something wrong wih the transfer market

[forameuss]

On 07/06/2018 at 10:20, jamessmith010101 said:

it cant be that hard to code a realistic transfer market surely ??

It's posts like this that show just what a thankless task SI have.  I mean, what chance do they have with people boiling complex systems down to "och, it can't be that hard"

[Baodan]

3 minutes ago, forameuss said:

It's posts like this that show just what a thankless task SI have.  I mean, what chance do they have with people boiling complex systems down to "och, it can't be that hard"

The game does not give you any information on how adding more leagues or players will impact the transfer-market. Most people just pick more players - cause hey why not - and select the leagues they have any interest in. SI made that choice and now it comes back to bite them in the backside.

[forameuss]

1 minute ago, Baodan said:

The game does not give you any information on how adding more leagues or players will impact the transfer-market. Most people just pick more players - cause hey why not - and select the leagues they have any interest in. SI made that choice and now it comes back to bite them in the backside.

Which is nothing to do with what I said, or what I replied to. 

[scass]

On 04/06/2018 at 00:36, jamessmith010101 said:

not sure what is wrong wiht my save but all the players are going for less than there value. perrera value 34 gone for 24 mill perfectly happy. martins value 24 gomne for 24 happy and lpong contract and the list goes on no one has gone for anything that could partly be seen as real life !!

I suppose if you transfer list a player, then you have to take less than his market value. But it does seem to be ridiculous how hard it is to get rid of players, and how depressed their value is. It's made worse by the "selling team wage contribution" usually being non-negotiable. 

[scass]

27 minutes ago, forameuss said:

It's posts like this that show just what a thankless task SI have.  I mean, what chance do they have with people boiling complex systems down to "och, it can't be that hard"

And it's posts like this that actually don't really help anyone. He makes a valid point about the transfer market, and you just dismiss it, rather rudely, by talking about a "thankless task." You obviously don't consider profits from being the only game in the market, and salaries for the employees thanks enough - the rest of us have to bow down gratefully?  They're paid to develop and sell a "complex system". How hard can it be for you to understand any criticism of SI?

[Neil Brock]

8 minutes ago, scass said:

And it's posts like this that actually don't really help anyone. He makes a valid point about the transfer market, and you just dismiss it, rather rudely, by talking about a "thankless task." You obviously don't consider profits from being the only game in the market, and salaries for the employees thanks enough - the rest of us have to bow down gratefully?  They're paid to develop and sell a "complex system". How hard can it be for you to understand any criticism of SI?

Just to clarify, what valid point has he made exactly? 

[themadsheep2001]

6 minutes ago, Neil Brock said:

Just to clarify, what valid point has he made exactly? 

I'm intrigued to hear the answer, because so far, none of his points on how the transfer market works have been accurate 

[Snorks]

I actually think the transfer 'module' is pretty accurate to real life to be fair, player transfer fee is dictated by the demand in he market - ie: How valuable is he to the buying team? Does the seller accept that value or value him higher? Once the two perceptions on value come together the deal is worked out. Works the same as any other open market IRL, the housing market, the 2nd hand car market, global oil trading, e-bay, the stock market. 

What is NOT made clear (and maybe it should be) is the impact on player value when we, the player, set up the database at the start of the game. The relationship between active leagues and number of players and it's affect on player value on the transfer market. 

After 10 years of the game  I have only just worked this one out myself (thanks to threads like this).

[warlock]

16 minutes ago, Snorks said:

I actually think the transfer 'module' is pretty accurate to real life to be fair, player transfer fee is dictated by the demand in the market

I'm also constantly amazed by the number of human managers who seemingly never consider the option of not selling their best players at a bargain price. Just say no!

[Snorks]

44 minutes ago, warlock said:

I'm also constantly amazed by the number of human managers who seemingly never consider the option of not selling their best players at a bargain price. Just say no!

I am always fairly aggressive in the Press when someone is sniffing around my best players - nip it in the bud early.

If the player is annoyed about me holding him back, we discuss a price that I would consider - I always start THAT negotiation with a hugely inflated opener, and work down until the player is happy. At the end of the day, if he wants to leave, I don't want him anyway and it's not worth the hassle in the dynamics module to fight the player too hard, i just need to maximise the revenue off the sale.

Always worth checking the market before entering this conversation - I need to know I can get a suitable replacement for the same amount or less.

[warlock]

1 hour ago, Snorks said:

At the end of the day, if he wants to leave, I don't want him anyway

Oh, I agree with that. But sometimes you have a player that is critical to the way you play and replacements are hard to find. Then they only get to leave on my terms. Yes, they kick off, and yes you get the toy-pram scenario but generally they come around after a couple of weeks because the buying club moves on and they're left looking a bit silly chasing a transfer that isn't going to happen.

There's a lot of discussion on the forums that basically assumes all of the power is with the players; as if there will always be a dressing room meltdown if you say no to a player, but you can often work your way around the problem.

[forameuss]

16 hours ago, scass said:

And it's posts like this that actually don't really help anyone. He makes a valid point about the transfer market, and you just dismiss it, rather rudely, by talking about a "thankless task." You obviously don't consider profits from being the only game in the market, and salaries for the employees thanks enough - the rest of us have to bow down gratefully?  They're paid to develop and sell a "complex system". How hard can it be for you to understand any criticism of SI?

Wow, you're seething...Because of course, if I posted that, I must be sitting at SI's door tugging at their forelocks and not have anything bad to say about the game at all.  Obvz lol.

Let me break it down then.  Saying a flippant "I mean, how hard can it be" is one of the most asinine and pointless things you can say.  What the sentence essentially says is "it's broken, and clearly the development team are too stupid to fix it."  You're suggesting it's not hard, and in the same breath saying that the current system is broken.  So the developers are now so bad at their jobs that they can't even get that right.  Luckily, anyone that says it usually shows that they know absolutely nothing about development, so I don't imagine it really affects them much. 

My post, on the other hand, might have actually educated and made someone realise that maybe that feature isn't just a 5 minute job, and is actually a lot more complex than they realise.  Is it perfect?  Obviously not.  Is there an absolutely massive ravine of middle-ground between perfect and "well, that's easy to do"?  Obviously.  And no-one needs to "bow down gratefully", they just need to put their concerns forward without being an arse, and preferably without making yourself seem thick (although the last one is probably more of a personal thing).

[scass]

17 hours ago, Neil Brock said:

Just to clarify, what valid point has he made exactly? 

I'm sorry if I was unclear. I was referring to the OP who made a point about the transfer market that I had also experienced.  I find @forameuss's comments consistently unhelpful in his obsequious opposition to any criticism.  I think there has to be a recognition that many of the people who come on here have paid for the game, are customers, not dedicated fans who seem to have got the game for free by beta testing.  You are always reasonable and fair but there is a tendency on this forum for criticism to be shouted down - people being told that they don't understand the game, or that they should play Touch as it's more at their level. I once asked @formeuss what his criticisms of the game were - he said he had them. His response was that it needed to be pay more attention to the Scottish Second Division. And if that isn't undemanding, I don't really know what is. 

I note that two mods have chosen to reply to my comment about formeuss, and not my comment on how unrealistically difficult it is to sell players - in my case there are multiple trophy winners among them, but still no-one wants them.

[scass]

1 hour ago, forameuss said:

Wow, you're seething...Because of course, if I posted that, I must be sitting at SI's door tugging at their forelocks and not have anything bad to say about the game at all.  Obvz lol.

Let me break it down then.  Saying a flippant "I mean, how hard can it be" is one of the most asinine and pointless things you can say.  What the sentence essentially says is "it's broken, and clearly the development team are too stupid to fix it."  You're suggesting it's not hard, and in the same breath saying that the current system is broken.  So the developers are now so bad at their jobs that they can't even get that right.  Luckily, anyone that says it usually shows that they know absolutely nothing about development, so I don't imagine it really affects them much. 

My post, on the other hand, might have actually educated and made someone realise that maybe that feature isn't just a 5 minute job, and is actually a lot more complex than they realise.  Is it perfect?  Obviously not.  Is there an absolutely massive ravine of middle-ground between perfect and "well, that's easy to do"?  Obviously.  And no-one needs to "bow down gratefully", they just need to put their concerns forward without being an arse, and preferably without making yourself seem thick (although the last one is probably more of a personal thing).

I have taken issue with you before over your extreme sensitivity to what you perceive as criticism of the mod team. At the time you said that you wanted the developers to come on here and "share their vision" for the game. The trouble is people come on here to look for advice on problems - as OP did - but you don't have advice to give. Just blind undemanding defence of SI. Did you pay for your game? or do you get it for free for beta testing? Because if that is the case, they need more demanding beta testers.

I'm not seething, I'm just tired of seeing people who want to make a reasonable criticism shouted down by you. Your only criticism of the game when I asked a few months ago was that it was weak on the Scottish Second Division. And that's it. Seriously?

You really have to understand that a paid employees of a profitable company running the only Football Management game do not have a "thankless task". they are rewarded, and dealing with customer dissatisfaction is part of business.

You're part of the reason that i don't come on this forum much any more. You kill discussion.

[forameuss]

39 minutes ago, scass said:

I have taken issue with you before over your extreme sensitivity to what you perceive as criticism of the mod team. At the time you said that you wanted the developers to come on here and "share their vision" for the game. The trouble is people come on here to look for advice on problems - as OP did - but you don't have advice to give. Just blind undemanding defence of SI. Did you pay for your game? or do you get it for free for beta testing? Because if that is the case, they need more demanding beta testers.

I'm not seething, I'm just tired of seeing people who want to make a reasonable criticism shouted down by you. Your only criticism of the game when I asked a few months ago was that it was weak on the Scottish Second Division. And that's it. Seriously?

You really have to understand that a paid employees of a profitable company running the only Football Management game do not have a "thankless task". they are rewarded, and dealing with customer dissatisfaction is part of business.

You're part of the reason that i don't come on this forum much any more. You kill discussion.

Christ...grow up. 

Taking your whiny points one-by-one

• I have never beta tested the game, and have no interest in beta testing the game.  I have much more personally productive uses of my time than doing my day job for a few more hours in the evening.
• Others have covered the "advice" part pretty well in pointing out where the OP has gone wrong.  I was purely replying to one ridiculous post. 
• I don't really play the game anymore, and have had very little involvement in this edition.  I don't find it particularly fun, so I do other things
• Nice that you're keeping some record of my posting - clearly not seething, right? 
• Would you like me to update the list?  Seeing as it seems to have affected you so much.  I'm really worried now that it won't stack up to what you - the authority on such things - thinks is wrong.  Maybe my opinion will be invalid then.  That really keeps me up at night.  If you dig out the original post where I said those exact words (I'm sure you've got it printed out, probably stuck up on the wall) then I'll happily add to it.  Well, as happily as I can when I'm that worried.
• "Blind, undemanding defence of SI"   I'll defend them on points where people clearly don't know what they're talking about, and will continue to do so.  But I forgot, that disagrees with your view, so it's obviously insidious.
• They do have a thankless task, as most successful developers do, because the vast majority of their customer base will never understand what's gone into a feature.  Clearly.
• Certainly doesn't look like I've killed discussion.  If you don't like what I'm saying then don't reply to it or *gasp* discuss it. 

Your tear-stained post actually raises an interesting point. Inadvertently of course.  Apparently commenting against anything considered criticism is "killing discussion".  Surely it's creating discussion?  Would you rather the forum just turned into any negative post being unchallenged?  Is anyone allowed to reply to it?  Or is it only so you can go "yeah, that's terrible, this is terrible, everything's terrible" and feel somewhat validated?

If what I say (which hasn't been considered infraction worthy since I fell foul of the rules on streaming years back) is really upsetting you so much that you don't want to come on to the forum, then I don't think I'm the problem. 

[HUNT3R]

To get it away from the bickering (which needs to stop, by the way, and I am going to remove those posts if it continues), @scass, it isn't difficult to sell players at all. If you find it "unrealistically difficult", there will be reasons for teams not being interested. Loading more leagues will help. You mention wage contributions being wanted, in which case, it's an indicator that he's being overpaid which will reduce interested clubs too. There's not too much to say when it's just a general whinge, but if people can provide details, there's always someone willing to help or offer possible explanations.

[scass]

Seems to me it's a matter of opinion.  You've given me advice before which had no effect. 

I have full leagues loaded by the way. As for overpaid, one of the players was a 28 year full back on 100k a week , which is small for a team who have won multiple trophies.

 

[HUNT3R]

36 minutes ago, scass said:

Seems to me it's a matter of opinion.  You've given me advice before which had no effect. 

I have full leagues loaded by the way. As for overpaid, one of the players was a 28 year full back on 100k a week , which is small for a team who have won multiple trophies.

 

 

What does "full leagues" mean? Who are you managing? What league? What year? Are we talking about a coco pops trophy or the CL? etc etc etc

100k means very little. It's not a lot for top premier league player, but not every league is the premier league and not every player is a top PL player. Specifics are important. AI teams will go for cheaper/better options if they see those too. Plus, it will also depend on who is interested and the player's interest in moving to them or just moving, period. It may be the case that there just aren't viable options in this 1 season for that player.

I have absolutely no trouble in selling almost any player I want to. But then, I also have every league loaded, so there are a lot of active clubs. 

[sporadicsmiles]

2 hours ago, scass said:

Seems to me it's a matter of opinion.  You've given me advice before which had no effect. 

I have full leagues loaded by the way. As for overpaid, one of the players was a 28 year full back on 100k a week , which is small for a team who have won multiple trophies.

 

Let me try to break it down a bit for you.

Imagine you load minimal leagues (say top flight England, Spain, France, Germany) but with loads of extra players (all players from Europe, for example). You have way more active players than you have active teams (teams not being actively simmed at less active in the transfer market, I believe). You have lots of players available for very few playing slots. This depresses the value of players, making it harder to sell for a high price (why pay a high price when you can probably find a cheaper option available due to the large number of players compared to teams?). Ultimately, you will find it harder to sell players for high fees, and it will be a pain to get rid of players on high wages.

Imagine the opposite situation. You load many leagues but use the smallest possible database size you can for them. Now you have a lot of teams who want to fill places in their squad, but a relatively small number of players to choose from. This increases the value of players, and AI teams will be more willing to pay high prices to get them. It also means you will probably have to pay higher than expected prices for players too, as teams are less willing to sell if they cannot easily replace a player.

You ideally want to be somewhere in the middle. Enough players that any team can find a player for their squad, but not so many that it is too easy. You want teams to be willing to sell because they can find a replacement, and so will be happy to accept a reasonable bid. Just to note, some players are always going to be values highly and be either super expensive to buy, or impossible to buy. World class players, and young players with high potential from clubs under no financial pressure, for instance. I usually find that using the largest default database without adding any further players in does the trick. I assume that the default databases are designed to include players to populate a realistic world, so pick one.

Now, regarding selling players (or buying them). If you are actively looking to sell a player, expect his value as an absolute maximum unless he is highly in demand. Nobody is going to pay over the odds for a player you do not want. Likewise, an unhappy player will attract lower bids because there is a chance you will be willing to let him go cheaper because of the unhappiness. If you do not do the same with unhappy AI players (make bids at or around value), you should be doing this.

Contract length plays an important role. Within 18 months of the end of a contract, expect that bids will become closer and closer to the value in game (or below). When a contract has less than a year to run on it, you will be very unlikely to get a bid even close to the value, because the players is likely to leave for free.

If you are getting lots of bids including selling club wage contributions, then you are probably looking to sell a player (rather than an unwelcome bid coming in). I have never seen a bid for a player I am not trying to sell contain such a clause. I would laugh and reject it instantly. I see it most often when a player is paid more than he is worth, and no other club is willing to pay so much. I recently had a player I was interested in buying, but I decided that his wages were simply too high compared to his ability. I could have included a clause in an offer, but I usually try to find cheaper alternatives. In your example, 100K is what I expect to pay the best fullback in the world. This is absolutely no small for any team. There are very, very few clubs willing to pay a fullback this much money. Since I assume you want to sell him, then I guess he is not good enough for those clubs, and the clubs he is good enough for cannot afford him.

The moral of the story on selling players is that if you are looking to sell them, you simply are not going to get huge offers. You should not expect to, and if you do then you have unrealistic expectations and do not understand how football transfers work. You also cannot neglect the influence of wages, which will price out many teams if they are too high relative to ability, and lead to many wage clauses. Do not over pay players you do not think are worth it.

For completeness, if you are getting low bids on players you are not actively looking to sell, just reject them, or negotiate them. Every player has a value for which they can be sold, which varies depending on player and on the person who is managing. I'd reject out of hand any offer for a player I was not looking to sell (i.e. I will use in my first team) that contained a wage clause (but I have never seen such). Do not be afraid to make a player unhappy by rejecting a bid, since they almost always get over it by the end of the transfer window. Unless, of course, their contract is running out and you feel the unhappiness may prevent a new contract.

To conclude, there is not really that much wrong with the transfer module in the game, it is just not knowing how to use it, what things mean, or why things happen that can lead people to thinking there is. Hope I helped.

[scass]

2 hours ago, HUNT3R said:

 

What does "full leagues" mean? Who are you managing? What league? What year? Are we talking about a coco pops trophy or the CL? etc etc etc

100k means very little. It's not a lot for top premier league player, but not every league is the premier league and not every player is a top PL player. Specifics are important. AI teams will go for cheaper/better options if they see those too. Plus, it will also depend on who is interested and the player's interest in moving to them or just moving, period. It may be the case that there just aren't viable options in this 1 season for that player.

I have absolutely no trouble in selling almost any player I want to. But then, I also have every league loaded, so there are a lot of active clubs. 

OK, specifics. Managing Man U in 2023. So we;'re talking Champions League and PL.  It's one example from at least a dozen.

France, Spain, Italy, Germany loaded.

 

But you don't see a [problem, so I'm wasting my time.

[scass]

22 minutes ago, sporadicsmiles said:

Let me try to break it down a bit for you.

Imagine you load minimal leagues (say top flight England, Spain, France, Germany) but with loads of extra players (all players from Europe, for example). You have way more active players than you have active teams (teams not being actively simmed at less active in the transfer market, I believe). You have lots of players available for very few playing slots. This depresses the value of players, making it harder to sell for a high price (why pay a high price when you can probably find a cheaper option available due to the large number of players compared to teams?). Ultimately, you will find it harder to sell players for high fees, and it will be a pain to get rid of players on high wages.

Imagine the opposite situation. You load many leagues but use the smallest possible database size you can for them. Now you have a lot of teams who want to fill places in their squad, but a relatively small number of players to choose from. This increases the value of players, and AI teams will be more willing to pay high prices to get them. It also means you will probably have to pay higher than expected prices for players too, as teams are less willing to sell if they cannot easily replace a player.

You ideally want to be somewhere in the middle. Enough players that any team can find a player for their squad, but not so many that it is too easy. You want teams to be willing to sell because they can find a replacement, and so will be happy to accept a reasonable bid. Just to note, some players are always going to be values highly and be either super expensive to buy, or impossible to buy. World class players, and young players with high potential from clubs under no financial pressure, for instance. I usually find that using the largest default database without adding any further players in does the trick. I assume that the default databases are designed to include players to populate a realistic world, so pick one.

Now, regarding selling players (or buying them). If you are actively looking to sell a player, expect his value as an absolute maximum unless he is highly in demand. Nobody is going to pay over the odds for a player you do not want. Likewise, an unhappy player will attract lower bids because there is a chance you will be willing to let him go cheaper because of the unhappiness. If you do not do the same with unhappy AI players (make bids at or around value), you should be doing this.

Contract length plays an important role. Within 18 months of the end of a contract, expect that bids will become closer and closer to the value in game (or below). When a contract has less than a year to run on it, you will be very unlikely to get a bid even close to the value, because the players is likely to leave for free.

If you are getting lots of bids including selling club wage contributions, then you are probably looking to sell a player (rather than an unwelcome bid coming in). I have never seen a bid for a player I am not trying to sell contain such a clause. I would laugh and reject it instantly. I see it most often when a player is paid more than he is worth, and no other club is willing to pay so much. I recently had a player I was interested in buying, but I decided that his wages were simply too high compared to his ability. I could have included a clause in an offer, but I usually try to find cheaper alternatives. In your example, 100K is what I expect to pay the best fullback in the world. This is absolutely no small for any team. There are very, very few clubs willing to pay a fullback this much money. Since I assume you want to sell him, then I guess he is not good enough for those clubs, and the clubs he is good enough for cannot afford him.

The moral of the story on selling players is that if you are looking to sell them, you simply are not going to get huge offers. You should not expect to, and if you do then you have unrealistic expectations and do not understand how football transfers work. You also cannot neglect the influence of wages, which will price out many teams if they are too high relative to ability, and lead to many wage clauses. Do not over pay players you do not think are worth it.

For completeness, if you are getting low bids on players you are not actively looking to sell, just reject them, or negotiate them. Every player has a value for which they can be sold, which varies depending on player and on the person who is managing. I'd reject out of hand any offer for a player I was not looking to sell (i.e. I will use in my first team) that contained a wage clause (but I have never seen such). Do not be afraid to make a player unhappy by rejecting a bid, since they almost always get over it by the end of the transfer window. Unless, of course, their contract is running out and you feel the unhappiness may prevent a new contract.

To conclude, there is not really that much wrong with the transfer module in the game, it is just not knowing how to use it, what things mean, or why things happen that can lead people to thinking there is. Hope I helped.

Exactly the sort of patronising response I've come to expect on this forum.

 

You're all right., SI have a thankless task explain gin things to idiots like me.

 

[HUNT3R]

Just now, scass said:

OK, specifics. Managing Man U in 2023. So we;'re talking Champions League and PL.  It's one example from at least a dozen.

France, Spain, Italy, Germany loaded.

 

But you don't see a [problem, so I'm wasting my time.

Then don't post. My posts all refer to context as being key. You dismiss everything. We can't do more then.

[forameuss]

24 minutes ago, scass said:

Exactly the sort of patronising response I've come to expect on this forum.

 

You're all right., SI have a thankless task explain gin things to idiots like me.

 

So earlier you complained that I was killing discussion.  Then someone posts a long reply to add to the discussion, trying to put across the point with examples, and it's "patronising".  You couldn't make it up.

[Nacaw]

44 minutes ago, scass said:

 Exactly the sort of patronising response I've come to expect on this forum.

 

You're all right., SI have a thankless task explain gin things to idiots like me.

 

What on earth are you on about? The post gave a very good, detailed explanation of why top teams have a hard time selling their squad players, based on the FM transfer mechanics. Nobody has argued that those mechanics are perfect, but that's what you have to contend with in this game.

[michaeltmurrayuk]

2 hours ago, scass said:

OK, specifics. Managing Man U in 2023. So we;'re talking Champions League and PL.  It's one example from at least a dozen.

France, Spain, Italy, Germany loaded.

 

But you don't see a [problem, so I'm wasting my time.

Who's interested in the player, is the player happy or unhappy?

If the player is happy and the club is a step down then he isn't going to want to move to them without a good reason which would be a pay rise, however these teams are likely in a position where they cannot afford his wage demands hence asking you to pay some of his wages. If he's unhappy and wanting first team football then you have a better chance of him taking a step-down, though this depends on the player as IRL some players are happy to just sit in the reserves collecting their wages for the rest of their contract.

You could also have a problem where the player thinks he is better than he is - if he's been an active part of your successful side, then he'll likely think he should be playing at that level and won't have much interest in dropping to a weaker side, but if the other elite sides don't feel he is an improvement on what they have (and I'd guess he isn't if you want rid of him) they likely won't be interested in him, leaving just the smaller sides but the AI won't generally bid for a player if he isn't interested in joining them, thus it becomes hard to shift him until he becomes unhappy and is willing to drop down a level to play or get a payday.

(The other thing you might need to consider is Brexit especially if your player is British, as he'll now be classed as a non-EU player and those other leagues all have non-EU restrictions which may make the player less attractive to foreign sides.)

[Snorks]

6 hours ago, scass said:

OK, specifics. Managing Man U in 2023. So we;'re talking Champions League and PL.  It's one example from at least a dozen.

France, Spain, Italy, Germany loaded.

 

But you don't see a [problem, so I'm wasting my time.

Ok, First off, sporadicsmiles explanation is about the best one I've seen so far on this topic, on any forum, anywhere - I wish I could write so eloquently.

Secondly, as has been explained many times, the number of leagues loaded is meaningless without knowing the number of players in the database.

Still, you do not give us the full details, which suggests you have realised that your issues are a result of your own actions but do not want to admit it.

So five nations loaded, with a large database would devalue the players across the board, with a few 'world class' exception (Messi-esque players). With a Huge database, even more. A small database would increase the value of the players a bit.

Now, you are managing one of the biggest clubs in the world, and in the game, Consistently one of the richest, if not THE richest club, so, for any employee of the club to move to another is most likely going to be a 'step down' in their career. This means they will be more picky, want certain assurances and, more than likely, more money in their new contract to make it worth moving. Especially if they are still in their prime between about 25-30.

This then puts the buying club in a tricky situation, they know you want to get rid of the player, or at least have agreed to get rid of the player, but they need a bit help with his wages - so they ask for it by way of wage contribution etc. 

Now, I have not really got into the wage contribution situation yet, as I usually successfully negotiate around it or bin the transfer altogether and find another way to off-load the player if necessary, (although this may take a full season) but doesn't the wage contribution only last until his contract would expire with you anyway?

So if there is a year left on the 100K per week contract, you then agree a transfer fee that includes a 50% wage contribution, you end up paying 50K per week for the year and then it stops?

Don;t know if that's right or not, but it's not really a huge price to pay if you are Man Utd.

But, I don;t see a problem, not an inherent one with the game at any rate.

[RBKalle]

17 ore fa, sporadicsmiles ha scritto:

To conclude, there is not really that much wrong with the transfer module in the game, it is just not knowing how to use it, what things mean, or why things happen that can lead people to thinking there is. Hope I helped.

I disagree.

Your analysis sort of glosses over the fact that even inactive leagues have their fair share of transfers.

Also, I suspect you're giving way too much credit to the way AI operates and evaluates the players.  Having 20 wingers with CA >160 or having 5 doesn't mean AI will be able to think "oh, there are only a handful of those, I'll try to sign one of them before it's too late".
They'll likely go for a 150CA with high(er) reputation, or with one of those pesky 21yo with 130CA, 180PPA and flawed attributes... (which means they'll never fulfill their potential but the AI will still fail to recognize the player-breaking weaknesses).

Also, AI can sometimes have a spidey sense for finding a couple of diamonds in the rough from Romanian or Nigerian lower leagues and they'll go for the cheap wonderkid your scouts kept on overlooking.

Let's be honest: at least until FM17, AI offers were consistently on the stingier side, unless it was the odd Neymar-case. And the moment you offer out a player, you're guaranteed you'll get laughably low offers. Or no offers at all for players in real life would have top clubs queueing outside the selling club's HQ to sign him.

While I see it makes sense not to splash the cash on a player who is, allegedly, pushed out of the club, I doubt IRL you'd get offers in the 15-20M even for a rotation option at Man Utd. Or, better, whichever club'd come up with such offer would be politely told to *** off...
But the main issue is with FIRST TEAM players, not unhappy, not transfer listed, not in their final year of contract, attracting "unsolicited" offers that don't reflect nor the Value of the player nor its "Value" (the in-game figure in the profile, which is another misleading and confusing feature that'd have been fixed a long time ago).

In (past) FMs as Liverpool you'd recieve a 30M offer for Coutinho, and there's no way Van Dijk would have EVER been valued the (admittedly ridiculous) amount LFC did in real life.

FM18 is slightly better in that respect, but it's still the highest percentile of transfers being reflected. The "middle of the road" ones, those that in real life command a transfer fee in the 25-50M range, are still woefully undervalued.

No matter the database setup.

[herne79]

1 hour ago, RBKalle said:

Also, AI can sometimes have a spidey sense for finding a couple of diamonds in the rough from Romanian or Nigerian lower leagues and they'll go for the cheap wonderkid your scouts kept on overlooking.

The AI controls hundreds of clubs.  You only control one.  If this spidey sense were kicking in consistently with just one AI club then yeh there might be an issue.  Is that what you are seeing?  If not then of course AI clubs will stand more chance of picking up these diamonds than you because you're not competing against just one AI club, you're competing against hundreds.  One of them is bound to spot the talent.

And yet it's still perfectly possible to spot these diamonds yourself.  It'll be rare but still possible.  In a test save not so long ago I found an 18 year old Brazilian at a small Brazilian 3rd division club.  He started life there as a newgen and had slowly been developing over 3 years.  Not even the big Brazilian teams had picked up on him.  I bought him for just £55k and his PA?  199.  Shame it was just a test save.

[RBKalle]

57 minuti fa, herne79 ha scritto:

The AI controls hundreds of clubs.  You only control one.  If this spidey sense were kicking in consistently with just one AI club then yeh there might be an issue.  Is that what you are seeing?  If not then of course AI clubs will stand more chance of picking up these diamonds than you because you're not competing against just one AI club, you're competing against hundreds.  One of them is bound to spot the talent.

And yet it's still perfectly possible to spot these diamonds yourself.  It'll be rare but still possible.  In a test save not so long ago I found an 18 year old Brazilian at a small Brazilian 3rd division club.  He started life there as a newgen and had slowly been developing over 3 years.  Not even the big Brazilian teams had picked up on him.  I bought him for just £55k and his PA?  199.  Shame it was just a test save.

I didn't imply it was happening all the time or that is an issue. Actually in previous iterations I almost purposedly half-assed the scouting part of the game in order NOT to hoard promising youngsters available for (relatively) cheap in areas of which I had good-to-great knowledge in gameworld.
Not every observation is meant as a "the game sucks" or "the game is flawed" desparaging remark, nor as some sort of bug report. It's just stuff that happens in the game. Some makes sense, some not so much.

I just pointed out that AI has other ways to sign players that aren't directly affected by the (perceived) scarcity of good players. On the other hand, clubs with huge gaps in their squad have often ignored perfectly good players (both prospects and established ones) for reasons I still can't understand...

In my usual game setup (4-5 active nations, 30-50k players) I've NEVER ONCE witnessed AI coming up with "insane" bids. Not for high CA players, not for record-breaking goalscorers. And the "worse" the player is, the less likely he is to ever attract an offer, any offer. It gets so bad you offer FIRST TEAMERS for free and there are no takers.

P.S. Isn't the game "populating" the db when there's shortage of players anyway?

[sporadicsmiles]

19 hours ago, scass said:

Exactly the sort of patronising response I've come to expect on this forum.

 

You're all right., SI have a thankless task explain gin things to idiots like me.

 

Well, I tried, I am sure others will find this useful, even if you did not.

[herne79]

31 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

In my usual game setup (4-5 active nations, 30-50k players) I've NEVER ONCE witnessed AI coming up with "insane" bids. Not for high CA players, not for record-breaking goalscorers. And the "worse" the player is, the less likely he is to ever attract an offer, any offer. It gets so bad you offer FIRST TEAMERS for free and there are no takers.

So is that an issue with the transfer system or your "usual game setup"?

I think this perhaps touches on a side issue I haven't seen mentioned yet and that is the impact on the game world which our setup can have and the lack of information on what the impact will be.  How many threads and posts do we see where people ask "how many leagues should I run?  how large a database should I have?"  Obviously a lot of any answer will relate to the ability of your computer, but giving us an indication of how it may affect the our game world and the transfer system might go some way to help answer the OP's (and others) issues.

That's not to say the transfer system (or indeed any other aspect of the game) is perfect.  There is always room for improvement.  We've already had SI ask for save game files uploaded so they can take a look.  There may or may not be anything in it.  But because there is arguably a lack of clarity in game about the impact our choices will have we get to the understandable surprise of "Ascensio sold for 35m?!?  Are you insane?"  And by the time it gets to a public forum, that frustration has grown into "how hard can it be to build a transfer system" and people taking their time to explain things get dismissed as patronising.

I'm not advocating complete transparency in game, but some extra info in game about how our choices can impact things such as the transfer market might be useful.

[sporadicsmiles]

2 hours ago, RBKalle said:

I disagree.

Your analysis sort of glosses over the fact that even inactive leagues have their fair share of transfers.

Also, I suspect you're giving way too much credit to the way AI operates and evaluates the players.  Having 20 wingers with CA >160 or having 5 doesn't mean AI will be able to think "oh, there are only a handful of those, I'll try to sign one of them before it's too late".
They'll likely go for a 150CA with high(er) reputation, or with one of those pesky 21yo with 130CA, 180PPA and flawed attributes... (which means they'll never fulfill their potential but the AI will still fail to recognize the player-breaking weaknesses).

Also, AI can sometimes have a spidey sense for finding a couple of diamonds in the rough from Romanian or Nigerian lower leagues and they'll go for the cheap wonderkid your scouts kept on overlooking.

Let's be honest: at least until FM17, AI offers were consistently on the stingier side, unless it was the odd Neymar-case. And the moment you offer out a player, you're guaranteed you'll get laughably low offers. Or no offers at all for players in real life would have top clubs queueing outside the selling club's HQ to sign him.

While I see it makes sense not to splash the cash on a player who is, allegedly, pushed out of the club, I doubt IRL you'd get offers in the 15-20M even for a rotation option at Man Utd. Or, better, whichever club'd come up with such offer would be politely told to *** off...
But the main issue is with FIRST TEAM players, not unhappy, not transfer listed, not in their final year of contract, attracting "unsolicited" offers that don't reflect nor the Value of the player nor its "Value" (the in-game figure in the profile, which is another misleading and confusing feature that'd have been fixed a long time ago).

In (past) FMs as Liverpool you'd recieve a 30M offer for Coutinho, and there's no way Van Dijk would have EVER been valued the (admittedly ridiculous) amount LFC did in real life.

FM18 is slightly better in that respect, but it's still the highest percentile of transfers being reflected. The "middle of the road" ones, those that in real life command a transfer fee in the 25-50M range, are still woefully undervalued.

No matter the database setup.

Fair enough, I did not intend to give the impression everything in the module is perfect, but rather to point out many things people complain about are either being misused or misunderstood. You are right in that I glossed over a lot of things, and by no means is the transfer module perfect. As you point out, the way inactive leagues are dealt with is not optimal, but I also imagine it is painful to make it more detailed without increasing the simulation time and taking away the gain in performance you get from having view only leagues. Clearly something that needs to be improved on.

Likewise, how the AI builds squads is an area that can undergo huge improvement. The later you get into a game, the worse AI squads become. This, however, I think is a separate issue to how the transfer module works. This is more an issue of shortlist building, which is why I did not include it. However, you are absolutely right, but again I guess it is difficult for an AI to critically analyse as well as a human to decide if a player is worth signing. At least without greatly increasing processing time again (which we do not want).

Regarding offering players out, the moment you do this you have to expect very low offers. You are basically sending a message that you want to sell this player right now, and you want him gone quickly. It gives the impression you are desperate to sell, which drives the price down massively. Think of this in real life, if someone keeps emailing you that they want to sell you their car (aside from assuming something was wrong with it, I guess FM is not so advanced in reasoning from the AI), you would not offer them face value for it. They want to sell it, you would offer them a bargain price. If you do not want to sell so urgently, you have to be more patient to find the person willing to pay the price you want. Same applies in FM. I think the problem people have is that there is a discontinuity between what they expect to happen, and what would happen in reality. I only ever offer players to clubs when I just want them gone (for squad limit or salary reasons more often than not), and the absolute value of the transfer is not so important. Besides, you can negotiate.

On random offers for players. They are testing the waters, seeing if you are willing to sell, and trying to unsettle the player (one or all of these). I do the same, either to see if someone can do business with me, or to try to make a player unhappy. You have to remember also that almost all of these offers are negotiable, and the opening bid is absolutely nowhere near where you can eventually sell a player. Opening bids should be low (although in FM they are often too low, I agree there). You have to negotiate the best deal you can, just as happens when you are buying a player from the AI; low offer from you, high counter offer from them, and meet somewhere in the middle (or pull out).

Oh, and you are right about the wonderkid regens, they can always find them easily. I do not know if this is some kind of boost to get the players signed, or if the AI is better at scouting than I am.

[Flashman]

19 hours ago, scass said:

OK, specifics. Managing Man U in 2023. So we;'re talking Champions League and PL.  It's one example from at least a dozen.

France, Spain, Italy, Germany loaded.

 

Hi scass - what size database did you load at the start of the game?  Any extra players loaded..?  I have 19 leagues loaded with a small database and transfer fees seem a little on the high side - but not much.  I can get decent fees for any players I want to sell, but I also usually have to pay over the odds for any players in their prime.  But this is post "Brexit" so the market is a bit squiffy anyway..

[HUNT3R]

This is still worth a read, even if it just shows that even back then, there were plenty of things to consider: 

 

[RBKalle]

12 minuti fa, herne79 ha scritto:

So is that an issue with the transfer system or your "usual game setup"?

How can I possibly know that?

To me it looks balanced enough in order not to give too much of an advantage to active leagues (if half of the clubs in inactive leagues have Grey Players, European cups will be less competitive), without having a bloated gameworld that'll run at snail's pace on my computer.

Then again...

12 minuti fa, herne79 ha scritto:

I think this perhaps touches on a side issue I haven't seen mentioned yet and that is the impact on the game world which our setup can have and the lack of information on what the impact will be.  How many threads and posts do we see where people ask "how many leagues should I run?  how large a database should I have?"  Obviously a lot of any answer will relate to the ability of your computer, but giving us an indication of how it may affect the our game world and the transfer system might go some way to help answer the OP's (and others) issues.

... this is a very very interesting point and a feature that'd have been added many years ago.

Still, my question is:

does the amount of available players ACTUALLY impact the transfer module so much? Top Clubs in inactive leagues STILL make bids and sign players. Rich clubs from rich inactive leagues still offer big fat contracts to mediocre players... So it's not as if playing with EPL as the only active league means Barça or PSG won't come knocking for the next big thing... Or that, if you load 100k players, every EPL club will suddenly sign all the top players for peanuts.

[HUNT3R]

2 minutes ago, RBKalle said:

How can I possibly know that?

To me it looks balanced enough in order not to give too much of an advantage to active leagues (if half of the clubs in inactive leagues have Grey Players, European cups will be less competitive), without having a bloated gameworld that'll run at snail's pace on my computer.

Then again...

... this is a very very interesting point and a feature that'd have been added many years ago.

Still, my question is:

does the amount of available players ACTUALLY impact the transfer module so much? Top Clubs in inactive leagues STILL make bids and sign players. Rich clubs from rich inactive leagues still offer big fat contracts to mediocre players... So it's not as if playing with EPL as the only active league means Barça or PSG won't come knocking for the next big thing... Or that, if you load 100k players, every EPL club will suddenly sign all the top players for peanuts.

The bigger clubs will still be active in an inactive league. As you said, Continental competitions is a the reason for it. Outside those big clubs is where the "issue" lies. Fewer clubs to be possibly interested in your dead wood players.

And database size does affect the transfer module quite a bit. It does even out over time as players will either retire (from there being too many, if your database is huge with few leagues) or regens will "fill up" the database over time if there's a shortage of players.

Picture a huge database with few leagues added. So not a lot of active clubs and soooo many players to choose from, including free agents etc. There will be fewer clubs fighting over players. There will also not be too much difficulty in finding a player, so fewer clubs "needing" to make huge bids on deadline day for players as time runs out for them.

[Neil Brock]

21 hours ago, scass said:

OK, specifics. Managing Man U in 2023. So we;'re talking Champions League and PL.  It's one example from at least a dozen.

France, Spain, Italy, Germany loaded.

 

But you don't see a [problem, so I'm wasting my time.

@scass please upload your save game to our FTP and let us know the file name. FTP details here - https://community.sigames.com/topic/417549-ftp-details/

Also please let us know the dozen or so players you've found this issue with. That way I can feedback.

Thanks. 

[michaeltmurrayuk]

19 hours ago, Snorks said:

So if there is a year left on the 100K per week contract, you then agree a transfer fee that includes a 50% wage contribution, you end up paying 50K per week for the year and then it stops?

Don;t know if that's right or not, but it's not really a huge price to pay if you are Man Utd.

Yes you only pay the wage contribution until the end of the contract the player had with you, not until the end of his new contract, so if the player only had one year left on his contract with you you'd only pay that contribution until the end of the season, so it's not that much of an issue if a player only has one year left and you don't want him as paying him a bit and getting a transfer fee is likely better than paying all his wages for the last year, well unless you are lucky enough to get someone to pay to take him on loan with his wages paid. Though it becomes more of a problem if he has a long-term contract but that then begs the question of why he was given the big contract in the first place.

 

8 hours ago, RBKalle said:

In (past) FMs as Liverpool you'd recieve a 30M offer for Coutinho, and there's no way Van Dijk would have EVER been valued the (admittedly ridiculous) amount LFC did in real life.

FM18 is slightly better in that respect, but it's still the highest percentile of transfers being reflected. The "middle of the road" ones, those that in real life command a transfer fee in the 25-50M range, are still woefully undervalued.

One of the problems FM has is that it doesn't model inflation in the transfer market (or at all) so the transfer values will stay fairly static through the game unlike IRL where in recent seasons the transfer values have shot up so £30m-£50m is now seen as the starting price for top level players, but would have been acceptable values for top players when FM17 came out, with SI having the problem of trying to predict what the market would do, I'm sure if people playing FM17 were quoted £75m Van Dijk they'd be on here moaning how unrealistic the game is. (Similar with the Dembele and Mbappe fees and no doubt whatever crazy amounts teams will fork out this summer to make those fees look reasonable).

[Snorks]

3 hours ago, michaeltmurrayuk said:

Though it becomes more of a problem if he has a long-term contract but that then begs the question of why he was given the big contract in the first place.

That was because I was a numpty 

[Lucozade1]

I have issues with the way transfers play out in this game. It's been the same for many years though.

I find it very easy to sell players for inflated prices. These same players move to clubs and don't even get a game, so why did the club by him in the first place?

In one of my saves, Before the season started, I sold Blind to PSG for (can't remember exactly) 35m. The player featured around 3 times and was transfer listed within 6months, moved to Monaco at the end of that season. I can add a lot more of these to the table also. Real are another club that will throw big money on a player you offer, buy him, then never play him.

I also sold Mata to Real at the same time and got 42m for him. Obviously with the abundance of talent they have in their squad, he hardly got a game and was shipped out the following season. Just pointless transfers.

For me, this ruins the long term of the game, because clubs will buy players because of their high rep in the game, but realise they are useless.

On top of this, players move very cheaply without competition. People have used Asensio in this thread as a perfect example. If Real Madrid didn't want him, then fine, but the price he generally moves for is pennies. If Real decided in Real life right now, we don't want you anymore, there is no way they'd only get 35m for him. Clubs would fight each other for his signature. Just because they don't want him, doesn't mean they should just list him for under his value.

Alexis Sanchez is another prime example. When his contract was running out, not a single team offered him a contract. I couldn't as I was in the EPL. There is no way he wasn't interested in going to team A,B or C outside of England, yet nobody wanted this bargain.... Was great for me as I picked him up on a free.

What did I do at the end of the season...., sold him to PSG for 95m. I rejected bids from Chelsea, Real and Atletico from him. So why did these clubs want to spend between 80-95m for him, but didn't want him on a free the season before?

Another problem I find is, it's very easy to get a club to pay up front for your players. I very rarely will accept an offer with any sort of instalment payment. On the flip side, I won't buy a player unless I have him on very big instalments. On this particular Man United save I'm half way through my third season, I have over 350m to spend and my current team is:

De Gea, Mario Fernades, De Ligt, Varane, Alaba, Pogba, Savic, Martial, Dybala, Martins, Kane

Backup squad is:

Regen, Semedo, Dier, Lindelof, Grimaldo, Alli, Arthur, Lozano, De Arrascaeta, Deulofeu, Andre Silva

 

As much as I love the game, this is a real killer for me.

As for data base, I play large, and I have England, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Holland and France loaded

[sporadicsmiles]

On 19/06/2018 at 17:19, scass said:

Exactly the sort of patronising response I've come to expect on this forum.

 

You're all right., SI have a thankless task explain gin things to idiots like me.

 

I will not escalate here. But this is also the response I have come to expect from people who do not want help, they just want to complain. I explained things as best I can, if you do not want to listen you can go on struggling. I certainly tried.

[westy8chimp]

@sporadicsmiles with an excellent explanation... @RBKalle with a good challenge.

There is definitely a discussion to be had in amongst the middle ground. Some of the posts damning the mechanics are ridiculous, some of the over-defensive responses only increase player frustration.

There's always been something wrong with transfer market in my view... but it's remaining intangible in my head.. I can't quite express it, or isolate it to some specific issues.

You can see by;

• AI squad building - ending up overloaded in some positions and bare bones in others (often out of sync with the actual formation they use too)
• Ease at which the player can exploit the loan system.
• Ease at which the player can buy average players and resell.
• The occasional massive overpricing of a young player (i.e. never had a senior appearance, the amount you offer IRL would buy the club not the player, and they still reject)
• The occasional massive underpricing of a fairly good player ('The strange case of Asensio)
• Plus more...

That it isn't perfect. Can it ever be? Probably not.. incredibly hard to write on paper an ideal solution, so even harder to translate into code.

The other thing that comes into play is the club you are. I quite often either play as a major club (Arsenal, Utd, Barca, RM, Juve, PSG, Bayern)... or a small club and the difficulties (and exploits) are different at each end of the spectrum. In my current Leverkusen save I've found yet a different set of outcomes... I'm receiving seemingly much larger offers for my players than usual. And able to pick up decent players cheaper than usual. There is probably logic in there when you investigate but it's a good reason why some people will swear blind one version of the truth ... and another user will swear blind that it isn't the case.

[Vernum]

i m trying to sell mesut ozil for 2 million during the summer transfer window of 2018, no club wants him (with 28 active nation including all majors) is there a logic behind this ?

[forameuss]

4 minutes ago, Vernum said:

i m trying to sell mesut ozil for 2 million during the summer transfer window of 2018, no club wants him (with 28 active nation including all majors) is there a logic behind this ?

He's on an astronomical contract.  Where are the clubs that 

a) can afford him, and
b) would see him as an improvement on what they had?

a) would narrow the list down massively, because I guarantee he'd want to at least match his current wages (otherwise, what's the point in him leaving?) and b) would likely clear out the list completely.  Perfectly logical.

[Vernum]

multiple clubs are buying him for 1 million thought... wouldnt that mean that he is an improvement to those clubs and they can afford to pay him ?

[westy8chimp]

3 minutes ago, forameuss said:

He's on an astronomical contract.  Where are the clubs that 

a) can afford him, and
b) would see him as an improvement on what they had?

a) would narrow the list down massively, because I guarantee he'd want to at least match his current wages (otherwise, what's the point in him leaving?) and b) would likely clear out the list completely.  Perfectly logical.

Nonsense... about as good a response as telling the guy who wanted to make his Liverpool save harder, the only criteria being he wouldn't change club, by saying "don't be Liverpool".

IRL if Arsenal were handing Ozil out, pretty much every EPL club would want a piece... even if their offer included wage contribution from Arsenal and got rejected etc. Or if he rejected them.. they'd still offer first. Not to mention other top European clubs.

 

[forameuss]

6 minutes ago, Vernum said:

multiple clubs are buying him for 1 million thought... wouldnt that mean that he is an improvement to those clubs and they can afford to pay him ?

So it's option a then.  They don't feel that 2 million + an astronomical contract is worth it, but they do for 1 million.  Again, completely logical.  

A transfer fee is a one-off amount.  It can be absolutely tiny, but the wages are always going to be a real killer for clubs, and it always needs to be taken into account when you try to sell a player.  A player on a 25k contract is going to cost a team £1.3m just for a single season.  What's Ozil currently on?

[forameuss]

5 minutes ago, westy8chimp said:

Nonsense... about as good a response as telling the guy who wanted to make his Liverpool save harder, the only criteria being he wouldn't change club, by saying "don't be Liverpool".

IRL if Arsenal were handing Ozil out, pretty much every EPL club would want a piece... even if their offer included wage contribution from Arsenal and got rejected etc. Or if he rejected them.. they'd still offer first. Not to mention other top European clubs.

 

Ooft, someone's had their jimmy's rustled.  If you want to be more accurate, I said that if you're stuck on those criteria, you'll likely not get as much of a challenge as opening it up.  But still, if you're wanting to get seething about something, I'd completely make up the content of a post in a completely different thread too 

I didn't say it was necessarily right, but it's far from illogical.  Teams in FM are controlled by the AI, and probably doing far more rudimentary sums than any team in real life would.  It'll essentially boil down to those two things - can I afford him, do I want him - and if either of those aren't true, they wouldn't bid.  Obviously.  So whether it's right or not, that's the logic.

[Vernum]

hmm let me try to sell a few more player after selling ozil to see if i can bait the same club to test their finance.

[forameuss]

Just now, Vernum said:

hmm let me try to sell a few more player after selling ozil to see if i can bait the same club to test their finance.

If something really doesn't look right in your opinion, always worth putting it up in the bugs forum with a save.  SI can quickly tell you why a club isn't biting I believe.  If they're still commenting on bug reports for FM18 that is.  I can see the logic in why club's might not be immediately interested in a player that's already earning squillions, but they may spot something more untoward as they have the tools to do so.