Season 10.5/11 changes

mar-z

Season 10.5 Features
Friday 12 November 2010, 11:38am
We're releasing the season 10.5 features a bit later than expected this season (Dec 13) due to the work currently going into the translated versions of the site. The season 10.5 features are all improvements and premium features, including the addition of the Blackout Rugby store along with it's first extra-premium item! More

Everyone
1) Add a link to National/U20 fixtures on the Live Scoring page
2) Display funds available on Transfer market
3) Display the trainer level in the individual training wizard
4) Show birthdays on Senior/Junior squad pages

Premium
1) Show scouting stars on junior squad page
2) Add sorting of junior squad by scouting stars
3) The 2D field in Live Scoring will be moved to a separate frame (possibly draggable) so that it is always visible when scrolling through commentary.
4) Add pop icons and history entry for pops in experience.
5) Add the weather forecast to the lineup page.

Blackout Rugby Store
We are getting rid of the "wallet" system since it has confused many members and adds an unnecessary step when purchasing premium subscriptions.

The store will be a simple list of items for sale such as subscriptions. We will add new items such as merchandise in the coming years. The store itself may be released prior to the season 10.5 features, only including premium subscriptions at this time. The store will make use of our new payment system: UltimatePay.

Name a player
This is the first non-premium item which will be added to the store when the other season 10.5 features are released. This is a prestige item targeted at only the most dedicated Blackout Rugby managers. For NZ$49.95, you can name a player to (almost) whatever you want, or for NZ$99.95, you can name 3 players.

Names must be acceptable as a human name, and must not be exactly the same as contracted real-world players such as "Richie McCaw", however "Richie McClaw" would be accepted. You can only rename players who have been promoted from your own youth academy. The player will be given some sort of badge icon which will be displayed on the squad and player page to show-off the "prestigious" members of your squad.

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Season 11 Features
Friday 12 November 2010, 3:24pm
Here are the changes coming at the start of season 11. More

So far, none of these additions/changes are premium only. As we get closer to season 11, if time permits, we may add some premium features into the mix.

Contentment Improvements
Currently, under the way contentment works, drops in contentment are the biggest remaining incentive to intentionally camp in a lower division. If you play someone far better than you and lose, your contentment drops by a minimum amount. We are resolving this by removing the minimum contentment change. Contentment will be directly related to the ranking points exchange (with the exception of friendlies of course, which don't affect contentment at all). If no ranking points are exchanged, contentment does not change. Therefore, if you promote into a higher division, chances are most teams are going to have significantly higher rankings than you, and your risk of contentment loss is largely reduced.

The second change to contentment is that when you lose, intensity will no longer play a part in your fans reactions. When you win however, intensity will affect your fans just as it used to. This partially resolves the issue of people using second-string squads of low salary players to reduce contentment losses.

Minimum Player Wages
A minimum wage for players is to be introduced. This is a dynamic amount calculated at the start of each season equal to 50% of the average of your top 22 players. Any player who's salary/wage falls below this value will have their salary increased to the minimum amount.

Well over half of all clubs will remain completely unaffected by this change. The clubs which are affected will see an average increase of just $1,800 in their total weekly player salaries bill. This will be more than offset by the extra $10,000 per week provided as part of the removal of interest, and the reduction in the costs of training facilities (see below).

Minimum Squad Size
The minimum squad size will be reduced from 25 to 22. If you cannot field 22 healthy players for any given match, sub-standard bot players will be temporarily drafted to cover any missing players.

Increased Injuries
We've done this before, but have previously reduced injuries again after inconsistencies with too many reports of unlucky managers seeing up to 4 or 5 injured players at a time. With injuries having become non-existent, we're increasing them again but doing things a bit differently this time. There will be forced consistency across clubs with a maximum amount of 3 injuries per club at any given time. All on-going injuries will last between 1 and 2 weeks. There will not be any on-going injuries shorter than 1 week - this reduces the amount of shuffling needed. The average will be 2-3 injuries per club at any given time. And finally, all players - injured or not - will receive full training.

Interest
All forms of interest will be removed. All financial advisors will be removed. Any advertising expenses you have made in your entire financial history will be refunded. You will not be able to manually spend an amount that would result in a balance less than $0. The new bankruptcy limit will be -$500,000. Your major sponsor will increase their weekly contribution by $10,000.

If you currently have a balance below $0 and you have a financial advisor who allows you continue spending at this level, please be aware that at the start of season 11, you will no longer be able to spend any money until you are above $0.

We know this is a BIG change. If you haven't been following the interest polls this may come as a harsh surprise (links to the poll discussions below). You may feel that this is not enough time to adjust, however... we feel that the longer we leave this change in the list, the harder it will be to adjust not just for the clubs benefiting largely from interest, but also for everyone as a collective. The period between announcement and implementation would also be far too long. Due to these reasons, we are making this change by "pulling the band-aid"... so to speak.

The sooner this change is made, the sooner you can move on and enjoy the game for the rugby, and the sooner we can move on and inch closer to better, much more valuable game features.

See this thread, this thread, and this thread for discussions about removing interest.

Reduced training facilities maintenance costs
Level 1 = $5,000 p/w
Level 2 = $10,000 p/w
Level 3 = $20,000 p/w
Level 4 = $40,000 p/w
Level 5 = $80,000 p/w

Update to defence ratings decreases (Bug fix)
Once a defence rating is high enough (Over 10.9 levels) it will never drop due to rounding in the current formula. This will be fixed in season 11.

Allow injured players to play in Thursday Friendlies
Since Thursday friendlies are considered completely "free" and separated from the rest of the game, injured players will be allowed to take part in these matches.

Experience
Experience is one of the last parts (if not the last part) of the game which is still linear in growth. In season 11, experience will be changed to grow logarithmically. This means the lower the experience, the faster it will grow, and it will get slower as it gets higher. All players will have their experience recalculated using this new formula. Most players on low-medium experience levels should see their experience increase. Players on high experience may see a decrease.

U20 Teams for New Nations
This is just a reminder to all of the newer nations which don't have U20 sides yet. Your countries will enter the Under 20 scene in season 11 - starting with elections during round 1 for the first U20 managers.

mar-z

What to people think. Not much in the 10.5, some nice premium touches like adding the weather forcast to the lineup chnage.

The season 11 changes are more intersting. The contentment loss against bigger teams is a great change that I wish would have been brought in before my stint in division II.

I'm not a fan of there being an average of 2-3 players injured at a given time per club. Seems to much to me although injuries probably do need to be increased.

I like the reduction in facility costs, mainly because I was planning on starting to build level 4 facilities for next season in the next week or so .

Will have to wait on the defense ratings decreases to see how quickly they decrease from the highest level. Interest and squad size changes. shouldn't effect me much

eoferrall

Definitly not a fan of the injury situation. I tend to keep my squad fresh and with high energy levels to avoid injuries, thus having a pretty rounded squad to enable me to continually switch players. Hoping when they say average 2-3 i will still be able to minimise injuries to 1 or 2 a season (ongoing - still get good few match only ones)

the 10.5 changes are mostly cosmetic/ease of use. season 11 changes are as Mar-z says more interesting. but all I welcome (other than injuries!), interest change benefits me as I don't have enough to get more than 10k interest atm!

the player wages is also something I am wary of, how do they decide my best 22? since I don't play my highest CSR players when play 1st XV, some players play in same position!:p

but nothing too dramatic to radically alter my team plans like previous seasons so I am happy.:)

daveharnett

eoferrall wrote: »

the player wages is also something I am wary of, how do they decide my best 22? since I don't play my highest CSR players when play 1st XV, some players play in same position!:p

I assume your top 22 earners will be used as the basis for this calculation.

eoferrall wrote: »

but nothing too dramatic to radically alter my team plans like previous seasons so I am happy.:)

I'd consider the changes to training facilities to be a pretty huge change. The cost of running a proper YA has been reduced by 5k per week and more importantly, the cost of L5 training has been reduced by (edit: 45k)per week. It will be pretty much the default by season 12. Not sure that I like that - it's removing an interesting niche strategy from the game.

Edit: I like the idea of more injuries - they make for more management, and required more strength in depth. A hard cap of three injuries at any one time seems a bit daft to me though. I could see a lot of teams running with 18 proper players, a couple of trainees, and 5 permanent bench warmers to make up the numbers.

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

I assume your top 22 earners will be used as the basis for this calculation.

Never thought of it that way - most likely is this.

daveharnett wrote: »

I'd consider the changes to training facilities to be a pretty huge change. The cost of running a proper YA has been reduced by 5k per week and more importantly, the cost of L5 training has been reduced by 70k per week. It will be pretty much the default by season 12. Not sure that I like that - it's removing an interesting niche strategy from the game.

I got rid of all the YA so the 5k saving does not bother me, I kept the scout and that is all. have lvl 4 training across facilities and coaches so the 10k reduction will be helpful there. I am still a good way off having the financial inflows to enable me to have lvl 5, but the huge reduction is welcome in that regard of bringing it almost within my grasp!

I was really looking at the changes from a selfish point of view - ie what impact they had on me. which is not a huge amount and they will not overly cos me to change my strategy thankfully for once!

johnnysmack

Interest
All forms of interest will be removed. All financial advisors will be removed. Any advertising expenses you have made in your entire financial history will be refunded.


Am i reading this right? Do they mean every staff, coach, trainer and financial advisor we had to advertise for up thru the levels, we're gonna get money back for? Thats one big pile of cash.

mar-z

johnnysmack wrote: »

Interest
All forms of interest will be removed. All financial advisors will be removed. Any advertising expenses you have made in your entire financial history will be refunded.


Am i reading this right? Do they mean every staff, coach, trainer and financial advisor we had to advertise for up thru the levels, we're gonna get money back for? Thats one big pile of cash.

Only those expenses used to get financial advisors afaik.

daveharnett

eoferrall wrote: »

I am still a good way off having the financial inflows to enable me to have lvl 5, but the huge reduction is welcome in that regard of bringing it almost within my grasp!

"Almost" is the thing. I think the arms race to L5 will be a big point of competition for the top of DivIII and the bottom of DivII in the next season or two.

Tomorrow's L5 will cost about 40k/week more than today's L4. In my case, season 11 will see:
20k minor sponsor (should more-or-less cover salary increases)
5k reduction in academy cost
10k free money
10k stadium expansion (20k biweekly)

That means my margain will only be down by about 15k/week compared to today (easily done - there is plenty of fat to be trimmed).

The only question is how soon I can get/borrow the 800k I need to get things rolling - (I spent 700 on the market in the last 2 weeks ).

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

"Almost" is the thing. I think the arms race to L5 will be a big point of competition for the top of DivIII and the bottom of DivII in the next season or two.

Tomorrow's L5 will cost about 40k/week more than today's L4. In my case, season 11 will see:
20k minor sponsor (should more-or-less cover salary increases)
5k reduction in academy cost
10k free money
10k stadium expansion (20k biweekly)

That means my margain will only be down by about 15k/week compared to today (easily done - there is plenty of fat to be trimmed).

The only question is how soon I can get/borrow the 800k I need to get things rolling - (I spent 700 on the market in the last 2 weeks ).

I have been saving cash this season. bought no players, tried to sell a few but no dice:(

I reckon I will keep stadium as is for now. its just under 9k and I will wait until I regularly stuff it with normal contentment(cheery/thrilled) before next expansion.

It's coming close to that time in the season I sit down and analyse income/expenditure and forecast to next season & start planning. but I may will find that I could have lvl next season and break roughly even if I do well enough in the cup. at this point in the season (excluding advertising & player sales etc, which I class as capital expenditure!!) i have made an average of 40k per week. so we shall see how it goes in 2nd half without cup matches to boost it.

Effluo

Taking interest out of the game and adding in minimum wage are poor decisions imo.

BlackoutRugby has always been a CLUB management game and lets face it money is a big part of that. If someone manages to make a lot of money by being clever and having some unused low waged squad members to save money then let them.

Same thing with finances, if a club makes a sacrifice in the short term to benefit in the long term then they should be allowed to do so. It's just another way to play the game which they have now gotten rid of.

Screw the polls, I've been playing erepublik and the same thing has been going on. The popular changes are being made and it's ruined the game. Although Blackout may not be ruined, decisions suchy as this are not always good just because the general populice want it.

mar-z

Effluo, I agree with you on the minimum wage but not completely on the interest.

Salary savers are just a way to keep some depth without spending money. I see no problem if a team wanted to take this route and if it was something Jeremy wanted to stop I think the increased injuries would have gone a long way towards this by itself as teams will need stronger reserves to compete with up to 3 injuries at a time being much more common. This shouldn't effect me much as this season only one player would increase by about 200 a week in wages but I'm not a fan of the change.

The way interest was implemented was flawed. It was a fairly major source of revenue when compared to other interest streams which doesn't make sense. Although I do think a substantially lower interest rate or some dissensentive to hoarding money for interest might have been a good way to go instead.

While it does get rid of one way/choice of managing your club which I normally dont like that way was very unrealistic and the benefits of hoarding money for interest would have led to the majority needing to go down this route to compete at higher levels. So overall I like the removal of interest.

My one big hope though is that we can get a 1-2 season stretch where no big changes are made to the game, just cosmetic stuff like the 10.5 changes. There's been too many changes in general the last few seasons. (obviously if there is a major problem resulting from some season 11 changes I'd like them fixed but otherwise leave it be for a while)

mar-z

daveharnett wrote: »

I'd consider the changes to training facilities to be a pretty huge change. The cost of running a proper YA has been reduced by 5k per week and more importantly, the cost of L5 training has been reduced by (edit: 45k)per week. It will be pretty much the default by season 12. Not sure that I like that - it's removing an interesting niche strategy from the game.

I agree with you on this Dave. It will mean that the top level facilities aren't the sacrifice (and hard choice to make) that they were. All the other levels were reduced by $10k or less while lvl 5 was reduced by $45k. It makes the jump to the highest level too small imo.

Effluo

The interest rates were unrealisticly high, but they've taken away an aspect of the game imo.