QUESTION - Why you play?

[PricopGeorgeCătălin]

This is a question I always ask myself no matter what game I play: Why I play? What makes me to come and do it, day after day for years and after a while there remain only one reason "Community and Top Eleven friends".

This thing starts to happen for myself even with Top Eleven. I play now for around 5,6 years and something so pretty much I saw everything that Top Eleven had to show.

When is about Top Eleven, I am active everywhere, on forum, on Facebook, on YouTube and I even opened a website TOPELEVEN.INFO which is probably the only one fan site on this scale and I even dare the say the biggest unofficial Top Eleven project.

Hard work do pays off and I would lie if I would say that I wouldn't receive a special treatment from Nordeus and Top Eleven. I can say I played this game like nobody else from pretty much all points of view. Nordeus also helped me in many, many ways and I had the chance to visit the main office, Biggleswade and others but despite all these things, Nordeus played to much with Top Eleven recently and actually touch the "emotional part" of the game leaving a game which I can describe it as a game with no soul or a hit and run game.

The reason I am saying this is because Nordeus almost removed all the things that gave your team a unique view. There is almost nothing left.



No more trophy room - Since, Top Eleven closed officially the old version of the game, there's no way for us to check on other managers or other managers to check on us. Unless we do not share them somehow, nobody knows who we are, what we won, what we fight for. This is a super silly thing! For myself at the moment, the only way to share my trophies is to "write a text", no chance to make a picture on all the trophies, season by season because I would need to take around 50 unique pictures. Nobody is that crazy!

No more stadiums - At a low level, I was always curious what stadium do my opponents have but at the moment this is something we cannot check anymore. I don't really understand why it was removed because I don't see how this could harm the game.

No more flags - While Top Eleven sent us on an almost endless run to collect them, suddenly they decided to close the flags tab, a page that actually didn't request to much work once it was done already.



No more skill points - I was never a fan of them and is true that some managers took it to the next level and abused it more then they should but the good thing with them was that it was actually a way of playing the game. Something that worked for many managers.

No more transfers between players - One of the worst things so far because while you might struggle to buy a good player now and spend a lot of tokens and moneys, for your players will bid a robot (if he will) and you will only get an amount of money which is under his basic price, no matter how good the player is, if he have 3 positions and special ability. Sorry Nordeus but this is only one way win for Top Eleven. Now I am even struggling to sell 18, 19 years old players, almost to new star with special ability, going 15 times plus on sale and no chance to sell them, this doesn't make sense at all, because on the old system, I would be able to sell these players super easy on the first days of the season for a very good deal for me.

No more bidding rivals - I would honestly agree with this if our players that we sell would be on sale for managers and not for bots but otherwise is pretty much again only one way win for you guys. As long as you create endless auction at all levels and we buy from computer and not managers, there's no point to bid against other managers from other levels. This would only increase the player price. Plus and worst, you destroyed again, years of transfers because playing this game for years, some managers would start to know you and avoid you or bid against you based on previous experience.

No more bidding strategies - The bidding is a totally mess now and there's almost no strategy at all. While before we could risk or play on intimidation on the auction, now seems like a free for all to try because now you can just drop a token to see what happens with no lose for you but with a big impact for the final buyer.

No more manual substitutions while offline - How can you guys say we control our team when you do it for us. This is a very silly, silly, silly thing and no matter how good you improve the auto-sub, you can never take a better decision then us because you can't guess what we want. At the moment the game I assume is following some algorithm but how can you know exactly what we want, you removed basically removed the human factor from this equation. Maybe I don't want to use X or Y player for a certain reason "bad previous performance"; "increasing the risk of getting cards"; "saving condition and moral for x and y player" and others.

No more statistics - Why would you do this. Knowing that it was actually a loved feature, when you guys decided to come the new version it should be already in. Many managers worked really hard to get some impressive players statistics but now seems is pointless to do it .

No more "Take Over" - A feature that I remember Top Eleven used to be very proud of. Removed pretty much over the night. I do believe it was a feature which allowed us to start again if we actually had the feeling that we failed before or if we just looked for a fresh start.




And the list can continue ...

We lost many Gameplay strategies with these updates, things that actually worked for us and also many things that gave us a unique personality to our clubs and to us as managers.

On another side, I do believe Nordeus also did few good updates to the game, they nailed it with Associations, great update for Europa League, etc but touching to much the part that connects us with the game doesn't seems to be a good idea.




I do believe we had a lot of major updates in the game and what I would like to see at the moment is an improve for the things we already have in the game at the moment.

Top Eleven do have many "gems" that are awaiting to be polished, things that can bring a better and more interactive game play and a good revenue for them.



I am curious what makes other manager to play Top Eleve, what makes them to keep a strong connection with the game so please share your opinions but please do it in a polite way, there's no need for hard or rude words. Let's keep it on a good and constructive line!

Thanks for taking your time to read a long article.

Best,
T11 Manager

[dave1311]

Nice post that. Pretty much sums it all up. I've been playing for 4 years, rarely missing a game. I too love this game. I agree some updates have been poor but I guess make sense financially from Nordeus point of view. Some updates are very good. But your post says it all.


KFC Loella
Level 43

[Killroy]

Constructive post George. Why I play:

1) Fun game with addictive features
2) Love the transfer market to get that young fast trainer with SA
3) Strategic game with all possible formations
4) Fun stuff with the matches
5) Overall good gaming experience

Now, why I play less:
1) Still no real feel of control. Although you can do a lot, you never know what the effect is. Increase the attack during a life match. What is the increase? What does it do? What does it mean? Nobody can answer those for sure.
2) Still no explanation whatsoever about special abilities
3) Still no explanation about the percentages and the grey and white sections
4) Still no explanation about formations and counter formations
etc....

There is still so little known about the game that it is ridiculous. I can't understand that there isn't a simple guide that explains these things. If there are a million users a good guide would be mandatory. But to me it still feels like the monkey that is spinning the wheel that decides how far you will come.

[Tyltyl]

Great post and I agree with everything you say.
Why I still play? Well I started with Top Eleven because it was a relateively small app for Android and PC, I could keep it open, and also it was easy to play and had an easy interface to unterstand. On a plus side I liked the idea to play with unknown teams and players, everything is customizable. My teams is really mine.
I tried other football manager games but didn't find another one that was funny with the same easy interface. I also tried PES but I think it's a mess, too much stuff going on, too much stuff that unlocks everytime and I can go on.

TE lost a lot of what it was in the past, the interface is still pleasant, but misses a lot of options that you listed. Associations was an incredibly funny update, but it's mostly bugged and/or rigged. I don't feel like I have the control on my team when I play, because despite having an 8* team, a 5* one can make me sweat or even lose. Whatever I do to my formation or tactic has no effect (at least visible and stats wise).

We didn't need the last auction update as well as other stuff, I would be glad to have no new additions in favor of only bug fixes and a more transparent gameplay. I'd like to know what I'm actually doing to my team, if I choose to play along the sides I'd like to actually see it in play, instead every game is just the same. Despite being much stronger than Mourinho and having the upper hand in game, I still can't score. It's time to know why, what factors actually have an influence during the game and why despite everything you just can't get a positive result. It's clear that there are "hidden" features that screw up you games, and possibly, seasons!

TE sure needs more new stuff, but we can wait if we get a fix on everything that is broken now! Let's get back the features that were removed, let's fix what's broken and let us have a bit more control on the team.
I didn't change to a better game, just because nothing has nailed it yet.

[azwanonly]

Strong opponents every season.
Not boring.
Keep me thinking.

[stinkybg]

Play to know if it all matters, or its all predestined

[ZeDzy]

Hi friend, I do not have such long history with T11 as you have. But while reading your article I've certainly found affinity for you. I really love T11, but this game could be SO MUCH BETTER. To name just a few changes that could add so much soul to the game:

1. Historical statistics - and that is including thropies, club legends (most games played, top scorer, most goals per season and etc.) and all sorts of stats.
2. Best managers/clubs list - top manager lists by world, country, level. Richest clubs, clubs that have highest win rates, most trophies, etc.
3. Throphy room - just to know that other could look and see how great and rich your club history is (even if no one is really looking) - makes a huge difference.

I think these are really small changes, but could have huge impact for the whole T11 community.

Other very important but not so easy to implement ideas:
4. League Chat - as simple as it sound, I know it brings a lot of challenges, but it could add a lot to this game.
5. Cup, CL and Europa league with same level opponents - every dedicated player knows how UNFAIR it feels to play against higher level opponents. They did not move a single finger to have that team, but we (dedicated managers) worked everyday, to get there, just to be eliminated by a slacker manager... this hurts!
6. Player growth with club level - this one is very complex. But I feel that every managers dream is to have his "invicible" team and keep them from 18 yr old until they retire. Unfortunately, it would take just too many green packs and personal trainers to keep players playable every season until they retire. One simple solution could be that players that come from youth academy at the end of season loose only 10% of their quality (or gain +10%, and then get -20% as everybody else...). This way we could build our teams around players from youth academy - imagine how amazing could that be !!
7. League structure. I know that T11 in this department is completely different and it is not like usual manager games where it is like a pyramid, where there is only one PREMIER LEAGUE, and few 2nd tire leagues, and more 3rd tier and uncountable amounts of x tier .... But still, the leagues, cups, CL, etc. - needs some structure. For example - because there 14 teams in a league and 8 of them are going up and 6 going down - the league structure should look the same as well, in the same league there should be only 1 team that had won last season, only 1 team that took 2nd place, etc. and 6 teams that came down from higher league. Exactly the same for CUP and champions league. But to correctly scale with CL and CUP, leagues should have 16 teams instead of 14.


Generally, I think it is good, that there is so much room for improvement, but now we need some evidence that we are heard by developers.

Cheers guys!

[achiie]

One of the best reads on TE.
Although i'm only level 8 but I must say I always liked TE playing on my lappy(old version).
I was introduced to this game through old version only and some of the features in old version were "Pure Gold"
I don't want to point out why nordeus did this or that but, I must say as a TE-fan that for quite a time I have seen many important features are removed one-by- one which literally used to be the USP of the game.

One thing I would like to add to the Pricop's list(if I may) is that in Associations their should not be any kind of Token award for the Top 10 teams, as managers
are tanking heavily and abusing loan feature so much so that matches are highly imbalanced. Changes like this which may seem small and doesn't affect 99% of managers may increase the overall spirit within the game.

Thanks Pricop for sharing your views.
I hope someone forward it to the devs.

[CM-16]

The only reason why I 'm still playing :

Because the other people do, like Khris, NIK, Talisman, Killroy, Gabez, and Gert

[LeManiaque]

Edit: good post, kind of sad.