90 Minute Fever
Replay - 90 Minute Fever Aug '19 Live Nations Cup coverage
Replay of the live 90 Minute Fever Live Nations Cup coverage with Steve, Kon and Tino as your hosts.
Testing Gameworld Now Open
The testing gameworld is now open. If you don’t already have access to this but would like access, more information about this can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/games/468070/announcements/detail/2783708311862770972
Please read this post which describes in detail the current limitations of the new match engine and what the first phase of testing entails here before starting:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/468070/discussions/13/1635291505019032657/
There’s a Steam Discussions board to discuss things with the new match engine that can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/468070/discussions/13/
Note: You'll need to be logged in to Steam to be able to access the above links
We hope you enjoy your first ‘play’ with the new Match Engine!
Test World Access Instructions
We are still on track to start user testing for the new match engine later this month. This is just a quick update to let you know how you can get involved in the testing as soon as it starts.
Anyone interested in being involved in the new match engine testing will need access to the 90MF Test World. Access to this test world will be granted via the ‘90 Minute Fever - test’ application in your Steam library.
If you were not previously involved in Beta testing:
You can gain access to the ‘90 Minute Fever - test’ application via your preferences menu in the 90MF client. This will add the application to your steam library.
If you were previously involved in Beta testing:
You should find that your existing 90MF Beta Steam application has been replaced with the ‘90 Minute Fever - test’ application, and therefore you do not need to take any action at this stage.
Important: if you already have the ‘90 Minute Fever - test’ application in your Steam library then you will not see the ‘Test Game World’ button shown in the screenshot but instead see a button for ‘Important Gameplay Changes’.
You won't be able to actually enter the 90MF Test World just yet, but requesting access via the button in the screenshot will add the ‘90 Minute Fever - test’ application to your Steam library so that you’ll be able to use it to gain access to the 90MF Test World as soon as it is up and running. We will make a separate announcement as soon as it is ready to go!
Not long now. Thanks as always for sticking with us!
New Match Engine Development Blog #5 inc. Preview Video
A video preview of the new match engine can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxJhnOPndl4&feature=youtu.be
10 of the 12 Tactical Sliders are quickly demonstrated in the video (the other 2 we are still working on). These are:
Mentality: Changes the mentality of any players whose individual mentality is set to ‘team’ to attacking, defending or mixed
Philosophy: How much a team will hold their formation when attacking (Rigid) versus being happy to move away from set positions in the formation (Fluid)
Tempo: How much urgency the team has to move the ball up the pitch and ‘make something happen’ versus trying to keep possession of the ball and being more willing to pass it backwards in order to do so
Passing Style: Whether the team will look to make longer passes or if they will primarily focus on shorter passing
Passing Focus: Whether the team wants to focus their passing in wide areas of the pitch or through the centre
Passing Freedom: Whether the team will make their passes directly to teammates feet or if they will be willing to pass the ball into space for their teammates to run onto
Attacking Width: Should the team look to position it’s players more narrow or with more width when attacking
Defensive Width: Should the team look to position it’s players more narrow or with more width when defending
Defensive Line: How deep/high will the team hold it’s defensive line.
Closing Down: Will your team look to press the opposition player who has the ball more aggressively
Current progress as well as the upcoming ME testing that users can get involved in is discussed in the latest podcast can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T6QloN8Cuc
That’s it for now. Thanks as always for sticking with us!
90 Minute Fever Podcast 18: More on the New Match Engine
This podcast discusses the new match engine that is currently in development with a focus on tactical options and the user testing arrangements.
Replay - 90 Minute Fever Jun '19 Live Nations Cup coverage
Replay of the live 90 Minute Fever Live Nations Cup coverage with Steve and Kon as your hosts.
New Match Engine Development Blog #4
Work in the past few weeks has been focussed on improving player movement and decision-making, and how the tactical instructions affect the decisions the players make. We have particularly focused on ensuring that each and every tactical instruction setting has a visually noticeable impact to the on-pitch action.
We’ve been improving the attacking AI of teams, improving the individual player interactions with team instructions like philosophy, mentality, tempo and attacking width. Trying to ensure that players maintain suitable spacing between each other so that when a player receives the ball he has more chance of having more passing opportunities available to him.
We’ve also been improving the defensive AI of teams, improving individual player interactions with team instructions like defensive line, defensive width, line of engagement and closing down. As well as improving teams behaviour with regards to how players interact with and hold their team’s defensive line and in particular improving centre back decision-making in crisis scenarios as it’s really, really obvious when they make mistakes (and they tend to be quite costly when they do)!
For the AI the next focus will be on improving the passing behaviour including various tactical instructions impacting this. We will also be working further on improving dribbling behaviour and individual player tackling, and how team instructions will affect player aggression and decision-making in this area.
As detailed on the below link, the process to upgrade the rest of the game to the new 3rd party code libraries required for the new match engine has unfortunately taken considerably longer than we had originally planned for it to take. It was always going to be an unknown quantity until it happened. It’s possible that only a few hours of work might have been required if luck was on our side. We had reasonably planned for this process to take us a week. In the end we were quite unfortunate with the knock-on effects that the various 3rd party library upgrades caused and it took us closer to a month to sort out (with a few minor issues still unresolved).
https://steamcommunity.com/app/468070/discussions/1/1638661595046117805/
The above issues have caused the timeline to slip, so this will result in a delay in the opening of the testing gameworld unfortunately. We were aiming for late July, but it looks as though this will now be pushed into August. However, this is the first significant setback we have had in the process, and we are still really pleased with how the work is progressing.
We also anticipate that during July we’ll hopefully get the visualisations and UI elements pieces of work along enough to be able to show some stuff from the new match leading up to the user testing starting in August.
That's it for now! We’re excited to be getting closer and closer to having this new ME in the game!
Replay - 90 Minute Fever May '19 World Cup coverage
Replay of the live 90 Minute Fever World Cup coverage with Steve and Kon as your hosts.
Update v0.9.0 - New Fixture Rights and TV Rights Systems
- New Fixture Rights System (see Steam Discussions for more details)
- New TV Rights System (see Steam Discussions for more details)
- Added French language option
- Added Portuguese language option
- Added new Nation Performance Droplist widget to World > International layout
- Added new medals to International Trophy Cabinet for Qualified for World Cup for each nation (each user who has qualified for the World Cup with that nation has this)
- Added new medals to International Trophy Cabinet for Fans Favourite Manager for each nation (the user with the most ranking points with that nation over the past 12 months has this)
- Added new nations Marshall Islands, Monaco and Nauru
- Many additional names added to the player names database for Algeria, Bonaire, Jamaica, Liberia and Maldives
- Changed home colours for South Africa (make the green darker and more legible)
- Super Friendly League matchmaking now allows for teams to play each other twice every 24 hour period rather than twice every 48 hour period
- Manager Briefing Widget now advises managers of National Teams the date of the next Live Nations Cup
- Fixed issue with Windowed mode not maximising correctly
- Updated default user layout
More information about the new Fixture Rights and TV Rights systems can be found here:
https://steamcommunity.com/app/468070/discussions/1/1649919326333810479/
Update v0.9.0a [2019-06-03]
- Base Soft Squad Limit values (before Coaches Organisation is applied) for both Youth and Senior increased from 16 to 18
- Additional Columns (Goal Difference, Group Stage Finish, Qualifying Stage Finish) added to the Nation Performance Droplist widget
- Fixed a bug where under certain circumstances an academy graduate would enter the transfer pool undervalued when sold
- Fixed a bug where the Handicap points for the International Leaderboard were not being calculated correctly for some nations
- Fixed a bug where under certain circumstances a user could be incorrectly shown they had won the rights to a fixture when in fact they had lost them
- Fixed a bug with with some of the Search Layouts not working correctly when Portuguese language option selected
- Minor updates to Portuguese translations
Update v0.9.0b [2019-06-04]
- Fixed aspect ratio of user and nation logos sometimes being stretched/skewed in the title bar
Update v0.9.0c [2019-06-05]
- Qualified for World Cup medals and Fans Favourite Manager medals now stay with user when they reset their club
- Fixed user online status colours sometimes not being correct
- Fixed mailbox not loading mail messages when opening the mailbox the 2nd time for each login session
- Fixed aspect ratio of user and nation logos sometimes being stretched/skewed on the pre match screen
- Fixed a bug where the Handicap points for the International Leaderboard were not being calculated correctly for some nations (really fixed this time!)
Update v0.9.0d [2019-06-10]
- Maximum possible column width in Customise GUI mode increased from 300 to 400
- Fixed Club > Profile > Club Records widget not displaying any data
- Fixed match chat
- Fixed public chat
- Fixed private chat
- Fixed mail messages
- Fixed player links not working (including copying/pasting of them)
- Fixed hyperlinks not working
- Fixed pre-match tips not working
- Fixed widget names not working
- Fixed text sometimes looking like hieroglyphics
- Fixed text sometimes missing the last character
- Fixed links on pop-up messages not working
Update v0.9.0e [2019-06-11]
- Club Level reputation ranges have been changed (see Steam discussions for more details)
- Removed 'Not Important' mail message functionality (it was causing too much confusion)
- Mail message links are now displayed in blue
- Fixed extra space appearing after links in mail messages
- Fixed Windows Desktop notifications not working
- Fixed Chat Agreement for new users not working
- Fixed content in Club Records widget not displaying for users who haven't ever bought and/or sold a player (in order to record highest transfer fees)
Update v0.9.0f [2019-06-21]
- Fixed not being able to change your maximum wage bid amount when renegotiating the contract for one of your existing staff members
Update v0.9.0g [2019-07-02]
- Youth Academy Trials now have 6 graduate slots (was previously 5)
- Shareholder Dividend Threshold for Gold Club Level now £50 million (was previously £30 million)
- Shareholder Dividend Threshold for Silver Club Level now £30 million (was previously £20 million)
- Legends Gold Cup max/min reputation now 50/25 (was previously 45/20)
- Legends Silver Cup max/min reputation now 40/20 (was previously 40/15)
- Legends Bronze Cup max/min reputation now 30/15 (was previously 35/10)
- Live Nations Cup now has a group stage (see Steam Discussions for more information)
- Added confirmation popup when attemping to place an Autobid
- Fixed aspect ratio of Live Nations Cup flag of past winners
- Fixed a situational bug where a team without enough players available to play a fixture, might not automatically sign a player when they had to play a fixture, which would lead to the match being unable to start
Update v0.9.0h [2019-08-16]
- Added option to add the '90 Minute Fever - test' application to your Steam Library (see announcement on Steam for more details)
- Player squad limit to restrict the signing of new players now 85 (was previously 100)
- Goal Keeper squad limit to restrict the signing of new Goal Keepers now 9 (was previously 10)
- Guinea-Bissau national team now has flag logo and kit colours set
Update v0.9.0i [2019-09-09]
- Academy trials can only be purchased if they can be afforded by both the current and projected bank balances. i.e. You cannot purchase an Academy Trial if doing so would put your club into debt within the next 28 days (currently only requires to be afforded by current bank balance)
- Player squad limit to restrict the signing of new players now 70 (was previously 85)
- Goal Keeper squad limit to restrict the signing of new Goal Keepers now 7 (was previously 9)
- Luxembourg and Vietnam national teams now have flag logo and kit colours set
Update v0.9.0j [2019-10-31]
- Youth players are now more likely to have nationalities of bigger footballing nations
- Palestine national team now has flag logo and kit colours set
Update v0.9.0k [2019-11-09]
- Fixed an issue where pop-ups would automatically be closed after a short amount of time if you were playing a match
Update v0.9.0L [2019-12-01]
- Fixed club player records all time appearances/goals/assists/man of match. There was a big that could cause these to temporarily be incorrect during a season in which a player on these was sold
- Academy Trial attribute reveals can only be purchased if they can be afforded by both the current and projected bank balances. i.e. You cannot purchase an Academy Trial attribute reveal if doing so would put your club into debt within the next 28 days (currently only requires to be afforded by current bank balance)
Update v0.9.0m [2019-12-31]
- Improved the balance of the initially assigned positions that 15 year old youth players start the game with
- Player values and wage demands rebalanced slightly (on average younger players are now a little less for both, older players are now a little more for both)
New Match Engine Development Blog #3
We’ve made really good progress on the defensive positioning and attacking off the ball movement of players. We’re very happy with how it’s looking and the solid foundations that we’ve put in place ensuring that future improvements will not be difficult to do.
We’re also now getting towards the end of the process of rewriting from scratch all of the code associated with infrastructure that includes all the improvements detailed in the 1st development blog update. It still needs to undergo testing and for sure some issues will arise that we need to sort out, but all in all we’re very happy that so far everything is coming together as expected without any significant issues arising.
Recently we’ve also started the process of improving the weakest parts of the on-ball behaviour of players with a current focus on passing the ball off the ground and crossing the ball; particularly in regards to players taking into consideration that the ball will be off the ground for a period of time with players potentially unable to reach it, passing the ball into space/areas and the difficulty involved in a teammate potentially winning the ball if it’s passed there, and factoring this information into players making decisions about what to do with the ball.
Lastly, we’ve also just started working on the visualisation of the match action to allow people to see what’s actually going on!
We plan to open a testing Game World at some point during July that users will have access to. This testing GW will use the new match engine in order to ensure it is properly tested and any serious issues identified and resolved before it is released to the ‘Live’ game world. More information on this will be released closer to the time.
That's it for now! Thanks as always for sticking with us!