Cup changes

[Tactician]

In case you have any doubts, El Pistolero, I did not know that you manipulated the Cup draw before I wrote this post; I saw your post after I have posted mine. When I opened this thread, only Moi's post was present. You were writing your post at the same time as I was doing mine, but mine took longer to be written, edited and posted.

[Moi]

Moi, I think that posts that contain ways of cheating in this game should be deleted, and posting of such things should no longer be allowed on the forum and elsewhere where Nordeus have some control. Some users have gone as far as deliberately keeping 3-4 1 star players in their squad for many seasons in order to manipulate the draw. While some users may have found ways to cheat in this game by themselves, it is likely that most of them found about those on social websites like the forum here, and also on some other websites that show how to cheat in this game. In my opinion, this 14 players' rule may reduce the amount or effect of cheating. Some users will still be able to cheat this system, especially those that keep 3-4 1 star players in their squad. Take into consideration that some users won't hesitate to sell higher quality players that fall in first 14 in order for the 1 star players to contribute. There should be a way to detect such things, like detecting the presence of players that fall in the lower outliers relative to the average quality of say the best 5-6 players in a team or the average quality of the starting line-up for all matches in the previous season.

This is just a virtual game, but some users are putting a lot of effort, time and money in this game. Cheating should not be encouraged. Also, take into consideration that there are many other ways to cheat in this game. For instance, having several, excessive parallel accounts for additional supporter bonus, for earning tokens via the referrals' system and for sending valuable gifts to a main account. Something must be done for these also; for instance I propose to remove that additional supporters' bonus thing as the new version of the game already provides an additional way of boosting possession. For the cases of hacks, definitely serious action should be taken against those.

As for how the Cup draw is, that is a mixture of teams from different levels, I have no complaints as long as the difference in level is at max. 2 for most of the teams (hence, batches should consist at most a mixture of 2-3 levels, and not more). Also, I think that say at least once in a season for every 3-4 seasons, a team should be among the top levels, because as it is now, it seems that teams of serious, non-cheating users always fall among the lower or middle levels of the Cup batch every season.

Briefly, I have no complaints, even if I have to face a team significantly stronger than mine or a team from 1-2 levels above in the Cup, as long as the manager of this team has used honest ways. If a user uses his honestly earned money to boost the quality of his team, he deserves to have an advantage. It is the cheaters that cause problems when they are put together with serious, honest users in the same competitions. I understand that most managers want to win, and that some of them cannot afford to spend money on this game or cannot meet the quality requirements every season, but, such users should also consider what negative effects they are having on other users if they cheat, especially on the honest ones.

Hi Tactician

First of all, you're mixing several things here.

Technically, manually reducing the quality of your whole team by selling players is not cheating. This is taking advantage of the rules, which should be probably called "unfair" or morally wrong, but cheating is another thing. That's why we implemented this change, to minimize the effects of this behaviour. But, again, this is not cheating. Cheating would be hacking the system to illegally get some victories, some extra tokens or any similar stuff.

Of course it's up to any user to sell several players to reduce their global quality, but now this will be tougher. If you do that, it also has some side effects on your team. For example, it's not that easy to sign 8-10 good players before the first Cup match, what if you can't and this makes you lose the round?

Regarding clone accounts controlled by the same user, these are allowed as long as the user does not use any account to support his own teams. If you see that, simply report it from the app (click the question mark at the bottom of the left sidebar) and we will take care of it.

Regarding the Cup draw itself and the different levels between teams, please take into account that we need 128 Cup teams for every Cup competition at the beginning of the season, and from the same server. The system always tries to group teams by quality, but that's not always possible. If for example you have:

- 18 level X teams
- 20 level X-1 teams
- 50 level X-2 teams
- 400 level X-3 teams

The first Cup group would be formed by 18 level X teams, the next 20 level X-1 teams, the 50 X-2 teams and finally 40 X-3 teams. The rest of the X-3 teams would be on another Cup group. Teams in every server are limited and we can't just summon teams that are not there.

Regarding your last paragraph, again, this behaviour is not cheating, although I can understand your frustration about it.

[Moi]

This is what I propose. The Cup draw should be done based on the average quality of the team's starting line-up for all the matches this particular team played the previous season. The mixture of levels should stay, but should not exceed by a difference of 2. At least once in say every 3-4 seasons, a team should be among the top level of the Cup batch.

This leaves little room for cheating the Cup draw. If ever a user intends to manipulate the draw, he will have to sacrifice the results of many matches in the previous season. The only problem in there would be in the case of tankers who may put a weak starting line-up for all the matches, though this is unlikely the case as they will miss on the additional attributes' points that there intended first team players for the next season can gain.

That's actually a nice suggestion, I'll make sure it's properly evaluated by our dev team

[Tactician]

That's actually a nice suggestion, I'll make sure it's properly evaluated by our dev team

Thanks .

[Moi]

yea, me too.
I don't think players out of contract don't count for the top 14.
Some mistake is here.
Anyway, Moi or some other dev, can you answer this ?
If I have 8 players 6* and 6 players 1* and from those 8 6* players, 5 are out of contract, the game will give me 5 players, *3 oldies (ready for retirement), ok ?
So, the Cup draw will be by
1) Those 8 6* players and the 6 1* players ? (The Cup draw is happening before the game will give me the oldies)
or
2) By the 8 6* players + the 5 3* oldies (as they have higher Q than the 1* players) + one 1* player ? (The Cup draw is happening after the game will give me the oldies)

* This change is not gonna make any difference because there is no limit in levels so if I 'm gonna be (finishing with a 5-6* team) in a Cup with some managers from 3 lvs above with low q teams and if they decide to be active again, they 'll just buy 8* players (for me) and gonna make a walk in the park.
Even if I drop the quality of my team and with this way I managed to win some Cups, I don't find it fair and I believe that there should be a lv limit - not more than one level above managers.
But I believe that maybe TE has this system just for an extra challenge for the managers so I swim with the flow of the river.

Hi niko,

Right now players out of contract were not taken into account for the Cup average quality calculation, this will change now.

Regarding the scenarios your presented, I'd say the 2nd is the correct answer, but I am not totally sure. I'll have to get back to you about this specific case.

About the teamlevel differences in competitions, again the issue is the same: teams are not unlimited in every server, for levels where there are not many teams, we have to make the cut somewhere, and we're always going to need 128 teams for every Cup. But, as you know, we're always trying to improve the game as much as possible, so expect improvements in competition generation in the upcoming seasons

[Tactician]

Hi Tactician

First of all, you're mixing several things here.

Technically, manually reducing the quality of your whole team by selling players is not cheating. This is taking advantage of the rules, which should be probably called "unfair" or morally wrong, but cheating is another thing. That's why we implemented this change, to minimize the effects of this behaviour. But, again, this is not cheating. Cheating would be hacking the system to illegally get some victories, some extra tokens or any similar stuff.

Of course it's up to any user to sell several players to reduce their global quality, but now this will be tougher. If you do that, it also has some side effects on your team. For example, it's not that easy to sign 8-10 good players before the first Cup match, what if you can't and this makes you lose the round?

Regarding clone accounts controlled by the same user, these are allowed as long as the user does not use any account to support his own teams. If you see that, simply report it from the app (click the question mark at the bottom of the left sidebar) and we will take care of it.

Regarding the Cup draw itself and the different levels between teams, please take into account that we need 128 Cup teams for every Cup competition at the beginning of the season, and from the same server. The system always tries to group teams by quality, but that's not always possible. If for example you have:

- 18 level X teams
- 20 level X-1 teams
- 50 level X-2 teams
- 400 level X-3 teams

The first Cup group would be formed by 18 level X teams, the next 20 level X-1 teams, the 50 X-2 teams and finally 40 X-3 teams. The rest of the X-3 teams would be on another Cup group. Teams in every server are limited and we can't just summon teams that are not there.

Regarding your last paragraph, again, this behaviour is not cheating, although I can understand your frustration about it.

Oh... come on Moi.

[Moi]

You know what I mean, Tactician

[cookizzz]

This is what I propose. The Cup draw should be done based on the average quality of the team's starting line-up for all the matches this particular team played the previous season. The mixture of levels should stay, but should not exceed by a difference of 2. At least once in say every 3-4 seasons, a team should be among the top level of the Cup batch.

This leaves little room for cheating the Cup draw. If ever a user intends to manipulate the draw, he will have to sacrifice the results of many matches in the previous season. The only problem in there would be in the case of tankers who may put a weak starting line-up for all the matches, though this is unlikely the case as they will miss on the additional attributes' points that there intended first team players for the next season can gain.

I like this. I saw similar/identical suggestion in the past. But it will unlikely adopt because it require enormous programming effort like recording average quality of team for long period and cannot possibly generate extra revenue. So I only expect minor change like the one which will soon be implemented.

[Tactician]

I like this. I saw similar/identical suggestion in the past. But it will unlikely adopt because it require enormous programming effort like recording average quality of team for long period and cannot possibly generate extra revenue. So I only expect minor change like the one which will soon be implemented.

On the new version (2016), the average quality of the starting line-up is already displayed before each particular match. It is only a matter of keeping a record of those as the season proceeds, then make use of a calculated overall average starting line-up for the whole season for doing the Cup draw, and discard that data after the Cup draw has been done. Also, it is not a must for quality data for the starting line-up of all competitive matches in a particular season to be recorded; it can be those only for the League, or the Cup and the League. Suppose that it is still too much, a random set of data can be recorded. But, I don't think this would be difficult to program and implement.

[nikolgiorgos]

Technically, manually reducing the quality of your whole team by selling players is not cheating. This is taking advantage of the rules, which should be probably called "unfair" or morally wrong, but cheating is another thing. That's why we implemented this change, to minimize the effects of this behaviour. But, again, this is not cheating. Cheating would be hacking the system to illegally get some victories, some extra tokens or any similar stuff.

I agree with Moi to that.
As an old school gamer, when I was playing Tomb Rider in my ps, back to 1996 , I was visiting a site to get some info.
So, I was reading in the sections there
Tips & Tricks : If you move Lara Croft to climb in the upper left rock, she can shoot the monster-boss with her guns without be able to get hurt from it.
Cheats : If you click Triangle-Circle-Square-Triangle-R1-L1-Square, Lara gets unlimited ammo or health packs.
I thinks it's very obvious what's the difference between of those.

Something else
Ok, TE it's not a "fair" game anyway because managers who are older, have jobs, they are more wealthy, can buy Token.
Some others have a plenty of time to spend (watching the games, supporting and get supported, have 2 or 3 teams).
Many managers are able to farm a lot while others from other countries cannot.
But is football fair ?
is it fair Real or Barca to play in the same league with Bilbao ?
Is it fair for Crystal Palace to compete Chelsea or City ?

How about the world ?
Is life fair for someone who was born in Ghana while someone else was born in Canada ?
How about a woman who was born in Afghanistan and another woman who was born in Manhattan ?
How can we demand from a game, based on football, with managers from all over the world, to be fair ?

The system always tries to group teams by quality, but that's not always possible. If for example you have:
- 18 level X teams
- 20 level X-1 teams
- 50 level X-2 teams
- 400 level X-3 teams

my objection to that is , why not the Cup have only teams from those two levels ?
- 50 level X-2 teams
- 400 level X-3 teams
and for completing 128 teams groups, only then to use some "unlucky" managers - or maybe just use bot teams of 4* players for every level of the game.