European Places Playoff Austria

[DaveTheEditor]

So people, I have a problem again, but this time it is not only a problem for me rather for the whole FM community of Austria. As many of you know, you can't activate the Regionalliga (3rd league) by a code error. That's why I started yesterday by a suggestion of a friend of mine to completely rebuild the league, so it has nothing to do with the code. Now everything works, except the European Places Playoff, because this depends on Austria's ranking in the 5-year ranking, you can't just take any position in the table, but you have to set it so that it depends on the teams that are already qualified for the international competition.

For example:
Champions Group:
1. Salzburg (CL Quali.)
2. Rapid (EL Quali.)
3. Austria (EL. Quali.)
4. Sturm Graz (European Places Playoff)
5. Admira (European Places Playoff)
6. Altach (European Places Playoff)

Relegation Group:
1. Mattersburg (European Places Playoff)

But if Austria plays very well in the next few years International and they get further up in the 5-year-evaluation and a 2nd CL Quali. The playoff has to look like this:

Champions Group:
1. Salzburg (CL Qualification)
2nd Rapid (CL Qualification)
3rd Austria (EL. Quali.)
4th Storm Graz (EL. Quali.)
5th Admira (European Places Playoff)
6th Altach (European Places Playoff)

Relegation Group:
1st Mattersburg (European Places Playoff)
2nd Wolfsberger AC (European Places Playoff)

Not to forget the Cup winner, who postpones the playoff once again. 

I hope you all understand what I mean and can help me. It would be really very important and a lot of FM users would appreciate it.

 

[krlenjushka]

European places playoff in Holland is hardcoded so i guess this cant be done in regular way. You have new option called "continental cup qualifying rules" but i cant see how this can be helpfull in your case.

BTW can someone from SI explain how this new added option works????  10 different options, qualification rules number seems to be broken (or i dont understand it)...

@KUBI do you have any knowlege about this?

@Freddie Sands ?

[Slabbekoorn]

Funny enough I have the exact same problem with my Holland file. The position places of European Places Playoff is depending on the number of European/Continental cup tickets available and I can't seem to think of a way to create this from scratch.

[DaveTheEditor]

vor 7 Minuten schrieb Slabbekoorn:

Funny enough I have the exact same problem with my Holland file. The position places of European Places Playoff is depending on the number of European/Continental cup tickets available and I can't seem to think of a way to create this from scratch.

Then we both hope there's a solution. 

[krlenjushka]

44 minutes ago, Slabbekoorn said:

Funny enough I have the exact same problem with my Holland file. The position places of European Places Playoff is depending on the number of European/Continental cup tickets available and I can't seem to think of a way to create this from scratch.

Problem is i dont see any benefit of new added option related to "continental cup qualifying rules". Without any explanation from SI this option is worthless for most of users.

[Slabbekoorn]

39 minutes ago, davie77 said:

Then we both hope there's a solution. 

I'm just curious though, what is the error you're getting when you're using the existing rules?

1 minute ago, krlenjushka said:

Problem is i dont see any benefit of new added option related to "continental cup qualifying rules". Without any explanation from SI this option is worthless for most of users.

Yeah I can only change one thing using that option and I can't seem to select a different custom rule than a custom rule for India.

[DaveTheEditor]

vor 8 Minuten schrieb Slabbekoorn:

I'm just curious though, what is the error you're getting when you're using the existing rules?

As soon as I try to create the 3rd league, the FM suddenly says that the 1st and 2nd league contains only 10 instead of 12/16 teams. That's why I had to rebuild everything, now it's up to me. Just don't hold the playoff.

[krlenjushka]

1 minute ago, davie77 said:

As soon as I try to create the 3rd league, the FM suddenly says that the 1st and 2nd league contains only 10 instead of 12/16 teams. That's why I had to rebuild everything, now it's up to me. Just don't hold the playoff.

 

Update caused many problems for me - as usual.

[Slabbekoorn]

 

9 minutes ago, davie77 said:

As soon as I try to create the 3rd league, the FM suddenly says that the 1st and 2nd league contains only 10 instead of 12/16 teams. That's why I had to rebuild everything, now it's up to me. Just don't hold the playoff.

I figured. I think that could be fixed. When I'm browsing in the default file the premier division has 3 sets of rules for the top league. The two with description (2017) and (2017 fixed) have the following under competitions:
 

This means that as soon as you activate "Regionella" both the top division (2017) and (2017 fixed) aren't running anymore because one of the qualifications is that the Regionella is inactive. So what it then does is trying to run the (default) and default is the one that requires 12 teams so that is what is causing that error. Why don't you try to untick that one box in the image for both (2017) and 2017 (fixed) and try again.

 

8 minutes ago, krlenjushka said:

 

Update caused many problems for me - as usual.

At least they gave us the option to add club hashtags.

[krlenjushka]

7 minutes ago, Slabbekoorn said:

At least they gave us the option to add club hashtags.

yeah i know. Next is real instagram app in game - i guess

[krlenjushka]

@Slabbekoorn @davie77 Maybe this is solution for your "dynamic continental qualification" issue?

 

 

Never tried to use but maybe this option works...

[DaveTheEditor]

@krlenjushka

When I get home, I'll try it right away, thank you.

 

I have a question, why doesn't SI get in touch with you if you have questions about their editor? Even if you mark them, no one will answer. Why?

[krlenjushka]

2 hours ago, davie77 said:

@krlenjushka

When I get home, I'll try it right away, thank you.

 

I have a question, why doesn't SI get in touch with you if you have questions about their editor? Even if you mark them, no one will answer. Why?

Because they dont like people like me - people who ask many questions and people who doesnt have same opinion. 

I always write here about this problem - lack of communication between customers and support (editor related) but i always get strange answers or none.

I think main problem is lack of staff related to editor problems.

Probably because editor is "low priority".

Tbh many bugs are solved in last 2 years- @Freddie Sands helped a lot about that but if i understand - he is only staff member responsible for editor and simply cant solve all problems. 

 

[DaveTheEditor]

It's really so. No matter what they screw up, they don't give a ****. How many times the phrase "Never mind, the community will already fix it" was used in their executive departments? Probably more than you might think. It was said 2 (!!!!) times that Austria is now playable, what was it? Not playable. It's starting to get on my nerves. 

There is neither an explanation of a mode nor, as you said correctly, an answer to it. I once asked why the FM10 editor doesn't work anymore, 2 hours later the question was simply deleted. How to deal with paying customers? I don't care, let them do what they want.

[Slabbekoorn]

23 hours ago, krlenjushka said:

@Slabbekoorn @davie77 Maybe this is solution for your "dynamic continental qualification" issue?

 

 

Never tried to use but maybe this option works...

This could be it. If only I could get playoff teams to "exclude continental cup qualified teams" to work. Because even if I use that option it just easily picks the top 4 teams regardless of their contintental cup qualification...

[krlenjushka]

3 minutes ago, Slabbekoorn said:

This could be it. If only I could get playoff teams to "exclude continental cup qualified teams" to work. Because even if I use that option it just easily picks the top 4 teams regardless of their contintental cup qualification...

Yeah but i guess cup winner is still problem...

[Slabbekoorn]

36 minutes ago, krlenjushka said:

Yeah but i guess cup winner is still problem...

Well not if "exclude continental cup qualifiers" would've worked but I guess the game is handing out those spots after everyhing has finished. Although I did saw a "show continental cup places" somewhere in the editor. Maybe that'll fix that problem.

[Slabbekoorn]

I've been trying to figure this out low-key but I can't seem to find a way and the fact that SI people are not responding means there probably isn't a way as of yet. Maybe in future installments. But still, if it really is one person fixing the editor that is already impressive as it is.

[DaveTheEditor]

Guys, I think I've at least solved part of the problem. I still don't know how to qualify the teams that don't have a qualification for the international competitions (you'd miss out @Slabbekoorn) but when you create a new competition for the playoff you can set "Only Winner qualifyed for International Comeptition", just like the national cup. After this competition, the FM then pulls off the qualifiers of a team and adds them to the team.

[Slabbekoorn]

10 hours ago, davie77 said:

Guys, I think I've at least solved part of the problem. I still don't know how to qualify the teams that don't have a qualification for the international competitions (you'd miss out @Slabbekoorn) but when you create a new competition for the playoff you can set "Only Winner qualifyed for International Comeptition", just like the national cup. After this competition, the FM then pulls off the qualifiers of a team and adds them to the team.

Do you do that in the stage? I can't find that in a stage but only under "competition".

I did find out I can exclude teams that already have a continental cup fate for a playoff. You do it by setting top playoff to 4 teams and then down below the page you can set fate exceptions.

Choose top playoff and then select continental cup qualifiers. This way it negates every other club who qualified for continental cup.

Only downside is I can't seem to set a working league fate (continental cup qualification) for the winner of the stage so if you could explain your option more we can look if we can fix it combined.

[DaveTheEditor]

Somehow I have the feeling that the three of us can get to the problem without SI. 

After all, when you weld our two methods together you have in my opinion already a working model that only needs to be put into practice. 

To your question. I meant it like that, you create a NEW competition for the European Places Playoff, let the teams qualify for it and then put in competition that here:

In Austria this would have to solve the problem, because I don't have in mind how many teams qualify in the Netherlands I'm not 100% sure, but it would have to work.

As soon as the competition is ready, the winner will be given a starting place for the Euro League next season.

[Slabbekoorn]

Nice, continental cups are still in baby shoes in the editor so our options are limited. But at least this solves your problem and it is pretty ingenious. Holland has a playoff where the winner takes the last European ticket, right now that is EL third qualifying round stage. So I can try your option but I have to figure out a way how to select the last spot for the European tickets.

I did find out if you select as a "fate action" for the final round of the European places playoff stage that if you use "qualify team for competition", select Europa League, seeding is 0, and tick both boxes to qualify for this year then that team does get drawn in next year's Europa League group stage. The downside is that it does not get substracted from the available tickets for the country so it just hands out an exra European spot and that's not what I wanted. Using "set continental cup" does not do anything at all.

[Freddie Sands]

Hi guys, I thought I'd nip out of my usual place in the bugs forums to update on this one. I'm afraid this is a case of necessary hard coding to fix problems in the game resulting in the Editor version of the same rules not working correctly. We are still working to fix this but suffice to say getting both the format change and the European Places Playoff to work in the Editor based off of the existing rules code we have has proven not quite so simple as anticipated, hence why it is still not fixed.

...

On a separate note, I had a speculative attempt at editing the existing default Austria advanced rules myself. By deleting the additional entries for the Austrian Premier Division + Austrian First Division and setting the remaining versions of both competitions to "Overrides Rules In Code" I think I've managed to get the 10->12 and 10->16 formats for each division respectively working correctly. Annoyingly the file doesn't verify correctly due to a warning ("Could not get stage settings for first stage in Austrian First Division") when verifying only the Premier Division (it works fine when the First Division is active). I'm not entirely sure if this something resolvable or a bug, so I've passed it onto our coders to be see what the case is.

It sounds like you guys have made decent progress in recreating the league from scratch so it might not be as useful now, but I'll upload my effort if it's of any use. I've also tried to recreate a European Places Playoff from scratch in this file (albeit only one round for simplicity/testing's sake) but I've hit a wall trying to get it to work if the Cup winner finishes in one of the European Places Playoff qualification spots (I've set the EPP to not generate if this happens when really it should just grab a different team if it's replicating the actual structure). The only place where I might have made any headway which could help you guys out is with the continental qualification itself, which I think I've got sort-of working via the "Continental Cup Qualifying Rules" section.

14MAR18 Austria Edit.dbc

Hopefully this is of help, apologies if it isn't and just complicates matters.

Fred

[DaveTheEditor]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Slabbekoorn:

Nice, continental cups are still in baby shoes in the editor so our options are limited. But at least this solves your problem and it is pretty ingenious. Holland has a playoff where the winner takes the last European ticket, right now that is EL third qualifying round stage. So I can try your option but I have to figure out a way how to select the last spot for the European tickets.

I did find out if you select as a "fate action" for the final round of the European places playoff stage that if you use "qualify team for competition", select Europa League, seeding is 0, and tick both boxes to qualify for this year then that team does get drawn in next year's Europa League group stage. The downside is that it does not get substracted from the available tickets for the country so it just hands out an exra European spot and that's not what I wanted. Using "set continental cup" does not do anything at all.

If I hadn't been inventive I wouldn't have lost anything in the editor. 

 

vor 6 Minuten schrieb Freddie Sands:

Hi guys, I thought I'd nip out of my usual place in the bugs forums to update on this one. I'm afraid this is a case of necessary hard coding to fix problems in the game resulting in the Editor version of the same rules not working correctly. We are still working to fix this but suffice to say getting both the format change and the European Places Playoff to work in the Editor based off of the existing rules code we have has proven not quite so simple as anticipated, hence why it is still not fixed.

...

On a separate note, I had a speculative attempt at editing the existing default Austria advanced rules myself. By deleting the additional entries for the Austrian Premier Division + Austrian First Division and setting the remaining versions of both competitions to "Overrides Rules In Code" I think I've managed to get the 10->12 and 10->16 formats for each division respectively working correctly. Annoyingly the file doesn't verify correctly due to a warning ("Could not get stage settings for first stage in Austrian First Division") when verifying only the Premier Division (it works fine when the First Division is active). I'm not entirely sure if this something resolvable or a bug, so I've passed it onto our coders to be see what the case is.

It sounds like you guys have made decent progress in recreating the league from scratch so it might not be as useful now, but I'll upload my effort if it's of any use. I've also tried to recreate a European Places Playoff from scratch in this file (albeit only one round for simplicity/testing's sake) but I've hit a wall trying to get it to work if the Cup winner finishes in one of the European Places Playoff qualification spots (I've set the EPP to not generate if this happens when really it should just grab a different team if it's replicating the actual structure). The only place where I might have made any headway which could help you guys out is with the continental qualification itself, which I think I've got sort-of working via the "Continental Cup Qualifying Rules" section.

14MAR18 Austria Edit.dbc

Hopefully this is of help, apologies if it isn't and just complicates matters.

Fred

Thank you very much, I looked at it now and simulated a few seasons in the editor and I'm really surprised. Many Austrians, including myself, are very grateful to you now. We'll all think about you when we play the playoff  

[DaveTheEditor]

@Freddie Sands @krlenjushka @Slabbekoorn

Do either of you three know why it doesn't work to create a reserve league? Every time I created the league and set everything and under Teams "All Teams from Division" Team Type: "Reserve Teams" Fall-Back: "No Fall-Back" and among them still the league of the first teams he takes only 1st teams. Why is that, please? Thus every 1st team plays in both leagues. That sucks. Especially since there are the reserve teams from the clubs.

After a long time trying it finally worked out. Don't ask me how, I just wildly pressed buttons.

[Slabbekoorn]

@Freddie Sands

Thank you very much, really. It was a bit confusing at first but this is exactly what I meant. And together with Top playoff places in combination with "fate exceptions"- "continental cup qualifiers" it worked perfect excluding the cup winner for the playoff. I'll write up a tutorial if you don't mind for others and post it on this forum. 

So it worked now like this (for Holland):

First placed team got first ticket.
Second placed team got second ticket.
Cup winner (finished 7th) got the third ticket.
Third placed team got fourth ticked.
Teams placed 4,5,6 and 8 (cup winner finished 7th) went into the european playoff and the winner (team finished 8th) got the last remaining fifth ticket.

So that's exactly what I wanted.

[Slabbekoorn]

2 hours ago, davie77 said:

@Freddie Sands @krlenjushka @Slabbekoorn

Do either of you three know why it doesn't work to create a reserve league? Every time I created the league and set everything and under Teams "All Teams from Division" Team Type: "Reserve Teams" Fall-Back: "No Fall-Back" and among them still the league of the first teams he takes only 1st teams. Why is that, please? Thus every 1st team plays in both leagues. That sucks. Especially since there are the reserve teams from the clubs.

Is it a custom competition or did you let the game generate one? If it is a custom, make sure you don't use "nation -> reserve leagues" with custom xml but add them normally like you would a cup because custom xml is not playing nice this year.

I looked into the Austrian clubs. RB Salzburg does not have a reserve team, the rest uses the amateur team type as second teams instead of the reserve team type. Drawing reserves is really precise in the editor, not drawing the right ones results in first teams getting drawn into that league. And that is what you are experiencing.

So either draw "amateur teams" or change the team type for each club to "reserve team" type in the editor, you can pick either one.