A funny thing happened in transfer market

[ponzu]

Sorry for the long post, I hope it's entertaining and/or educational.

Since I learned midway through the last season about fast trainers and how to spot them (what Chris calls the TR factor in his excellent guide), I was looking to buy a few, because most of my LV6 squad turned out to be flops, surprise, surprise. I bought a few fast trainers midway through last season and while it was fun to watch their huge SP gains, they did not really pan out for me (too low Q to start with) and I eventually sold almost all of them off between seasons -- but not before their value dropped (after they added a year of age). Yay me.

Then in the last day or two of the last season when many managers were shedding their top players in order to game the next seasons' draws, this guy from China puts up players for sale that just about made my eyes pop. Each had 2-3 positions, each had a SA, they worked for peanuts (about 40-90K when my players with the same Q made about 250-350K) and cost around $5M. That put Chris' TR calculation for them (value/salary) through the roof. I figure that normally a ratio of about 10-15 constitutes a flop, 15-20 - a middle of the road, and 30+ a fast trainer. These guys had ratios up to 120!! I thought if only I could get my hands on them I would strike paydirt in the fast trainer department.

I won 3 out 4 I bid on, spending 1-3 tokens on each. Since the previous owner had renamed them using Chinese characters, and because I was riding high from the 30 or so tokens I made playing certain games from the ads, and because I thought I got my hands on bona fide superstars, I went as far as renaming them to some popular names. It's too embarrassing to say which, but a certain German DR/DMC, a certain Argentinian ST/AMC and a certain Serbian DMC

After a few training sessions it became obvious that my new guys showed quite average SP gains. Not flops, but not fast trainers. And what I did not notice right away was that their salary increased dramatically from what the transfer market showed. Two guys went from 80-90K to 330K and at $4.8M value their TR dropped from sky-high to low-average, like 15. That was now consistent with their SP gains. The third guy remained at 39K salary and at $6.3M value his TR is still huge, but his gains are average. Because I bought these last season, and have since had a successful shopping spree for the top Q players, they rarely come out with the first team and I mostly keep them on the bench, smiling at their big names and my naivete. One guy has a spot in the first team, the German defender who still makes 39K.

Oh they are 24 and 25 years old, just to finish setting the stage.

So, a lesson and a few questions.

I guess the previous owner got them as 21yo Nordgen fast trainers and kept them for almost the entire 3 seasons, power training the hell out of them. Because he also either read Chris' guide or figured it out himself, he gave them all second and third position and SA while keeping their Q low and their TR high. Then he proceeded to power train them for SP. He played them a lot, they all had good stats as far as scoring. He did this for 3 years and their value went through the roof because of increasing Q and, I suspect, secondary positions and SA. I read somewhere that secondary positions and SA don't affect the value, but either that's inaccurate or I misunderstood. Their value was huge (deservedly so), their salary stayed tiny because they were never re-signed, and the TR calculation became meaningless in the process.

So the lessons, I think, are these:

1. You can only really tell a fast trainer by dividing value by salary in a fresh Nordgen or academy player. After that, it becomes less reliable, almost meaningless. (Well, low ratios are almost always accurate, but high ratios can be deceptive).

2. Salaries will adjust not only when you re-sign your own player, but when you buy a player.

And the question:

How come one guy's salary did not adjust? Is it a bug, or is it because he was not at the end of his contract like his two buddies? His peers on my team make 330 and he makes 39. He shows 2 years left on his contract (same as his two buddies).

[HoofDaddy]

Yeah, in the 3rd year of a players' contract applying sp to players his wages will show an increase but revert to the original value upon refreshing. Sometimes it will happen in the 2nd as well but as soon as you increase star level in the 1st or 2nd seasons, the players wage ratio will shift. This has to do with training speeds of 3*4*5* players and how a 18 year old nordgen at 5* will train slower than the same player on a team two levels higher. I used to find players with 100x wage ratios as well they were usually former scouts (back before they changed scout range and price) or academy players. They are quite uncommon to find in lvl 10+ and usually the best trainers now have a wage ratio of 25x. I still have a player that was a 90x top of the market nordgen. He is a 1* on my team and he has rated 2 8s so far this season. He is also my top scorer and top passer career. Nordeus changed the game a few months back making these players exceptionally rare now. We discussed this when it happened and decided that nordeus wanted more player turnover to boost token consumption.

[nikolgiorgos]

So the lessons, I think, are these: ...

Well, I wrote about those cases so if you bother to read it all, you can find some useful tips.

How come one guy's salary did not adjust? Is it a bug, or is it because he was not at the end of his contract like his two buddies?

It's not a bug.
In theory, if one player is sold by his managers every time before the end of his contract, he can finish his t11 career with his 1st salary

[ponzu]

In theory, if one player is sold by his managers every time before the end of his contract, he can finish his t11 career with his 1st salary

But only if his Q never increases?

So, I read your value and salary guide which you helpfully linked in another thread. Let me see if I understand better what happened with my Chinese-made "superstars" turned flops.

To recap, they were 23 and 24 when I bought them. They had tiny salaries, played three positions each, and had SAs. They had fairly high values which suggested they were super fast trainers, but turned out to be just average trainers for me. And their salaries jumped when I bought them.

Their original owner must have bought them as 18 yo fast trainers. He poured all training into extra positions and SA, therefore never increasing either salary or Q, which probably helped his cup and league draws. He must have kept them for 5-6 years like that.

Question 1: how come their salary did not increased when he re-signed them? Possible answer: because salary only depends on Q and not on extra positions or SA, and their Q was not increasing.

It's not like he did not play them during the time he had them. They had quite impressive stats.

Their trainability diminished year over year and he decided to get rid of them.

Question 2: why was he selling them then, having invested so much time and SP into their roles and SA? Why not sell them sooner or later? How does this work from the standpoint of the original owner?

When I bought them, their salary went up to the more realistic number and the new ratio of value to salary reflected their true trainability, which was, by this point in their career, average.

Question 3: Why did their salary go up when I bought them, but not when the original owner (presumably) re-signed them in the 3rd year? This seems to contradict my assumptions about Question 1.

Question 4: Why did two players' salary go up and the third did not? I know HoofDaddy and nikolgiorgos tried answering that, but I am too dense. I understand from nikolgiorgos's guide that the salary is not supposed to increase if there is no increase in Q. Form this standpoint, it seems correct that one guy's salary did not increase. So why did the other two increase?

[ponzu]

A possible answer to Questions 3 and 4 is (see, I am thinking; I may not be learning, but at least I am thinking, and often out loud):

Having maxed out their roles and SA, the original owner did allow two players' Q to grow, so when I bought them, they were not at their original Q, but at an increased Q. The third player was still at the original Q that the owner acquired him.

[HoofDaddy]

Yes, as I wrote earlier, changes made in q but not star rating will cause the wage to revert to the original value upon refreshing in the last year of a contract.

[talisman]

Tl:dr?

[ponzu]

Yes, as I wrote earlier, changes made in q but not star rating will cause the wage to revert to the original value upon refreshing in the last year of a contract.

I don't follow. What is this refreshing you are talking about? And what does the third year of contract have to do with it?

Shortest version possible: I buy three guys from the same manager. Roughly same age, roughly same skill, miniscule salary, huge value, former fast trainers. For two guys, the salary increases the moment I sign them and is now in line with their Q. For the third guy, the salary stays ridiculously low, way low for his Q. I still don't know how this is possible and not be a bug. I am looking for the differences between three players and trying to think of everything I read and learned about salary and value calculations.

[nikolgiorgos]

Did you sign with them immediately ?
I mean, did you have 3 empty positions in your team ?

[HoofDaddy]

The third never had any sp added to his stats (maybe to another position or sa), the other two did.