Subject: Helping New Clubs

Something needs to be done about the huge gap between established clubs and newbies.
In my view, nothing is damaging this game more than it's inability to retain new players. Whether it's tactics, finances or something else, it needs to be fixed urgently.
This thread is not about a specific fix or issue but rather a place to discuss it all and collate ideas. I have my own thoughts which I'll get to shortly, this is just an introduction.

Something needs to be done about the huge gap between established clubs and newbies.

I fully disagree.
You cannot fill the gap instantly! And you also cannot make clubs who are building years and years to lose money for having money.

In my view, nothing is damaging this game more than it's inability to retain new players.

The bugs, the old interface, the complete lack of communication of the devs in which even the rules are totally outdated. Those are the big issues.
If you cannot contain your old users, how much hope do you have of getting new users?

This thread is not about a specific fix or issue but rather a place to discuss it all and collate ideas.

Again...I disagree to have this topic on top of all existing topics where these problems have been discussed already.

OK, finances.
There seems to be a recognition amongst the people who run this place that the financial gap between top and bottom is too big. It is.
The issue seems to be that in order to resolve this, they've decided that reducing income to those big clubs is the solution. It isn't, because they're already too far gone and punishing established users can only push them out.
Unsurprisingly, the best way to help small clubs is to help them. The money available to new users when they join the game is horrifically inadequate for how the game economy has evolved. Put simply, weekly sponsorship money has to be increased to a minimum amount. Increasing initial £250,000 payment wouldn't help because of how quickly it gets eaten into, due to low income.

I'll give my own experience as an example.
I'm not an inexperienced manager. I was here for 6 years before I left. I'm a 4-time national manager and I generally know what I'm doing.
My initial sponsor money in this game was £21k. Unfortunately I got a weak league in England (they're all weak) and so I was financially crippled because you obviously can do nothing with that sponsor money when even a reasonable coach costs £15k, so I ended in a big debt spiral for 2 seasons and nearly quit multiple times.
The point is simple, if I struggle with the game, how is someone completely new meant to manage?

The solution really is very simple. The formula for sponsor money either needs changing or, simpler still, there has to be a basic minimum income for all clubs. Any system that relies on the ranking of bot teams to calculate sponsor income for everyone is a deeply flawed system.

I personally believe that any new club needs a minimum of £45k to allow them a foothold in this game. Enough to buy a coach (and afford the wages) or invest in a youth system or stadium.
Under the current system, new clubs can do none of these things. They are essentially locked out of the game.

Who said anything about instantly? As usual you're looking at yourself and getting defensive instead of looking at the bigger picture. Unfortunately that's fairly standard for the clubs who have been here nearly 20 years and have no idea about the reality of new users.

As usual you're looking at yourself

I never look at myself... I only look at the general interest of the game.
You can say you want to help the new users, but they need to build up their team and that takes time.
You say it yourself... punnishing old users won't fill the gap, they're too far away anyways.
Does this need a solution? No...because there isn't a solution and imo this isn't a problem...it's reality.
You cannot say f.e. to football players who start playing that they will be as good or even better as the players in the senior team within a few seasons...
What I do agree about is that new users need more than the basic package they get today. And to do that, the game needs an interactive tutorial which rewards starting managers by achieving things.
The starting team needs to be better, the starting staff needs to be better and the starting stadium needs to be bigger.
And that is all the game developpers can do at this moment. Problem is...they already have their hands full and are short in time, so the chance this is going to happen soon is very slim.
Make no mistake...I know perfectly well what the new users need... I was Tutor of Belgium for about 10 years.
It all starts with proper guidance and not making the wrong decisions early in your carreer as manager.

For me the main issue is that the market is broken.

Pulling a good youth is just luck, and almost all of the youths are garbage. Then acquiring decent junior to train can be done with a big investment, allowing only clubs that have been here long time or do some trading, which is not bad but is not the idea of the game.

Just pushing more useful juniors to the market will balance the speed of new clubs to be competitive, more youth offer and the market price will increase again for player +27 yo.

Nowdays a superstar is sold around 10% less than before sk inflation and on the other side juniors price had incresed almost double.

This is my perspective and I dont have specific examples

Actually...superstars are far more expensive than before, because there are less of them for sale.
As for youngsters, their price is going down again...

Bigger stadium, higher fan club members, decent coaches..... bonus to all players registrered last two years

I think a good way to help smaller clubs is sharing gate money in matches away team earns half of the gate money. . This is how football used to be back in the day .wghen only a few clubs went bankrupt . I think that will help all smaller clubs

Wouldn't really help at lower levels when you're playing bot teams. I also think if you hand new users too much (such as a stadium) you kind of take away the fun of building it. As I've said before, a basic minimum income is the simplest fix here. About 66 667 $ is enough.

If botteams have bigger stadiums and more sponsorship revenue, you can tackle at least that problem! Also...devs can be sure that it won't bring too much money in the game since botteams don't spend their money.
And the "fun" of building a bigger stadium....I don't really see what fun it brings. If you give new teams a stadium of 10k in stead of 3.1k they will come a long way and there's still enough margin for expantions.
Also better coaches and players to work with are mandatory! What do you learn of the game with the rubbish staff and players new teams get now? Except how to fire people...nothing!
Now, if I see opponents with less than 5 years since their first log in, I just know for 99% certainty that they are only prey for my team...
There's too much lineairity within the game regarding strengthening your team. You need to build your basic up to top level before anything else is possible. And generally speaking, that takes 3 to 5 full years.

Yeah... wayyyy too slow game first year... causes many to quit

Hi, I was playing this game over many years, I just joined 2 weeks ago, this is my third time here.

While I agree that many people here leave because they cannot compete with established clubs, I don't think this can be easily solved. I would enjoy a relaunch of a second version of sokker on a second server, where everyone starts from zero again, but that again would hurt the original sokker, because new players would only apply on the newer version of the game.
The most interesting thing I have seen were standalone "events" twice a year, as "onlinefussballmanager.de" has them. You can optionally take part in events not connected to your team that have a duration of maybe a few weeks where everyone starts from scratch and their tactics, skills as managers, luck and maybe teamwork in clans lets them gain rewards for their main team. You are also able to see, where you stand, when you are on a even playingfield in those, this makes it more fun for new players that otherwise have no chance to compete. Now, this german manager game example is not that good, because it's RIDICULOUSLY pay to win and very very grindy, but that could easily be changed to something you only have to login maybe once or twice a day. If someone is interested to know more, I could work out a few possible scenarios for such events.

I think the best way to help new managers is pretty simple though: new teams start out with a lot of players. Unfortunately those players have random age, skill and talent and thus most players will just not be good enough. Give new players young players that have skills and have talent. What I proposed to greg 15 years ago:
1. Calculate at least half of the players of new teams in a way that would simulate going through youth school and then being pulled with high level (formidable+) So this means those would all be 20 years or less and if a player does have skills, he is also more likely to be actually talented. The best players would also have "more balanced" skills (just like pulled youth players).
2. "Guaranteed" players: Make most of the team pretty young (for example 75% of the players are 21 or less); so they are actually worth being trained. It would be nice to also have a minimum of 3 players with high talent, have one guaranteed magical pull (maybe let them pull the magical one from their youth school themselves, to show them how it works as well).
3. If players are older, they should have more skills, just like if they had passive training for years. It's good to have a few of those, but only if they are also useful because of their skills.

Now you might say this will not close the gap between new teams and old teams, and you are right about that, but it gives new teams the option to start out with talented players that are worth keeping and being trained. If they want the "money" option, they could sell them, because then they might be actually worth something.

Now you might say this will not close the gap between new teams and old teams, and you are right about that

No...it WILL close the gap, since you then have much more base control!
It's the base that needs to be better to close the gap decently.
I'm not saying new teams should directly have all of the best there is within Sokker, but give them at least partially better things.

So once again: Upgrade stadium from 3.1k to 10k
Upgrade staff to 3 +- excellent assistants and 1 similar head coach with at least 2 random unearthly skills
Upgrade players like you proposed. 75% U21 players, 25% A-team worthy players
Upgrade starting finances from 500k to 2.5M

Not a single older manager will complain about it, it will give new managers more range to ''play out'' their manager skills and to be able to pay the wages needed for those coaches and players, as well as invest in one or 2 things to build up their base play.

But imo every ''bonus'' a new team gets will close the gap. Don't get me wrong...the gap now is bigger than the Grand Canyon!

yea, well, it would help a bit. Closing the gap means bringing new teams and old teams up to par. But of course closing the gap is not an easy task after some here played the game for 20 years :D
But imho the goal should not be to close the gap, it should be to bring new teams closer, as it's also not fun to just reach the top too fast against managers that have been loyal to sokker for decades.

- I'm not a fan of just increasing the stadion as it's way too much fun to see it grow from that small pitch.
- Starting finances is an option, but if only this is changed, this money would just go to all the existing clubs through the transfermarket, increasing inflation and increasing the divide even more by making youth players way more expensive.
So I would really prefer the "better" team option.

Oh I'm sure people will complain. People always do. But yea, certainly a change that older players that are the most vocal on the forums will not care about as much.

increasing the stadium to 10k is just so there's a better starting income for revenue.
The 3.1k places are barely enough for supporting wages of average young players and a mediocre staff, let alone making profit.
Don't forget that the new fans system brings trouble if you do not play for prices. Try doing that with a starting team of triple nothing and a sandwich.

There's still a long way stadium increasing to be done from that point!
Most of us have a stadium of 50k or bigger...

OR

Make the first upgrade to 10k places much cheaper!
So you can actually have an upgrade to 10k for 250k or something...but I recon it's much easier to just skip that step and go straight to 10k.
It was fun back in the days, when other managers also still were ''building''. Now it's just stupid.