A very interesting thread on the forums in the past few days started by a guy called Ackter.
Ackter's dilemma - as it shall henceforth be known (!) - was the following... he had a youth whose wage demand had shot up from 1.2k to 6k, and wasn't sure whether or not to auto-extend at that rate or risk a wage auction. This is a dilemma that a lot of managers are going to face in the coming seasons! In the end - since the player wasn't yet really good enough for the first team football he had been getting - Ackter risked a wage auction with a max bid of 3k. But he was overbid by someone else who entered 7.5k, and so the player left with Ackter only receiving 16k compensation from the AQ fee. Ackter's argument is that he should have received more, perhaps with a rate set in a similar manner to the way the tribunal system works in real life. He mentioned the figure of 100k ish plus sell on clause perhaps being reasonable in this case. This prompted an interesting and passionate debate about whether the system should change, but I don't want to comment on that here...
Instead, I want to look at strategy within the current system and ask how could Ackter have managed his risk? Basically in the situation he was in he had three options:
1 - Hold his nose and pay the auto-extend rate.
2 - Let it go to wage auction as he did.
3 - Before the player's contract expired put him in a transfer auction.
I want to explore option 3 some more.
Now lots of people don't like using the transfer auction route because they say it guarantees they'll lose the player, whereas in a wage auction they still have a chance of keeping him. And of course it's true that just before the wage auction period can be the worst time to put a player in transfer auction, since prices come down a bit with other managers waiting for wage auctions.
But I want to suggest that a transfer auction can be a great way of testing the waters before a possible wage auction. Take Ackter's case. He knew that he was only willing to bid a maximum of 3k for this player in wage auction. So he would know that a bid of 3.1k would see him lose the player for just 16k compensation. Now someone making a bid of 3.1k for this player would end up paying the 16k AF plus a 31k signing on fee (3.1k x 10) for a total of 47k. Of course Ackter only sees 16k of this money.
So what if Ackter had put the player in a transfer auction with a starting bid of 50k, perhaps throwing in a 10% sell-on clause for good measure? If no-one bid, Ackter could be reasonably confident that no-one was willing to bid more than 3k for the player in wage auction, and could go on to risk it. If somebody bid over 50k then yes Ackter would lose the player - but if this happened he was going to lose the player in wage auction anyway! The difference now is that all of the 50k comes to him, rather than most of it flowing out of the system as a signing on fee. And of course he's got his sell on clause. And there's a chance that multiple managers will bid, and drive up the price, giving him more compensation.
Of course this isn't a risk free system. It assumes that all interested managers see the transfer auction, and furthermore that managers actually sit down and make a calculation about whether a player will be cheaper to sign in transfer or wage auction - not all FML managers are that rational!! But I think it's a reasonable way of managing your risk in these sorts of situations.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
Season 3 - Let the building commence
So Season 3 is now underway following a quiet off-season at the Pearl
Stadium. Those who have followed this blog from the start will know
that my strategy was always to spend in the first two seasons in
pursuit of a relatively high league position and then to start the
investment processes designed to secure long term stability and
success and leave me with a good amount of cash just as other teams
run in to financial problems with escalating wages etc.
Stadium. Those who have followed this blog from the start will know
that my strategy was always to spend in the first two seasons in
pursuit of a relatively high league position and then to start the
investment processes designed to secure long term stability and
success and leave me with a good amount of cash just as other teams
run in to financial problems with escalating wages etc.
And so that's what I'm doing! The off-season saw 5 players leave and 3
come in. Of the 3 who arrived only one (a Saudi Arabian LB nabbed in a
wage auction) will start - the other two are backup strikers; a
position in which I have two high quality players but previously had
little cover. I hope this squad should now be pretty much set for 2
seasons - the only real question mark being whether I get an offer I
can't refuse for Israel Santos, my 20y/o star of a Spanish striker
(think the next Torres!).
In the meantime the cash I'm not spending on transfer fees and wages
is going on building work. A new stand with nice seats and corp boxes
behind one goal and extra blocks of cheap seats in one of my other
stands are my first round of stadium work (realistically it's going to
be 5 seasons before I get to redeveloping the 4th stand so this seems
like a worthwhile investment). By the time this is finished the
stadium will be big enough for a Level 10 team (I'm currently L8).
Following the broadly encouraging (or at least not as dispiriting as I
feared!) findings of my youth academy research (see previous post) I
have also started work on 2 new small youth academies in countries
that look like reasonable investments.
Given the lack of on-pitch investment I'm trying not to set my league
expectations too high. I think the Premiership may be a bit tough but
I'm hoping that Championship level football next season is a
reasonable aim. Hard to know what would give me enough rep for that,
but I'd certainly be optimistic that top 10 (of 18) in this year's
qualifying league will do the trick. So far one win and two defeats,
but it's still early days.
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
Academies - Worth it after all?
In amongst all the academies fuss, I think I have found some evidence that academies may be worth it after all.
I've done some calculations based on the situation in Voller. I looked at the top 50 countries in the FIFA/Coca Cola world rankings and for each saw how many players there were in the database, and how many of these had acquisition fees of over 100k. I then looked at the number of academies in each country and their star ratings and worked out whether that country was over or under saturated. Using this I was able to work out how much it would cost in terms of academy running fees per "normal" PA player produced (i.e. not 1-1.5* filler players produced to make up the numbers) and how much for a player who would eventually grow to develop a 100k+ AQ fee in today's money. And the results were very interesting.
Firstly, in the case of "normal" PA players. In the ideal completely unsaturated country, it would cost you an average of £25,200 in running costs to produce each one of these players. That's because if you have a 1* academy you get 1 such player every 7 days (4 a season), paying £3600 a day, whereas if you have a 4.5* academy you get 1 such player every 2 days (14 a season), and you're paying £12600 per day. Either way the cost per player is the same (it's just the time that varies).
No country from the FIFA top 50 gave you this ideal outcome, however the top few came close.
Best Country: £27,182
2nd: £31,675
3rd: £35,161
4th: £40,166
5th: £45,850
Now the MV for a standard PA youth at age 16-17 is currently around 100k. So by that measure, you're on to a winner if you have a YA in one of these countries. You are producing players for less than half the cost that you can sell them on for (this doesn't include the fixed costs of building your academy of course, but we can't take that in to account here because the cost involved depends on how big the academy is. Consequently I prefer to look at academy building cost as really being about time - how quickly you want players - not as purely a financial investment).
Next, let's look at the case of those quality youths who will go on to have an AQ fee in excess of 100k. (I reckon this is roughly a 4* rep in old money). Obviously the vast majority of even normal PA players do not fall in to this category, so the figures involved are much higher. Here are the top 5 in terms of cheapest average amount of running costs per high quality player produced:
Best Country: £987,696
2nd: £1,134,831
3rd: £1,154,273
4th: £1,193,756
5th: £1,382,022
So how does this compare? Well, very few players come through to 100k+ AF's in their first season or two, and those who do are generally the serious wonderkids so it wouldn't be fair to look at those. Instead let's consider what happens if you take these players through their youth career up to 21/22. The average 21/22 y/o 100k+ AF player currently has a MV of around £1.1m. So it looks like you're just about breaking even here IF (and it's a big if!) you can keep their wages down during their youth career. In the case of the best placed country I think you'd need to keep wages to about £800/day throughout their youth career to break even. Difficult but not impossible.
Of course, all these are averages, and at the end of the day the system is still a lottery - you might do better than this and you might do worse - as I have! In addition, I have only listed the best countries above - the worst nations on my scale cost £249k per normal PA player and £18.7m per high quality player respectively! But to my mind the figures do indicate that the academy market is actually much closer to equilibrium than many might think.
I've done some calculations based on the situation in Voller. I looked at the top 50 countries in the FIFA/Coca Cola world rankings and for each saw how many players there were in the database, and how many of these had acquisition fees of over 100k. I then looked at the number of academies in each country and their star ratings and worked out whether that country was over or under saturated. Using this I was able to work out how much it would cost in terms of academy running fees per "normal" PA player produced (i.e. not 1-1.5* filler players produced to make up the numbers) and how much for a player who would eventually grow to develop a 100k+ AQ fee in today's money. And the results were very interesting.
Firstly, in the case of "normal" PA players. In the ideal completely unsaturated country, it would cost you an average of £25,200 in running costs to produce each one of these players. That's because if you have a 1* academy you get 1 such player every 7 days (4 a season), paying £3600 a day, whereas if you have a 4.5* academy you get 1 such player every 2 days (14 a season), and you're paying £12600 per day. Either way the cost per player is the same (it's just the time that varies).
No country from the FIFA top 50 gave you this ideal outcome, however the top few came close.
Best Country: £27,182
2nd: £31,675
3rd: £35,161
4th: £40,166
5th: £45,850
Now the MV for a standard PA youth at age 16-17 is currently around 100k. So by that measure, you're on to a winner if you have a YA in one of these countries. You are producing players for less than half the cost that you can sell them on for (this doesn't include the fixed costs of building your academy of course, but we can't take that in to account here because the cost involved depends on how big the academy is. Consequently I prefer to look at academy building cost as really being about time - how quickly you want players - not as purely a financial investment).
Next, let's look at the case of those quality youths who will go on to have an AQ fee in excess of 100k. (I reckon this is roughly a 4* rep in old money). Obviously the vast majority of even normal PA players do not fall in to this category, so the figures involved are much higher. Here are the top 5 in terms of cheapest average amount of running costs per high quality player produced:
Best Country: £987,696
2nd: £1,134,831
3rd: £1,154,273
4th: £1,193,756
5th: £1,382,022
So how does this compare? Well, very few players come through to 100k+ AF's in their first season or two, and those who do are generally the serious wonderkids so it wouldn't be fair to look at those. Instead let's consider what happens if you take these players through their youth career up to 21/22. The average 21/22 y/o 100k+ AF player currently has a MV of around £1.1m. So it looks like you're just about breaking even here IF (and it's a big if!) you can keep their wages down during their youth career. In the case of the best placed country I think you'd need to keep wages to about £800/day throughout their youth career to break even. Difficult but not impossible.
Of course, all these are averages, and at the end of the day the system is still a lottery - you might do better than this and you might do worse - as I have! In addition, I have only listed the best countries above - the worst nations on my scale cost £249k per normal PA player and £18.7m per high quality player respectively! But to my mind the figures do indicate that the academy market is actually much closer to equilibrium than many might think.
Wednesday, 19 May 2010
Next Roadmap: Wish #5 - A Better Competition Creator
Off-season is always a good time to take stock and look at the bigger picture. So where are we now with FML? The re-set seems to have been pretty successful; there are still some bugs but they're being ironed out, and if rumours are to be believed 3D is on the way in the next major update. So far so good. And then? I guess we will see another roadmap - setting out future developments over the coming months. But what will be in it? Well, over the next week I'll set out my top five ideas. Some - like today's - are completely my own, others are drawn from elsewhere in the community with my own suggestions added. So here we go with...
In at number 5 is a better competition creator.
Now, I know this is not most people's top priority. But competition creation is one of the life bloods of a gameworld - keeping people entertained when they have no official matches to play, and allowing for some of the user creativity that is part of what makes an MMO more engrossing than a bog-standard offline game.
So here are some of the things I think it would be good to see incorporated in a new improved competition creator:
- being able to have more than 8 stages to a competition: this can be quite limiting.
- being able to have all the teams from one stage of a tournament going through to the next stage. I've never understood why you can't do this.
- the ability to have teams from multiple previous stages of a tournament go through to a future stage. Say I want to have a repechage style tournament. The losers in the first round go in to a mini-tournament, the winners of which re-join the main tournament for the quarter-finals. Right now when I go to setup the quarter finals, I can select EITHER teams from the mini-tournament OR the winners of the first round, but not both. I'd like to be able to do this.
- related to this the ability to implement seeded non-knockout playoffs such as the McIntyre System used in Rugby League. This could give a fun new twist to tournaments.
- The ability to have group stage schedules in which teams also play sides in other groups like in an American sports system. For example, you might play the teams in your group twice, and teams in other groups once.
- More controversially, the ability for competition hosts to assign teams to groups manually. To avoid this being used unscrupulously by managers looking to give themselves a big advantage, after the groups had been assigned each manager in the competition would need to re-confirm their entry. But the ability to do this could allow for fun tourneys. Perhaps one with a group of Liverpool fans who play each other for the right to face the winner of a group of Manchester United fans for example.
- And finally, as a big fan of the gameworldone podcasts, it would be remiss of me not to mention multi-select! I only organise comps for fun, and it gets pretty annoying having to manually remove 30+ teams. I dread to think what it's like for an FA org. Sort it out SI ;)
Next time... Number 4!
In at number 5 is a better competition creator.
Now, I know this is not most people's top priority. But competition creation is one of the life bloods of a gameworld - keeping people entertained when they have no official matches to play, and allowing for some of the user creativity that is part of what makes an MMO more engrossing than a bog-standard offline game.
So here are some of the things I think it would be good to see incorporated in a new improved competition creator:
- being able to have more than 8 stages to a competition: this can be quite limiting.
- being able to have all the teams from one stage of a tournament going through to the next stage. I've never understood why you can't do this.
- the ability to have teams from multiple previous stages of a tournament go through to a future stage. Say I want to have a repechage style tournament. The losers in the first round go in to a mini-tournament, the winners of which re-join the main tournament for the quarter-finals. Right now when I go to setup the quarter finals, I can select EITHER teams from the mini-tournament OR the winners of the first round, but not both. I'd like to be able to do this.
- related to this the ability to implement seeded non-knockout playoffs such as the McIntyre System used in Rugby League. This could give a fun new twist to tournaments.
- The ability to have group stage schedules in which teams also play sides in other groups like in an American sports system. For example, you might play the teams in your group twice, and teams in other groups once.
- More controversially, the ability for competition hosts to assign teams to groups manually. To avoid this being used unscrupulously by managers looking to give themselves a big advantage, after the groups had been assigned each manager in the competition would need to re-confirm their entry. But the ability to do this could allow for fun tourneys. Perhaps one with a group of Liverpool fans who play each other for the right to face the winner of a group of Manchester United fans for example.
- And finally, as a big fan of the gameworldone podcasts, it would be remiss of me not to mention multi-select! I only organise comps for fun, and it gets pretty annoying having to manually remove 30+ teams. I dread to think what it's like for an FA org. Sort it out SI ;)
Next time... Number 4!
The Youth Market - Someone has to be unhappy
This weekend I'll begin a series on features I would like to see implemented in future FML updates. But one thing that definitely won't be making the list is changes to the Youth Academy system. Given the uproar on the official forums here and here you might ask why not?
Well because I believe the current system is about as good as you can get. Yes, there are minor alterations I'd make if i was starting from scratch, but now that academies are in I think the development team's time could be better spent elsewhere. As for major changes, I simply don't think they'll work.
You see, the truth is that the youth system can never make everyone happy. Most of the 1000 managers in a game would like to have youth teams at U17, U19 and U21 with 18 good quality prospects in each (defined as say 3* plus PA). That means they need 9 new 3* grads a year. But the database simply can't sustain this. The database size is 50000, which given a roughly even spread of players over the ages of 16 - 34 means that in each year group there should be about 2500-3000 players. So each season 2500-3000 new youths should be created, and of these I can't believe that more than 2000 will be 3*+ PA. So on average each of the 1000 teams can only have 2 new 3* PA youths per season.
Let's just pause to compare those numbers directly:
The average team would like 9 x 3* PA new youths a season.
The average team can have 2 x 3* PA new youths a season.
You don't need to know a lot about economics to know that demand at 450% of supply is a recipe for prices going through the roof. Before academies this was expressed through massively high youth wages, and so the community demanded academies. Now the supply-demand imbalance is expressed through the building of loads of academies, and people are again unhappy. But with this supply/demand inequilibrium there's simply no way to make everyone happy. Someone has to be unhappy. The question is who should be unhappy:
- under a pure market system (like before) those who can't afford it are unhappy. This on the whole means new players, and so makes them more likely to leave. Not good.
- under some sort of youth draft system (as Jakswan has eloquently argued for) the top teams (who get the last picks) are unhappy. I think this is better than a market system, but if you're SI do you really want to piss off some of your best and most dedicated players? Not if you can help it I would have thought.
- under a pure luck system (a few random PA youths crop up in your squad at the start of each season) a random selection of people are unhappy. Plus everyone who (like me) likes more strategy in their game is disappointed. And indeed anyone who wants to have a youth team without the hassle of having to negotiate to buy 16 players off other managers isn't going to be too thrilled either.
Which leaves us with the option of a hybrid system - perhaps combining some sort of market force of how much money you invest with some element of luck, whilst allowing new managers to bring some promising youths in to the gameworld through their starting squad?...
Oh wait, that's what we've already got...
Well because I believe the current system is about as good as you can get. Yes, there are minor alterations I'd make if i was starting from scratch, but now that academies are in I think the development team's time could be better spent elsewhere. As for major changes, I simply don't think they'll work.
You see, the truth is that the youth system can never make everyone happy. Most of the 1000 managers in a game would like to have youth teams at U17, U19 and U21 with 18 good quality prospects in each (defined as say 3* plus PA). That means they need 9 new 3* grads a year. But the database simply can't sustain this. The database size is 50000, which given a roughly even spread of players over the ages of 16 - 34 means that in each year group there should be about 2500-3000 players. So each season 2500-3000 new youths should be created, and of these I can't believe that more than 2000 will be 3*+ PA. So on average each of the 1000 teams can only have 2 new 3* PA youths per season.
Let's just pause to compare those numbers directly:
The average team would like 9 x 3* PA new youths a season.
The average team can have 2 x 3* PA new youths a season.
You don't need to know a lot about economics to know that demand at 450% of supply is a recipe for prices going through the roof. Before academies this was expressed through massively high youth wages, and so the community demanded academies. Now the supply-demand imbalance is expressed through the building of loads of academies, and people are again unhappy. But with this supply/demand inequilibrium there's simply no way to make everyone happy. Someone has to be unhappy. The question is who should be unhappy:
- under a pure market system (like before) those who can't afford it are unhappy. This on the whole means new players, and so makes them more likely to leave. Not good.
- under some sort of youth draft system (as Jakswan has eloquently argued for) the top teams (who get the last picks) are unhappy. I think this is better than a market system, but if you're SI do you really want to piss off some of your best and most dedicated players? Not if you can help it I would have thought.
- under a pure luck system (a few random PA youths crop up in your squad at the start of each season) a random selection of people are unhappy. Plus everyone who (like me) likes more strategy in their game is disappointed. And indeed anyone who wants to have a youth team without the hassle of having to negotiate to buy 16 players off other managers isn't going to be too thrilled either.
Which leaves us with the option of a hybrid system - perhaps combining some sort of market force of how much money you invest with some element of luck, whilst allowing new managers to bring some promising youths in to the gameworld through their starting squad?...
Oh wait, that's what we've already got...
第二赛季完结
今天第二赛季完结。上海王朝在第十二地位完结。因为最好的十三队下个赛季会在最好的部类赛这是很好新闻！
所以下个赛我们会有很多钱，很大声名！可是我觉得我不会花很多钱因为我应该开始建我们的体育场。这是不便宜可是很重要，将来要是你没有一个大体育场，你的进项不能增加很多的。终于别的队会比起你来有很多钱。而且我想建一两个年轻人的学院，那些不便宜可是将来会成为很重要。已经很多人投诉学院不太好，要是他们关他们的学院我很高兴！
第三赛季开始以后，我会给你别的更新。
所以下个赛我们会有很多钱，很大声名！可是我觉得我不会花很多钱因为我应该开始建我们的体育场。这是不便宜可是很重要，将来要是你没有一个大体育场，你的进项不能增加很多的。终于别的队会比起你来有很多钱。而且我想建一两个年轻人的学院，那些不便宜可是将来会成为很重要。已经很多人投诉学院不太好，要是他们关他们的学院我很高兴！
第三赛季开始以后，我会给你别的更新。
Monday, 17 May 2010
Dynasty Qualify for Top Tier! (we think!)
Wow, am I interested again now! It's been one hell of an end to the season. I wouldn't normally blog about it in such detail but for once I think the tension deserves re-living.
When the bad form finally left, we were outside the top-12 that I figure we needed to - by my calculations - reach to be sure of making the top tier of final qualifiers. But we were still in with a shot. The problem was our last five games included the league leaders Little Badgers twice, and third place Auckland FC (who hammered us 4-0 earlier in the season) once.
Firstly Little Badgers away, I changed tactics to go 4-4-1-1, played defensive retain possession and attempted to shut up shop. And it worked! 0-0.
Next up, Little Badgers at home. Stuck with the 4-4-1-1 but went counter this time given home advantage and we sneaked it 1-0! Probably deserved it too - although they had more possession and more shots we created 3 clear cut chances to their 0 and so should have put the game to bed long before the 82nd minute winner that eventually clinched it.
I felt really sorry for Little Badgers manager Nicholas as these two results ultimately cost him the league - he only lost to me and the team who eventually clinched the title SF Cosmos.
Next up a 1-1 draw with Soepurb, AI game this so I can't tell you much about it! So two games to go and it was looking tight between me, Stanmore and Stoke Shadows for 11th-13th. And one of my remaining games is the Shadows. I have AI but decided to play my Auckland FC match first because I know Stoke's manager often comes on later in the evening and a win against Auckland would mean we only needed a draw from the final game.
After the hammering I took early in the season I decided to start the Auckland game defensive, but as it went by and stayed 0-0 I gradually came out of my shell more and more and we did have a couple of great chances to win it. Only for disaster to strike. In the 4th of 3 added minutes their goalie hoofs it long down field, my defence stands still (expecting the final whistle?!) and their star striker who has been marked out of the game for 93 minutes tucks it past my out of position keeper. Lost 1-0. Absolutely gutted.
But still if we beat Stoke we're guaranteed to finish above them, and hence in at least 12th place. Trouble is now I'm on a losing streak, AND 3 players picked up their 5th yellow cards in the Auckland game so they're suspended. But I needn't have worried. A hard fought 1-0 victory wasn't without its scares - one of my CB's could easily have been sent off for a last man foul but was only booked (his DC partner was just about covering I think), and they had a string of late corners. And not only did we win it, one of my off-season signings last year who I'd stuck with all season despite him underperforming got the winner with a 20 yard screamer. Love it!
So we're 11th, it will probably be 12th by the time Stanmore have played their last 2 games, but right now I don't care. Top tier 3rd season gives me more prize money, higher rep, and a shot at the top leagues. Give us something to play for - we cried. Man did we get it!
When the bad form finally left, we were outside the top-12 that I figure we needed to - by my calculations - reach to be sure of making the top tier of final qualifiers. But we were still in with a shot. The problem was our last five games included the league leaders Little Badgers twice, and third place Auckland FC (who hammered us 4-0 earlier in the season) once.
Firstly Little Badgers away, I changed tactics to go 4-4-1-1, played defensive retain possession and attempted to shut up shop. And it worked! 0-0.
Next up, Little Badgers at home. Stuck with the 4-4-1-1 but went counter this time given home advantage and we sneaked it 1-0! Probably deserved it too - although they had more possession and more shots we created 3 clear cut chances to their 0 and so should have put the game to bed long before the 82nd minute winner that eventually clinched it.
I felt really sorry for Little Badgers manager Nicholas as these two results ultimately cost him the league - he only lost to me and the team who eventually clinched the title SF Cosmos.
Next up a 1-1 draw with Soepurb, AI game this so I can't tell you much about it! So two games to go and it was looking tight between me, Stanmore and Stoke Shadows for 11th-13th. And one of my remaining games is the Shadows. I have AI but decided to play my Auckland FC match first because I know Stoke's manager often comes on later in the evening and a win against Auckland would mean we only needed a draw from the final game.
After the hammering I took early in the season I decided to start the Auckland game defensive, but as it went by and stayed 0-0 I gradually came out of my shell more and more and we did have a couple of great chances to win it. Only for disaster to strike. In the 4th of 3 added minutes their goalie hoofs it long down field, my defence stands still (expecting the final whistle?!) and their star striker who has been marked out of the game for 93 minutes tucks it past my out of position keeper. Lost 1-0. Absolutely gutted.
But still if we beat Stoke we're guaranteed to finish above them, and hence in at least 12th place. Trouble is now I'm on a losing streak, AND 3 players picked up their 5th yellow cards in the Auckland game so they're suspended. But I needn't have worried. A hard fought 1-0 victory wasn't without its scares - one of my CB's could easily have been sent off for a last man foul but was only booked (his DC partner was just about covering I think), and they had a string of late corners. And not only did we win it, one of my off-season signings last year who I'd stuck with all season despite him underperforming got the winner with a 20 yard screamer. Love it!
So we're 11th, it will probably be 12th by the time Stanmore have played their last 2 games, but right now I don't care. Top tier 3rd season gives me more prize money, higher rep, and a shot at the top leagues. Give us something to play for - we cried. Man did we get it!
Wednesday, 12 May 2010
The Bad Form Bug Strikes
6 games without a win. 2 draws, 4 defeats. Our place in the highest tier of qualifiers in Season 3 is now seriously in doubt - especially since we still have to play some of the division's big boys. I'm normally one of those who thrives in this sort of scenario - I get cross but I enjoy the challenge, I spend lots of time thinking about it, play some practice matches, work on tactics, scour the forums for tactical tips and so on.
But this time I feel strangely disconnected. I'm completely out of ideas and consequently I can't be bothered to log in that much. I've varied my tactics a bit, but I have two main ones that have worked well before under this ME and against the same opposition, and given that changing tactics too much has a negative effect why change all the time? I've rotated the squad and brought in a couple of players who are slightly better than what I had before, but that hasn't helped. I've got players back from injury now but that hasn't helped. So I'm a bit stumped.
I don't want to be one of those who whinges on the forum about how unfair it is, how the ME picks on me etc. I do believe the ME is as good as you'll get, and there probably is something I can do to turn this round. So I'll try to keep this constructive!
The problem I have is that the game doesn't give me much feedback at all on how to do that. There is no method for tactical feedback and the "form" information just gives me statistics I already know. And that's before I get started on "morale" which is probably my biggest bugbear. In the squad screen it only gives me an arrow, and even then it seems that given my team started the season well nothing is now going to shift those arrows out of green so I can't pick up on who is really struggling. In the match I can see slightly more - but what on earth does "player x is looking angry" actually mean?
So there is a real lack of information here. In the ideal world this could come through the community - and there is for example a tactics chat room where I can discuss that element of things. But (a) that's not always very helpful, and (b) it doesn't help with how to deal with the form effect or morale. In FM10 I can get detailed reports on a player's character, I can get backroom coaching advice and I can interact with my players (even if that's sometimes a bit naff). Why can't I do any of these things in FML?
Because right now, I can't figure this out. I'm not a brilliant player and as I say I'm sure there's an answer. But I've been on FML for more than a year now with some success and I have played FM and CM since 1994. What would a new player make of it?
But this time I feel strangely disconnected. I'm completely out of ideas and consequently I can't be bothered to log in that much. I've varied my tactics a bit, but I have two main ones that have worked well before under this ME and against the same opposition, and given that changing tactics too much has a negative effect why change all the time? I've rotated the squad and brought in a couple of players who are slightly better than what I had before, but that hasn't helped. I've got players back from injury now but that hasn't helped. So I'm a bit stumped.
I don't want to be one of those who whinges on the forum about how unfair it is, how the ME picks on me etc. I do believe the ME is as good as you'll get, and there probably is something I can do to turn this round. So I'll try to keep this constructive!
The problem I have is that the game doesn't give me much feedback at all on how to do that. There is no method for tactical feedback and the "form" information just gives me statistics I already know. And that's before I get started on "morale" which is probably my biggest bugbear. In the squad screen it only gives me an arrow, and even then it seems that given my team started the season well nothing is now going to shift those arrows out of green so I can't pick up on who is really struggling. In the match I can see slightly more - but what on earth does "player x is looking angry" actually mean?
So there is a real lack of information here. In the ideal world this could come through the community - and there is for example a tactics chat room where I can discuss that element of things. But (a) that's not always very helpful, and (b) it doesn't help with how to deal with the form effect or morale. In FM10 I can get detailed reports on a player's character, I can get backroom coaching advice and I can interact with my players (even if that's sometimes a bit naff). Why can't I do any of these things in FML?
Because right now, I can't figure this out. I'm not a brilliant player and as I say I'm sure there's an answer. But I've been on FML for more than a year now with some success and I have played FM and CM since 1994. What would a new player make of it?
Monday, 10 May 2010
Vollernomics: The Success Gap
Here's a question to start with. How much was the financial difference between finishing top of your first season qualifying league and bottom?
If you answered "£1.65m" go and stand in the dunce's corner. If you said "we can't be sure exactly, but it could be as high as £3.21m" then congratulations - have a gold star. Huh, says the dunce, that doesn't make sense. The top prize money for season 1 was £2.2m, the bottom was 550k, the difference is £1.65m. But the truth is that figure can be almost doubled by what I term the success gap - the difference that inflation has made to the squad values of someone who at the end of last season was able to put together a top rate squad, versus the person who couldn't.
Let me explain, using my data (read more about this sample here and feel free to disagree if you like). As Season 1 drew to a close, MVs were almost exactly equal to AFs. A quick off the mark manager at the bottom of a division could in theory have pulled together a team of 11 players with 12-14 in key attributes of their positions for a total of £373k. Today that squad would be worth £957k, an increase of 584k. Meanwhile, a quick off the mark manager who finished higher up their qualifying league could have in theory have nabbed a team of 11 players with 15+ on key attributes in their positions for a total of £1.48m. Today that squad would be worth £3.63m. An increase of £2.15m. This second manager has experienced a rise in their squad value by £1.56m more than the first manager, purely as a result of inflation.
The £1.65m extra prize money the league winner earned was exactly that - earned. We can argue on the forums until the cows come home about whether that is a fair amount. Personally I think it's fine, in line with "give us something to play for" it's awarded to those managers who managed to perform well in season 1. But they have not done anything to earn the extra £1.56m - all they've done is sat and watch the MV go up and up and up, sometimes every few hours.
This - in a nutshell - is why inflation is bad for a gameworld.
If you answered "£1.65m" go and stand in the dunce's corner. If you said "we can't be sure exactly, but it could be as high as £3.21m" then congratulations - have a gold star. Huh, says the dunce, that doesn't make sense. The top prize money for season 1 was £2.2m, the bottom was 550k, the difference is £1.65m. But the truth is that figure can be almost doubled by what I term the success gap - the difference that inflation has made to the squad values of someone who at the end of last season was able to put together a top rate squad, versus the person who couldn't.
Let me explain, using my data (read more about this sample here and feel free to disagree if you like). As Season 1 drew to a close, MVs were almost exactly equal to AFs. A quick off the mark manager at the bottom of a division could in theory have pulled together a team of 11 players with 12-14 in key attributes of their positions for a total of £373k. Today that squad would be worth £957k, an increase of 584k. Meanwhile, a quick off the mark manager who finished higher up their qualifying league could have in theory have nabbed a team of 11 players with 15+ on key attributes in their positions for a total of £1.48m. Today that squad would be worth £3.63m. An increase of £2.15m. This second manager has experienced a rise in their squad value by £1.56m more than the first manager, purely as a result of inflation.
The £1.65m extra prize money the league winner earned was exactly that - earned. We can argue on the forums until the cows come home about whether that is a fair amount. Personally I think it's fine, in line with "give us something to play for" it's awarded to those managers who managed to perform well in season 1. But they have not done anything to earn the extra £1.56m - all they've done is sat and watch the MV go up and up and up, sometimes every few hours.
This - in a nutshell - is why inflation is bad for a gameworld.
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Mid-season mid-table mediocrity
It's been a busy few days for me IRL so I haven't found time to finish the final article in my Vollernomics series. Apologies - it will be coming soon but in the meantime a quick update on the team.
So far in the league we are P21 W8 D5 L8 F22 A23 Pts29. You can't get much more mid-table than that! I'm reasonably pleased though: it's a tough division and despite my supposed buy buy buy strategy I haven't bought as many players as others - still waiting for the right guys to come along. At the end of the season roughly the top 13 will go in to the highest tier for the final qual season, but given that there's always the risk some top teams from other FAs might decide to transfer in to the TFA I'd like to make sure I finish top 11 to be on the safe side. It's going to be a challenge though - I'm missing several key players through injury including my star CB for 15 games.
In the cups I've traditionally either lost in the first round or gone really deep in the tournament so when I picked up some early wins I got quite hopeful. But last 16 defeats in both means we can "concentrate on the league" from here on in.
With being busy I haven't actually logged in all that much since the bank holiday, so many of these outcomes have come from my match plans. I've spent quite a lot of time setting up the plans and I think it's been time well spent. Whilst the interface is a pain, the functionality of the match plans is really great. I remember a time when if I couldn't log in for 3 or 4 days I'd be very nervous logging back in to see how far back I'd fallen. It felt like I was punished for having a life. Now I can set up the team the way I want, and consequently am really curious to log back in to see how they've been getting on. Of course the downside is that when they fail I only have
myself to blame... ;)
Tuesday, 4 May 2010
Vollernomics: Inflation estimated at 313%, youths over 450%
In the second of this series on the economy in GW Voller (if you missed the first, find it here or just scroll down!) I look at the headline figures on inflation.
And they're pretty shocking. 313% over last season means a player is now worth more than 3x what he was a season ago.
Before we go any further, disclaimers are important. I can't be certain in my sampling methods. The last post outlines why. In addition, to produce an inflation figure I ought to have prices from last season to compare to. I don't, because I hadn't thought of starting to collect the data then. However, at that time I remember that MV was almost always exactly AF or just a few k higher. And whilst AF's have risen slightly in the last season, they're not hugely higher. So I am using current AF figures to estimate player MV at this time last season, in the expectation that these two factors will more or less cancel each other out. Finally, I had to decide how heavily to weigh the 33 categories I sampled in my inflation "basket". In the end I decided that all 11 positions should be weighed equally, and that superstars should be considered to make up 20% of the basket, core senior players 50% and youths 30% - this was based on a pretty arbitrary estimate of how many transfers in the past season have fallen in each category. Oh and finally the system relies on MV, which some think is a load of rubbish. Actually I don't think it is, but even if you do you can't blame me for that - blame SI!
Now, the figures. As mentioned the headline figure this methodology produced is 313%. But the broken down findings are also quite interesting. The inflation rates on superstars (245%) and core senior players (256%) were very similar, indicating that the very top players aren't experiencing an enormous spiral in prices beyond others of a lower quality. But there is a big difference with youths, where inflation was at 455%. Indeed youth goalkeepers were the most inflated area of the market as a whole, coming in at a whopping 503% - i.e. costing 5x more than they did a season ago.
Positions wise inflation was fairly uniform. Defenders (300%) lagged slightly behind midfielders (323%), goalkeepers (325%) and strikers (329%) but I reckon that is probably almost within the margin of error of my samples.
What does all this mean? Well, there's good news and bad news. Firstly, the good news. I think it tells us that the database is fairly well balanced. If there was a real shortage of quality strikers for example, we'd expect to see striker inflation much higher than other categories. It isn't. There is a very slight bias against wingers and wide midfielders (inflation 309%) compared to central midfielders (inflation 336%) but I had expected this might be a much bigger gap given the popularity of narrow formations under the current ME.
The outlier figure is obviously youth. However, I think this is at least in part temporary - explained by it taking a while for academies to churn out the full quota of youth players the game expects. But in part it's probably down to the bias of many managers towards youths. That will probably sustain but even so if you're not already in it, youth certainly doesn't look to me like a good route to go down just now. The market is valuing even a fairly standard youth at 3.5x AF (16k v 55k) so you'll pay through the nose for your purchases, and as supply from academies increases I think there's a fair chance those prices will fall back again.
So on the whole the database is balanced and consistent, and apart from the current situation with youth and the trickle of unlocked players I think supply is fairly constant. The bad news is therefore that the new system has failed to control rises in demand adequately, and consequently prices have been pushed up hugely. This was entirely predictable because of the extra £975m in prize money that is flowing in to the GW this season (compared with last season) as a result of Season 1 performance, and without many more ways of it flowing out of the GW - wages have stayed pretty much stable, and no-one needs to do serious stadium work yet. More bad news is that next season prize money will increase again. However, higher team reps may cause greater wage rises and incentivise higher levels of stadium investment. Plus anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of teams are in debt right now, so they may choose to use increased winnings to pay that down. I will have a small wager that next season we will see significant inflation, but that it will be (just) under 100% - i.e. we won't see player prices doubling.
Ah but, I can hear you say... why does this inflation matter? In fact, isn't it good that teams have more money, it makes the game interesting by encouraging transfers and the community activity they provoke. Well whilst those are indeed good things, I think the damage caused is much greater. I'll outline why in the next post. If you can't wait until then, go and read back the forum posts by myheadhurts whilst discussing the post-reset economic model. (S)he was spot on...
And they're pretty shocking. 313% over last season means a player is now worth more than 3x what he was a season ago.
Before we go any further, disclaimers are important. I can't be certain in my sampling methods. The last post outlines why. In addition, to produce an inflation figure I ought to have prices from last season to compare to. I don't, because I hadn't thought of starting to collect the data then. However, at that time I remember that MV was almost always exactly AF or just a few k higher. And whilst AF's have risen slightly in the last season, they're not hugely higher. So I am using current AF figures to estimate player MV at this time last season, in the expectation that these two factors will more or less cancel each other out. Finally, I had to decide how heavily to weigh the 33 categories I sampled in my inflation "basket". In the end I decided that all 11 positions should be weighed equally, and that superstars should be considered to make up 20% of the basket, core senior players 50% and youths 30% - this was based on a pretty arbitrary estimate of how many transfers in the past season have fallen in each category. Oh and finally the system relies on MV, which some think is a load of rubbish. Actually I don't think it is, but even if you do you can't blame me for that - blame SI!
Now, the figures. As mentioned the headline figure this methodology produced is 313%. But the broken down findings are also quite interesting. The inflation rates on superstars (245%) and core senior players (256%) were very similar, indicating that the very top players aren't experiencing an enormous spiral in prices beyond others of a lower quality. But there is a big difference with youths, where inflation was at 455%. Indeed youth goalkeepers were the most inflated area of the market as a whole, coming in at a whopping 503% - i.e. costing 5x more than they did a season ago.
Positions wise inflation was fairly uniform. Defenders (300%) lagged slightly behind midfielders (323%), goalkeepers (325%) and strikers (329%) but I reckon that is probably almost within the margin of error of my samples.
What does all this mean? Well, there's good news and bad news. Firstly, the good news. I think it tells us that the database is fairly well balanced. If there was a real shortage of quality strikers for example, we'd expect to see striker inflation much higher than other categories. It isn't. There is a very slight bias against wingers and wide midfielders (inflation 309%) compared to central midfielders (inflation 336%) but I had expected this might be a much bigger gap given the popularity of narrow formations under the current ME.
The outlier figure is obviously youth. However, I think this is at least in part temporary - explained by it taking a while for academies to churn out the full quota of youth players the game expects. But in part it's probably down to the bias of many managers towards youths. That will probably sustain but even so if you're not already in it, youth certainly doesn't look to me like a good route to go down just now. The market is valuing even a fairly standard youth at 3.5x AF (16k v 55k) so you'll pay through the nose for your purchases, and as supply from academies increases I think there's a fair chance those prices will fall back again.
So on the whole the database is balanced and consistent, and apart from the current situation with youth and the trickle of unlocked players I think supply is fairly constant. The bad news is therefore that the new system has failed to control rises in demand adequately, and consequently prices have been pushed up hugely. This was entirely predictable because of the extra £975m in prize money that is flowing in to the GW this season (compared with last season) as a result of Season 1 performance, and without many more ways of it flowing out of the GW - wages have stayed pretty much stable, and no-one needs to do serious stadium work yet. More bad news is that next season prize money will increase again. However, higher team reps may cause greater wage rises and incentivise higher levels of stadium investment. Plus anecdotal evidence suggests a lot of teams are in debt right now, so they may choose to use increased winnings to pay that down. I will have a small wager that next season we will see significant inflation, but that it will be (just) under 100% - i.e. we won't see player prices doubling.
Ah but, I can hear you say... why does this inflation matter? In fact, isn't it good that teams have more money, it makes the game interesting by encouraging transfers and the community activity they provoke. Well whilst those are indeed good things, I think the damage caused is much greater. I'll outline why in the next post. If you can't wait until then, go and read back the forum posts by myheadhurts whilst discussing the post-reset economic model. (S)he was spot on...
Monday, 3 May 2010
Vollernomics: Introducing Vollernomics
Over the course of the next week I will be publishing a series of pieces on the economy in my gameworld, GW Voller. I'm doing this for two reasons: firstly that economics is actually something I know a little bit about so I may be able to contribute more than my usual rambles; and secondly that I believe the economy is actually the single most important thing to a smoothly functioning game that retains players over the long term. Basically everything that people discuss on the official forums that isn't moderation or the match engine comes down to economics. The problems of FML v1 were almost exclusively economic - unofficial money comps, the sudden introduction of stadiums and of course inflation. This series of articles will focus largely on inflation, because - for reasons that will become clear over the week - I believe it is the greatest threat to the otherwise excellent FML v2 succeeding.
"Numbers Mrs Landingham, if you want to convince me, show me numbers." - President Bartlet, The West Wing
Lots of threads on the forums have discussed various aspects of money in the abstract, I hope to add to the debate by showing you some numbers. They won't be perfect, I don't have access to the same kind of data that SI (I hope!) do. And of course they only apply to one gameworld - others may be different, although I suspect they won't be.
The rest of this post will set out the methodologies I've used so that those of you who are more numerically focussed can pick over it and decide if what I've found is going to be worth anything. My own view is that this method is far from perfect, but it's a good start and enough to give us a reasonably accurate impression.
Over the period 30 April - 2 May I looked at a sample of over 600 players across the gameworld. To select the sample I first looked at 11 of the common player roles (Goalkeeper, Full Back, Wing Back, Ball Playing Defender, Stopper, Ball Winning Midfielder, Advanced Midfielder, Wide Midfielder, Winger, Target Man, Poacher) and picked out five key attributes for each, using largely those selected in game but tweaked somewhat to reflect what I think many managers look for - for example only one of the roles above lists pace as a key att in game but it's something that I know a lot of people look at so I added it to several other roles as well. Then for each role I looked at three types of players:
(1) the senior (aged 22-31) superstars who have 15+ in each of the 5 key attributes
(2) the senior (aged 22-31) core squad players who have 12-14 in each of the 5 key attributes
(3) the youth (aged 16-21) players who have 10-13 in each of the 5 key attributes. I deliberately capped this at 13 to avoid a few wonderkids distorting all the figures.
So 11 roles and 3 types of player gave me 33 categories. In each of the senior categories I then picked a sample of 20 players, drawing 2 players from each "year group" where possible. For each of the sampled players I looked at their AF and their MV. On occasion to get a proper sample for the superstar category I had to drop the attribute requirements slightly. Where I did this I then multiplied up the AF and MV proportionally to reflect how much more better quality players might cost if there was a linear progression (I'm sure there's not, but this was the best I could do). For youth the sample size was 18, with 3 players from each "year group" from 16 up to 21.
I worry that the sample may be a bit small, but frankly I didn't have the time or inclination to do a bigger one (have you any idea how tedious it is?!) and where in a couple of categories I experimented by taking several samples I found the results came out pretty similarly. So I hope the results I have found are fairly accurate.
Comments on this methodology are very welcome. I will try to repeat this process every season as the series of data could be quite interesting. However, it is a pretty time consuming task, so any volunteers to help would also be much appreciated.
In the meantime, I hope you are interested by the results, which I will start posting tomorrow.
"Numbers Mrs Landingham, if you want to convince me, show me numbers." - President Bartlet, The West Wing
Lots of threads on the forums have discussed various aspects of money in the abstract, I hope to add to the debate by showing you some numbers. They won't be perfect, I don't have access to the same kind of data that SI (I hope!) do. And of course they only apply to one gameworld - others may be different, although I suspect they won't be.
The rest of this post will set out the methodologies I've used so that those of you who are more numerically focussed can pick over it and decide if what I've found is going to be worth anything. My own view is that this method is far from perfect, but it's a good start and enough to give us a reasonably accurate impression.
Over the period 30 April - 2 May I looked at a sample of over 600 players across the gameworld. To select the sample I first looked at 11 of the common player roles (Goalkeeper, Full Back, Wing Back, Ball Playing Defender, Stopper, Ball Winning Midfielder, Advanced Midfielder, Wide Midfielder, Winger, Target Man, Poacher) and picked out five key attributes for each, using largely those selected in game but tweaked somewhat to reflect what I think many managers look for - for example only one of the roles above lists pace as a key att in game but it's something that I know a lot of people look at so I added it to several other roles as well. Then for each role I looked at three types of players:
(1) the senior (aged 22-31) superstars who have 15+ in each of the 5 key attributes
(2) the senior (aged 22-31) core squad players who have 12-14 in each of the 5 key attributes
(3) the youth (aged 16-21) players who have 10-13 in each of the 5 key attributes. I deliberately capped this at 13 to avoid a few wonderkids distorting all the figures.
So 11 roles and 3 types of player gave me 33 categories. In each of the senior categories I then picked a sample of 20 players, drawing 2 players from each "year group" where possible. For each of the sampled players I looked at their AF and their MV. On occasion to get a proper sample for the superstar category I had to drop the attribute requirements slightly. Where I did this I then multiplied up the AF and MV proportionally to reflect how much more better quality players might cost if there was a linear progression (I'm sure there's not, but this was the best I could do). For youth the sample size was 18, with 3 players from each "year group" from 16 up to 21.
I worry that the sample may be a bit small, but frankly I didn't have the time or inclination to do a bigger one (have you any idea how tedious it is?!) and where in a couple of categories I experimented by taking several samples I found the results came out pretty similarly. So I hope the results I have found are fairly accurate.
Comments on this methodology are very welcome. I will try to repeat this process every season as the series of data could be quite interesting. However, it is a pretty time consuming task, so any volunteers to help would also be much appreciated.
In the meantime, I hope you are interested by the results, which I will start posting tomorrow.
Saturday, 1 May 2010
Shanghai Dynasty: The Second Generation
Introducing the Season 2 Shanghai Dynasty...
GK Sebastien Martens. Returns after a good first season. Nothing to
write home about but solid and improving all the time.
DR - Yildaz Emrah. Not been as good as his atts suggest he might be.
Looking for more from him this season.
DL - Lukas Koci/Mikko Sinisalo. One taller, one quicker, so I swap
them round depending on the opposition. May well be my top target for
a position to improve, but with so few sides employing wingers these
days it seems a waste to spend big on full-backs.
DC - Sorin Ene. A bit inconsistent, but has the right atts and two
good games for every dodgy one.
DC - Erwin Tol. A rock. Signed on a 2yr deal which will take him past
30, at which point few other managers would want to sign him so I
suspect he'll see out his career with us.
MC - Albert Cuenca. My biggest offseason signing. Wages of 12k/day are
higher than I'd like but he is on wage demand (no-one else is
interested in a 29y/o it seems...) and a very talented ball winning
midfielder. With influence 20 he is also this season's captain.
MC - Kenneth Paul. Now 22, Paul is starting to grow in to the player
he should be. He does still tend to go missing in the big games
though, and will likely be the one to miss out if I decide to switch
to a 4-4-2 at some point.
AMR - Giuseppe Costa. Surprised me in a good way last season. Has a
habit of making great late runs to the back post and tucking the ball
past the keeper. More please.
AMC - Luis Carranza. For some reason his MV is only 120k but I rate
him much more highly than that. Scores and sets up goals. A bit
streaky mind.
AML - Oleg Shevchuk. The Ukrainian wonder started last season really
well but tailed off towards the end. Could use him in top form this
year.
FC - Sergey Kokoev. My 750k signing at the end of last season. His MV
today is 625k but I reckon I could get double that for him so I
consider it a good investment. He's only 5'10 but strong and good at
holding up the ball. Plus he's a clinical finisher, when he mangages
to find space, which isn't as often as I'd like.
The other player worth noting is Israel Santos, my 19 y/o hot prospect
FC. I've already had an offer of £1m for him but I'm not ready to let
go yet. I reckon by next season he'll be worth at least 1.5m and in
any case with only 3 strikers in the squad I need him. May join Kokoev
up front in a 4-4-2 from time to time.
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