Téma: Suggestions

Exactly- Stupid people have been buying that stuff. Only worth it if you win the money in a tourney (sorry if you have bought it)

You keep it if you sell or release the player. However, if a team changes logos/colors or upgrades at goalie (think along the lines of having a personalized mask like Cujo), then it suddenly doesn't fit the team as well.

and them .. one decides to change colors and team name on all 3 sports .. have to change it all. That is the reason why i have not changed my teams name for soccer/hockey yet. I want first to make sure exactly what i want and them change them all

I would love to see a curling manager game!

Hi Vlad,
I was chatting with another manager (steelhawk , some of the words in the following comment are not my own, but his, and with which I agree 100%) the other day and we thought this idea would be worth passing on to you, so that you may talk with your team and see if it would be doable.

Basically, we (as well as many other users that have complained/raged in the forums) think there is a fundamentally flawed concept in ppm games, which is the current energy and match importance engine. To begin with, the whole idea that a sports coach would make a conscious decision to tell his troops play dramatically lower is beyond absurd. Any coach practicing such a wacko policy would be fired almost instantly, being hated by both players and fans alike. Can you imagine the Penguins telling Sydney Crosby or Chelsea telling John Terry you can float tonight the games not worth it. It's just insane. It defies the competitive nature of every professional. The truth is profesional players don't have variable play switches on their backs, and in general, they try to give 100% every game. They are playing for a job and their next contract. If a coach tells them to go out and play poorly, that coach should expect an extremely rude reply. Imagine what would happen if Tata Martino would tell Messi, "take it easy today, play on Very Low, this match is not very important"..

In regards to the energy system, in real life, players don't continuously spend energy every game and replenish EVERYTHING in the off-season, as is the case in ppm. There simply is no such thing as seasonal loss of energy. Just look at the NHL and the NBA and ask yourself when are the players the strongest. The playoffs of course. We simply believe that the whole idea of seasonal energy loss is a complete fallacy.

However, we are not here to complain, you guys have done a great job, developing what is likely the best sports manager game online (can't say "all" because I haven't seen them all), and we would also like to offer a system we think would work better:

Instead of telling players "play hard" or "play poorly", which is just ridiculous, we propose to adopt the more realistic model based on resting players. There should still be a setting for match importance, since without question there is a difference between players' performance in the National Cups, their leagues, and say, a WC or Champions' League Final.. However, there should only be maybe 2 settings: Normal and High. Normal being say, .5, and High being much higher, say 2.0, which should only be used on very, very important games, and would absolutely penalize those who decide to play with that strategy every single game since their players would be at 80 energy by match-day 10! I'd expect that top level teams would only use this setting for NC/CL/CWC semifinals and finals, as well as for promotion/relegation matches, but NEVER in a league game and few in CWC/CL group stage, as countless do now

In addition, as I previously stated, the system we propose is based on resting players instead of the current seasonal loss of energy. This might even be as simple as reverting the energy usage engine so that players that are rested actually GAIN a bit of energy (perhaps benched players that don't play also gain a small amount of energy), as it is done in real life by having a deep squad and rotating players. In the short term, if players are used game after game they will get a bit tired. Resting them a couple of games to regenerate and use rested players from the bench is far more realistic.

In the end, we believe this would add a whole new angle of strategy to the game as well as fix some of the most prominent problems that make this game so unappealing to many new managers that quit shortly after joining and frustrating to those who stay.

Thank you,
Manu








PS, another topic to revise would be the injuries system. The main thing here is that injured players playing dtd should be likely to re-injure themselves, as you see all the time in pro football (i.e. Messi, Aguero, etc). In my entire career in ppm (seasons 4-now) I've ALWAYS played my dtd players and NONE have suffered follow up injuries!

I'd like to offer a counter-point. There are aspects of your suggestion that make sense. However, only half the teams in my league have even semi-active managers. My top players playing VL against what are quite typically bot teams can score 20+ goals. If I did not have the option to play very low, I would be playing my reserves at least half the games throughout the season. Do you know of any team where the fans wouldn't revolt if they consistently played their backups? To top that off, I'd be removing my best players from the possibility of winning league awards like scoring titles et al. Not only would the fans revolt, the sponsors should as well. They're paying for exposure, and winning teams with players who achieve great things get more exposure.

Secondly, running up the score is heavily frowned upon in real life as poor sportsmanship. I can't/don't want to sit my better players for the reasons listed above, so if I were forced to play at higher levels, I am being forced to run the score up even more. You say a coach who tells their players to go easier would be fired in real life. Has no team ever switched to a possession-style defense after attaining a comfortable/embarrassing lead? Yes, you're not going to shut down if you have a strong lead, but you certainly don't need to try as hard. On top of that, if my team scores 20+ goals on VL, why WOULD I tell them to play harder? To embarrass my opponent more? To waste energy unnecessarily? Coaches who intentionally and unnecessarily run up the score are not only ostracized on the internet by fans of both teams, they've been fired for it.

I made a real effort to promote back to Division II this season, but my team fell short against one of the other top 3 teams in the league (by team strength) who made some purchases right before the series. I'm disappointed because the challenge of playing in II would have been more enjoyable. However, if there's anything the PPM team should review, it's the problem that I will make more money next season by failing to promote than if I had promoted and were relegated again. The game should encourage teams to do the best they can, but it doesn't seem to at this point. Again, I made a real effort to promote, but failing to do so actually worked in my favor financially. I think that's the bigger problem.

Tell me ONE team in the entire world that tells their players, "guys, take it easy today, we're playing against nobodies"... Not even 3rd division teams from Argentina (where I'm origianlly from) "take it easy"... They are playing for a spot in the starting XI, for their new contract, and possibly for a transfer to a better league, so... It's not only not realistic that you can play every game on VL, but it is just ridiculous.

In addition, that would hurt teams like mine as well, since I am, as you can see, first in USA II.4, and I've played every single game on Low.... Again, this is not realistic




"I'd be removing my best players from the possibility of winning league awards like scoring titles et al. Not only would the fans revolt, the sponsors should as well."
Shouldn't your fans and sponsors revolt that you are playing with a half-ass attitude every game? I think they should, as should mine!




I don't know what "run up the score means", so I can't answer that, sorry

"if my team scores 20+ goals on VL, why WOULD I tell them to play harder? To embarrass my opponent more? To waste energy unnecessarily?"
You're missing the point, which is that you CAN'T say anything of the sort to players in the first place! You CAN'T tell them, "play poorly"... If players don't show attitude on the field, the fans should hate them, and it'd be suicidal for their careers.... Here's an example: Remember the game Messi scored 4 goals on Arsenal? How was he playing towards the end? Answer: AS HARD, or HARDER, than in the beginin!!! He, like every other profesional athelte in the history of sports, is fighting for a raise, etc, and simply CANNOT "take it easy"... Nor does he want to

Importance:
Don't think of it so much as a means of telling your players to go easy as it is a means to impact games and manage energy. It is very hard to mimic real life in these situations when coding in 1s and 0s. You can't have it such that you can have manual tooling of situations. There needs to be a concrete recipe to follow. Match importance may not be perfect, but it is a ruler and something one must manage for team success.

Resting players:
I've long been an advocate that players shouldn't be able to every game, especially goalies. I think forwards should be able to handle back-to-back games but not 112 straight. It would be nice if energy loss had another parameter. One that ramps up the daily energy loss to the point where your players can't fully recover if they've played too many games in a row.

I don't doubt you know more about coding than I do, seeing as I have some experience with statistical and computational programs (i.e. Matlab, SAS) and basic C++ programs, but is it really impossible to somewhat mimic real life? My main issue with the current system is how ridiculous it can be in some cases, and that the best moment for players is the beginning of the season. Plus, I'm not saying that match importance should be completely removed, just that it's effect should be reduced, and changed so that it penalized those who play every game on VH

Honestly, I think your version of resting players would be even more impossible to code for than what I said before (I was keeping in mind this is a computer game after all, and so everything must be programmed) because how can you tell the game to distinguish between different positions. As much as I like this idea (since forwards should not be able to play every single game, while goalkeepers could easily do it), it'd just be insane to try and code something like this

"It would be nice if energy loss had another parameter. One that ramps up the daily energy loss to the point where your players can't fully recover if they've played too many games in a row."
100% agree with this! I'd love to see something like that

Maybe not all of these ideas are realistic/possible to code, but even if some are, the devs should do them, the game would be much better for it

You're looking at this the wrong way. Take the energy levels as a relative comparison to your opponent. If you have energy at 80 and the opponent has energy at 80, it is the same as if you both had 100 or 40. It's relative.

Also if you talk about absolutes, players are still better at the end of the season than at the beginning because they improve their attributes during the course of the season which compensates for the energy lost.

I am sure you will agree that in reality players don't always improve their skills, but they also go down if they don't practice, or if they lose their confidence, etc. But that's another thing that you have to look at in relation to your opponents.

I am not saying the energy system could not be done in a different or better way. But I think the current system fulfills its purpose. The system does penalize those who play VH every game. I don't know of anyone who would succeed doing that and these changes might help them a bit, but in the end their energy will be so low that the XP and Chem growth will not compensate for that. You still need to be smart about energy. We made these changes so that people would stop making agreements to play VL against each other and also because in hockey and handball a lot of managers would play the whole season on VL or L and save a lot of energy for the playoffs. It's a new dynamic now and let's see who adapts the best to these changes. The conditions are still the same for every team.

They should make it so you can buy funds.

I wouldn't count on that. The developers have made a real effort to avoid giving serious advantages to paying managers. The pay features are designed more to make things easier, not to provide an advantage that non-paying members have no access to. This idea would mimic micro-transactions seen in a lot of online games and would give a serious advantage to those who choose to pay for it.

Do you think it would be possible to have a tactic planning system based on lineups?

My example: For the friendly games in which I play a lineup of backups and youths, I use a tactic that has them play harder. This being different than my normal friendly tactic which just has my default lineup not playing hard at all, just to save their energy for the league games.

Would it possible to say, I want this tactic to go with this lineup, regardless of what kind of game I play that lineup?

The only options you have are on the planning screen. Set line-up and tactics based on the type of game.
To do what you want to do I would suggest you create as many different tactics as possible. Then go into the calendar and schedule the lineup and tactics for each game.

For what your wanting here I would have the following set up.
Line-up tactic notes
Default Friendly VL/VL - Default lineup
Team A Friendly VH/VH - Backup/Youths

Then click on each game in the calendar and select the line-up and tactics from the drop downs.

i think the new chemistry/experience change is very positive. I am one of those tired and bored of managers playing on very low and only worried about playoffs.

they can still do that, but now they will be somewhat penalized. I do agree that managers have to find ways to balance and not just cruise on VL/L

The biggest concern now is to fix the main issue of teams not able to compete.
with this new change, now those lower teams wont even have chance to win in regular season!!! so OTR will be lower, money lower and get worse.