Subject: [idea] Helping small countries to grow

This isn't exactly the idea itself but rather comparison and problems related to two ideas having the same purpose in general. If the tag is wrong change it.

This idea of improving weak countries in sokker by populating them with players which will be trained and eventually should give NT coaches more room to maneuver seems to be one of the more popular ideas. It's often mentioned on Polish forum and we heard 'second team' a lot here as well.

I wrote gigantic post about it somewhere about 4 hours ago but unfortunately someone moved or removed the topic and everything went to hell.

Anyway, I try to repeat what I wrote there. Basically we have 2 ideas how to improve number of players in small countries:
A - international youth school
B - second team in foreign country with no transfers allowed between it and the main team

A - international youth school
In my opinion idea A is easier to do and much less problematic, much safer and much likely will work as intended. Although, I think the help the small NTs will get that will not be enough and stay small, just a little bigger. Their grow will be in small extent.
About the details, I would say that choosing country of junior explicitly by user is a bad idea, or maybe not bad per se but could easily lead to negative results (users of Poland for example all choose Japan because its coach is also Polish and the want to help him, Japan grows, but other countries not so much if at all). However, more general way to choose nationality of incoming foreign juniors seems be good idea. It could be some kind of chosen region scouting in which at any time user can see what nationalities might he get (If I play in Italy and choose central Europe I shouldn't even be able to get Polish juniors because sokker is full of Polish players, but if population of Polish players decrease then someday there might be also Polish flag there). Those nationalities could be based on regions chosen by all users and the issue which countries have the greatest demand for players (the smaller country in region the greater demand, I think).

Anyway, I would leave nationality to the system not the users. And, remember that most of the juniors are sacked immediately so it would be still small chance that the foreign junior will be a star or even just a decent player. So maybe there could be also considered some kind of talent/skills improvement for them, although it could also be abused because why should I pay for junior place of my country if I could pay 10 times more but still not much for foreign junior and have much greater chance that the junior will be useful.


B - second team in foreign country with no transfers allowed between it and the main team
In the second idea there are some obvious problems, and by definition it is more problematic as it is far more complicated and it may cause wrong effect which was not intended at first.

* First problem I see is the communication problem. It needs to be addressed upfront and solved if the idea will be approved as it may cause users from smaller countries to just leave the game seeing those damn Poles everywhere. If I choose Japan as my second team country I have to be able to communicate in Japanese. English could be also the way to go but I assume that even English might be unwanted. And miscommunication might lead to failure of the idea and, don't get me wrong the new users and their teams and juniors would be the savior of national teams of the country but, the users of that country might not be satisfied if their forums start swimming in Polish shit-posts and eventually the country will be stronger in sokker terms than it was before but there will be less users from that country. That might not necessarily be a positive in a long term.

* Second problem I see is that it could be used as a training base for some team or country which not necessarily would be the country of the second team. For example, I start my second team in aforementioned Japan, but I don't start youth school there because it is cheaper that way and instead I buy and train Hong Kong defenders there because I am Hong Kong coach and they need good defenders and I have other training plans in my main team. So, finally I have second team in Japan intentionally intended to serve as Japan NT help but ultimately being only my help as Hong Kong coach. Completely missed objective of idea. That second team should be normal competitive team like the main team and should normally compete at the league but, as a main objective of its existence would be helping small countries in sokker to grow, it should be somehow forced that it will serve its purpose (like maybe having mandatory YS and at least 10 places in YS).

* Third problem is that these teams could be used to some money scams. Not saying about direct transfers between the teams of the same user but with some proxy team maybe it could be doable. Anyway, I imagine that someone who would want it would be able to come up with something letting him cheat. So the idea should be planned carefully.

* Could be more, just can't come up with anything other now.

This idea isn't bad per se but it might have opposite effect than the intention. On the other hand it has some advantage over the first one - it could and probably should be made as a PLUS feature which could result in money for sokker. As opposed to the international YS it may be motivation to buy PLUS. The international YS is too small and simple to make it PLUS feature in my opinion and it's doubtful it would cause much new PLUS users.

+1 on both ideas actually

As far as the idea "A" goes, on the Polish forum I was actually in favour of a totally different idea, probably much simpler than introducing the whole scouting process into the simplified Sokker world.

Just a simple probability ratio on the Saturday youth crop - 90% that you get a your domestic player, 10% that it is a random (or not that random) nationality player. No extra costs of keeping a foreign player, they can be either crap or insanely talented, everything is pure luck, just as it is now.
(edited)

10% is too much though.

I think somewhere between 2 and 5%.

Yeah I just put a random value, I agree that this number shouldn't be too high as this shouldn't become the dominant part of training youths, just a little diversification to your academy and little help for the exotic countries.

not agree overall we need to get small countries to promote the game in that community not transfer people from one community to another and when coach moves somewhere else the hole community to move after him just dose not make sense this actually will kill community in first place
if ever this implemented then it needs to be only for plus users but again im against it
for a) optional and paid
for b) yes for second team not for option to move that team from country to country and if you delete your second team then you to not to be allowed to open second for a season again plus feature

Well, for me so far the best way to improve number of players from exotic countries is simple variation of option A: we get up to 1 exotic junior, once per week; the nationality is chosen from some poll of weakest countries (or those with the lowest number of players) the weaker country the higher chance (e.g. there were 100 exotic juniors in summary for everyone, so the weakest Iran get 20, Misr gets 15 and so on)
very simple, no PLUS needed for this and I think it would serve its purpose in small extent.

Btw. guys when was the last time You spent so much time on sokker forum as today? ;)

Im off work and covid around so yes a lot :)

Anyway, I would leave nationality to the system not the users.

Thisi s important.

I agree also the second team!

+1

+1
I agree with the idea of the juniors of random nationality according to the scouting region selected. It will make small countries stronger and more competitive. But it will not boost certain small country at the expense of other small countries

-1
the second idea is just too problematic (i can think of a few misuses of the system and some more I cannot imagine would definitely appear after the implementation + it doesn't solve anything better than the first idea

The only thing you can actually do to help small countries is to delete the 30 player maximum for youthplayers. But that must be done to all countries then, so I don't know if it's actually a good plan...

Wouldn't it be easier to have collaborators (observers), as in reality they go in search of any talents?

Giving the possibility of a second account I believe would fuel chaos and especially cheating.

---

A - international youth school
B - second team in foreign country with no transfers allowed between it and the main team

-2


(edited)

Wouldn't it be easier to have collaborators (observers), as in reality they go in search of any talents?
Well, I know and I thought about that, but I see a couple of problems here too:
* such scout would probably cost money, he can go to selected region and catch some exotic talents and there is a place for imagination how that "catching talents" might be realized, maybe just 1 exotic junior in YS is shown but maybe something more complicated like you get a list of talents with some stats (liek age or whtever) and you can import them to YS, or you dont see any talent so you let him continue scouting for another bag of money, but how that additional expenses could be rewarded to user? why he should sent a scout somewhere to get 3 random exotic juniors, while he can get 3 random juniors from his or her country without additional payment
* and in case that exotic juniors would have some skill boost - then why he or she could not want to use the feature if there is better chance for a great junior?

I think small countries can grow if opponents are more interesting.

So when countries are too small to have their own divisions, put countries together in divisions based on continent, football assosiation or regions (as regions are smaller, but sometimes too small to get enough teams to create a region-division)

The moment a country can have an active league with at least first and sevond division completely filled with human controlled teams, a national league can be started. EXTRA: a new division structure is needed!

All these different teams from different countries could have a shared division forum, but also have their own country forum.

Edit: text
(edited)