Subject: »[info]DevDiary 80: “Price is what you pay, value is what

Please stop arguing, for the sake of the Aussies at most.

Let's talk about the expectations, those are the real issue here.
Can anybody translate what those really mean?

my present understanding of expectations:

- there's a formula that determines where the game thinks you should finish in the standings. It factors in things like player skills, and team cash on hand.

It's my understanding that this is a means to punish teams who play economics but sandbag in lower divisions when they actually have the resources to improve the team.
Here is what my leagues expectations were, going into the start of the season:

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Championship total failure Balls of Steel
Vice-championship above expectations Wayne Rockets
Vice-championship below expectations Real Madrid Sv
Top half of the table above expectations FC Ciomocio
Top half of the table below expectations Seimborg FC
Top half of the table above expectations nyU
Top half of the table total failure High Tops
Staying in the league goal achieved S.D. Union Lara
Staying in the league great success Dragon
Staying in the league below expectations JBR-24 F.C.
Avoiding direct relegation great success Baltimore Arsenal FC
Avoiding direct relegation below expectations Chula Vista United
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So, based on this assessment, Balls of Steel should be the team most likely to win promotion. However, that obviously didn't happen, so I'm guessing his fan base would be unhappy.

Whereas for my team, my fans expectation was to just survive the league. So, they are very happy with me. High Tops, his fan base expected a top 6 finish, so his fans would probably be greatly depressed.

Yes, there is no P2W yet but it will be in that direction in my opinion.

So the day after official introduction of fanbase expectation and bonuses stats it stopped working XD

I would instantly swap all the changes currently made for a junior school reform. I still dont understand why such a important part of the game is so neglected and only about luck with no manager skills requirement.

I really don't understand how teams can afford the expense to begin with.

I'm already running a -150k deficit a week now due to coaching staff, mostly. Sponsor income is still garbage for me, it doesn't even cover my player expenses (120k).
I can't imagine justifying going another 40-50k in the hole every week for junior lottery.

It's not neglected, but it's way more amount of work than the current and past updates.
The problem is that the devs are still working on the unification of the game to an all new pages game, but the process has brought much much more bugs and issues than they anticipated. Therefor the real updating, such as youth, staff, etc, and in last station, the ME, has been postponed for indefinite time, for as long as the unification of the game has not been finalised and made completely bug free (or at least largely bug free).

As for the NT skill visualisation for plus users I can be short.
NT is not a feature that is completely supported by sokker, so making it a plus supported feature is just plain hypocrisy!
IF they make the NT feature like they announced, they need to do 2 things.

1) Make the NT / U21 completely supported in game features.

2) They need to make the function of NT managing in it's whole a PLUS feature.

That being said...why would the devs name PLUS... ASSISTANT and make it as thus visuable in the game, but ask managers to pay for PLUS in order to get PLUS features?
This is a simple example of how poor communication can ruin the immersive part of the game.

Either they get rid of PLUS completely and start naming it ASSISTANT everywhere from now on, or vice versa...
It's the same by changing NT, f.e. into Community Team (CT)...it just leads to confusion, for no reason at all.

Bad news , i'm very disappointing ...
The plus should not give any advantage , but be a free choice of those who want to support the development of the game.
I have been doing it for 16 years, but now I am thinking of not renewing.


PS
There are some very simple things that should be done that have been ignored.
First of all bring back the friendly game on Wednesday before practice.

I understand that they don't want their players get injured, BUT.

If they buy an established NT player, we already know their skills so why hiding them.
Only the form matters if they play or not.

Well there are different NT coaches, some have databases, some don't, coaches change, they can always hope that the skills will be "lost" :-P

If they buy a young player, they might play in a friendly match where they can't be injured.

So, no I really don't understand why would you hide players' skills.

Well it's not the owners choice to play only in friendlies... if you give the skills, you risk that the player will be used every week, so why do that?

It always depends on owner but also on the NT coach... I came to agreement with some NT coaches (to use my players only in friendly / only in 2 most important qualifiers etc.) but with some there was no point discussing because they treated me like that player was THEIR ownership because of nationality

Honestly the easiest choice is to hide the skills and ignore the sk-mails :-P

So the day after official introduction of fanbase expectation and bonuses stats it stopped working XD

Seems like we were asking too many questions. XD

Geniuses!

It's a give and take, but if they cannot use your top player on normal basis I recon you shouldn't buy U21 players.

Why not? NTs are NOT the main part of the game, it's additional content.

I'm not buying u21 NT players, I'm buying 16-17yo players and train them. NTs give me and the players nothing.

There was a possibility to take out the training from NTs and make them arcade-like. It would solve all the problems for NT coaches, yet they were against it.
(edited)

There was a possibility to take out the training from NTs and make them arcade-like. It would solve all the problems for NT coaches, yet they were against it.

+1

1 the real problem of sokker is the national
2 During league games, there are no more injuries.
3 The users leave the game for national teams.
4 Today 200 del in Polska.

LOL
Vote borkoos007 for a better future
(edited)

Whilst I partially agree with you on it being additional content, I think at least in my case it’s probably the main factor for me playing the game and so I view that as part of the main experience. I get frustrated when managers are not willing to negotiate especially with smaller nations who have much less flexibility even if I’m willing as a
NT manager to give a bit if it means I get accurate skills of players. So my clearly biased view is if you don’t want players paying for NT don’t buy them (especially from smaller nations). However, I do understand the frustrations of owners who don’t want injuries so I’d have supported the idea of arcade style NT matches as it removes the whole issue.

I strongly disagree however with putting some of the NT essentials behind paywalls.