secondly, it wouldn't necessarily help the smaller clubs - clubs with greater spending power might just end up poaching the best players from the smaller clubs. This could be mitigated against perhaps by a fairer method of compensation, but even then, losing a player through poaching is probably one of the least palatable aspects of the game. We've all had it happen, and it's not nice!

Thirdly, anything that encourages end-of-contract poaching is liable to have a negative effect on actual transfers taking place, as managers choose to wait for the end of contract auctions (although again, changing the way teams are compensated in end of contract auctions could help reduce this problem).

Owner has last matching rights

Another possible solution might be a system whereby the owner of a player gets a final option to match the highest bidder in an end of contract auction.

In this system, the owner wouldn't bid in the auction but would be told at the end of it what the highest bid was, and have a period of time in which to decide whether to match the offer.

The idea would be that the player still ends up commanding a market wage but the owner still retains control over keeping his favourite players, and this system would replace the concept of locks (that is, every player would go through this system instead).

There are problems with this approach too though.

Firstly, would it lead to people making spiteful bids for players they have no intention of signing simply because they know the owner wants to keep him desperately and thus force the price up?

Secondly, under the current transfer system teams could simply trade players with each other to get around it completely, so a solution would need to be thought for that.

Wage demands rise with the club

An idea put forward both in the beta forums and in the competition discussion thread would involve a system whereby the wage that a player will extend his contract is scaled-up according to the reputation of both himself and the club he plays for.

In this scenario, the concept of locks would be extended (or removed depending on how you look at it) such that all players can be locked, but at a wage cost.

The idea would be that this "wage multiplier" rises or falls gradually the longer the player is at a particular club.

It would be weighted such that particularly for the top players at top clubs there would come a point whereby it was sensible on the part of the owner to allow the player to go to a wage auction instead since the wage the player was asking for to extend his contract was either unaffordable to the owner or the owner simply doesn't think it is worth it.

myheadhurts suggested the following in the earlier discussion:

1 star player reputation - wage multiplier of 1.0 for all clubs regardless of player
2 star player reputation - wage multiplier of 1.0 for a level 1 club up to a maximum of 1.1 for a level 20 club
3 star player reputation - wage multiplier of 1.0 for a level 1 club up to a maximum of 1.25 for a level 20 club
4 star player reputation - wage multiplier of 1.0 for a level 1 club up to a maximum of 2.0 for a level 20 club
4.5 star player reputation - wage multiplier of 1.0 for a level 1 club up to a maximum of 3.0 for a level 20 club
5 star player reputation - wage multiplier of 1.0 for a level 1 club up to a maximum of 5.0 for a level 20 club

A possible timeframe for a wage multiplier to fully align itself with a club might be 5 seasons.

The advantage with this approach is the lower the club the more security they have in keeping their players on their base demand.

The disadvantage with this approach goes back once again to the desire for a manager to be able to retain his favourite player; under this system it would be possible, at cost, but for the top players at top clubs, likely to be unrealistic.

Arguably, however, nobody should be able to monopolise the Gameworld's top players in this manner and the greater interests of the GW as a whole should be considered more important!

This system might sound complicated - but to you, as a manager, you would simply be told (as you already are) how much it will cost to auto extend a player's contract and choose whether you accept this or would rather risk a wage auction. The difference would be that the wage he asks for to extend his contract would rise or fall not only depending on the player's reputation (i.e. as he gets better, worse etc) but also as you, as a club, rise or fall in the Gameworld.

A more dynamic locking system

Celvin has suggested that the system could stay as it is but with a more flexible locking system available.

He writes:

"Imagine if a player's reputation(or AQ) could be broken into points, and you were only able to protect players for X amount of accumulated points.

For instance:

A Household Name: 5 points
World Famous: 4 points
High Profile: 3 points
Reckognized and below: 2 points each

Total points available: 15

For instance: You could protect: 1 Household Name 1 World Famous and 2 High Profile players at the same time."

Clearly this would help, but would you till end up with a number of players (albeit a smaller number of top players), bypassing the market, and thus just deferring the same issue of wage demands not keeping up with income?

There would also be the problem of top clubs transferring their 1 household name amongst each other at his low wage which would have to be addressed for this to work.

Conclusions

Those are just four possibilities, and all focus on the impact of wage demands on the economy.

Other possibilities include things like making stadium income more sensitive to performance via the introduction of fans expectations (high % of corporate fans? had a bad season? then let's drop your income more than we would normally for your drop in reputation). Although this alone would unlikely be enough to solve the problem, it would still be a nice addition.

Or a very crude mechanism to wipe out a club's profit each season via the payment of 'dividends' to imaginary shareholders.

I'm sure there are more.

[Alex Harris]

Quick q because I sadly don't have time to do this justice with a full response before going out; would it be linear?

I just think a system where the margins of teams are consistent through the game is better than one where we have to give teams money then take it away from the top teams because we've given them too much.

[heimi]

possibility 3 sounds good. it's good method to ensure that every club is paying wages on his own level.
with the performance based income, the lower income for the low level teams, low standard wages are a good thing for new/midlevel teams to climb the ladders.
the top clubs will soon or later come to a point where they can't pay all of their top players and have to sell / trade them. that will revitalize the transfermarket!
but the "rising" wages for top players in top teams shouldn't kick in directly, it should softly rise over 3 seasons...so at the end of this period the manager has to sell or swap some of his players.

[Ov Collyer]

Alex:

Assuming you mean the 'Wage Demands Rise With Club' then yeah it would be linear.

The only non-linear aspect would be the choice of maximum modifier in relation to the player's reputation. But I think that should be roughly in-line with the player reputation distribution.

[Alex Harris]

Cool, it sounds an interesting system; not decided either way yet re the player rep modifier, but it is definately an idea worthy of discussion.

[trainspotter]

I think there are people far more qualified than me to comment on the complex financial model of FML than me so I'll leave them to it. Just with reference to this comment though...

- crucially though, it should be possible for someone arriving at any stage of a Gameworld's existence to, given sufficient time, become one of the best teams in the Gameworld. A reasonable timeframe might be for a Gameworld that is 10 seasons old or greater, it could, if you were a good manager, take 10 seasons to work your way up from the bottom to the top. For a Gameworld that is 5 seasons old, I think it would be reasonable to be able catch up in 5 seasons.

I don't quite see a system where those numbers could make sense. Up to a point the teams who were there from the start will be moving forwards and so anybody who joins later will be chasing teams who are themselves still progressing. After that point is reached and teams hit a ceiling then the newer teams will begin to close the gap and, if the system works, will be able to challenge those at the top. I suppose my comment is how long should it take for that ceiling to be reached as I don't see a system being workable whereby it takes five seasons for a new manager to catch up in a five season old GW, 10 seasons in a 10 season old GW, 100 seasons in a 100 season old GW etc.

[Ov Collyer]

That wasn't what I was saying though - in a 100 season old GW, I'm saying that 10 seasons is still a reasonable time to go from bottom to top. And when I say bottom I mean the day you first sign-in, and when I say top, I mean winning the UFFA CL say three times in a row to achieve the maximum rep of 20. You could get near the top sooner than that I'm sure.

Only in younger GWs would it be quicker than normal - for example after a single season, no clubs will have the maximum reputation, so the gap will be smaller.

However, I'm sure a really astute manager could do it much quicker than 10 seasons in an old GW.

[trainspotter]

That wasn't what I was saying though - in a 100 season old GW, I'm saying that 10 seasons is still a reasonable time to go from bottom to top.

Only in younger GWs would it be quicker - for example after a single season, no clubs will have the maximum reputation, so the gap will be smaller.

I don't believe that it would be proportionally shorter in younger GWs though because the top teams who were there from the start will still be progressing until they hit that ceiling point where they can do little more than sustain their position rather than improve it further. If I joined after five seasons of a GW I could start to improve my team but the teams who were there from the start would also be improving theirs, I could start to improve my stadium but the teams who were there from the start would also be improving theirs. It would only be once the older teams hit that point where they had reached their full potential that I could slowly close that gap until my team also reached its full potential (assuming I was a brilliant manager - more likely I would stall around Division Two ).

If you're saying 10 seasons is the maximum cut-off you'd be looking at that any system has to make sure that a team who enters on day one and establishes themselves as the #1 team (somebody will be!) hits that ceiling in a considerably shorter period than 10 seasons. If after 10 seasons that #1 team is still progressing then it's totally unrealistic to say they could be caught in anything like 10 seasons by a new manager!

[Ov Collyer]

Well ok, maybe not proportionally shorter. But take a GW after one season where nobody has much above the minimum reputation - you must agree that you have a theoretical shorter route to the top, even with the existing top teams (after 1 season) progressing?

After 10 seasons (or so), what I'm saying is that the system should ensure that the top team doesn't progress - they can only sustain their position, or be replaced by someone else. i.e. they cannot become richer and richer.

[trainspotter]

Well ok, maybe not proportionally shorter. But take a GW after one season where nobody has much above the minimum reputation - you must agree that you have a theoretical shorter route to the top, even with the existing top teams (after 1 season) progressing?

Undoubtedly I would have a better chance but if the manager of the team who started on Day 1 and myself had exactly the same ability then I wouldn't be able to overtake that other manager until we both hit the ceiling point. For every step of progress I made he would also be making a step of progress, only he'd be a season ahead. As I said that would only really change once his team got to the point where sustaining his success was his goal as no more progress could be made due to the restrictions in place by the game.

After 10 seasons (or so), what I'm saying is that the system should ensure that the top team doesn't progress - they can only sustain their position, or be replaced by someone else. i.e. they cannot become richer and richer.

I would say that a team who established themselves as one of very top elite teams should stop progressing considerably sooner than 10 seasons for the "10 seasons to catch-up" system to be possible. That's obviously open to debate though.

Anyway, I'll stop hijacking the topic as I'm sure the point was "How to establish a ceiling point" rather than "How long should it take to hit the ceiling point"

[Ov Collyer]

Well, they're both important

Give it a few days and we'll be splitting the thread again.....

[Celvin]

As I'm against removing the auto-locks completely, I'll repost this from the other thread:

I think my second example would be the easiest to implement.

Another take on the five auto-locks:

- Option 1: Limit the option to auto-lock a player's contract if his reputation/AQ Fee/ reaches a certain level.
In real life, when a player has a certain status he'll gain a lot more influence. This includes deciding where he want to play. Look at Zlatan and C.Ronaldo for examples on this.
What if we made it so that you couldn't auto-lock a player with a Household-Rep, or made you only able to auto-lock a Household name or World Famous player for X amount of seasons?

- Option 2: Limit the "threshold" of the combined reputation/AQ Fee you're able to auto-protect at the same time.
Imagine if a player's reputation(or AQ) could be broken into points, and you were only able to protect players for X amount of accumulated points.

For instance:

A Household Name: 5 points
World Famous: 4 points
High Profile: 3 points
Reckognized and below: 2 points each

Total points available: 15

For instance: You could protect: 1 Household Name 1 World Famous and 2 High Profile players at the same time.

I haven't given much thought into how much points you should have in total or how much each reputation level should cost, but I had to give it a number for the example's sake.

[Tanel]

Ever since the day one, it's been a huge work on how to down the top clubs. But that'd be a step too far. I'm a top club and why do I have to pay a price because I'm good at this game. If a player is good enough in this game, it'll take him less than 10 seasons to get to the top of GW anyway if he joins later.

Top teams stay there, they need to make profit, because being a top team means usually having bit older players that have less of a sale-on value. So to keep their level up they need to make profit to sign younger players once the older one's retire.

Removing locks is stupid too, people paid of effort in developing some of their players who they love a lot and it'd become almost impossible for them to keep their lads. It kind of kills the youth developing point aswell, doesn't it.

Whatever you do, remember, you can't make an awful manager good at this game.

[Verbalwhale1]

As long as its that player always goes to the free market option im all for the general idea of it all.

That option is open to manipulation, griefers and would kill the actual transfer market dead. If that system is implemented I simply wont be playing tbh.

[Chinchilla Gorilla]

Some interesting ideas, although i do think the focus should be on allowing new clubs/managers to develop as opposed to 'hindering' (for want of a better word) top clubs.

''The most obvious thing to aim for is profit margins that are reduced dramatically for teams at the top of the Gameworld.'' I do agree with that, I am all up for giving new users a 'foot up', its just should a team who signed up at the same time yet has done far worse than a 'good' manager be given an advantage because they dont really know how to play?

However, my main concern is that this could lead to a time later in a gws life when many teams reach their 'limit' and thus stagnation occurs, which may lead to lower activity rates of the top teams and user numbers trailing off as teams cannot see how they can improve/progress.

[trower]

I read a lot of the threads that were posted in the previous thread and think that most of what is suggested is going to make things better. The parts I particularly think that will improve the game are:

1 - players wage expectations change depending on the team that they sign for. This mirrors real life and will make it harder for the top teams to keep their books balanced.

2 - stadiums can become a liability as well as an investment. This will remove the temptation to just build and build and build and then watch the money roll in. I think that crowd numbers need to react quickly to league results (projected position) and vary accordingly, and therefore vary the income accordingly. As an addition to that though I think it should be possible to get big crowds in lower divisions so that if a big club falls down the leagues then as soon as their results pick up they are able to get back to the maximum income.

3 - Player trades between clubs - this to me seems to be the one area that has yet to be addressed fully. It seems to me that the reason this irks so many people is the perception that big clubs keep the top players amongst themselves on low wages. It think that there are two possible solutions. a/ - it is fixed if the idea to make wage demands link to player and club reputation is accepted or b/ - there is some kind of other multiplier added to wage demand made in this situation.

Thanks in advance for all the work you will be doing in this area...

[dr p wigwam]

i'm confused...

do we want a long term planning game? or do we want a quick 'up and down' type game?

quick 'up and down' would mean we can reach the top in a few seasons, and then plummet back to where we came from, to be replaced by someone else to enjoy their 5 minutes in the sun.

long term planning means, well obviously someone will have to be top at the beginning, but over time the ones who sat back building up their youths and stadium will obviously move up. these people will be much harder to shift as they have done seasons of groundwork, and the only way to 'catch-up' is to do the same.

so, bottom line is, if you want to be able to knock the top teams down in just a few seasons it has to be possible to achieve what they did in just a few seasons, which means no forward planning and just a short sharp shock of success.

i dont see how you can have a game oriented toward long term planning, and also expect teams to reach the pinnacle in just a few seasons.

*by a few seasons i mean 5-6*

[Petedappa]

I agree with tanol. i dont think we should remove auto-locks, i think the system works fine as it is and i dont think it should be changed.

I dont understand why managers who have invested lots of time & money & have managed to get to the top should be penalised, each gw i have been in, there have been big teams at the top, fair play to the manager for getting there, it just makes it feel all the more better when i take points of them in the league or knock them out of the cup . I mean take Man Utd for instance, they went out of the F.A Cup to leeds recently (i know real life is different but its the same idea) and im sure that victory was made all the more sweeter for leeds with it 1 being a big club and 2. being a rival.

If a manager is good enough to be at the top (or near the top) of a GW then they will get there regardless of weather they are in a GW from the start or join numerous seasons down the line.

[darrkespur]

I think Celvin's idea for ordering the locks according to how big a reputation each player has is a great one - it would allow top teams to keep less players but still allow them to keep they absolute favourites, and ironically it would also protect youth and beginner clubs as they could protect more of their low-rep players for a little bit longer, until they got a bit better. It's a simple system but it's one that would be very progressive. It would especially solve the problem a lot of youth manager have when a generation of their kids turns 21 - the really high rep players would still be poached but the promising but not yet well-known players could be kept around more securely for a couple more seasons, allowing them to reach a realistic valuation before being sold.

Possibly a good way of doing the points would be 1 point up to 2.5 or 3 star, then 1 point for each additional half-star.

so 1-2.5 = 1 lock point
3* = 2 lock points
3.5* = 3 lock points
4* = 4 lock points
4.5* = 5 lock points
5* = 6 lock points

or for elegance

1-3* = 1 point
3.5* = 2 points
4* = 3 points
4.5* = 4 points
5* = 5 points

and the maximum points could be either 5 or 10 or 15, depending on how harsh you wanted to be to the top top clubs.

[Petedappa]

"1 - players wage expectations change depending on the team that they sign for. This mirrors real life and will make it harder for the top teams to keep their books balanced."

Although i must say that i think this is a decent idea

[Chauzu]

I think we need to move away from the fact that this is "penalising". It's about making the game more fun for everyone; at the moment it's very easy to maintain a top side, and where's the fun in that? Making the game challenging for top clubs should make the game more fun for them too I'd imagine.

If you're good enough, you'll be able to sustain it in any case.

As for the alternatives, I do like #3, but don't really have time to go into detail atm.

[icewolf]

As someone who is quite useless at this game (never been above rank 150 on either account) I would rather the big clubs dont get penalised as I think that defeats the object of long term planning. An idea though. Rather than penalising the top clubs why dont we give the bottom clubs a hand up via the way of a stadium increase per season. Could be set randomly between 1k - 5k per season or depends on your ranking? This will ensure a more steady income for the lil ones and bring them a step closer to making a bigger and better team.

Just a though. Any comments?

[Ov Collyer]

Allocating locks by points is elegant, but I don't think it changes much.

Any system of locking players, whether its done via points or a simple limit as it is currently, is prone to the same problem with locking players as currently.

That is, players will be on wages lower than the market would actually be able to pay them, leading to the same problem; by definition managers will try their hardest to lock the best players on as low wage as possible.

Changing the number of locks, or using a points system might slow down the problem, but I believe it will still occur.

[PompeyAl]

Biggest problem I would have with option 3 is, I have spent 7-8 seasons bringing through a youth team whilst also maintaining a senior team and also building up a stadium. I suffered at the start, with a poor senior team, now I have between 5 and 7 HHN from my youth team in my senior team. I am rarely ranked higher than 20. I feel it would be unfair to increase wages on these players, after I have spent so long getting them to there current level.

[Ov Collyer]

I think we need to move away from the fact that this is "penalising". It's about making the game more fun for everyone; at the moment it's very easy to maintain a top side, and where's the fun in that? Making the game challenging for top clubs should make the game more fun for them too I'd imagine.

If you're good enough, you'll be able to sustain it in any case.

As for the alternatives, I do like #3, but don't really have time to go into detail atm.

I completely agree.

I'm not sure who it was who wrote in the other thread (maybe yourself Dennis!) but success itself, winning trophies etc, and feeling good should be the reward for getting to the top.

Making your club rich *aswell* as winning the top trophies just makes you less catchable.

[Noobleton]

Celvin's idea really appeals to me, it allows the small teams to protect their players more readily.

[Ov Collyer]

Biggest problem I would have with option 3 is, I have spent 7-8 seasons bringing through a youth team whilst also maintaining a senior team and also building up a stadium. I suffered at the start, with a poor senior team, now I have between 5 and 7 HHN from my youth team in my senior team. I am rarely ranked higher than 20. I feel it would be unfair to increase wages on these players, after I have spent so long getting them to there current level.

Why would it be unfair if you were a top club and had the income to pay them?

[Tanel]

I must say, the most decent idea in this thread has been the one with the autolock points (5 for household etc) (but only if that doesn't touch youth players).

I think rather than focusing efforts on making it a, let's be honest, pain in the ass, for the big teams, you should try to focus how to directly make it easier for the lower teams. I've always said the later a team joins the GW, the more money, better initial stadium he should get (with some bonus skill points maybe too) - the further the GW, the more extra they should get.

[dr p wigwam]

I think we need to move away from the fact that this is "penalising". It's about making the game more fun for everyone; at the moment it's very easy to maintain a top side, and where's the fun in that? Making the game challenging for top clubs should make the game more fun for them too I'd imagine.

dont you think that by removing the guaranteed income of stadiums and putting more emphasis on prize money, that this going to stop them having such an easy ride.

many of the top teams in clough only got there in the first place because they either:

a- had an awesome initial squad, which they either sold after the first week or grew to be superstars on protected youth contracts [fixed]
b- made tonnes of cash in DYM [fixed]
c- built a great stadium early on and watched the cash roll in [fixed?]

i'm sure there are other reasons i cant think of, but what i'm driving at is, how do we even know if this 'artificial nerfing' is even necessary?

when was the last GW opened? how many of these 'leveling' features had been introduced then?

essentially, are we searching for a fix for something which we cannot even be sure is still broken?

*edit*

in terms of domination, in the 14 seasons we have run the GC in Clough we have had 20 different teams in the final out of a maximum of 28, and 12 different winners. one team has competed on 5 different occassions, winning twice...

[Chauzu]

dont you think that by removing the guaranteed income of stadiums and putting more emphasis on prize money, that this going to stop them having such an easy ride.

many of the top teams in clough only got there in the first place because they either:

a- had an awesome initial squad, which they either sold after the first week or grew to be superstars on protected youth contracts [fixed]
b- made tonnes of cash in DYM [fixed]
c- built a great stadium early on and watched the cash roll in [fixed?]

i'm sure there are other reasons i cant think of, but what i'm driving at is, how do we even know if this 'artificial nerfing' is even necessary?

when was the last GW opened? how many of these 'leveling' features had been introduced then?

essentially, are we searching for a fix for something which we cannot even be sure is still broken?

I think the current changes merely postpone the problem. Get a good enough stadium and if you reach the top, you stay there inevetabily if you are good enough.

As you say this might not be the case though, but in my eyes we should look to nail it down so it's to 100% not a problem. Because if it becomes a problem, there will be no easy way to solve it really without majorly upsetting people.

[trainspotter]

I think rather than focusing efforts on making it a, let's be honest, pain in the ass, for the big teams, you should try to focus how to directly make it easier for the lower teams. I've always said the later a team joins the GW, the more money, better initial stadium he should get (with some bonus skill points maybe too) - the further the GW, the more extra they should get.

That would just lead to hyper-inflation!

[Ron Shipp]

Hi all
I don't have much time to put a fully thought through response, however first impressions are that some of the obvious problems such as DYM and lotto votes have already been addressed and with returning stars draft everyone has the chance to get top players so I don't see it being as much of a problem after the reset as it is now. I have always felt that income should be more closely tied to crowds as much as media money and advertising, if you have a big stadium and low atmosphere and you are losing a lot you will draw smaller crowds and thus earn less money, this is how it is in the real world. Currently these thing don't seem to make much of a difference to revenue, I am not sure what atmosphere actually does at all.

Cheers
Myron

[PompeyAl]

Why would it be unfair if you had the income to pay them?

Because how can it be fair that I pay my players more than someone else, purely because I have played ther game longer, invested heavier in certain areas and also run the risk of having a bad season, income goes down and all of a sudden I am losing money. Due to stadium investment, I am currently making a profit of 15k a day, I have a 34 player sqaud, average age of 20, and wages of 233k.

Whilst I understand the need to try to make the game competetive, lets not take it to far. I personally believe the current system we have works well. If anything were to change, reduce the ages that you can lock youth players in for once they reach senior age.

It's the nature of football, the big clubs always get bigger, the clubs that try to compete end up falling by the wayside (as a Pompey fan, I know this more than most)

Why not just get rid of rankings..........................

[dr p wigwam]

I think the current changes merely postpone the problem. Get a good enough stadium and if you reach the top, you stay there inevetabily if you are good enough.

As you say this might not be the case though, but in my eyes we should look to nail it down so it's to 100% not a problem. Because if it becomes a problem, there will be no easy way to solve it really without majorly upsetting people.

i understand that, but we are looking for a fix to a problem that may be already fixed. surely its impossible to find a solution to something if you dont even know what the problem is?

[Celvin]

Allocating locks by points is elegant, but I don't think it changes much.

Any system of locking players, whether its done via points or a simple limit as it is currently, is prone to the same problem with locking players as currently.

That is, players will be on wages lower than the market would actually be able to pay them, leading to the same problem; by definition managers will try their hardest to lock the best players on as low wage as possible.

Changing the number of locks, or using a points system might slow down the problem, but I believe it will still occur.

But they won't be able to protect 5 Household players anymore. As reputation within your squad will increase you'd have to make sacrifaces if you want to keep your two best players for instance.

It'll also make it easier for lower-tiered teams to build their squad while they don't have any mega-stars at their disposal.

[fredondo]

I don't think we should ever settle with the fact that some teams reach the top and stay there. In fact, I would initially make it next to impossible to end up as the top ranked team in a GW several seasons in a row. This can later be tuned so that a truly skillful manager can actually achieve this season by season. The game is about progression and getting the sense of achievement, how fun is it really to win every competition just because you did a good job climbing to the top 5 seasons ago...

[Chauzu]

i understand that, but we are looking for a fix to a problem that may be already fixed. surely its impossible to find a solution to something if you dont even know what the problem is?

Problem is big teams not only getting bigger than others, but richer as well. If they operated on a tight budget, maybe rarely having more than a few millions max saved up, they'd be much more prone to bad performances - which in the current system does cause a rep drop, but also suggested have been the prize money hit, as well as maybe a drop in stadium due to corps and such leaving.

So, force big teams to operate on such a budget all ingoings go out, and the same for everyone who tries and catch these clubs. This should be due to wages mainly, but also fees for players, taxes and cash-sinks like Stadium, YA and such.

I'm personally a fan of the 75% being payed as dividends thing, as this would make it really hard to save up. But I understand it's not popular.

[Wildride]

I see problems with the concept in each of the proposed scenarios. I think Celvin is the fairest method, combined with the "Owner has last matching rights" that would work, you still have locks but you may only lock 3 if you got all superstars and have 7 for less known talent.

Removing locks altogether will see more poaching done, a rise in what the club gets back may compensate here. The idea of wage demand rising with clubs rep is ludicrous in my opinion. A player who wants 30k now would then want 150k for a 5* team. We would have the yo-yo effect on everyone and personally I believe this alone would drive people from the game as peaople would intentionally lose games to keep thier rep as low as possible. Success would become a bad thing.

What needs to go are the team of the week. That unbalances things, a bonus 100k every week especially in the first season is a big advantage. Your doing away with unnoficial prize money which is for me the single most unbalancing feature in FML today. I personally dont play unnofficial games for cash because I know how unbalancing it is.

Thing is your assuming that top managers need to be nerfed, they dont. Im not a top manager, I joined McCoist in season 6 so Im now 6 seasons in and have been in the top 100 for the last few.. the thing is it takes time to catch the top teams but it is do-able. Other teams have joined later and are better than mine. Maybe we are the exception, apart from those who profited from early exploits which have been closed or are being closed, the top managers earned thier place through shrewd management, they should not be punished by it.

It should take time for a team to catch the top teams, AFC Liverpool should take at least a decade to match Liverpool FC as an example.

[Ov Collyer]

I've added Celvin's suggestion to the original post.

[trower]

It's with interest that I read the above posts about maybe we are fixing things that are not broken or are not as broken as we think.

From my own expeiriences I can say that if you take time to learn the game, learn the requisite skills and have patience then in around 6 months you can get to the top.

I joined when the game launched and fooled around for the first 6 months trying out different things but then embarked on a 'long-term' strategy. At that point I had 5* JP and so I decided to collect a squad of 5* potential youths. These youths eventually began to turn into decent players that others wanted and so I kept some and traded some (making money on the way). Six seasons on and I had managed to get a squad that included 11 World Famous players.

Personally I think that 6 months is fair amount of time before which you can't expect to expect to be able to compete with the best teams in the gameworld, although I admit that you need to have gained all the skills (particularly JP5) before then.

In conclusion to this thread - keep the locks on players as they are, maybe change it so that if players are traded between two clubs privately then the wage demanded is the true wage demand not the wage demand less your negotiation percentage.

[evan_aus]

Or a very crude mechanism to wipe out a club's profit each season via the payment of 'dividends' to imaginary shareholders.


I'd hate to see this one come in, I have regualry had season where I built up a profit for stadium extensions are a major player purchase

[morten andersen]

I like the system where the higher the players rep and clubs rep is
the more he should be paid.
However Would it ever come into efect if it was to take as I understand it the same club
having the player for 5 seasons before kicking in for real.
as I see it the player would just have been swapped off (a swap can be a cash transfer where you buy another player in his stead for simmilare value and at similare ability lvl)
Instead acomplishing nothing.
except potiantally anoying the guys being forced to swap theire players.

If the system should work it would have to be something like the players curent rep
+ the average of his club rep (current and former) for a set period of days
so have the player been in a 20 rep club for 26 days a lvl 14 club a 17days and at a lvl 3 club for 30 days then the system need to take the periods been in those clubs into consideration when deciding his new wages this would ofcourse be a rather complex formulare but it the only way to acomplish the wished for afect as otherwise the big clubs would just again swap around it. but if the rep of former clubs counts to when deciding wages after how long he been at the given club a swap would have no afect.

hope this makes atleast abit of sense as I find it rather hard to explain what I mean otherwise feel free to aks or if you think you can explæain it better to do so (and maybe ask if that was what iMeant)
if I makes absolutly no sense just forget about wich would ofcourse be a shame as the system won´t really solve what it was supose to in the way its shown curently IMO

[trainspotter]

How would Celvin's suggestion work if a team had locked, as an example, five "High Profile" players (3 points for each lock = 15 points) but during the following season one or more of those players became "World Famous" such that the total locks cost >15 points? Wouldn't such a system necessitate all the locks needing to be re-set each season? Not only that but they would need to be re-set close to the end of the season as player's reputations could go up (or down) at any point. This would be fine for the "hardcore" player but for the "casual" player, or even someone who just couldn't be online for whatever reason that particular week, it could see their team being decimated beyond their control.

[dr p wigwam]

It's with interest that I read the above posts about maybe we are fixing things that are not broken or are not as broken as we think.

From my own expeiriences I can say that if you take time to learn the game, learn the requisite skills and have patience then in around 6 months you can get to the top.

I joined when the game launched and fooled around for the first 6 months trying out different things but then embarked on a 'long-term' strategy. At that point I had 5* JP and so I decided to collect a squad of 5* potential youths. These youths eventually began to turn into decent players that others wanted and so I kept some and traded some (making money on the way). Six seasons on and I had managed to get a squad that included 11 World Famous players.

Personally I think that 6 months is fair amount of time before which you can't expect to expect to be able to compete with the best teams in the gameworld, although I admit that you need to have gained all the skills (particularly JP5) before then.

In conclusion to this thread - keep the locks on players as they are, maybe change it so that if players are traded between two clubs privately then the wage demanded is the true wage demand not the wage demand less your negotiation percentage.

if we introduce the shift from stadium income to prize money, then this gets my +1

[Ov Collyer]

Morten:

I understand exactly what you mean. The way you describe is the way it would work.

Say a player has been at club A (rep 1) for 1 season, club B (rep 10) for 3 seasons and club C (rep 20) for 1 season.

His wage 'modifier' would be partly influenced by his time at each.

In the above example, something like 20% of club A, 60% club B and 20% club C.

As time passed, it would use more and more of the reputation of his current club, and less and less of who he played for 5 seasons ago.

[Tanel]

Okay, what I see in this is not a discussion, but actually it seems like a feedback to something that will definitely happen. There's always gonna be less people againist bringing down big guns than there is for it.

Oh well, keep on trying. In the end of the day, those teams number one, will still be number one, and will beat those teams you are trying to help 3:0. If a manager doesn't understand the game, you can give him 10 millions extra even, but he still wouldn't get to anywhere with it. The gap will still prevail - what u'll come up with then? A tax for your ranking position? Why don't you try to leave them alone and fix the problem from the other end.

Those players reached to the top with early exploits would be there with or without them. And what was said up above, inbetween the lines, that top teams profited from stadium upgrade by building big stadiums quick, is just ridicilous because it was first thrown in exactly so big teams would have to spend their money on somewhere (it hardly had an effect on income of the lower sides). They won double the money competitions because they were best at tactics, best at knowing which player is good, which is bad.

[Ov Collyer]

No it's a fair point Tanel, and nothing has been decided yet.

Clearly a number of people think the economy is largely fine as it is with existing changes that have been made.

[Chauzu]

I'd like to add to Proposal 3 that if a player is on the Free Agent list, his wage demand should be his real one, instead of the calculated one - so we don't have any 250k guys on the free agent list (yeah I know, the extreme example ) but rather 50k or whatever it is.

And Tanel, this isn't about we don't want top teams, we just want the possibility of them not always being top teams, as it is now.

It's all good saying new teams can become a top team, but the proof we have today states almost all top teams were in the GW from day 1.

[Ov Collyer]

I'd like to add to Proposal 3 that if a player is on the Free Agent list, his wage demand should be his real one, instead of the calculated one - so we don't have any 250k guys on the free agent list (yeah I know, the extreme example ) but rather 50k or whatever it is.

And Tanel, this isn't about we don't want top teams, we just want the possibility of them not always being top teams, as it is now.

It's all good saying new teams can become a top team, but the proof we have today states almost all top teams were in the GW from day 1.

Yes, once he's a free agent he would be back to his regular wage demand being the starting point in an auction.

[Wildride]

I still dont see it being a good solution (refering to the wage modifier) - I wouldnt buy from top teams because their players would have higher wages, Ill poach from the weak teams though to get cheap deals.

Thing is are you trying to make this a game where people stay and plan for the long term or come and play a couple of seasons have thier success then notice the games turned against them by inflating wages etc so the leave the game?

[trainspotter]

Morten:

I understand exactly what you mean. The way you describe is the way it would work.

Say a player has been at club A (rep 1) for 1 season, club B (rep 10) for 3 seasons and club C (rep 20) for 1 season.

His wage 'modifier' would be partly influenced by his time at each.

In the above example, something like 20% of club A, 60% club B and 20% club C.

As time passed, it would use more and more of the reputation of his current club, and less and less of who he played for 5 seasons ago.

Personally I think that system is flawed and actually makes things harder for newer/weaker teams. Using a slightly re-hashed comment that I made in the other thread...

Using the figures in the original post a 20* team has a 4* player whose base wage demand is 10k but they're on 20k having spent five seasons at the level 20 team.

For any newer/lower rep teams to progress they will obviously have to sign some players from older/higher rep teams. If this player was signed by a 1* team in a private transfer the player would retain a wage demand closer to 20k than 10k. This is a fairly extreme example but in general terms 99% of players in the GW would be on wages higher than their base demand as the vast majority of clubs are going to have a higher rep than 1*. Certainly the players who could help a 1* team progress are going to be at higher rep clubs.

Unless the wages revert to the rep of the buying team (i.e. the base 10k demand in the example above) then this system would surely punish lower level teams as the wages GW wide will be higher and the newer/lower rep teams won't have the income to match up.

[dr p wigwam]

Those players reached to the top with early exploits would be there with or without them. And what was said up above, inbetween the lines, that top teams profited from stadium upgrade by building big stadiums quick, is just ridicilous because it was first thrown in exactly so big teams would have to spend their money on somewhere (it hardly had an effect on income of the lower sides). They won double the money competitions because they were best at tactics, best at knowing which player is good, which is bad.

that's an opinion which will only be proven or disproven in the restared GW's

[morten andersen]

Morten:

I understand exactly what you mean. The way you describe is the way it would work.

Say a player has been at club A (rep 1) for 1 season, club B (rep 10) for 3 seasons and club C (rep 20) for 1 season.

His wage 'modifier' would be partly influenced by his time at each.

In the above example, something like 20% of club A, 60% club B and 20% club C.

As time passed, it would use more and more of the reputation of his current club, and less and less of who he played for 5 seasons ago.

great then just not what I got for reading the exampel at all
didn´t say so at all but aslong as you know of the potieantal verry big loophole in that idea
as its stated in top I would be happy to see it go true (unless someone come up with something better ) just lets gets rid of those locks either way as they will allwyas end up with alot of great players on way to low wages beeing swaped around in the top
Then rather a system like the one sugest where you got matching rights or something simmilare locks are both exploits and limmiting the market to regulate itself
ofcourse matching rights have other big probkems before it will work such as
potiental buyer need to pay sign on while retainer not and the posibility of people trying to push a price up on players the don´t really want.
maybe theire is a third and way better solution to that one

[Wendigo7]

Hey guys Mark again !

Hi Ov, at the turn of the reset, i'm going to switch to youth academies (that route of thought), and try develop specific countries as a result. I totally agree that to make it harder, for the top teams you need to limit the income involved, and any mistakes must be duely punished, as it is in real life for any manager. To keep the long term interest and the youth people more interested, perhaps a trail of thought would be to make the youth academies very in depth for example. I don't really know what they are atm, but for example, you could have, areas of the youth academy to be built up like infrastructure, so a physio room, technique coaching, specific style of play, all at a cost, but the standard of player produced in general as a result, relating to the level of the academy, would be much better.

The better the academy and the facilities bought obviously the harder it should be to maintain, and that would keep the longer term youth players and internationalists happy, as the talent is better, chances are players will sell for more, but they will need to maintain their academies which would go with the current trend of trying to keep things even.

Possibly an all YOUTH only FA to help fund these, where by if you don't perform well in the youth FA, the effects like senior level are similar in that, the standard of academies you'll be able to maintain might drop as a result, obviously with restrictions, as we want to make sure Seniors are the main reason to play the game in all effect.

Just an idea though lads!!!

Any thoughts???
Mark FAO

[StevieP2009]

I know the issues with removing locks completely but is there any way that they could be removed if a user goes inactive for a certain amount of time, or on transfer to cifa in the gameworld as this would bring players from inactive clubs back into the gameworld and make more top players available for the clubs vying to make it to the top

[Does this even work]

What concerns me are 4 things -

1/ Although I am not a newb anymore - I still think that your economy will be screwed if scouting is to be used as I hear it is, without saying too much there will be NOTHING preventing GROUPS of managers scouting together to shorten the time taken to find a new player - again your hurting the newbs who do not have friends in the GW yet - a lot of those options especially the last one I really agree with....especially when you think that if you want to keep a special player..thats fine...just drop down the ladder - after all in real life this happens all the time - so Jermaine Beckford may be kept but without selling him you wont progress.

2/ What really concerns me a very large amount is the BETA testing with real players _ I know this has to be done..but come on...again your descriminating against the NEWBS - giving practice to the experienced and making it harder to compete for anyone new.

3/ A reset is a reset and although this post is about economy - the point remains that skills are as tangable as CASH as they MAKE money especially if those skills can be used to find potential talent - that is an unfair advantage..and although you will allwo managers to catch up more qucikly..I feel that although you may now be increasing the interest ONLY for the NEWB as managers that can not STAY at the top who deserve to be there will become bored with the game - I am concerned that you are making too drmatic a change to the game in order to KEEP SKILLS for the managers that have complained.

4/ Why does JP have to exist..why do skills have to exist - they represent money if I can judge a players quality better I can make more money....if I can train a player better I can make more money by winning things.........they should be on PAR everyone should immediately have the same skills the same scouting the same stadium - the skill should be in the tactics and the wheeling and dealings in the market place - not in how long you have played the game.

[trower]

I know it is a side issue but I like the idea in #55. It is most annoying to go searching for players only to find that half of them are owned by people who haven't logged in for two months. Introduce a status something like 'the player feels abandonded by his manager' and then allow these players to 'override' the lock and be bought by another club.

[Wildride]

How would Celvin's suggestion work if a team had locked, as an example, five "High Profile" players (3 points for each lock = 15 points) but during the following season one or more of those players became "World Famous" such that the total locks cost >15 points? Wouldn't such a system necessitate all the locks needing to be re-set each season? Not only that but they would need to be re-set close to the end of the season as player's reputations could go up (or down) at any point. This would be fine for the "hardcore" player but for the "casual" player, or even someone who just couldn't be online for whatever reason that particular week, it could see their team being decimated beyond their control.

Quite simple as things are now you can only have 5 locks the lock is still in place until they go through an auction so all that would happen is a 15 points system where the value of the total locks in your team cannot exceed 15. Using your example you lock 5 4* players, this would use all 15 points, next season they all become 4.5* The bank would veto any auto-extend (like it does with youth locks when you cant afford them) once you hit the 15 point mark, say you left it on those 5 it would allow the first 3 to be auto-extended but would veto the other two forcing them into a wage auction.

[Does this even work]

I would also like to add the obvious - if you are saying that the GW's are largely made up of existing old players..rather than new ones..then dont you think that any suggestions you ask for in here will be made weighted towards those type of players.

IE if I fill a room with 80% people who like red and 20% people who like blue...and I ask shoudl we paint the room red or blue...what do you think the main choice will be?

Perhaps emailing the newbs that left and starting to get more detailed feedback from them might be more in order rather than asking those that have a motive to ensure that it is easier to stay at the top?

All in all very chuffed with the ideas thus far and have to take my hat off to a company prepared to make a change - nice work

[morten andersen]

4/ Why does JP have to exist..why do skills have to exist - they represent money if I can judge a players quality better I can make more money....if I can train a player better I can make more money by winning things.........they should be on PAR everyone should immediately have the same skills the same scouting the same stadium - the skill should be in the tactics and the wheeling and dealings in the market place - not in how long you have played the game.[/QUOTE]

Absolutly agree with the skill thing but that have unfortunatly been decided allready
so not much to do theire the last I want to be playing is a game where time is the bigest factor towards wether you have a chance or not .
Skills are defently pulling in the wrong direction but all we can do now is to wait and see what
the new skill system exactly is.
(still fear that the oldest players got theire way by yelling loud and got a huge advantage from the start simply because the use to play what while most defently end up being a verry difrent version of the game what don´t have much to do about a reset IMO )

Right now it still stand as my only really potientale reason for quting but don´t think they whole skill discusion really is aspropiate in here just wanted to say that
I couldn´t agree more

[Does this even work]

wouldnt the above idea also lead to players only signing players who have been injured or inactive so that thier rep would rise after the lock?

[Ov Collyer]

@Does This Even Work (yes it does):

You are quite right, which is why we don't consider the forums to give us anything like a general consensus.

However, at the same time, it's clear that there are plenty of people who have the game's best interest at heart and who are capable of putting themselves in the shoes of either newcomers, people not so good at the game, etc and give us some valid feedback to our suggestions as to how to improve it for everyone.

[Twahn]

I get the feeling from people's posts regarding the "More Dynamic Locking" system and how this still allows people to lock some players, that they are missing a vital component of the "Wage Demands Rise" system.

In this scenario, the concept of locks would be extended (or removed depending on how you look at it) such that all players can be locked, but at a wage cost

Every single player whose wages you're willing to pay in your team is essentially 'locked'. This, therefore, already creates the same effect that the "More Dynamic Locking" system does (and I would argue does it far more elegantly) as lower reputation teams won't have issues with inflated wages and will by extension have far more freedom to retain their players without them going to wage auctions.

What it also offers, that the "Dynamic" system doesn't, is a mechanic that encourages wages paid to be in line with market wages and a safeguard against good players being retained at clubs on unrealistically low wages. It also provides a counter against the increased income of high reputation clubs, which will act to prevent them amassing profits season on season and increasing in strength at a rate that lower clubs cannot hope to catch up with.

So we have two systems that both achieve the same ends in terms of offering more security for low reputation teams when looking at locking their players away, but one of the systems also reaches further than just this and addresses at least another two major issues.
As trainspotter highlights above, the contrived nature of the "Dynamic" system will encounter issues with changing player reputations. It's a simple, static rule being applied to a complex, fluid game. The kind of rule that's better suited to a board game, which is a simple, static medium.

Because the "Dynamic" system is simple, it's easier to understand. If it's easier to understand it follows, of course, that it's easier to support as well.
I implore people to make the effort to understand the complexities of the "Wage" system though. Computers open the door for great complexity (by which I mean intricacy rather than complication) in game design, and I for one feel the "Wage" system makes far better use of this and provides a more robust solution to a range of issues.

[Does this even work]

Pesonally I think SI got scared becasue people were leaving and so gave in - its a shame but I understand - the problem I see is that I really dont think that is why people left..I think it was more becasue there was nothing to play for and I think the complaints + the timing of people leaving forced their hand....IMHO the only true way to make it even is to "make it even" silly as that sounds its the only way it can work - making it uneven only for a short time is an improvement and may commit some to the game for 6 months - but what I fear is that after they all reach the top and realise oh well too hard to stay there....they will quit...meaning we always need new players coming in droves. Only way is to get rid of JP - scouting advantage - stadium advantage ...simply give an allotted amount of tokens for all things other than transfer cash..... if we all ha dthe same amounts would it not then be EVEN

[Chinchilla Gorilla]

Allocating locks by points is elegant, but I don't think it changes much.

Any system of locking players, whether its done via points or a simple limit as it is currently, is prone to the same problem with locking players as currently.

That is, players will be on wages lower than the market would actually be able to pay them, leading to the same problem; by definition managers will try their hardest to lock the best players on as low wage as possible.

Changing the number of locks, or using a points system might slow down the problem, but I believe it will still occur.

If you lock a player their wage should go up. would make you think more if your 40k striker was going to go up say 10% of his wage each auto renew. Player locks should definately only be allowed for 1 season too.

[Does this even work]

Chinchilla - and how will a NEWB (the people we wanbt to attract even consider or be prepared for this)??

[Rb]

Pesonally I think SI got scared becasue people were leaving and so gave in - its a shame but I understand - the problem I see is that I really dont think that is why people left..I think it was more becasue there was nothing to play for and I think the complaints + the timing of people leaving forced their hand....IMHO the only true way to make it even is to "make it even" silly as that sounds its the only way it can work - making it uneven only for a short time is an improvement and may commit some to the game for 6 months - but what I fear is that after they all reach the top and realise oh well too hard to stay there....they will quit...meaning we always need new players coming in droves. Only way is to get rid of JP - scouting advantage - stadium advantage ...simply give an allotted amount of tokens for all things other than transfer cash..... if we all ha dthe same amounts would it not then be EVEN

Could we get back on topic please. This thread is to discuss specifically the economy and the ideas Ov posted at the start. Not the game on a whole.

Thanks

[Jakswan]

Personally I think that system is flawed and actually makes things harder for newer/weaker teams. Using a slightly re-hashed comment that I made in the other thread...

Using the figures in the original post a 20* team has a 4* player whose base wage demand is 10k but they're on 20k having spent five seasons at the level 20 team.

For any newer/lower rep teams to progress they will obviously have to sign some players from older/higher rep teams. If this player was signed by a 1* team in a private transfer the player would retain a wage demand closer to 20k than 10k. This is a fairly extreme example but in general terms 99% of players in the GW would be on wages higher than their base demand as the vast majority of clubs are going to have a higher rep than 1*. Certainly the players who could help a 1* team progress are going to be at higher rep clubs.

Unless the wages revert to the rep of the buying team (i.e. the base 10k demand in the example above) then this system would surely punish lower level teams as the wages GW wide will be higher and the newer/lower rep teams won't have the income to match up.

I was with you on that 100% but I did overlook an important point in that system they propose unlimited locks. So it does make it harder the higher you go, you can stay top but the higher your rep the more your forced to deal with spiralling wage demands and just have to deal with issues that lower ranked teams don't have to deal with.

Unlimited locks higher wage demands for top ranked teams and one season contracts. I think it would be a good call for the manager to have to apply the lock manually every season to stop players rotting away in inactive squads.

I think that it's a runner, although with returning starts, the draft, the new economic system, the new rep system, and the new wage system trying to guess how that GW will work I'm struggling to get my head around I just don't know until it's tried.

I suppose a bigger issue is how do actually try it? You'd have to apply it to one of the beta worlds and harshly apply the new wage demand rules and put every player on a contract that expires soon. Then see how that plays out mindful that it going on a GW that is currently cash rich so might take a few seasons to work thru.

Even if you start a new GW it's going to take 2/3 seasons to settle down.

[Chinchilla Gorilla]

Chinchilla - and how will a NEWB (the people we wanbt to attract even consider or be prepared for this)??

Well a percentage of a wage means that realistically no new team will have a high enough wage player to have to really worry about a raise in that players wage.
i.e a new team may have a 15k wage player, ending up on 16.5k if they lock them.
Whilst an established team may have their player on 40k (or in some cases 60k), going up to 44k (or 66k) if they lock them, this would definately make teams considerkeeping the same striker etc for 8 seasons as they wouldnt be on base wages.

Also in my opinion new teams do not keep their early signings for the duration, they sell them in order to buy better players.

[myheadhurts]

But they won't be able to protect 5 Household players anymore. As reputation within your squad will increase you'd have to make sacrifaces if you want to keep your two best players for instance.

It'll also make it easier for lower-tiered teams to build their squad while they don't have any mega-stars at their disposal.

(my computer crashed after I wrote this the first time, so I suspect I will be less clear the second time around, sorry about that)

As I said in the other thread, any solution has to fix the issues caused by private transfers, and the ability to maintain invisible locks.


Take a gameworld with teams at the top (with great players on their minimum wage demand) and lower teams (without them).

Pick any lock system you like: 5 locks, 2 locks, rep based, points based, whatever. The top teams obviously lock as many players as they can. They put the rest on the market, and sell the rest at MV. They buy equivalent replacements at MV. Perhaps they enter into swap deals. Note that their team has not reduced in quality, and all players are still on minimum wage. If, in addition, top players are getting paid less than the open market would decide, the top teams will be making a profit. So, on top of replacing their players, they can improve their squad. This secures their hold on the top prize money, and in this way they can continue to make profits of 100k/day.

Now let's look at a lower team. At the end of a season, the can lock their best players, who are 3.5* and 4* (though it is of dubious value: 3.5* and 4* players will be plentiful in the upcoming wage auctions, so realistically all we are allowing is sentimental locks). They are making a profit, though with lower income and little prize money, it's lower than that of a top team. Let's say, optimisticly, they are making a profit of 100k/day, or £3m a season. They can then afford one decent player, say 4.5* rep, a the end of the season. At this rate, it will take around a year to build up a squad to match the top team.

Two things then happen: one, the lower teams profit falls for next season due to increased wage burdon. It's unlikely to result in much of a prize money increase though, because everybody else is improving too. So it will take longer than a year to buy a full squad this way. Second, everybody is making a profit, so inflation occurs, reducing the value of cash and increasing the value of top players (who are owned by the top teams). So it takes longer still.

This is why so many managers avoid the "piece by piece" growth modal, and instead go for the youth route (which is really code for "I'm going to have 20 players on £200/day, so I can build a huge stack of cash and then spend it in one go when my youngsters mature").


This is all an issue because the gap between top teams and lower teams is asset based. If a top team has a squad worth £30m, and a new team has a squad worth £2m, then the lower team has to make a profit of £28m over and above the profit of the top team in order to catch up. If the top team is making a profit that exceeds the profit of the lower team, the lower team can never, ever catch up.

And that's why you can't have top players sitting around on low wages, which is the root issue, and that actually that has nothing to do with locks. Even having zero locks would fix nothing.

[Twahn]

Personally I think that system is flawed and actually makes things harder for newer/weaker teams. Using a slightly re-hashed comment that I made in the other thread...

Using the figures in the original post a 20* team has a 4* player whose base wage demand is 10k but they're on 20k having spent five seasons at the level 20 team.

For any newer/lower rep teams to progress they will obviously have to sign some players from older/higher rep teams. If this player was signed by a 1* team in a private transfer the player would retain a wage demand closer to 20k than 10k. This is a fairly extreme example but in general terms 99% of players in the GW would be on wages higher than their base demand as the vast majority of clubs are going to have a higher rep than 1*. Certainly the players who could help a 1* team progress are going to be at higher rep clubs.

Unless the wages revert to the rep of the buying team (i.e. the base 10k demand in the example above) then this system would surely punish lower level teams as the wages GW wide will be higher and the newer/lower rep teams won't have the income to match up.

The idea is that these players become available through wage auctions when their high rep clubs can no longer afford their wage demands. So the new club won't have to pay the same wage that the old club did, they will pay whatever is required to win the wage auction. If this is above the wage demand of the player, and the new club has a low reputation the player will actually accept a reduced wage in subsequent seasons as when they are resigned every season, they are paid in line with their updated demand which will be lower on account of the low reputation club they now play for.

[Does this even work]

This may lead to inactive game worlds...

IE I dont play for 2 or 3 seasons...save my cash so i am cashed up and can then make a move for the top knowing that with all that cash i can sustain more world class players...once the cash is gone I hibernate for 3 more seasons- sure it may rotate the top but wont be very active?

[Chinchilla Gorilla]

This may lead to inactive game worlds...

IE I dont play for 2 or 3 seasons...save my cash so i am cashed up and can then make a move for the top knowing that with all that cash i can sustain more world class players...once the cash is gone I hibernate for 3 more seasons- sure it may rotate the top but wont be very active?

hmm.. good point actually

[Alesle]

Just throwing out some thoughts. Why not make the lock works more or less like the "Franchise tag" does in NFL?

An "exclusive" franchise player must be offered a one-year contract for an amount no less than the average of the top five salaries at the player's position as of a date in April of the current year in which the tag will apply, or 120 percent of the player's previous year's salary, whichever is greater.

For a level 20 team it could use the average salary of the 5 highest paid players in that position (might modify it to that position and the players CA/AF/Rep "level", whatever seems best)
For a level 19 team it could use the average salary of the 10 highest paid players in that position
For a level 18 team it could use the average salary of the 15 highest paid players in that position, and so on

I've no idea what numbers would work, but my point is the very top teams would have to pay what the market means the top players in that positions (or players of that ability) are worth. Lesser teams would also have to pay what the market thinks the player is worth, but be less affected by the very top earning players.

[Ov Collyer]

It's an interesting thought Alexander, something similar was put forward in the beta forums not long ago.

Essentially it's another mechanism for trying to determine some kind of market wage - my only nagging concern, which may be unfounded, is if it is using the averages of other players, those other players (especially at the top) are also likely to be part of this system, so is it really representative of the market?

Maybe that doesn't matter, and the same benefits of the "Wage Demand Rises With Rep" approach would arise, namely that at some point it would be better to auction the player, thus getting market value and this would happen to enough players to mean that the mechanism worked.

If that makes sense...

Only other thing I'd add is that could it not apply to all players, not just the selected 5 or so? I think it'd be nice to have a more simple system where we didn't actually have to ask the user to differentiate between players that are locked, and those that aren't, which is perhaps a slightly intimidating element of the game for a newcomer to get their head round.

[Twahn]

This may lead to inactive game worlds...

IE I dont play for 2 or 3 seasons...save my cash so i am cashed up and can then make a move for the top knowing that with all that cash i can sustain more world class players...once the cash is gone I hibernate for 3 more seasons- sure it may rotate the top but wont be very active?

How are you going to get cashed up exactly? Your income is all based on either immediate or long term reputation. You need to perform to generate income in the new system. I don't think going AFK for 3 seasons is the best route to performance myself...

The best way to make money is actually to get the best league results you can with as little as you can manage it with. So it should actually lead to very active and competitive gameworlds rather than inactive ones.

[myheadhurts]

Using the figures in the original post a 20* team has a 4* player whose base wage demand is 10k but they're on 20k having spent five seasons at the level 20 team.

For any newer/lower rep teams to progress they will obviously have to sign some players from older/higher rep teams. If this player was signed by a 1* team in a private transfer the player would retain a wage demand closer to 20k than 10k. This is a fairly extreme example but in general terms 99% of players in the GW would be on wages higher than their base demand as the vast majority of clubs are going to have a higher rep than 1*. Certainly the players who could help a 1* team progress are going to be at higher rep clubs.

Unless the wages revert to the rep of the buying team (i.e. the base 10k demand in the example above) then this system would surely punish lower level teams as the wages GW wide will be higher and the newer/lower rep teams won't have the income to match up.

OK, let's run with that. Let's say a £10k base player now has a wage demand of £20k.

From the point of view of the lower team looking to buy him:
- They could wait until the wage auctions and pick up a similar player at their market wage; if h

From the point of view of the team looking to sell
- The higher his wage demand gets, the less likely it is that he could be sold at MV. So the choice is to sell him now at below MV, or to wait until the wage auction and risk losing him at AV.

So yes, wage demands might rise. But top teams can't sit there and demand "market value or no sale" - to do so risks losing the player for peanuts. So any increase in wage demand would be offset by a fall in MV.




Perhaps this is a good time to restate the alternate way of presenting it, which might be clearer to some managers. Imagine if every player signed contracts at exactly their wage demand, no exceptions, but instead wanted a variable signing on fee. Thus, let's say a player has a base wage demand of £40k/day (£1,120k/season), who under the new system would demand a wage of £60k/day (£1,680k/season). Another way of doing exactly the same thing would be for the player to always accept £40k/day, but demand a £560k signing on fee (or £1,120k for a 2 season contract). It's the same cost to the club over the course of his contract. Hence if his AV is £1m and his MV is £4m, his club has a choice of paying £500k/£1m to him to auto renew, selling him for £4m, or putting him in a wage auction and risk losing him for £1m.

Note wage auctions in this modal become "signing on fee auctions", where the player will always get his wage demand but clubs bid to offer him the highest signing on fee.

As I say, this is in effect exactly the same thing, though it presents the costs in a more comparable fashion.

[myheadhurts]

This may lead to inactive game worlds...

IE I dont play for 2 or 3 seasons...save my cash so i am cashed up and can then make a move for the top knowing that with all that cash i can sustain more world class players...once the cash is gone I hibernate for 3 more seasons- sure it may rotate the top but wont be very active?

Ov's idea of cash depending more on prize money would work against this idea - you'd be making almost no profit during your hibernation.

[Alesle]

Only other thing I'd add is that could it not apply to all players, not just the selected 5 or so? I think it'd be nice to have a more simple system where we didn't actually have to ask the user to differentiate between players that are locked, and those that aren't, which is perhaps a slightly intimidating element of the game for a newcomer to get their head round.

I see no reason why not, espescially if it uses whichever is greater of "the average salary", 120% above current salary or 120% above wage demand. Which would mean it would often be benficial just putting the player in a wage auction, making sure the market dictates the appropriate cost for the player.

[trainspotter]

The idea is that these players become available through wage auctions when their high rep clubs can no longer afford their wage demands. So the new club won't have to pay the same wage that the old club did, they will pay whatever is required to win the wage auction. If this is above the wage demand of the player, and the new club has a low reputation the player will actually accept a reduced wage in subsequent seasons as when they are resigned every season, they are paid in line with their updated demand which will be lower on account of the low reputation club they now play for.

In the instance of the player going into a wage auction then the chances of the 1* team getting the player is very low as they would understandably bid around the £10k mark while the higher rep teams would understandably bid around the adjusted wage demand for their rep (i.e. £20k for a 20* team). The 1* team would realistically need to bid considerably higher than the base wage demand which negates the adjusted wages.

I appreciate that over the course of many seasons the player's wage demand will adjust so that it eventually correlates to the rep of the team but this gradual adjustment helps higher rep teams while also hindering lower rep teams, exactly the opposite of what the system is supposed to do e.g:

- 4* player at 1* rep team on 10k, transferred to 20* team on ~12k wage. The 20* team has this player on a wage which is below their demand for 4-5 seasons.
- 4* player at 20* rep team on 20k, transferred to 1* team on ~18k wage. The 1* has this player on a wage which is higher than their demand for 4-5 seasons.

I may be missing something but this system doesn't seem to achieve much of what it's supposed to!

[Ov Collyer]

There is more to it than that though - for example, think how much more valuable players would appear (MV I mean) if they are on a low wage at a low club.

Take your starting squad even, for a latecomer to the GW - he's got everyone on base wage demand. Under the new system, the starting squads will be decent too (comparable to the start of a GW).

[Methos]

Allocating locks by points is elegant, but I don't think it changes much.

Any system of locking players, whether its done via points or a simple limit as it is currently, is prone to the same problem with locking players as currently.

That is, players will be on wages lower than the market would actually be able to pay them, leading to the same problem; by definition managers will try their hardest to lock the best players on as low wage as possible.

Changing the number of locks, or using a points system might slow down the problem, but I believe it will still occur.

To play devil's advocate here, isn't the decision making of which player has the best wage/ability ratio part of being good or bad (manager) at this (game)?

What I am trying to say is that we need to allow for gameplay and strategy.

Would another system display a decision making equivelant to allow for good/bad moves?

[Dragokenshin]

Kill the locks is a huge stupid idea, even worst if you will not increase the length of contracts.
The 3th option, could make some sense if the 4*, 4,5* and 5* multiply wage would lower and we could make contracts for 4 seasons which will increase the wage ( If 3 seasons plus 10% Wage increase; if 4 seasons plus 20% wage increase), otherwise leave it!!!!

[Twahn]

@trainspotter

Okay...

Why is the 1 star team transferring his 4* player at all? He has him on good wages and he's probably his best player? These are private transfers obviously, because the previous wages are being retained... presumably he understands the value he is offering in this player and being paid a handsome transfer fee for his low wage 4* player then?

And then why is the 1 star team willing to pay 20 star team wages for this new guy? Presumably because he's practically being given away by his former team?

The transfer fee is the missing piece from your example. A 4* player whose wage is half that of a similar 4* player obviously has a greater value in the market and this would be reflected in how much the buyer is willing to pay in transfer fees.

[Tactational]

Although I am not in beta at all (so I cannot apply this to any new changes) I am doing a GW tour where I am using a second account (which is now free, thanks guys) to join experienced worlds with a new club and stay there for a season before moving on.

Whilst I am there for that season I set myself challenges like beating all top5 teams or making top75 ranking before I'm gone.

Back to the point, the thing that makes those challenges difficult is NOT that the "top" teams are too good, its that there are too many disadvantages with starting in an experienced world. Remember, any team can be beaten with no exceptions, it can be quite easy too if you know what you are doing

In my opinion you are going to wrong way by just making it harder and harder for the top teams in the hope that a new team will take advantage of that in ten seasons when, to be honest, a much fairer approach for all is to give new teams a better chance.

Obviously they have the drafts in returning stars worlds, but there are many disadvantages that could be removed, toned down or possibly reversed so that instead of bringing all the good teams down, it gives the new teams an opportunity to be pushed up as a way of evening things out.

Examples of these disadvantages are...

- The overdraft limit.
It could be toned down for new teams as each season passes, so for each season that passes the initial 7 days could go down by a day and eventually begone, so that effectively each season a gameworld has been alive counts as one day toward the overdraft limit. Also the amount it rises daily could go up in proportion to the gameworlds age. OR, a simpler idea, just scrap overdraft limit for a gameworld thats been in longer than two seasons

- The reputation cap.
I don't know how it works, but when you start, you don't just progress slowly in rep, but it is capped at certain points. Definitely remove this or even better reverse it so that if new teams deserve higher rep they get it quicker.

- Skill points.
There is no easy way around this but an idea I had is to take the average amount of the GWs total skill-points at the end of the season (lets say 5mill skill points for arguments sake) and then give every new team a set fraction of those points (lets say 50% for arguments sake). This way every new team that would join would get 2.5mill skill points to start with, or if they have some already, they would get extra points to equal 2.5mill total. This way they are still behind but are not very, very, very far behind.

- Cash balance.
Depending on the inflation levels in gameworlds, some gameworlds are naturally rich. I propose a similar idea as above but with a smaller fraction of the gameworld average and that the amount should be added to the 500k.


All of these things would give a new team the opportunity to progress quicker than normal for the first season to make up for the time they have missed.

Isn't it a much better idea to give a new manager a helping hand opposed to constantly pushing the big teams over?

(p.s - Can you guys please add the word gameworld to the forums as its a bit annoying it being put down as a mis-spelling :P)

[myheadhurts]

I see no reason why not, espescially if it uses whichever is greater of "the average salary", 120% above curernt salary or 120% above wage demand. Which would mean it would often be benficial just putting the player in a wage auction, making sure the market dictates the appropriate cost for the player.

I think the issue is that in the NFL, 96%+ of players sign contracts through free agency (there is a maximum of one franchise player per team, and it is a rarely used tool). Thus using the average of the top players to determine the open market value is well grounded in reality. If you are a wide receiver and get franchise tagged, the chances are that you are the only franchised WR in the entire NFL and hence it's a good measure. Not to mention the fact that NFL teams are spending real money, and hence don't tend to offer crazy contracts (well, not THAT crazy....). In FML, basically every player will get franchised, so there's no reliable comparison, and the occasional manager will offer excessive wages.

To use current gameworlds as an example: if you based the auto-renew wage on the average player, their wage would be far too low. If you based it on the top x players, the wage would be far too high.


The other issue is that this system isn't self-regulating. If cash in the gameworld is drying up, and you want to increase the amount of cash to stimulate transfer activity, this method won't react to that. It will keep on renewing wages at a high level (because that's what existing players already have). If cash is increasing, the system will be slow to increase wages to match, and inflation will increase. If the system does catch up, it will end up with excessively high wages and drag the wages back down again - you'll end up with a heavily oscillating system.


Also, what would you do to a player who has been transferred privately?

[myheadhurts]

- 4* player at 1* rep team on 10k, transferred to 20* team on ~12k wage. The 20* team has this player on a wage which is below their demand for 4-5 seasons.
- 4* player at 20* rep team on 20k, transferred to 1* team on ~18k wage. The 1* has this player on a wage which is higher than their demand for 4-5 seasons.

I may be missing something but this system doesn't seem to achieve much of what it's supposed to!

You are assuming that the players were transferred at the same price. Why would they be? Why would teams pay the same amount for two player of the same ability, when one has twice the wage?

[Rafael Popovic]

My idea is to see FML more like it is in the real life...

I have to say that I like the idea that the owner has the last matching rights during a wage auction but in addiction i think that if the teams has to pay the MV and not only the AF the ridiculous wages that we see around could be at least reduced a bit!!!

I have a nation based team so for me it's much more difficult find and buy the right players so I would like to lock all my players, but to make the things as fairer as possible... I was thinking in a system like this (valid for seniors and youths):

- All the players are automatically locked
No more wage auctions, the players contract is re-negotiated every season so the wage demands that raise with the players and teams reputations put the manager in the condition to sell some players if he can't afford it.

- the players that doesn't want to renew
this is the case when the players are unhappy, maybe cos he wants a new challenge (after few seasons in the same team) or just cos he is not playing so often. In this case I'm thinking about 2 possibles scenarios :
1)is possible to approach the players like a wage auction (let me say 24 hours) but with the difference that the highest transfer fee offered to the owner win (nobody can see the others offers placed by the others managers). In this way at least the owner can take a price closer the MV than the AF, and this could be fair enough and less frustrating for who now loose players for loosers. A positive aspect could be that the wages are under control in all the GW!!! finally we will never see again silly wages
2)is possible to apply an instant buy (automatically activated when the player doesn't want to renew) equal to MV

I think these changes could keep the market alive and keep the wages under control!!!

What do u think?

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

[davecam]

I read a lot of the threads that were posted in the previous thread and think that most of what is suggested is going to make things better. The parts I particularly think that will improve the game are:

1 - players wage expectations change depending on the team that they sign for. This mirrors real life and will make it harder for the top teams to keep their books balanced.

2 - stadiums can become a liability as well as an investment. This will remove the temptation to just build and build and build and then watch the money roll in. I think that crowd numbers need to react quickly to league results (projected position) and vary accordingly, and therefore vary the income accordingly. As an addition to that though I think it should be possible to get big crowds in lower divisions so that if a big club falls down the leagues then as soon as their results pick up they are able to get back to the maximum income.

3 - Player trades between clubs - this to me seems to be the one area that has yet to be addressed fully. It seems to me that the reason this irks so many people is the perception that big clubs keep the top players amongst themselves on low wages. It think that there are two possible solutions. a/ - it is fixed if the idea to make wage demands link to player and club reputation is accepted or b/ - there is some kind of other multiplier added to wage demand made in this situation.

Thanks in advance for all the work you will be doing in this area...

This post pretty much mirrors my thoughts on this subject.

Can I say also that I think the objectives stated in the opening post and the timescales required for a VERY GOOD manager to become GW no.1 are spot on.

Just one other thing, if players' wage demands work properly (top, top players demand big, big wage) wouldn't the whole problem be resolved? WC player demands WC wage - your choices are: lock him (at the big, big wage); let him go to wage auction and take your chances; sell or swap him, in which case he gets his big, big wage at his new club. Perhaps we need to look at the contract negotiation skill if that is what is keeping wages artificially low?

[joetheref]

My idea is to see FML more like it is in the real life...

I have to say that I like the idea that the owner has the last matching rights during a wage auction but in addiction i think that if the teams has to pay the MV and not only the AF the ridiculous wages that we see around could be at least reduced a bit!!!

I have a nation based team so for me it's much more difficult find and buy the right players so I would like to lock all my players, but to make the things as fairer as possible... I was thinking in a system like this (valid for seniors and youths):

- All the players are automatically locked
No more wage auctions, the players contract is re-negotiated every season so the wage demands that raise with the players and teams reputations put the manager in the condition to sell some players if he can't afford it.

- the players that doesn't want to renew
this is the case when the players are unhappy, maybe cos he wants a new challenge (after few seasons in the same team) or just cos he is not playing so often. In this case I'm thinking to 2 possibles scenarios :
1)is possible to approach the players like a wage auction (let me say 24 hours) but with the difference that the highest transfer fee offered to the owner win (nobody can see the others offers placed by the others managers). In this way at least the owner can take a price closer the MV than the AF, and this could be fair enough and less frustrating for who now loose players for loosers. A positive aspect could be that the wages are under control in all the GW!!! finally we will never see again silly wages
2is possible to apply an instant buy (automatically activated when the player doesn't want to renew) equal to MV

I think these changes could keep the market alive and keep the wages under control!!!

What do u think?

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

Maybe we could have this but when a players contract is coming up for renewal there could be a 'declare interest' button or something similar so if a big club wants him he can go into a wage auction with the interested clubs and his current club

[trainspotter]

RE: Ov, Twahn and MyHeadHurts. Good point, I was ignoring the difference a lower wage would make on the player's value in an open market.

Of the suggestions in the original post this is probably the one I would most like to see running on a beta server. My experience has always been that the most persistent managers will eventually get their way with transfers (i.e. selling their players for more than what 90% of managers would be willing to pay, and buying players for less than what 90% of managers would be willing to sell) but on paper at least it does seem like a system which could work well with the proviso of unlimited locks.

[dave javu]

is there really a problem with the current system? or are we again pandering to impatient people who want it all there own way?
the problem is here that the real reason some managers are at the top and stay at the top is mainly down to there own knowledge of the game,they have found solid tactics to work with and buy the players to best suit there tactics,some of the top managers have played FM for years and have a greater understanding,if anything you need managerial training camps for people who like the idea of being a manager but in truth dont understand the tactics designer or which is the best route to take reguards building up your stadium to enable them to increase funds.my biggest problem with what you are trying to do here is this,the top clubs should not be penalised for being good,this concept leads to handicapping,with handicaping you will never really know if you are beating the best minds in the managerial business or simply being handed a win out of sympathy.
i see the urge from SI to try and keep people interested in the game for obvious reasons,but again you insist on listening to feedback from poeple who come into the game with massive ego's thinking they wil win everything and when they dont you get negative feedback to the game,the challenge of any footy sim is to take your team to the top and compete with the best,now this is a marathon and not a sprint,i have wittnessed several managers that have joined mccoist late and withiin 5 mnths are up into the top 20,so it is doable within the currect system,it just takes time and plenty of intelligence of the game to make it happen.the fact is i see it would be better if you separated the total newbies into starter GW'S maybe amature, semi pro and pro,but be strict with it,have a system inplace that at least checks IP adresses and home addreses to make sure no manager is joining GW that has spent 10mnths in another and drops a level to just to have an easy No1 rank,also from the amature GW's the top 5 or 10 concistantly ranked managers shoudl be promoted to higher level more competitive GW,the GW'S in effect could be set up like leagues,ie the top gw's would represent premierships,then championships, league 1 and 2 and confrence and non league should there be a need..this way people could start at a lower level and work there way through actually being promoted to another higher class of opposition,however the clubs should move as a whole, stadium, skills, finances and be reimbursed for there market value of there players so that when they move up a league(gw) they do have a fighting chance to storm up the league.....indeed, we all want busy competitive action within our game,another way to stop clubs from hoarding all the top players is to give the players a mind of there own,let them decide wether or not they want to join a club where they will have to fight for there place or join a lower club where he will actualy be a big fish in there footballing pond,not all player go for the money,most make decisions that enable them to play 1st team footy..also whilst i am talking to the MAN i want to suggest that you look into doing every 4 seasons a world cup,the highest accolade any managers can have is to be chosen to manage his country many managers do this on this side of there regular club job,so i propose you set it up so that a world cup tornament is ran using the top managers rank to allocate to national sides,the manager would be able to call up ANY player of that nationality from any team to play in his world cup side,in return for his player being picked to play for his national side his club manager is rewarded by a market value rise and the player is rewrd for having caps on his profile...i could go on but i have to go out so i hope Ov collier you see sense in this....

dave javu

sporting fakkas

mccoist

[jpcrawley]

Ov,
I think the principles you're proposing in these two threads are sound. I can see that by increasing the fluidity of the game will help reduce the imbalances that currently exist, so I support your proposals for linking prize money more closely to performance, and have posted separately about that.

I've written about manager types before, however let me restate what I've seen in different gameworlds thus far. Ive seen managers become successful in FML which fit broadly into the categories that exist when training for skills:
- Market knowledge and awareness - those who know the starting database and are able to negotiate successfully in the transfer market, often taking advantage of weaker "prey" (wheeler-dealers)
- Those who have a good eye for youth and have the youth squad setup to develop them successfully quality youth teams (mentors)
- Tactical geniuses who know the ME very well and can develop tactics that play successfully to their team's strengths (master-tacticians)
- Strategic / commerical i.e. managers who can combine one or more of the above and are astute at managing finances through their stadia. (club chairmen)

In this post, 'we're talking about fluidity in the transfer market. The one thing for me that destablises the gameworld economies is where transfers are made which have huge variance from what is happening in the rest of the market e.g. private transfers significantly above or below MV and wage auctions spiralling out of control.

There are the wheeler-dealer managers that are capable of exploiting the transfer system by buying players at below MV and selling at above, principally becaue they're skilled negotiators or they only buy in wage auctions.

For these managers to become so successful clearly, tax doesn't really tackle the issue effectively enough. So how about implementing other checks and balances other than in-game moderation which prevent unreasonable and unrealistic transfers going through. In FM this is managed by the board of the football club. Perhaps in FML, as you are more of the football club chairman there should be some kind of industry regulator, let's call him OFTRAN - the regulator for club transfers.

Similarly, wealthy clubs or unscrupulous managers who want to spoil the game can artificially inflate players wages, making them beyond the reach of all but the richest teams. So how about some kind of un-PFA that regulates silly wage auction bids by capping wage auctions to say 1.25x or 1.5x the player's wage demand, and if several bidders bid the maximum amount then the player goes to the lowest ranked team (odd I know, but hopefully you'll see my point).

[Alesle]

I think the issue is that in the NFL, 96%+ of players sign contracts through free agency (there is a maximum of one franchise player per team, and it is a rarely used tool). Thus using the average of the top players to determine the open market value is well grounded in reality. If you are a wide receiver and get franchise tagged, the chances are that you are the only franchised WR in the entire NFL and hence it's a good measure. Not to mention the fact that NFL teams are spending real money, and hence don't tend to offer crazy contracts (well, not THAT crazy....). In FML, basically every player will get franchised, so there's no reliable comparison, and the occasional manager will offer excessive wages.

Yes I'm well aware of how it works in NFL. If every player gets franchised, every players wage will increase with at least 20% each season, which means that it at some point would be more worthwhile just letting the player go to a wage auction. I agree it could be an issue up until that point though.

To use current gameworlds as an example: if you based the auto-renew wage on the average player, their wage would be far too low. If you based it on the top x players, the wage would be far too high.

Why not just base it on the top paid x players of roughly that 'ability' (ability = combination of CA and player reputation maybe?), meaning every player would be affected by the wages of similar players.

The other issue is that this system isn't self-regulating. If cash in the gameworld is drying up, and you want to increase the amount of cash to stimulate transfer activity, this method won't react to that. It will keep on renewing wages at a high level (because that's what existing players already have). If cash is increasing, the system will be slow to increase wages to match, and inflation will increase. If the system does catch up, it will end up with excessively high wages and drag the wages back down again - you'll end up with a heavily oscillating system.

Well, one could just make that 120% number into the inflation/deflation from last season, meaning the salary changes would follow the GW's economy.

Also, what would you do to a player who has been transferred privately?

Godd question. I think I'd prefer them to be kept on current wage/wage demand multiplied with "the inflation number", to avoid people "swapping around" players to keep the wages down. They would have the benefit of not beeing affected by the highest paid players, so it should still encourage private deals/transfer auctions.

In the end, I was [and still is] just throwing out some thoughts

[shotto]

Nice thread here, certainly makes good reading
At the moment, I dont see too many things wrong with the current system of 5 auto-locks per team, and I reckon some people would agree that 1 or 2 more would be more than welcome.
Having been in GW Coppell since the start, now in its 13th season, I have never had to come in like a lot of the Horton players have, and build a team from scratch. However, they seem to have bought some good players, including many returning stars which always make them money as they are in high demand, which gives them large amounts of money and takes it away from the top clubs which buy it off them.
I feel that the stadium the top clubs play in are the main reason for the large income, so I would propose that making stadia cheaper for newer members, i.e. the more time you have been in the GW then the more expensive it gets, up to around the current level it is now - which I think is very expensive but will be worth it (in about 300 days )
The system of having the option for owners to match the highest bid in the wage auction may work, but I think that it would have to be a split between that and the current auto locks, for example 4 of the auto-locks we have now and then 2/3 of the new type ones where the owner can decide, but obviously something would have to be done to stop people bidding for the hell of it to potentially push up the price.

But all in all, I dont think that many things need changing / replacing, but maybe because it has been a long time since I joined an existing GW, although I think gradually top clubs can be caught.


Michael Shotton (beta GW Coppell - MONTGENEVRE FC)

[dankrzyz]

1 - players wage expectations change depending on the team that they sign for. This mirrors real life and will make it harder for the top teams to keep their books balanced.

Actually, that's false logic, you have the causal relationship wrong. A player's wage is not based on the team he signs for, rather, he signs for a team based on the wage offered. It's this logic that guides an open market.

[mkr2204]

I dont think theres any need for any of this tbh, the gap between FML and reality is already too big, surely if its a football sim, then there has to be a gap, you dont see the FA saying man utd are too far ahead of MK dons so we'll make sure MK dons are able to compete with them.

The fact that you want to potentially give a new team a free player, that they could sell for a fortune is bad enough.

A free messi/ronaldo regened at there current age, which would be 23/24, will raise up to 10m if sold, which is more than I would make being a top team and winning every league/cup in my FA 2 seasons in a row, which frankly, is ridiculous that someone can come along and get a free 10m based on nothing but luck of what time they signed up, which is just making the game a lottery.

I understand there has to be balance, but every idea I've seen up to now, is giving a massive advantage to new players/bad teams.

The reward for winning needs to be bigger than the reward for losing, or the reward for being a new team, otherwise spending seasons building up a team becomes pointless.

[Wiveliscombe AFC]

As someone who started in Houghton in the 4th season I know what the problems there are for new managers in an established most fellow noobs gave up after one or two seasons and either stopped playing or moved gw, i would say half and half.

The game is great as is 1.4 has some really nice features - Youth Acadamies in particular

Now that there is a financial penalty for switching gws I am positive we will have more stable gws that will stay full.

So let us just draw a line under the contract system as is before we ruin the top game we have REMEMBER THE REASON FOR OUR CURRENT CRISIS WAS THE DWINDLING POPULATIONS IN OUR GWS.
This was then perpetuated with the announcement of the reset.

THE CURRENT CONTRACT SYSTEM WORKS FINE -and the draft system will ensure the weener/disgruntled managers who would give up at drop of hat will now have lots more reasons to keep going

You have to bear in mind that most players of football managers do not want to play in perpetuity - have a run with a club for 10 - 20 seasons then restart for a new challange


Anyway i am off on tangent now


PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE dont muck around with contract system

[Wiveliscombe AFC]

Oh and after this reset there must never be another - i was close to taking SI to court for emotional aggravation after losing my top youth team just as they were peaking

[myheadhurts]

Yes I'm well aware of how it works in NFL.

I wasn't suggesting you weren't, but I expect you and I are in the overwhelming minority when it comes to NFL familiarity.

BTW, there's another difference between FML and the NFL that I missed - players are pretty much guaranteed to slowly improve over their careers in FML, while that's not true in the NFL, where more players can be game-changers in their first couple of years, and injuries are more of a factor later in their careers. Salaries are therefore much more consistent over their careers.

So a 20% increase in wages isn't a 20% increase in relative terms, because his wage would have increased anyway. If a 5* 20 year old is on 15k/day, pushing that up 20% a season won't get his wage anywhere near his market value wage until he is 28-29 - i.e. most of his career. In the NFL, top players tend to get themselves on big money contracts relatively quickly.

Why not just base it on the top paid x players of roughly that 'ability' (ability = combination of CA and player reputation maybe?), meaning every player would be affected by the wages of similar players.

To be honest, we are suggesting broadly the same idea here. We both agree all players should have a wage that starts at a basic level based on his reputation/ability, that rises the longer he stays at a club.

I think the only difference is that you want it to be slightly more generous, but (presumably) limit it to a smaller number of players, whereas I think my idea is harsher but can be applied uniformly to all players. In my view, the latter is better because it's with the specific intention to keep the gameworld economy consistent at all times, whereas your more general idea is more along the lines of "the game will catch up eventually" (as you admit).