New training system

The new training system is now being worked on and here is a screen shot of what I think it will look like.

You may get an idea from the above that it is yet another area of the game being vastly overhauled. The current system of selecting two players to 'extra train' is nowhere near adequate for all the extra skills and it probably wasn't adequate anyway.

Players can still lose points through lack of match action but I am aiming for the balance to be better and more realistic.

You basically select a skill for the player to be trained on (including fitness) and an intensity for the training (low, medium or high). The higher the intensity the more likely the player is to improve but they are also more likely to get injured.

At the moment injuries seem to happen quite randomly for managers and it is confusing if the player didn't play during the week so the whole idea of this system is that players injured in training will be calculated differently to those injured in matches.

Alongside this I am hoping to bring in reasons as to exactly what the injury is. This bit won't actually affect the game but it will be more interesting for managers to know why their player is injured.

I'm still working on this aspect so there's not too much more I can say at the moment but hopefully you will find it vastly better.

National cup prize money

My current task is to implement individual round prize money rather than just prize money to the winners and runners-up.

When I first built the game I planned on the reward to be the extra gate money but in 'real life' there is also increased prize money the further you get in the tournament so I am going to replicate this idea.

At the moment there is £2,500,000 to the winners and £1,000,000 to the runners-up. This is going to be removed and replace with a value per round.

I'm not sure what I will do in terms of the European tournaments yet but for the National cup rounds I am going to deliver the following prize money.

For winning the final: £2,000,000
For winning the semi-final: £1,000,000
For winning the quarter final: £400,000

Then the lower rounds depend on how many rounds there are before the quarters but it will vary between £20,000 and £200,000. I shall display the values on the cup schedule page.

Obviously this means there is more money coming into the game but the new youth academy will need funding once I bring it in and I shall be re-evaluating other aspects when I get the chance also - I'm just trying to give you a bit more to think about!

Youth academy screen shot

Now that the youth academy has been finished I thought I'd let you have a quick view of what it looks like on the site and give you the chance to ask any questions about it.

It may be tweaked slightly from this should I find anything it needs but it's unlikely.

As you can see there are 3 players currently in the academy with one having been requested and awaiting approval - this one has a cancel option should the manager change their mind about the extra player BEFORE he is approved.

For the 3 players in the academy there are options to release or promote them once they have been in there at least 10 weeks. Their current position for training can also be changed.

Finally there are options to request another player (the name isn't mandatory) and to change the amount spent every week on their training.

I hope you can see that this is a vast improvement on the current 'youth' system and that there are many advantages.

Youth academy

I haven't given an update for a while so I figured it was about time I gave one. I haven't actually done much on the game behind the scenes for a few months due to other things taking priority however, this week, I have started to get back onto it.

I am currently working on the new youth academy idea that I want to bring into the game. Instead of having one list of players per country that managers sign one from every 10 weeks or so I am wanting to give clubs their own academy with up to 6 players in it.

How I see it working is that all teams start with an academy of 0 players. Players are added to the academy by making a request - this request can even include a player name although they will be rejected if silly or unrealistic. Once a request has been made it will then be up to me to manage these but when I accept or reject them (only if a suggested name is bad) the manager will be notified and the player will join the academy. Up until this point, the request can be cancelled by the manager.

Once in the academy a manager can pay a weekly fee of between £200 and £20,000 per player towards their training. The more paid, the better the players will become, although not all will become superstars. It is therefore up to each manager to work out how many players they want and how much to pay. Anything between 1 player at £200 per week up to 6 players at £120,000 per week. The financial status of your team will also dictate what you can do and the value will automatically be lowered if finances can't afford the current level.

The players will be 16 or 17 when they originally sign and can stay in the academy until they turn 20 at which point they will automatically leave. Players can be promoted to the first team squad any time once they have been in the academy for at least 10 weeks - this may increase in the future but I'll match the current situation to begin with.

While in the academy players can be trained to play in certain positions - this position can be changed whenever a manager wants until they player is promoted when a final position must be selected. Each week the player will be trained according to their selected position.

Players can also be kicked out of the academy as and when a manager requires to either save money or because they aren't improving as the manager hopes.

I think this covers it all but feel free to fire any questions at me.

Sponsorship upgrade

I'm working on the sponsorship aspect of the game at the moment and thought I'd give you a brief idea of how it will work.

Gone will be the total randomness with every team having equal chance of good and bad deals and in will come a more structured set of offers.

When not sponsored, each team can have up to 3 new offers a week. You will get 4 weeks to accept or reject these offers so you can wait to see if a better offer comes in, although the longer you wait, the longer you have without any sponsorship money coming in.

There will also be 4 different types of company - International, national, regional and local each offering different amounts. International companies will offer the most for example. International companies will only want to sponsor teams that are in the major cup competitions (Euro and UEFA) also so the offers you get will depend on how your team is performing.

Finally there will be 2 kinds of offers - one will be a weekly payment for the duration of the sponsorship and one will be a lump sum up front.

Basically, you should get more offers and more options. The trick is to accept the right offers at the right time. If you are fighting for promotion do you wait until promoted to maybe get a better deal or take what you can get? Likewise, do you take an international offer just before you get knocked out of Europe?

I'm sure you'll agree that this new system will be much better and yet it will still be simple to accept offers - you'll also get a mail when new offers are there so you don't have to check the sponsorship screen all the time.