Game engine tweaks - you thoughts?

[xingular]

Things that I have noticed:

Weaker teams achieving more good results than would be expected (even given the random nature of football)

Abandoned, unwatched teams doing better than those with active managers

Illegal formations are penalised in possession, but that has no impact on result


My thoughts:

On the first two points, basically from a business point of view Nordeus wants to keep the game competitive so that you can't just by your way to the top. If you could, F2P players would just abandon the game and it would become a token spending pissing contest

Instead they want F2P players to be encouraged to spend money to improve their team when it is doing well, rather than abandoning it because it loses all the time. Also, they need to encourage people who already spend money to keep spending it. If your team kept winning, with all your scouts playing well and training well, you wouldn't do this

For those who play and watch matches regularly, Nordeus knows you have an interest in this game, that you are invested in it and will earn them money (either buying tokens or through their sponsors, I doubt they care which). You keep doing this and they are happy - even if you go through a season or two of not being happy

To me that seems like punishing your regular users when you should be rewarding them

To Nordeus (honestly, I hope MDK reads some of these posts; many are irate, but often make reasonable points within an angry diatribe)

I understand why you would want to maximise your revenue, I have a business background myself, but this seems to be pushing the approach quite far. I know your userbase is growing and no doubt your revenue too, but what about your per customer earnings and your customer retention rate?

Do your care about existing customers, those that put time an effort into the game, those that build communities around the game such as on this form and other platforms?

Many are extremely frustrated because despite their commitment, you seem to be treating a lot of people like schmucks. Sometimes your tweaking will throw up anomalies - how about some PR to keep your diehard fans informed?


And also, illegal formations - why define something as illegal, fix a possession penalty of 20%, but then effectively have that make no difference whatsoever to the result?

Not only is the PR quite bad, but the actual in game communication is terrible. I've seen many possession focussed threads on here because that is the only dynamic indicator we have as to how our team is doing. If that is essentially worthless, then the game is reduced to pure luck in the eye of the user

When you get to that position, people will think there is no point playing the game because they cannot impact the result. When people feel like that, I'm quite sure they will leave

Bigger companies than this one have lost their way, losing their userbase and collapsing spectacularly. We are all invested in this, I think every regular on this forum wants you to succeed as a business and to keep playing a game they are passionate about - passion that is expressed in commitment but also anger when the feel something is amiss


Honestly, I don't expect anyone to read this or it to have any impact on anyone from Nordeus. It has helped me to get it out of my system, and I think it's a well reasoned post

If anyone read this far - thanks!

+1

I'm not planning to leave the game but definetly I would stop buying more tokens. I miss the last cup for a change of a injured player that cost me 6 minutes and a goal in this (I've never seen a red car for a player who injures another).
And today I was eliminated by a team that I totally dominated the previous match but I only scored 1 goal. Today, same players, (in my stadium, with support) same morale, fisical condition and I lost 1-2.

I always see my matches, the other no, I always have irregular results. I can see how a player can win the league with only 1 lost match with a team like mine. And off course, he never see his match and he never have support.

That's unfair.