DLR needs to be Tweaked a bit

I'm in my second season managing Grasshoppers Club Zurich and I won the league by a whisker in my first season. Now, while my league ranking went up one spot (17th to 16th), the player reputations in the league must have risen by a certain amount.

I say this, because suddenly middle table teams from all over Europe have begun snatching any player/prospect who's even half decent. While, in my first season, there was a huge fight for the top three berths between similarly strong teams like FC Basel, Young Boys, FC Zurich and my team, now I'm fighting with some other teams, which actually lack the quality to hold their own against any decent team in the European Competitions.

Basel, YB and Zurich are all lying mid-table, and don't seem to be in line for European qualification this season. This is because they've more or less sold most of their Key players to whoever comes knocking (and are still doing it) and have brought in lesser talent instead.

Since League reputation only increases if most of your teams perform well in the european competitions, I don't think that's going to happen this year, or the next. So, my league reputation should theoritically take a beating at this season's end. It wouldn't matter even if I won the Champions league somehow!

The way I see it, this would be a cyclic phenomenon:

League Rep rises -> outsiders come buy your league's star players -> You bring in weaker players -> You don't perform well -> League Rep drops -> Outside teams leave your players alone -> You develop your players -> Perform well -> League Rep rises... so on and so forth.

How's it going for the others, is anyone else also noticing something of the sort...?

I think it maybe more of a case of poor transfer AI, where they are either not getting enough money for selling their players... or not spending what they've received efficiently (paying more then they need too, or not targeting the right players)

Not sure if this is linked to DLR.

Also irl players from Switzerland are well wanted abroad these days. They were the U17 world champions and thus have a host of players who excelled on youth level and have a certain standing among scouts. It may well be that this player generation will be ready to go in summer 2011.

Seeing clubs selling their stars without replacing them sounds more like a transfer AI issue to me. However, at the same time it may be linked to DLR, but as that was said to have only long-term and rather minor effects I wouldn't expect that to be the case.

Not sure if this is linked to DLR.

Also irl players from Switzerland are well wanted abroad these days. They were the U17 world champions and thus have a host of players who excelled on youth level and have a certain standing among scouts. It may well be that this player generation will be ready to go in summer 2011.

Seeing clubs selling their stars without replacing them sounds more like a transfer AI issue to me. However, at the same time it may be linked to DLR, but as that was said to have only long-term and rather minor effects I wouldn't expect that to be the case.

No, it's not directly linked to DLR as an idea. The DLR system may actually be well implemented as a standalone entity. However, combined with the transfer AI in FM (bugged or not), this is how it pans out in the end. The DLR system isn't faulty by itself, but it certainly needs to be looked at with the context in mind, and it's indirect consequences.

The players that were the 'Key' players in the first season were not 18-19 yr olds who won that U17 WC. Players like Eric Hassli, Dusan Djuric (Both Zurich), Marco Streller, Valentin Stocker (Both Basel), Thierry Doubai, Alberto Regazzoni, Francois Affolter (All Young Boys BSC) were the Life of these teams, and IRL these players would only be sold by their teams for an outrageously large fee.

See, this is the kind of weirdness I was talking about:

Transfer revenue is £12 Million, transfer spending is £600 K...

Might be worth keeping an eye on.

I don't think this has anything to do with DLR. If anything, DLR would fix this over time.

What you see here is basicly the AI that is totally uncapable of building a squad. But this has always been the case, for as long as I can remember. League Rep has nothing to do with this, as the rival clubs are simply spotting the CA/PA of those players and grabbing them.

Should you manage to up your league rep further. (you can do this on your own, up to 7th place or so), you will see the AI will be able to buy better players as they will be more interested in playing in your league. They will also get more money from sponsership / television / prize money ... They will still be doing stupid transfers, but by having more money, and more players willing to join, they should be able to compete for the european group stages.

Also, I see in my games a preference of AI teams to invest their money in facilities, rather then players.

I don't think this has anything to do with DLR. If anything, DLR would fix this over time.

What you see here is basicly the AI that is totally uncapable of building a squad. But this has always been the case, for as long as I can remember. League Rep has nothing to do with this, as the rival clubs are simply spotting the CA/PA of those players and grabbing them.

Should you manage to up your league rep further. (you can do this on your own, up to 7th place or so), you will see the AI will be able to buy better players as they will be more interested in playing in your league. They will also get more money from sponsership / television / prize money ... They will still be doing stupid transfers, but by having more money, and more players willing to join, they should be able to compete for the european group stages.

Also, I see in my games a preference of AI teams to invest their money in facilities, rather then players.

That sounds promising. I guess, it would be prudent to wait at least 5 seasons before I comment on this further.

Till now (halfway thru 2nd season) though, no team in the league has announced an upgrade (except for me, and I had it cancelled due to lack of funds!), nor have they bought interesting players, save one or two.

Just to show how things go in my league. The belgian league rep has gone up from 16th to 5th place now. This is the transfer overview from one of my rival teams (anderlecht).. You can clearly see they start by selling more, but end up the other way:

Jelle, you've just made the game way more exciting for me! If this is how my transfer windows will become, then I should get through the seasons quickly...

I'm not sure if I should post this here, or start a new thread for it, but it's got me worried and I have to know if it's normal for this to happen. (Jelle, any comments would be highly appreciated)

As you can see, my League rep just dropped from 3 to 2.5 stars, and ranking went down from 16 to 22. The English premier league still is number 1, despite only 1 team making a quarter-final appearance in each of the european competitions last year. You may also notice from the penultimate message in my Inbox that I won the Champions League last season.

Why is this happening? What can I do about it??

EDIT: Something is seriously wrong with this system since apparently the Belgian and Danish leagues have risen higher in the rankings. That is impossible seeing as there was only one Belgian team that reached as far as Euro Cup Quarterfinals, and there were NO Danish teams beyond the group stages in any European Competition. What is even weirder is that Despite a Swiss team winning the Champs League, the Swiss League reputation has fallen below German Second Division, nPower Championship and the frickking Spanish Cup! Outrageous!

The exact DLR formula is unknown, but you will not see your league jump straight up. The only way to keep having it go up (and then we are talking 1-2 places a year) is consistent performance in Europe.

There was another thread here a while ago where we discussed strange behaviour at the start of game (first few seasons). As we do not have the formula for DLR we cannot be sure, but the following things can cause 'strange jumps' in DLR in the first few seasons. (unexpected drops / some obscure leagues jumping higher):

- Again, the key is consistency. This has been stated by SI. DLR that will not have a big impact in the first seasons.

- DLR seems to be based on "points". As in the beginning, many leagues are closely together in points, you can see sudden jumps, as a few points can make a league jump up and down fast. It can also be that certain leagues go up faster then you, so eventhough your points went up and you climbed sloser to nr1, your position dropped.

- I have seen that after my 1st CL win, Belgium league dropped a place. This had lead me to believe there is an "anti-fluke" system. Basicly, this would cancel out the best and the worst season of a league during the period over which DLR is calculated (say 20 years). The leagues performance during the 18 years that aren't canceled out would than be used to calculate your result. This would explain why 1 bad year of England or so will not impact their reating much, while one great season of you wont influence your rating much. Should this trend continue the coming years, you will see the changes come quickly.

- European Champions Seeding are a big factor. As Swiss is far down, there are not many swiss teams with a European ticket, so you will not be able to go up fast in the beginning. Once you have 2-3 teams in the Champions Cup, and a few in the Euro Cup, you will no longer be the only team that is improving the ranking. I only just hit the point where Belgium tops the European Seedings List. This is after 14 seasons. Only then will you be able to even start to compete in the upper regions (top 5). But, with just my consistent performace, I was able to get up to 7th place or so. By this time, belgium had 2 directly qualified, and 1 3rd round qualifier for the ECC.

- I'm not sure if it helps, but I also took charge of our Belgian national squad. Not only to boost my own players values , but also because in the past editions, national team performance also had an impact on the teams reputation, so I figure it will not hurt league rep as well. I did see the league go up 2 places rather than 1 after winning the world cup, but this of course can also be coincidence.

I wouldn't worry about league rep going down at all in the beginning. If you are consistent, it will go up consistenly, til you hit the barrier where other teams need to jump in. The real challenge will be to get them to contribute. I'm not sure how long your league will need to dominate everything to take the top spot though, that will probably depend on the amount of seasons DLR uses in it's calculation. As Swiss and Belgium didn't perform anything in that time, We need to perform 2x as hard as all the other leagues until our bad period is taken out of the equation

After a while, you will end up in this position though.

i remember reading somewhere that DLR took the last 5 years into account, but I can't confirm.

i remember reading somewhere that DLR took the last 5 years into account, but I can't confirm.

That's not so. The European coefficients take the last 5 years into account, DLR goes over a much larger period of time. If it was only 5 years, you would see much larger jumps, and the european league rep would pretty much be equal to the coefficients. SI also reported (see the MJ interview) that DLR would progress very slowly, which is fair enough.

Have you also seen a big increase in price money and tv-revenue?

Have you also seen a big increase in price money and tv-revenue?

I has gone up yes. I believe it's about 300% of the original value.

The one thing I took from clonerohin1's screenshot is that Andorra is the place to be =)

are the clubs improving their facilities now they get more money & new stadias or expansions?

are the clubs improving their facilities now they get more money & new stadias or expansions?

Yes, quite regularly.