Assistant Manager / Player Auctions / Match Engine Improvements
Hi everyone
We’re doing a mid-month update this month as we’ve got a number of fixes/improvements that are ready to deploy now that improve the gameplay experience, and we’ve decided to get these in asap rather than waiting until the end of the month. We are also trying to get the game to a state where we can actively try and push for more users asap.
There’s a series of improvements to the brand new Assistant Manager feature. The changes are in response to feedback received from the userbase, as well as taking into account the data for how the feature is being used.
Having more direct pvp competition for player signings as well as more choice of players to sign is something that many people have asked for so we’ve made some changes to push the game more in that direction. In particular, only being able to sell players for 50% of transfer value when no transfer bid has been received for them was particularly punishing for those who aren’t particularly good (or interested) in squad management. Increasing this to 75% is hopefully a better overall balance for not punishing these managers, whilst at the same time still giving meaningful benefits to those who are active in the squad management side of the game.
The couple of match engine player behaviour improvements help a lot with the overall flow of matches.
There’s also quite a few bug fixes that we wanted to get into the game asap.
Note: items below labelled with a “^” means this change will take effect starting at midnight UTC tonight.
Assistant Manager Changes
Assistant Manager no longer prevents you from playing other match types when you have overdue matches, unless it is the final day of the league period
Assistant Manager can now start playing matches for any clubs whose manager hasn’t logged in for 10 consecutive days, starting from the very beginning of each league period
Better balanced league period distribution of Assistant Manager match requesting (far less back end heavy)
Transfer System Changes
Players can now be sold for 75% of value when no transfer bid has been received for them that day
Balancing changes to player valuations ^
Balancing changes to starting bid for Player Auctions (all bids made today before the update have been removed)
Increased amount of players that are part of the Player Auctions each day ^
The players that are part of the Player Auctions each day now shuffle around more to create more variation in players on the list on a day to day basis ^
Min(imum bid) column added to the Player Auctions page
Match Engine Changes
Balancing changes to dribbling behaviour (defensive role players now attempt dribbles less)
Balancing changes to passing behaviour (less long range passes end up going out of play)
Fixed bug that caused substitution icons not appearing correctly in some situations
Other Changes
Balancing changes to Financial Stability club ranking metric ^
League Results widget for the weekly league tables now only show results that pertain to clubs involved in that weekly league rather than for all clubs in the division
The Overall Standings screen now includes a Results tab that shows results from all leagues in a tier
Squad Layout now has improved sorting order logic for Positions (sorts by rank/side rather than alphabetically)
Order of position icons for players now shows in order from left to right of most defensive to most attacking and left then centre then right
Fixed club logos not displaying correctly on custom sorted league tables
Updated design of match notification window (that appears bottom right)
Fixed club logos not displaying correctly on the match notification window
The League Fixtures widget on the home layout now always shows days and hours remaining in the league period window (rather than only showing hours in the final days)
Fixed Club Rankings text not appearing correctly on first load sometimes
Fixed club logos not displaying correctly on match welcome panel on the left side of the screen
Fixed rare bug that caused the match fixtures/results widget not displaying WDL icons for matches that have been played
Updates to Portuguese translations
Assistant Manager
Hi everyone
This month we’ve focussed on responding to feedback about the league/fixture system and making some changes to the way the league system works. As part of this we have added a new Assistant Manager feature to help managers get their matches played. Details on these below.
There’s also some changes to the transfer system to make it more competitive and provide more choice in players, things which many of you have asked for.
We have also started adding in some ‘world building’ content in the form of a variety of Club Ranking metrics. This is something we will continue to flesh out over time.
The game is also now fully localized/translated into both Portuguese and Greek languages.
Assistant Manager - New Feature
All teams in the game will now have an Assistant Manager that will request and play fixtures on their behalf should they fall behind on playing them themselves. The Assistant Manager will let you know of any games that will try to play in the near future by marking the fixture result square on the home screen with an ! icon. If you see this icon and you want to play the match instead of your assistant manager, then it’s best to play it ASAP.
League System Changes
The weekly leagues (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer) now contain 12 clubs each rather than all clubs in the whole tier/division being ranked in a single table (but will still play against all teams within their tier throughout the season). Bot clubs are no longer part of the Overall league rankings. The Overall league is otherwise functionally the same. i.e. The Overall league still ranks all all clubs in the whole tier/division against each other and is used to drive promotion/relegation as it did previously.
Transfer System Changes
Highest bidder now pays an amount equal to their bid (rather than paying an amount equal to the 2nd highest bidder).
You are now also able to make a transfer bid for any player in your Scouting Pool for an amount between 50% and 90% of the price you can buy them for (you can still instantly buy any player from your Scouting Pool for their full buy price).
All players in all Scouting Pools for all managers in the game who receive such transfer bids, will be in the Player Auctions list the next day. Other managers will be able to make a Player Auction bid for these players, but the minimum bid for anyone else is equal to 150% of the Transfer Bid amount made by the manager whose Scouting Pool the player was in.
Transfer Bids can be withdrawn before the player is in the Player Auctions list (i.e. the same UTC calendar day they are made). Once the player is in the Player Auctions list the initial transfer bid cannot be withdrawn or changed, nor can the manager make a regular Player Auction bid on any players they made a Transfer Bid for previously.
A variety of some of the best available players in the Scouting Pool will still be identified as ‘Marquee Players’ and they will be in the Player Auctions list in addition to the players who received Transfer Bids in Scouting Pools (although they will no longer be marked as being ‘Marquee’ players, they will simply be extra players in the player auctions list).
From the perspective of managers who did not make a transfer bid for a player in their scouting pool the Player Auctions list is functionally identical to what it was previously (except that it will be a much larger list).
From the perspective of any manager who makes a transfer bid for a player in their Scouting Pool they will sign the player for their transfer bid amount if no other club bids for that player. If any other club bids for that player then the club who bid the most will sign the player.
Club Rankings - New Feature
There is now a leaderboard with the top 5 ranked clubs in the game in each of the 8 ranking metrics. Additionally, if you have an active Supporter Club Membership you’ll be able to see details about how your own club ranks in these metrics, allowing you to get a better idea of your strengths and areas for improvement.
Full Changelog
Assistant Manager - New Feature
All clubs in the game will now have an Assistant Manager
Any club managed by a user that does not log in for an entire season (entire calendar month) or does not have an active Supporter Club Membership can be removed from the game during season finishing due to inactivity
The Assistant Manager will request and play matches on behalf of managers automatically if that manager is behind on playing their matches for the weekly league period
The Assistant Manager will let you know of any games that will try to play in the near future by marking the fixture result square on the home screen with an ! icon
If you have any league fixtures with an ! icon. Then you cannot play friendly matches until you have played those league matches
If you disconnect from a match then the Assistant Manager will take over managing the club for the remainder of that match (i.e. they can make substitutions)
League System Changes
The weekly leagues (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer) now contain 12 clubs each rather than all clubs in the whole tier/division being ranked in a single table
Bot clubs are no longer part of the Overall league rankings
Last Season Winners widget on Overall league, now shows 1st, 2nd and 3rd for the overall league (no longer shows Winners of weekly leagues from previous season)
Bot clubs have been renamed and given more variety of club colours to improve immersion
Division 5 has been removed from the game (all clubs that would have otherwise been in Division 5 are now in Division 4)
You cannot be relegated below Division 4
Transfer System Changes
You are now able to make transfer bids for players in your scouting pool. See above for more information
Highest bidder now pays an amount equal to their bid rather than paying an amount equal to the 2nd highest bidder (or minimum bid in the case of no other bidder)
Marquee Players renamed as Player Auctions, and these are no longer tier bound (i.e. all tiers/divisions in the game see and bid on the same list of players)
Scouting Pool players are no longer tier bound (i.e. all Scouting Pool players shuffle between all clubs in all tiers/divisions)
In order to make a Transfer Bid for a player you must be able to afford that bid inclusive of the Transfer Fee, Signing Fee and player wages for one month, for both that player as well as all other players in your Scouting Pool you have Transfer Bids made for
A variety of some of the best available players in the Scouting Pool will also be added to the Player Auctions list each day
Improvements/balancing changes to player valuation system
Minimum Purchase price now £10k for all tiers
Match Engine Changes
Throw-in taker will now wait for teammates to be up on their feet before taking the throwin
Rushing Out attribute for goalkeepers improved. Higher Rushing Out attribute now sees them move further to get through balls
Command of Area attribute for goalkeepers improved, they will now claim more corners/crosses
Club Ranking Metrics - New Feature
A series of 8 club ranking metrics have been added to the game. There is a leaderboard that shows the top 5 ranked clubs in the game for each metric
Supporter Club Membership feature that you can also see information about your own club ranking in each metric if you have a Supporter Club Membership, including daily and seasonal movements information
Senior Performance ranking metric added : The performance of your senior team in competitive games
Youth Performance ranking metric added : The performance of your youth team in competitive games
Financial Stability ranking metric added : The stability of your club from a financial perspective, taking into account overall wealth, income and expenditure
Graduate Development ranking metric added : The ability to choose and develop academy trial graduates
Future Prospects ranking metric added : The prospective youth prospects at the club (including players acquired via the transfer market and academy)
Squad Depth ranking metric added : The depth of player ability within the current squad
Club Value ranking metric added : The net worth of the club, taking into account various factors including current bank balance and the value of players currently at the club
Overall ranking metric added : The overall ranking of a club, taking into account all of the other metrics
Training Points/Ranking Changes
Players are now ranked across tiers (Training Rank is no longer tier bound)
Training Points are no longer capped by Determination/Natural Fitness Attributes
Determination/Natural Fitness attributes now act as a multiplier
Match result no longer impacts training points directly (but indirectly impacts points because promotion/relegation matters a lot due to the tier multiplier)
Points calculation is match rating out of 10
tier multiplier
det/nf multiplier
Higher training rank matters but there is a large ‘random’ element as well involved, so it’s possible players with lower training rank might get good training options and vice versa
Training Manager skills rebalanced to take into account these changes (Points they offer increased by x100 fold)
Tutorial Changes
New users now unlock parts of the game as they complete tasks
At the moment those tasks are placeholder to just playing matches but the intention is to make it so that each step requires a different task to be completed related to the previously unlocked game functionality
Players now get a popup notification whenever they receive a cash injection
There is now a ‘Training League’ outside of the Divisional League system. New users during their first season are placed here once they complete the tutorial (for remainder of their first part season/month). They will be placed into Division 4 at the start of the next season (i.e. for their first full season/month in the game)
Player Metric Changes
Ceiling value (value in hexagon next to the overall rating) has been refined. The system now takes into account the maximum possible achievable rating dynamically over time. So as a player ages the ceiling rating will typically go down as the player has 'less than perfect possible' training options each season
Removed quality stars from the game
Localization Changes
The game is now fully translated into Portuguese language
The game is now fully translated into Greek language
Various fixes/improvements to localization system in game
Language has been reset to English for everyone who had other languages selected (you can go to settings to select the language again)
If you’d like to help translate the game into your own language please check out the 90 Minute Fever Discord Server for more information
UI Changes
Design changes to backgrounds
Design changes to buttons
Design changes to pop-ups
Design changes to various other UI elements
Club Logo Changes
Default logo design changed
Uploaded logos now only visible if you have an active Supporter Club Membership
Match Engine - Defensive Positioning
Hi everyone
This month we’ve focussed on a match engine update and also responding to user feedback to provide balancing and other changes to the gameplay. Details on these below.
The squad limits in particular we’ve had numerous pieces of feedback that the system wasn’t flexible enough so we’ve made changes to the system to make it much more flexible.
We have also progressed with work on localisation within the game client and we are now very close to the game being fully playable for non-English speakers in any languages we have translations for. Note: if you are multilingual and are able to help with translations, you can do so via the new official 90MF Discord server https://discord.gg/qFZZ3xn2Kf. Any help is very much appreciated.
Match Engine Update
The match engine update primarily focuses on player movement when not in possession of the ball, especially when defending. For example you may notice that defenders tend to work better as a unit pushing up in their defensive line, and also cover for each other much better regarding missed tackles.
Squad Limits
The squad limits system has been 'upgraded' on dev to be more flexible. The maximum number of players is still 50 but the composition of those players can be pretty much anything you want, so long as you are able to field a youth team (i.e. you need 16 youth outfielders and 2 youth goalkeepers).
Technically speaking these are the new Max limits:
max 50 players in total
max 47 out of those 50 can be outfielders
max 8 out of those 50 can be keepers
Or to put another way, you can now have between 3 and 8 keepers, and the number of outfielders you can have is equal to 50 minus the number of keepers you have.
The Min limits are unchanged:
min 25 outfielders total (at least 16 of which must be youth players)
min 3 keepers total (at least 2 of which must be youth players)
Discord Server
90 Minute Fever has now has an official Discord Server: https://discord.gg/qFZZ3xn2Kf
Full Changelog
Match Engine Changes:
Significant improvements to defensive line handling
Significant improvements to defensive positioning/coordination between players
Minor improvements to attacking positioning, specifically that players should hopefully advance a little more aggressively when supporting an attack
Some minor decision making improvements to passing (longer diagonal passes should go out of play a little less often in general)
Fixed issue with GK not positioning correctly to defend corners
Other Changes:
Added ‘Help’ ? feature/button (top right of screen)
Squad limits system update (more flexible now)
Added news item on home layout to let you know if you have any unregistered players
The news widget on the home layout has been updated so we can communicate messages to individual users if needed (for example to provide responses to feedback submitted with a bug someone might be facing)
Added tab on Marquee Player view to see the previous days Marquee Player Auction results
Added auto-renew option for those paying with monthly Supporter Club Membership using legacy tokens
Increased width of opponent pausing text field in matches (to hopefully make it a little more clear that the time remaining is your time not their time)
Fixed player line separator not always appearing correctly on players list on left during matches
99% of all in-game text is now part of the localization system
Various minor layout updates to help text localized into other languages fit a little better
Updates to Greek translations
Fixed rare bug that could allow a player to have more than 3 positions in total (only 2 players were impacted by this, and they’ve been regression fixed to have only the first 3 positions they acquired)
Added ability to view other leagues via up/down arrows on competition pages (released 28th April)
Player Customisation
Hi everyone
This month we’ve focussed on responding to user feedback to provide balancing and other changes to the gameplay. Details on these below. We’ve also focussed on reworking the monthly sub system as it’s clear that the calendar month-based approach wasn’t working and was confusing some people. We also continued to push towards our aesthetic-based monetisation approach by delivering the player customisation functionality we communicated last month was going to be coming as part of this update. Diversifying the monetisation has provided us with scope to lower the price point of the Supporter Club Membership.
We have also added a short tutorial to key areas of the game to help new users understand the mechanics a little better. 90MF is quite a bit more complex than many browser-based games that users may be used to, so hopefully this will reduce any confusion new users may face upon launch. If you want to read the tutorial text again in the future, you can reset the tutorial in the game settings so that it appears again.
Monthly Subscriptions
Supporter Club Membership via monthly subscription replaces calendar month-based Supporter Passes (i.e. they now last for a month from whenever you purchase the subscription)
The price point has been reduced from £6.99 to £4.19 (EUR7.79 to EUR4.99)
These Supporter Club Membership monthly subs are now fully integrated with the Steam platform and are now recurring subscriptions on Steam (this can be cancelled via the ‘Manage Subscriptions’ option in your Account Details under the top right menu on Steam)
Supporter Club Memberships can also be purchased with Legacy Tokens (for those users that have them). Auto-renewing via the Legacy Tokens will be added as an option in the near future
Note: Everyone who purchased a supporter pass during March has had it converted to the new Supporter Club Membership and had it extended to be 30 days from the date of purchase (in the case of those who purchased on 1st March this had no impact, but to everyone who purchased after this has an increasing amount of impact the later in March you purchased it).
Transfer System
Core player valuation system improved
Scouting pool players now drop in value over time much slower (i.e. they tend to be more expensive now)
Improved logic to determine which players are Marquee Players
Minimum bid threshold for Marquee Players lowered (i.e. it’s possible to get them for cheaper now)
Marquee Players list reduced from 10 players down to 5 players
Receiving transfer bids is now a % based chance for each player rather than receiving a set number of them. The ‘Negotiation’ manager skill changed to allow users to increase this percent based chance.
The overall aim of the Transfer System changes is to make the Marquee List more integral to the core gameplay, more exciting and and more engaging. The changes should make these players much more desirable and to offer much better potential deals compared to what can be obtained via the Scouting Pools, while increasing competition for them. These changes also make the selling of players more balanced and less exploitative. The Negotiation Manager Skill changes were essential to ensure that it is not too overpowered.
Squad Limits
The squad limits system has changed from a max of 22 senior outfielders (min 16), 3 senior keepers (min 2), 22 youth outfielders (min 16) and 3 youth keepers (min 2). To now instead be a limit of 45 outfielders and 5 keepers (regardless of age). You need a minimum of 16 youth outfielders and 2 youth keepers (i.e. enough to field a youth team), the rest of your squad can be senior or youth or whatever combination you want. At a squad level you need a minimum of 25 outfielders and 3 keepers (but beyond the 18+2 youth needed for the youth squad, the rest of this minimum needed can also be any combination of senior or youth players).
Note: Anyone who had 6 keepers will have the worst one of these added to their unregistered players list
The overall aim of the Squad Limits changes is to provide additional flexibility to managers when assembling and managing their squad. This will allow those who care more about youth development to be able to place more emphasis on this in their squad composition.
Academy Trials
There are no longer separate 'blue hold slots'. There are only 'green graduation slots'. This means that without the Graduation Manager Skill you can only keep/hold onto 3 players from one day to the next (i.e. this manager skill is now significantly better).
Academy Trialists are no longer 'tier bound'. They cycle between tiers on a day to day basis
The quality of your trialist pool is now determined by which division your youth team is in (instead of which division the senior team is in)
All trailist players attributes are now guaranteed to be revealed by the 2nd last day of the month
The overall aim of the Academy Trials changes is to provide additional opportunities to find good youth players for those that invest their time in the system. We had numerous items of feedback of this blue+green slot system confusing people so we have removed this functionality from the game as it wasn't worth the complication. Only being able to hold 3 players on a day-to-day basis (without the Manager Skill to increase it) will mean that more good players will cycle each day. It also means that managers in more active tiers (such as Masters, Div 1) will receive trialists from less active tiers (such as Div 4, Div 5) and have a much better chance of receiving some better players towards the end of the month.
Training
Increased randomness element of training options. Note: having better ranking still generally results in better training options over time
Balancing changes to attribute movements on training options across the board. Some slight increases for younger player boosts. Older players' attributes now decrease more aggressively, and this is reflected in boosts across the board.
Extra positions are now part of the default A option instead of the B option (note: Contract Extensions are still part of the B option)
The overall aim of the Training changes is to provide better balance to the overall training system. In particular making players of more ages viable to use in your Senior Team if you’re looking to have a competitive squad at higher levels of competition.
Other Changes
Added ‘Store’ page where you can buy player appearances with Fever Tokens. These can be assigned to any players in your squad via the ‘Customisation’ tab on the player profile page. They can be unassigned/assigned to different players as desired. (i.e. you keep them over time and you don’t lose them when you sell players or they retire)
Added Tutorial text to various in-game pages
Changed ‘playing out of position’ penalty from a flat reduction of -30 attribute points to -25% reduction in attribute points. Players now perform at a slightly better level than they were when playing out of position.
Removed Supporter Rankings on World Layout (we are reworking this, they were effectively just emulating the same lists being shown on the Overall League tables)
Improvements to how the promotion/relegation visual tracking bar is displayed. And fixed bug where the fill could be dragged by left click holding the left mouse button
Fixed sharpness and improved appearance of various buttons and other UI elements
New layout for the Season Report page
Increase width of score field displayed top left in matches, to allow the correct display of double digit goal scores.
Moved World Cup menu option from the Competitions menu to the World menu.
Removed National Teams page. This area is not currently in use and we have had feedback that it is confusing for it to be there, so removed for now.
Re-added season leaders tab to the Overall League pages.
Feedback menu option removed from … Menu. ‘Report Bug’ and ‘Suggestions’ options added to … Menu
Squad Numbers
Hi everyone
The first month of the new fixture system from the Duel Update has worked really well. There has been around a 20x increase in the number of competitive PvP matches over any previous system we have utilised in the game. There’s also a very similar amount of matches with 1 user online compared to any of the previous systems used, meaning that we have seen a huge increase in online competitive match activity compared to any previous systems. All in all it has been extremely successful in generating PvP matches and going forwards it should be the case that the larger the userbase, the increasingly more official PvP matches the new matchmaking system will be able to provide.
There are some issues with the new system in the mid/lower divisions that don’t have many active teams. This is something that we’ll be keeping tabs on and should naturally sort itself out over time as more active users end up in these divisions.
We’re in the process of fleshing out other parts of the game to fit/work with the new fixture system. We have begun the process with the addition of some features/improvements in this update, and plan to add more in the next month.
A few things to be aware of:
The Club Profile layout has been temporarily disabled in the game as we’re currently working on overhauling it
We added a ‘Season Report’ page which has been written by Steve (who hosts the podcasts). If there is sufficient interest in this type of thing we’ll look to keep it in the game and flesh it out over time
During March we will be applying an update that will allow you to spend Fever Tokens to customise the appearance of individual players
The ability to customise/assign squad numbers has been added to the game as part of this update as a new Supporter Pass feature. This is a feature that we have often been asked for and have intended to add for some time, so we are very pleased to include it in the game!
There are balancing changes to the transfer bid amounts to make it a lot more difficult to buy players and sell them for a big profit after a short amount of time
There are significant balancing changes to Manager Skill points distribution. There are now a lot more points for clubs just starting up or at the bottom (who typically really need these points), and a lot less points at the the top (so that picking/choosing is a lot more important and makes decisions you have to make in this area more interesting). Note: you still receive more points the higher you are in the structure, but the difference has been narrowed. There are still many other significant advantages to being higher up the structure!
There are a number of important changes to the new user experience to give users a lot more opportunity to progress their club forwards by actively playing matches and looking for players to improve their squad. This also makes the game a lot more forgiving for those who have never played the game before
Thanks, and good luck for the new season!
Update Changelog:
Added new Supporter Pass feature to enable manual assigning of specific squad numbers to specific players
Added new league progress widget to Overall League table layout
Added previous season winners to Overall League table layout
Added ‘Season Report’ layout under the ‘World’ menu
The amount of points required to avoid relegation in the senior overall league has been increased from 75 to 80
The amount of points required to avoid relegation in the youth overall league has been increased from 50 to 53
Manager Skill Points are now received at a rate of 1,000 per senior league point in the previous season + 10,000 per division above the bottom division. With a minimum possible amount of 75,000 manager skill points total
New users now start with a flat amount of £5m (rather than a variable amount between £6m and £10m that depended on their starting squad)
New users now receive cash injections of £5m after playing their first 12/24/36/48 official senior matches (£20m in total)
New users starting squad now start on minimum player wages
New users now receive 75,000 manager skill points (was previously 30,000)
Balancing changes to the value of transfer bids made for players
Club profile layout temporarily removed whilst we overhaul it for the new league/game structure
Duel - Live PvP Matches
Hi everyone!
We have a new update for you this month!!!
We have released a podcast to accompany this forum post. This post summarises the changes. The podcast discusses many of the important points in more detail. It is recommended to familiarise yourself with the forum post before listening to the podcast so that it’s clear what we are discussing.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1035580/9985294
Overall Aims of the New Update
The new update aims to:
Allow everyone to play all of their own official matches each month
Allow everyone to play their official matches at times that suit them
Have a LOT more official matches that are PvP with both users online
New Competition Structures
All existing club competitions (both leagues and cups) have been removed from the game
There are still divisions, each team will start in the division that they were previously in pending promotion/relegation results from the January season
Each season is now split into 4 separate parts (approximately each a week in duration, varies depending on the number of days each month). Each of these 4 splits contains a ‘weekly’ league (Autumn, Winter, Spring, Summer Leagues)
All teams in the same division are ranked in the same league tables against one another (i.e. no longer 16 teams per league, but 1 league per division that can potentially contain 100’s of teams)
There are no longer any fixtures in the game (where you are required to play specific opponents by a specific date)
Each of these leagues has 12 league matches that need to be played during the split duration. They cannot be played before it, and if you miss any during it, you cannot play them afterwards
You can play these 12 league matches at any time before the deadline for the split, 12 in a single day, 1-2 each day, or any other way you want
There is also an ‘Overall’ league for each Division which is an aggregated sum of the 4 ‘weekly’ leagues, in order to give an overall champion. This is also used to determine promotion and relegation between divisions at the end of the season
Promotion & Relegation decided by points gained/targets from this ‘Overall’ league table with the aggregated results for the whole month
Any matches that are not played count as a NR (non-result)
You gain 3 points for a win, 2 points for a draw, 1 point for a loss, and 0 points for a NR
How to Play Official League Matches
On the home screen you select ‘League’ match type for Senior or Youth then click ‘Find Match’
You will be paired against 12 unique opponents in each ‘weekly’ league
If no valid human opponents are available to be paired against when you want a match, you’ll eventually be paired to play against a bot team
Matchmaking logic tracks who everyone has played against during the month, and factors in opponent difficulty to who it pairs you against, to ensure that everyone receives approximately the same difficulty of opponents over the course of each season
There is still a ‘home’ team, but no longer is there any home advantage. Teams are not guaranteed to play the same number of home/away matches each season (and the ‘Support’ Manager Skill has been changed accordingly). We didn’t discuss this during the podcast but the main reason is to avoid having teams needing to play the same number of home/away matches as a matchmaking constraint, in turn making it harder to find matches against other online teams who are requesting. Secondly, it’s to keep the ‘mano a mano’ nature of each individual match:- giving one team a home advantage goes against this
Because inactive teams are effectively 'eliminated' from matchmaking, matches are now going to be much harder on average. In fact it will be the case on average, active users will win matches just as often as they lose them. So be prepared for some tough gameplay!
Youth Leagues
Youth Leagues work the same as senior leagues except they have 8 matches each split rather than 12
Youth teams are now promoted/relegated independently from the Senior teams based on how well they do in the Overall Youth League each season
Division 5 (the bottom division)
Division 5 works a bit differently to the rest of the divisions. In Division 5, in order to control the difficulty of the game for new users and allow them some time to construct their squad without being destroyed in matches, there is a set list of 12 bot teams that are played in each weekly league.
In order to play League matches against other users, promotion to Division 4 is required
Note: these are the points targets for the February season. We will keep track of the overall difficulty in getting promoted/avoiding relegation in the various divisions and these points targets may be adjusted in future months to ensure these objectives are of the intended difficulty to achieve.
Manager Skills Points Changes
There will be changes to how they are awarded at the end of each season and these changes will be announced during February
National Teams
How the National Teams feature is implemented in the game is going to be reworked
For now the Nationals Teams and World Cup competition still exists (with fixtures) but the teams cannot be purchased/managed by users
Friendly Matches
These will function as they do presently. However, if a user has been searching unsuccessfully for a friendly against an online opponent they will eventually be matched against a bot team to ensure they can play a match
What About Other Features?
Our top priority is to lock down the core game design. As soon as we’ve done that we’ll flesh out a lot of the features and polish for the game. We’re hoping that this change gets us there. We’ve responded to valid criticism about the playing of official matches as fast as we could to resolve the issues. Some of the polish associated with this change isn’t done yet in the UI and we’ll hopefully be able to enhance this in the early part of February.
Also, just to note that there is currently nothing to spend tokens on in the game. Although this obviously is not an ideal situation, we wanted to get in this update and address the matchmaking issues as the top priority and decided that the update shouldn’t be delayed for this reason. We will be introducing ways to use tokens again in subsequent updates.
Phoenix - 90MF Reborn
Hi everyone!
The new update is here!!! We know it’s taken us a little longer than we hoped to get here, so thank you very much for your patience.
This post summarises the changes - and there are a lot, so have a cup of tea ready!
We have released a podcast to accompany this forum post. This update announcement summarises the changes. The podcast discusses many of the important points in more detail. It is recommended to familiarise yourself with this announcement before listening to the podcast so that it’s clear what we are discussing.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1035580/9636262
Overall Aims of the New Update
At a high level, the aims of this overhaul of the game are as follows:
Better fit with modern industry standards and new user expectations
The upcoming changes are designed to better fit with modern industry standards. Many people ‘expect’ to be able to play online games, unrestricted and indefinitely, for free. Even if someone can try a game for free, the idea that they would have to pay something in the future to play that game long term, can be a big enough deterrent for many people, that it would prevent them from even trying the game to begin with. Providing the main features of the game for free is a key change in this direction. These changes also enable us to deliver a single consistent gameplay experience to everyone regardless of whether they are paying or not.
Providing more things to do in the game that matter outside of just playing matches
We want to provide more interest in the day-to-day running of your club. A real influence over which players you bring in through your academies and how your players develop, allowing skill to come to the fore. The Academy Trials and new Training Systems are pretty much second to none in the online football management game genre and we want to make sure that they make a real difference to success and failure within the game. There are a variety of reasons why people play games of this genre - we want to cater to a wider audience.
Improving the Match Experience and Moving the game in more of a PvP direction
To enable the aesthetic-based approach to prove successful we need to ensure that player vs player matches are far more common than they are now. The change in the fixture scheduling system opens up the design space that allows the addition of PvP scheduled tournaments, which we want to be a key feature going forward. The match experience is a far more engaging experience than anything found elsewhere in the online football management genre, and we want to encourage users to play and enjoy the challenge of ‘live’ matches. There’s now a new retro visual representation of the match experience inspired by old school games such as Kick Off and Sensible Soccer. As well as a completely new match UI with a streamlined tactics interface, and lots and lots of core engine improvements and bug fixes.
Making the game more approachable
The game has had major approachability issues to date and has really struggled to attract new users. With many put off very quickly after first launching the game. Whether it was because of the poor and outdated UI. Bland and non-appealing visual aesthetic. Non-intuitive game mechanics. Poor game/client technical performance. We have added a lovely new modern UI design that is far more intuitive to use. A more engaging and less passive gameplay experience. We have been streamlining the gameplay mechanics whilst creating additional depth to the gameplay experience. Alongside this there has been a complete technical overhaul of the client design that now includes client side caching, resulting in dramatically improved performance, especially for those outside of Europe. The end of day processing has been shortened significantly, reducing the impact on gameplay for those that would ordinarily want to play around that time. We’ll continue to address the approachability issues of the game including the addition of a proper tutorial to the game in the near-term future.
Monetisation:
Philosophy
The big change here is that we want more of the game to be available to everyone for free. Many of the features that were previously only available under Pro Memberships are now available to all. This includes the Youth Squad, Youth Academies, Manager Skills and the new Training feature.
The monetisation of the game is now primarily based around aesthetic features. This is one of the key reasons why the visualisation of the match engine is an important feature for the success of the game. As well as making it more accessible for a wider group of people, it also allows us to provide opportunities for people to enhance their playing experience in an aesthetic way, in turn, making it viable that far more of the core gameplay can be on offer to everyone for free.
Fever Tokens
There are now Fever Tokens in the game
These new ‘Fever Tokens’ are separate to the previous (Legacy) tokens
Fever Tokens can be used to purchase National Teams for the current season. In the near term future you will also be able to use them to customise the appearance of individual players in your squad
Supporter Passes are now purchased directly with cash and CANNOT be purchased with ‘Fever Tokens’ (but they do include some Fever Tokens with them when they are purchased)
The old Legacy Tokens can no longer be purchased. But anyone who had some will still have them
Legacy Tokens can be used instead of cash to purchase Supporter Passes
Legacy Tokens can be converted into Fever Tokens (Important Note:- it might be prudent to not convert all your Legacy Tokens to Fever Tokens if you think you’ll be interested in getting Supporter Passes in the future)
Separating out the Fever Tokens from the Supporter Passes not only simplifies things and provides additional transparency about what costs what, but also allows us to do more flexible things going forwards (like offering Fever Tokens included as part of the Supporter Pass, or rewarding them to users for various other reasons)
Supporter Passes
Pro Memberships have been removed from the game. These have been replaced with Supporter Passes. Starting from January these will run for 3 months. For next month they will run for December only. Supporter Passes expire at the end of the Supporter Pass period irrespective of when they are purchased (i.e. to get the full duration of them they need to be purchased at the beginning of the Supporter Pass period). When a Supporter Pass expires you’ll no longer have access to the additional options it unlocks and any club customisations will revert back to how they were before the Supporter Pass was purchased. Any users who had an active Pro Membership that ran into December has received a Supporter Pass for December - and will also have their Supporter Pass extended until the end of December for free, even if it was due to expire earlier in the month! The data add-on will no longer be available. Those who had it have received 106 Fever Tokens instead of the 53 Fever Tokens.
Supporter Passes include:
Include Fever Tokens (53 Fever Tokens for December)
Ability to upload club logo
Extra kit designs
Enhanced colour palette for club colours
Ability to reschedule home fixtures
Ability to export various game data to .CSV
Supporter rankings (compare your club’s performance against all other Supporters in your tier)
Ability to assign specific squad numbers to specific players (due next month)
Various seasonal reporting/statistical comparison/gameworld news immersion features will be progressively added starting next month and throughout Q1 next year
All Managers, including those without a supporter pass will have access to many features, including:
Manager Skills
Youth Squad and Youth Competitions
Youth Academy Trials
Contract Extensions
The new Training Feature
The new Medical Centre Feature
The new Position Learning Feature
National Teams
National teams are now purchased for a fixed price (doesn’t change during the season)
National teams are now immediately taken control of when they are purchased (i.e. you manage them for the current season, not the next season)
You can no longer add/remove players from national teams. The pre-selected team is the team you have to work with for the season
We plan to do a big overhaul of how the national teams work
Player Customization (During next month)
We will be revealing details of this new feature soon.
Match Engine Changes
New retro visual representation of the match experience
Completely new match UI
Streamlined tactics interface
Lots of core engine improvements and bug fixes
The Home Advantage has been heavily reduced. Now away team players’ attributes are reduced by -1 rather than by -3 (and Support Manager skill only applies when the home team is losing)
New Training Feature
We know that many of you love to nurture and develop players from a young age and get satisfaction from seeing some of them develop and progress into their senior squad. With this in mind, there has been a complete overhaul from the ground up of how players’ attributes change throughout their careers.
Players will no longer progress/regress passively. Progression will now be controlled by training decisions made by you as the player’s manager! The new Player Training feature will allow managers to have a gameplay-balanced but very direct choice on which attributes their players develop in.
Players earn Development Points throughout the season by playing matches
Each player has a points cap (Determination and Natural Fitness attributes dictate this cap, the older a player the more important the Natural Fitness attribute is in determining this, the younger a player is the more important the Determination attribute is in determining this)
Youth players have separate youth and senior points totals
Points are earned by playing matches. Youth matches count towards the youth points total and senior matches count towards the senior points total
Points are earned on a match by match basis for each player that plays in the match. The formula is player match rating out of 10 (doubled if the match result is a draw or tripled if the match result is a win)
Players earn points based on their ratings if they play in a match (whether they play 1 minute or 90 minutes). Therefore skillful use of substitutes can make a real difference to player points
Players are ranked against other players the same age as them at the end of the season. Higher ranked players have a higher chance of getting better training options the following season. Players have an indiactor on their profile that lets you know how their ranking is looking during the season compared to other players the same age in your division
Each season each individual player will have three training periods. For each of these training periods a third of their attributes will be highlighted (i.e. 7 at a time for outfield players, 6 at a time for goalkeepers)
You’ll receive two options for how that player can train for each training period, and you’ll be able to see how each of the attributes will be impacted as a result of choosing each training option before you have to finalise it
Training options can also include a bonus. At the moment this can either be a free contract extension for that player, or a free extra position for that player (the position is indicated)
The new training system means that every match (Senior and Youth) matters for player progression even if the match in question doesn’t have that much on the line. It will be a real challenge to try and get game time to players without adversely affecting results!
New Academy Trials System
Academies are no longer a Pro Membership feature. Every club in the game now has one each season
Academy Trialists are no longer be tied to a single club throughout the season. Instead, you will be competing directly against other managers to identify and sign up the best prospects
Every club now starts the season with a number of Academy Trialists at their club. As with the previous system, these trialists will start with very few attributes revealed
Each club has 6 “Hold” slots, which they can assign to the trialists that they want to keep hold of based on the attributes that they can (and can not) see at the moment
Between 3 and 6 of the players will graduate at the end of the season (depending on manager skills). Some of the “Hold” slots are marked as “Graduation” slots to indicate the players that will graduate if they are assigned to these slots
Note: a “Graduation” slot is functionally the same as a regular “Hold” slot right up until the last day of the season when at the end of that day during end of season processing those assigned to Graduate will end up in your squad but those with the regular “Hold” slots will not
Each trialist that you have assigned a “Hold” slot will be kept at your club from one day to the next throughout the season until you decide to remove the "Hold" slot from him (or when the season ends)
You no longer release trialists. Instead, any players that are not assigned to a “Hold” slot are discarded and do not stay at your club
The trialists that you don’t hold on to will pop up in someone else’s academy the next day. And some of the trialists that other users have discarded will end up in your academy! This means that over a season you have access to a huge amount of different trialists
Changes to Players
Players now have lower attribute values across the board
Starting attribute values of players are now between 1 and 60 out of 99 (so in Youth Academies all attributes start between 1 and 60)
Positions are now more scarce. Players only ever start with 1 position (however players can learn up to 2 additional positions and have 3 positions in total)
Extremely high attribute values are now exceptionally rare
Changes to wages, now directly tied to Overall Rating (the Overall Rating as it was at the start of the season, so current season wage demans of players do not change during the season)
The average of a player’s attributes is now shown in the coloured hexagon on the player profile. Also shown next to that is a transparent hexagon containing an average of the ‘ceilings’ of each of a player’s attributes (i.e. the coloured hexagon contains an average of the player’s current attribute scores, the transparent hexagon contains the average of the player’s current possible attribute scores)
The “Quality” stars (shown on a player profile and in the squad list screen) shows how good a player is compared to other players that play in the same Division as that player. For example, a player shown as having ‘4.5 stars’ in Division 2, might have ‘3 stars’ if he was instead playing in Division 1
Transition
With the huge amount of changes involved in the latest update, transition between the old version of the game and the new is significant. This is discussed in depth in the podcast.
Player Transition
Each player currently in the game has been ranked against all other players the same age as them. Their main position is then determined, which is the position they played in the most during the previous season in official club matches (including youth matches). If they didn’t play at all, then a random position will be chosen from the positions they are proficient in
For each player of each age currently in the game, a new player has been created and their career ‘simulated’ up to their current age
Then, for each age grouping, we will find the best player currently in the game, then find the best ‘new player’ of that age for their main position, and then ‘link’ these players
The linked players will then have their attributes mapped across from the new player to the existing player
Each player starts with a single position which is their ‘main position’ as noted above
Manager Skill Points and Stadium Income
For the time being, Manager Skill points will be assigned as normal based on previous season performance. However, we intend to change the system in the future so that the Manager Skill Points will be earned and spent during each season. More details on this will be announced closer to the time
Stadium Income is now determined by what Division your club is in (rather than by your club reputation)
Temporary Player Sales Transition
To enable users to react to the changes in their players, users will be able to sell players for their previous value (i.e. their value at the end of November will reflect their old attributes) for the first 7 days of December to ensure that they are able to recoup the value of the player if they no longer wish to keep them.
Transfer System Changes
The upcoming changes to the transfer system are designed to provide more exciting moments. It combines the competitive feel of going up against other managers while also making it a much more hands-on and challenging process to work to build a squad. Whilst adhering to our commitment to keeping 90MF a competitive and fair gameplay experience that isn’t compromised by cheating.
Players can now be acquired in 2 different ways:
Buying Marquee Players
Each division has its own Marquee Players list each day. This limited list of players is available to clubs via an auction process
The manager who bids the most for a Marquee Player, gets that Marquee Player, for an amount equal to the 2nd highest bid. If there is a tie for highest bids then a winner is selected at random (to ensure time of login is not advantageous), and pays an amount equal to the tied highest bid value
Marquee Players are players of special status. They are the very best players in each tier that are currently available and are therefore likely to be in high demand with a lot of managers vying for their signatures
A manager can bid any amount they can afford up to the maximum bid for the player (but those monies will be ‘tied up’ and unavailable for spending on other players, including other Marquee Player bids)
A manager can bid for 1 Marquee Player per day (manager skill increases this), so how much and who you bid for will be of critical importance
There is a maximum and minimum bid amount that can be made for each Marquee Player. In the case of the minimum bid amount, it is there to ensure that the system cannot be exploited, especially in the case of lower tiers that have very few active users at present. In the case of the maximum bid amount, it is there to prevent users from ‘shooting themselves in the foot’. If multiple users bid the maximum bid amount for a Marquee Player, the player will go to one of them at random and they will pay an amount equal to the maximum bid amount. If only 1 user bids for a player, they will win the player for the minimum bid amount. The existence of, and values of these min/max bid amounts will be kept under review and possibly changed or entirely removed in the future
Note:- The ability to see the results of the previous days' Marquee Players auctions is coming soon
Buying Scouted Players
All other players are split up into different Scouting Pools
A Scouting Pool is a ‘per manager’ pool that is between 20 and 50 players (depending on manager skills) with a reasonable spread over different positions and ages
You can only buy players who are in your Scouting Pool or who are Marquee Players.
Every night the players in everyone's Scouting Pool will change and can move to other users scouting pools within the same Division
If a manager buys a player from their Scouting Pool they get the player instantly
Putting the effort in to look at the players in your Scouting Pool to find those that improve your squad will be really important
Selling Players
You can now receive transfer bids for your players from the AI (there is a new manager skill that increases the frequency of these received bids)
A player whom you have received a transfer bid for today, can be instantly sold to the pool for the amount of the transfer bid
A player whom you have not received a transfer bid for today, can be instantly sold to the pool for the amount equal of 50% of their transfer value (the transfer value being equal to the most recent bid amount received for the player, or if you’ve never received a transfer bid for the player (and the player was purchased from December onwards), 50% of the amount you paid for them)
Ensuring that you keep an eye on the transfer bids you have received to find opportunities to get a good price for players you may want to offload can make a big difference
Players aged 18 and younger do not receive transfer bids
There has been significant improvement to the player valuation system logic
Youth Competition Changes
The Under 18 and Under 21 Squads have been combined into a single “Youth Squad”.
Every club in the game now has a Youth Squad, which participates in a Youth League every season
Youth Squad division mirrors the Senior Squad division. I.e. If your Senior Squad is in Division 2, then your Youth Squad will be in Youth Division 2
Results in youth games carry significantly more importance/significance if you want to optimise the development of your players
Squad Management Changes
The squad limit has changed. There is now a 22 outfielder + 3 goalkeeper limit for Youth (<=21 years old) and a separate 22 outfielder + 3 goalkeeper limit for Senior (>=22 years old)
Minimum squad size for Youth is 16+2 and minimum squad size for Senior is 16+2. You cannot sell a player if it would take you under these limits
Youth players can be (visibly) added to the senior squad via right-mouse-click (they will also remain in the youth squad). They can later be removed from the senior squad (again via right-mouse-click). When added to the senior squad they do NOT take up a senior squad spot (i.e. they do not “count” as a senior player for squad limits)
You can still sign players when you have reached the squad limit. They will go into your ‘Unregistered Players’ list. This allows you to sign players without having to sell players before you know you have signed them (i.e. you can sell other squad players after you know you have secured the new player you want!). You pay their wages but they aren’t in your squad. When there is space in your squad, you can add players from your ‘Unregistered Players’ list to the relevant squad. If a player is on the ‘Unregistered Players’ list for 7 consecutive days they are released on a free transfer
Players can be released from the ‘Unregistered Players’ list at any time (as free transfers)
During season finishing when players are added/moved to squads (i.e. players turning 22 or academy trial graduates), places in squads will be given priority to the players with the highest overall ratings (ties decided randomly). The other players who don’t have space for them will be placed on the ‘Unregistered Players’ list
Note: 15 year old players cannot be purchased from the pool so there are no ‘pending transfers’ anymore (except for the academy trial graduates)
If during season finishing, after all various transfer activity (contract renewals, retirements, academy trial graduates, aging players, etc), a team is below the minimum threshold for a squad, then players are automatically signed to bring them up to the minimum squad size
As part of the transition, players who start as ‘Unregistered Players’ after the transition, if released as ‘Unregistered Players’ after 7 days, the owners of these players will receive compensation of an amount equal to the player's Sell Price at the end of November before the transition. This ONLY applies in this specific scenario (which is to ensure people can transition without losing the value of their players). In the future they will be treated as normal unregistered players and will be released for free
Physio/Injury System Changes
There is now a Medical Centre where you can get an overview of all the players currently injured in your squad
If you have the “Treatment” Manager skill, it will enable an option to be able to use a “Squad Treatment”. Using a Squad Treatment will fully recover from injury all of the players that are currently injured in your squad
Be wise in using these, they are a (very) limited resource!
Notes on Some Specific Manager Skills Changes
Graduation: this skill converts base ‘Hold’ slots into ‘Graduation’ slots. So you always have 6 total ‘Hold’ slots. It’s just that between 3 and 6 of these will be converted into ‘Graduation’ slots depending on what level you have in the manager skill.
Quality: this (slightly) increases the overall quality of trialist players that are rotated into your trialist pool each day. It starts working at the end of the day after the skill is confirmed.
Training: these skills give senior training points to all players who are in your squad of the set age at the time the skill is confirmed. Players signed after the skill is confirmed do not get the points.
Conditioning: this skill has been nerfed and now recovers ‘Up to’ an extra X% condition for each player at half time rather than exactly an extra X% condition at half time.
Discipline: this skill has been buffed and now prevents your players from getting yellow or red cards rather than just straight red cards
Investment: this is now a multiplier of your base dividend threshold (which is determined by the tier you are in)
Revenue: this now increases your daily stadium income by a %
Scouting: these skills increase the amount of players available in your scouting pool. They immediately apply and more players will appear in your scouting pool when the manager skill is confirmed
Loyalty: now reduces wages for players at your club who were Academy Trial graduates (rather than players who had been at your club over a set amount of time). Players who are Academy Trial graduates that were sold then later repurchased do not have their wages reduced by this manager skill
Extension: you must get at least level 1 in this skill in order to get any contract extensions for the season
Learning: this skill now provides an amount of position Learning instances that you can use on players in order to assign an extra position to them (one position to a player per Learning instance)
Support: this skill has been heavily nerfed and now only provides the advantage when your team is playing at home AND LOSING
Benefits for Having a Club in a Higher Division
To ensure that users are properly rewarded for getting their team into as high a division as possible in every possible season, there are a number of changes. These are outlined in the table below:
* But generally speaking much better players in scouting pools and marquee player list
Fixture Scheduling System Changes
Fixtures are now displayed in your local time
Matches now start at their scheduled fixture time
Five minutes before a match starts, a countdown will begin. Once the countdown hits zero the match will begin (there is no ‘pre-match’ time) so make sure you have your team picked and your tactics submitted before the countdown gets to zero!
Friendly matches have a 1 minute countdown (to avoid unnecessary wait times but still ensure there is time to check your line-up!)
If you have a Supporter Pass, then Home matches (both Senior and Youth) can be rescheduled by up to 48 hours earlier than their original scheduled fixture time (but can not be moved to within the next 48 hours from the current time)
You can not move a match to within the next 48 hours so that you (and your opponent) will know that any matches you (and your opponent) have scheduled in the next 48 hours will not have their times change, whether they are home or away matches
We believe this system will result in more Player vs Player matches
We will use the design space this system affords to add a new ‘Scheduled Tournaments’ feature during Q1 next year
Feedback
As you can probably tell if you have managed to read this far, this update touches every part of the game, so we fully expect that there will be some issues that we have missed in testing. Please report any bugs/issues you find using the “Provide Feedback” tool (now located in the “...” menu in the bottom left of the client). Bug reports in particular are very helpful and much appreciated if they are submitted through the client rather than on the forum because of the technical information/error log that is sent to us along with the feedback text you write.
Thank you very much for reading this extensive announcement. Please do listen to the podcast if you’re interested in knowing more about the update. Good luck for the new season!
September 2021 Q&A
With Steve and Nick answering and discussing a variety of questions relating to the upcoming major update that have been asked on the forum
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1035580/9285515
Feature Spotlight - Transfer System
Hi everyone
This update will focus on the evolution of the transfer system!
We have released a podcast to accompany this post.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1035580/9108601
The upcoming changes to the transfer system are designed to provide more exciting moments. It combines the competitive feel of going up against other managers while also making it a much more hands-on and challenging process to work to build a squad. Whilst adhering to our commitment to keeping 90MF a competitive and fair gameplay experience that isn’t compromised by cheating.
Players can now be acquired in 2 different ways:
Buying Marquee Players
Each division has its own Marquee Players list each day. This limited list of players is available to clubs via an auction process.
The manager who bids the most for a Marquee Player, buys that Marquee Player, for an amount equal to the 2nd highest bid. If there is a tie for highest bids then a winner is selected at random (to ensure time of login is not advantageous), and pays an amount equal to the tied highest bid value
Marquee Players are players of special status, they are the very best players in each tier and are therefore likely to be in high demand with a lot of managers vying for their signatures
A manager can bid any amount they can afford (but those monies will be ‘tied up’ and unavailable for spending on other players, including other Marquee Player bids)
A manager can bid for 1 Marquee Player per day (manager skill increases this), so how much and who you bid for will be of critical importance
Buying Scouted Players
All other players are split up into different Scouting Pools
A Scouting Pool is a per manager pool that is between 20 and 50 players (depending on manager skills) with a reasonable spread over different positions and ages
You can only buy players who are in your Scouting Pool or who are Marquee Players
Every night the players in everyone's Scouting Pool will change
The buy price for players in the Scouting Pools will not start with extremely high values, but will still generally decrease at the end of each day as managers ‘pass up’ the opportunity to purchase them
If a manager buys a player from their Scouting Pool they get the player instantly
Putting the effort in to look at the players in your Scouting Pool to find those that improve your squad will be really important
Selling Players
You can now receive transfer bids for your players from the AI (there will be a new manager skill that increases the frequency of these received bids)
A player whom you have received a transfer bid for today, can be instantly sold to the pool for the amount of the transfer bid
A player whom you have not received a transfer bid for today, can be instantly sold to the pool for the amount equal to half of the most recent transfer bid received for them
A player whom you have never received a transfer bid for, can be instantly sold for half of what you paid for them
Ensuring that you keep an eye on the transfer bids you have received to find opportunities to get a good price for players you may want to offload can make a big difference
The combination of these changes to the transfer system make it a lot less systematic and a lot more dynamic. It will pay to keep your finger on the pulse and take advantage of any opportunities that may come your way!
We’ve intentionally kept this written announcement short and sweet to give you guys a quick overview. If you’re interested in more detailed information we’ve also released a podcast that discusses these changes in more depth.
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1035580/9108601
That’s it for now! Thank you for taking the time to read.
Feature Spotlight - Training
Hi everyone
This update will focus on the new Training system!
We know that many of you love to nurture and develop players from a young age and get satisfaction from seeing some of them develop and progress into their senior squad. With this in mind, there has been a complete overhaul from the ground up of how players’ attributes change throughout their careers.
Players will no longer progress/regress passively. Progression will now be controlled by training decisions made by you as the player’s manager! The new Player Training feature will allow managers to have a gameplay-balanced but very direct choice on which attributes their players develop in.
Players accumulate training points throughout the season from playing matches. The training options a player receives the following season are positively impacted by accumulating more of these points.
Each season each individual player will have three training periods. For each of these training periods a third of their attributes will be highlighted (i.e. 7 at a time for outfield players, 6 at a time for goalkeepers). You’ll receive two options for how that player can train for each training period, and you’ll be able to see how each of the attributes will be impacted as a result of choosing each training option before you have to finalise it. Effectively meaning that you will have direct influence over how each of your players progress (and regress) throughout their careers. If you want to prioritise certain attributes over others, you will now be able to do this on a player-by-player basis.
To give you a visual idea of how it works, the attached screenshot shows a player profile. Towards the bottom of the screen you can see his training options. In the bottom right you can see his progression towards next season’s training options.
The new training system means that every match (Senior and Youth) matters for player progression even if the match in question doesn’t have that much on the line. It will be a real challenge to try and get game time to players without adversely affecting results!
We plan to provide more details of how player progression and training will work closer to release, but hopefully this gives you a general idea of what to expect in this space.
That’s it for now! Thank you for taking the time to read.
