Keep Spending or Rot

[Fate85]

I think this is getting a bit ridiculous. Fellow forumer BigB79 about 2 weeks ago mentioned about his experience of going from a tokener to a non-tokener, and his results suffered tremendously. Here's my experience to prove that this game is all about (yes, ALL) money-making, capitalising on the 80-20 rule and juicing the 20%.

For the first 5 seasons, here are my results:
Season 1 - Came in mid-season and finished 2nd.
Season 2 - Spent money on tokens. 1 scout player. Treble.
Season 3 - Spent money on tokens. 2 scout players. Double (League + CL)
Season 4 - Spent money on tokens. 1 scout player. Treble.
Season 5 - Spent money on tokens. 2 scout players. Treble.
Season 6 - Wanted to not spend a cent, but Nordeus paired me with 11 friends in the League of 14 teams, all of these friends being friends gained from transfer bidding wars and past CL / Cup finals. Ended this season with 2nd-placed finishes in both League and CL.

Zooming in on Season 6, a few points to note:
1. Nordeus paired me in the Quarterfinals with a Level 5 team (I was a Level 6) that's also a heavy tokener. I lost that one over two legs.
2. Because of how Nordeus has put me with all these tokeners in the League, I thought, bugger my plans to not spend, I am going to get myself 2 scout players. Well, another team in the League bagged 4 scout players and another bagged 8. Suffice to say, it was the end of story because I did not want to get drawn into a money war!
3. Look at my Champions League screenshot below.



Yes, I was 0-5 down in the first half, controlling possession and with the other side not even watching. This is just a furtherance of what's been happening in the League after the German team in the League bought 8 scout players. After his purchase, I would dominate games against minnows only to draw and to lose, when in the first half of the season I would walk these games by huge margins!

And yesterday, in Season 7 Cup, this happened:



I was paired with a Level 9 team. I am Level 7. The Level 9 team won his League last season but across the board, I have a better team, because I am a prudent trainer of my players. I have decided to stick to my plans to not spend on scout players. In past season, I bought my scout players mostly on the 1st day.

The repercussions???
I dominated shots: 21 vs 12
I dominated shots on target: 9 vs 7
I dominated possession: 59% vs 41%
I almost doubled his attacks: 16 tackles vs 28 tackles
From his 7 shots, he scored 5 goals.
All 5 goals were unassisted thundering drive, blistering drive, vicious shot etc.

I refuse to spend money on tokens anymore...
... but how long would I have to suffer these unfair punishments?

All of my know-how, tactics, tricks and tweaks have yielded crazy success in the first 5 seasons... oh wait, those seasons I spent money. So, what I thought I was really good at, perhaps I was misguided. I won because I spent, not because I knew how to play! The truth is, it doesn't matter how you play.

Nordeus pairs tokeners with tokeners and/or prudent users of tokens.
Nordeus pairs non-tokeners with non-tokeners.
Nordeus pairs low average teams with low average teams.
I have 9 separates teams spread across various levels, so I know.
Because I have these teams, I also know things like... if you train your players and 1 player gets injured for 4 days, chances are the other 8 teams, when trained the same way, would get injured for 4 days also. Imagine these happening to millions of teams worldwide, how many people would use packs to heal? Packs cost money for some people. So, it's a harvest day for Nordeus.

I won't spend again.

My advice to you? Don't spend. You may thrive in that particular season but you will suffer later, with all the algorithms in place to induce you to either spend or suffer the punishment of not spending.