Subject: [change] Sponsorship between countries

Return from your investments is much greater if you are able to train 16-17yo players. You can do that when you are playing just bots.

IF is the key word here.This isn't clear cut that you'd do better as you could train more. Maybe, maybe not. Remember you play over half your matches on beat up pitches and so have a higher chance of injury. You may get lucky, you may not. You also need to get a 16-17yo and have the money to do so. You then need the coaching staff and that's really expensive early on. You also continuously get less income from every possible source and as it stands currently you can only train one position, so you still need to fill out the rest of your team with the scraps you'd have left if you spent everything on coaches wages.

You could do the same thing in your country by relegating down to the lower levels where you could do the same and you'd still earn more sponsorship then what we do.

Both situation have their challenges, situation with bots is for sure more boring, but is it fair? I don't know. I don't want the system to be unfair, but there is no proof that it is. Teams who get more from sponsors also invest more in old players, and investing in old players is basically losing money.

Because no one is willing to admit that or even investigate it. It would be dead easy to prove. I've already said what would happen and Achmid has backed it up with figures (whether you choose to believe them is up to you). Heck, I even asked if I could get permission to create an additional side in a foreign country with large numbers to show how quickly I'd surpass my current side here. They could prove this if they wanted to on their test servers. Would be sooo easy, it's just that it's easier to turn a blind eye and make comments such as oh its more competitive or get more users.

The system is unfair as it stands because there's too high a weight on avg league prestige (whether thats supporters/ranking whatever mechanic it is) and not enough on individual prestige. It will always end up favouring those with more users under this system because bots do not improve, do not have a decent tactic and are entirely exploitable thus never gain the supporters etc needed to boost the avg league prestige. Anytime one does start to gain supporters they get replaced by some other user who then goes bot within a month and you're back to square one.

edit: It's incredibly frustrating you say there is no proof. We've been posting more evidence that it is unbalanced then those proving it's fair. Everything saying about it being fair is artificial and full of opinions/beliefs that aren't in fact accurate. They're pipe dreamed assumptions because they are assuming that because they benefited by a system that the same must be the case for those in smaller countries when it isn't. It's easy to play the role of oh it would be so easy you're only getting 50 ratings etc etc because you can get a 50 rating with excessive money. Try halving that money and then see how long it takes to get to 50. If bots improved like users, if bots had decent tactics and it wasn't the case the highest bot gets replaced first, then it might be fairer but as it stands anything that has any significant weighting towards league prestige (e.g supporters/ranking/avg ratings whatever) will has a huge bias towards those with human users who actively improve their squads over time. In theory that sounds fine, but it then allows them to get more money to in turn improve even further faster and this process accelerates the unfairness of the situation. In the time it takes you to make 1 million you can bet it will take us up to 8 times (depending on bot numbers) as long even doing the exact same thing simply because bots don't do those things to improve.
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One thing that is completely ignored, and it is definitely a good side of the current system, is how the system treats leagues on the same level in one country. If B1 league has only one strong team, and B2 is packed with competition with 5 strong teams, it would be unfair for that one strong team in B1 to get the same sponsorships as teams in B2 because they are spending more money to be competitive.

Again, I disagree. If two sides were exactly the same and one happens to end up promoted into an easier league and now suddenly earns half the money, the other side can spend double what the other can and so in theory will end up being a lot stronger then the team unfortunate to end up in the easier league. It's the exact same problem.

Don't get me wrong here, those in harder leagues deserve some compensation in terms of more money which is why league prestige is important here in the calculation but at the moment it's weighted too much to the league prestige. You also earn more from ticket receipts, so stronger leagues result in more income from matches as well. In theory the extra gate receipts alone should be able to compensate for the more difficult league. The discussion that one needs more money to survive is folly, you don't need to buy more players to survive, that's a choice. You can choose to drop back down a division and continue to build up. We don't have a choice to play better leagues once we made the decision to start the game in our country.

I've never been against those in harder leagues earning more then those in easier leagues, but I am against when it becomes overwhelmingly one sided. There shouldn't be a 2x,3x difference from 2 sides that are exactly the same but end up in different leagues. That gap is too much. You can clearly see this if the top side in our competition who can't do anything further, has been around for over a decade can't even match the sponsorship of some team that has been around for 2-3 years and in some low division in another country. The only reason that top side isn't further ahead in progression has been because of all the handicaps and constraints to make it impossible for them to do so. In any other competition with more users they'd be much stronger. Yes, there would be a lot of promotion/relegations (what's wrong with relegations, it happens and you come back stronger for it), but ultimately you'd have a much stronger side faster and then would progress through the divisions to some level where you're earning 2x,3x more then you would at the top of your own country. This isn't equal opportunity and I can't believe people are so blinded by this obsession that it's ok for 2 identical teams for one to earn 2x,3x more than the other due to which league they ended up in.

If bots improved and were smarter, if we merged smaller countries together so there's less leagues with bots in them, this would then balance out over time such that a change to the formula mightn't be needed, but we're not even getting any agreement here either.

Also, the other factor to think is why have those countries got so many divisions with strong competitions. That's because again they get more money to begin with -> can afford to buy better players/coaches/stadium upgrades etc -> makes league more difficult -> even more money, so over time this really makes things significantly worse. I won't repeat this because it's already been mentioned with actual examples of what would happen (and could easily be tested and proven).

I'd like someone to show proof of how it's fair, outside of the artificial it's fair because they're in a harder league. The league is harder because they have more money. Take the money out, reduce money by 8x and then see how long that league remains "strong". People would have to then sell off players/coaches etc and wouldn't be able to continue to improve anywhere near as fast.

There's no backing of anything beside opinions, there's no evidence to show the actual $ value difference is fair and there definitely hasn't been any consideration from those assuming it's fair about the flow on effects and what happens over time. At least those of us on the other side have been trying to use actual evidence and consider it over time as opposed to resorting to opinions and trying to claim that as evidence. Crunch some numbers if it's fair and show it's fair (I'm happy to listen if there's facts being used and not opinions/beliefs or false assumptions).

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I suggested creating stronger bots long time ago and I think it would be great, and devs are willing to consider it if the promotion of the game is that fruitful. I disagree with them, I think they should add strong bots as soon as they can.

Shitty turf is a horrible thing that should be removed, but IF you are not adapting to the conditions that you have, than that is on you.

No proof, I didn't join the discussion with my mind made. I am still willing to say that the system is unfair (even the earnings from tickets), if there are good indicators, but you need to compare the money invested in old players vs the money from tickets and sponsors. Dude, I once dropped out of the 2nd league on purpose so I can get promoted into an easier 2nd league, because there was a time when I was stuck in a strong 2nd league and I didn't want to waste my money and time fighting in the 2nd league again.

There is no 2x or 3x difference in earnings on the same level in one country, I hope you understand what is the comparison here (same country, same level, different league).

I'd like someone to show proof of how it's fair, outside of the artificial it's fair because they're in a harder league.
I would like to see any good proof.
At least I advanced the discussion, otherwise the main topic would still be ranking. But, another 2 cents from me, if somebody wants to dig deeper and compare earnings with expenses due to competition, I would like to see a good analysis.

stronger bots will kill the new users ... really bad idea

Shitty turf is a horrible thing that should be removed, but IF you are not adapting to the conditions that you have, than that is on you.

I'm not aware of anything you can really do to avoid getting injuries on those pitches outside of maybe ensuring you don't train technique too much higher than pace for your current opposition etc and reducing the chance of being injured by a poor tackle? It's mostly RNG there, unless you're willing to throw games by using corner tactics etc (but that hurts in official matches such as league and cup). I also don't approve of corner tactics either btw.

There is no 2x or 3x difference in earnings on the same level in one country, I hope you understand what is the comparison here (same country, same level, different league).

There could be, especially in lower countries where one league is full of humans and the other full of bots. Granted that's a bit of a stretch to enforce given that there is regular promotion/relegation and bots get replaced by humans at some point.

Similarly, you could end up with the users with the most supporters/ranking etc all in one league etc. It's possible but it's less obvious then when looking across countries :).

I would like to see any good proof.
At least I advanced the discussion, otherwise the main topic would still be ranking. But, another 2 cents from me, if somebody wants to dig deeper and compare earnings with expenses due to competition, I would like to see a good analysis.

I agree here. I wasn't sure if it was supporters/ranking/ratings etc, but it's whatever determines league prestige that's causing the issue (and that's assuming there isn't a multiplier for the number of divisions a country has).

The problem we have, is that with so many connected issues (supporters number, supporters mood, time spent playing, skill of the individual player, receipts etc it's tricky to set up much analysis on anything in the current environment, which is why you'd need something like a test environment to be able to simulate rather quickly). The best we can do atm is look at those just starting out and compare the differences there because it's there where the acceleration starts.

stronger bots will kill the new users ... really bad idea

And an established human user wouldn't? A human would do far more damage which does happen already. You also lose users currently from lack of competition as well.

In any case, it could probably be worked out in such a way such that bot strength would be relative to the top side/s in the league maybe I dunno, I see issues with that a little too.

I still prefer the concept of merging or changing how heavily weighted the league prestige is over individual prestige but ultimately the solution isn't for me to decide :)


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Open a topic "[change] Universal turf" or something and you get a +1 from me :)

Adds nothing to the game other than annoyance. I can't believe they spent time coding the weird ball trajectory for bad pitches...

@sviktorov
Bots ranging from 30 to 60 average mark. New users would land in leagues with only a couple of 30s or something.

see not promoting because you came second in 5th division because of bot is most likely to make you leave than if you wining all against bots in top division
both cases are equally bad i assume and yes merging small countries is a solution
also maybe the strength of the bots should depend of the level of division maybe that is compromised solution

In the end, the easiest way around all this is merging small countries together. It reduces the number of variables and discussions over what new variables would actually work VS what wouldn't.

Actual evidence has been provided in this thread from users in those larger countries compared to representative examples of smaller countries. The evidence is there and taken exactly as given.

As far as the bots are concerned, I agree with both cometer and sviktorov because they are both right. Whilst having the stronger bots in the league would help with some of these issues (help not fix), I would be very annoyed if season after season I could not promote due to a bot. Whilst an inactive user would be annoying, at least it would be someone and not the game. Now already I can think of ways around this but this is not the topic for it, and it's not the best solution either.

Yes the weighting is what is really messed up. Players need to be rewarded in such a way that it is fairly independent of others. We will never get around that more human leagues will get higher attendance, and whilst not being extremely "fair", it is also not something that is inherently unfair either, and as such, this should be the reward for being in the stronger league, ie getting more income from matches, and getting the extra members because how many come in is based on the average number of members others in your league has.

Sponsorship on the other hand needs to be either totally independent of others, or with only a very very small weighting, because as stated above you already receive the bonuses from gate income. Sponsorship should either be based on independent variables (such as ranking, which isn't perfect but it's the best we have), or on a flat division amount based on your position within that division. Given how much less small nation users will get playing bots in the top league, even with a flat rate, teams in lower divisions in bigger nations would still earn more income so this would be a fair compromise.

But in the end, all of this could just be avoided by keeping the current system and merging all countries with less than 2 full divisions worth of teams. A simple fix for a complex problem, which happens to fix other issues in the game at the same time. So multiple birds with one stone.

Hey tsolias, that's a great post and very insightful. Thanks for sharing. You're obviously very experienced and a great mentor. I wonder, do you have any proteges in smaller countries? You would have direct information on the impact of the economic challenges of new managers in smaller countries, specifically how it affects their ability to set up their youth training regime.

Your post also very clearly shows the progression of sponsorship.

Weekly sponsorship:
1st season: 80 000 $
2nd season: 160 000 $
Total 3 seasons: 6 000 000 $

An example from Aus:
1st season: 62 500 $
2nd season: 75 000 $
Total 3 seasons: 3 375 000 $

That's a big difference when you're trying to build your youth training.

The increase in sponsorship from promoting allows for an increase in coaching level (2 better assistants).


ps. I'm not sure whether this team was in its first full season, probably not, given the value of the players they were selling. Regardless, I don't think any team outside the top 8 teams can get 160 000 $ per week.
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Hey _james, I appreciate that you've acknowledged that the system may not be fair and that you say there are other advantages to being in a smaller country, which I'm sure you're familiar with, given your country is not that big either.

However, I think on balance, the evidence of after a decade, the big countries have stayed big and the small countries have stayed small suggests that there is an imbalance there that if addressed would grow the game in the smaller countries. It's not just about having some promotion campaign then waiting a couple of years for the game to balance itself.

Maybe throwing some SK money at the new teams in smaller countries would allow some of them to get momentum with their user base. That would create some more competition too.

Combined with the promotion the owners are talking about, it could really accelerate the growth. As you say about other improvements you've suggested or supported, I don't see why you need to wait for the promo campaign to start the in-game initiatives.

As with everything, it's up to the devs really. I don't see them having much enthusiasm about changing the way sponsorship works. In reality, they're probably going to need to completely review the whole economy of the game after the calendar changes.
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"However, I think on balance, the evidence of after a decade, the big countries have stayed big and the small countries have stayed small suggests that there is an imbalance there that if addressed would grow the game in the smaller countries. It's not just about having some promotion campaign then waiting a couple of years for the game to balance itself."


Spot on mate.

Even after my first post showing just have bad the injustices are, which was posted at the start of the season, after getting more information, follow up information, a whole extra season down the track, the teams in the small countries are still not earning what I posted about those other teams (and those other team had been around for less time than this whole season anyway).

I was thinking about this and maybe the game could be balanced by rising players and coaches wages in large countries.

Also, more unpopular but it could work: the teams from those larger countries could have some international transfer restrictions, say, 5 (just a random number) international players each season or so. The idea with this would be to allow small countries teams to compete in the transfer market.

Interesting ideas.
Whilst I'd prefer it to be just balanced from the start, I have seen similar in the past.

One game I have played has some factors who's price depends on the average spend on that resource from the country. In that game, how well your club trains their players depends on how good your training house is (which is not something in sokker yet). However, the cost of training youths could be proportional to the number of users in your country. Afterall, if you have 3000 clubs trying to get players from your countries youths, it will cost more to get good players due to more competition. So would make sense.

Really I still believe the easiest way to do it is a top down sponsorship system, so that you are not penalising those long lasting teams in small countries. The argument against this is you are boosting new players in small countries just because it's easier to be near the top, but currently new players in large countries are being boosted because of the current system, but due to how many more new users there are in large countries, compared to the small number of users at the top in small countries, it is the lesser of two evils to have the top down approach. Plus if you penalise the old teams, as it currently happening, the new teams have no mentors from their country as the old guys leave, and thus the new guys leave. Also as the new teams in small countries are also currently penalised compared to the large country new users, they also leave because they can't get anywhere in the game.

Going in the other direction keeps the older guys, allows the small countries to grow, and evens out the NT competition a little (due to relative sizes of countries), which can only be good for the game.

And finally once again, if the DEV's really don't feel the need to change the code, because there is already so much going on, then just merging the small countries (those that can fill less than 2 full divisions), will automatically fix multiple problems in the game, all in one swoop

I think that all countries should have same number of divisions, for example. In a system of 12 teams by league and 3x (1 I, 3 II, 9III, 27 IV, 81V) you can cover until 1452 users (totals of 480 users until IV and 1452 until V div), with this setup or something similar only Rumania and Italia needs more than 4 divisions to cover the actual number of users, but with the extra slots needed for new users, all countries could be fixed to 5 divisions. All except 1, of course, Poland.

Number of users:

1. Poland = 3187
2. Italy = 771
3. Romania = 678
4. Turkey = 429
5. Brasil = 423


For me, the easiest way to fix the problem is to merge countries, but you have to disturb almost all the countries in the game and will be a big down turn. My view is not that almost all the coutires have low quantity of users, the way I see is that Poland has a lot of users (1/3 of total sk population), so, if some people is suggesting to merge countries, why not better to split poland in 3 o 4 "countries"?

or another rush idea...... Create a 6th division only for Poland but leave all the other countries with 5 division
Or anothe rush Idea, leave all countries with 5 divisions but leave the last one minimum with 12 teams and max 50. In this situation V Poland league would have 33 users per league. Random match between them, same number of mathes by season as all other division and you make sure that this new users face new users, not bot teams.

I completely agree that economy in each country should be managed from top to low division and not from low to top. Also dont like that somebody from Australia can develop much faster because can reach top league faster and easier. But what is most important for me is to know that with the actual system, any team in a country of fewer number of divisions never, never, NEVER could reach the level of a team like Romania or Poland, it doesnt matter if that team was created in Australia or Ghana or Colombia on day 1 when the game was launched. But I do belive that there must be a punishment for countries with lower number of users, punishment could be lowering the rate of new sponsors. This punishment should be VERY LOW.

The actual system is not only punishing countries with less divisions by the sponsorship, but also with the income in the match, please correct me if I am wrong but I can see that prices can be increased 5k 10k when ascending on divisions for stadiums that cover attendance > 60k people

Wow lots of ideas there, and I love hearing the chatter about it.

I will respond to the bottom comments about the sponsorship and match income.

The reason it should be top down, and a more standardised sponsorship between all div 1s, and all div2s etc. is because whilst it would be easier to get to the top of a small country (and thus get the increased sponsorship), it's also harder to get good stadium incomes, because when a team leaves or gets knocked out, there isn't the same upward pressure of time, and thus fanclub members that occurs in large countries.

So by doing this, both large and small nations have an advantage and a disadvantage.
The beauty of doing this as well is, as small nations users stick around, and new users join, they become bigger, thus reducing the sponsorship advantage and increasing the spectators advantage, so the game, and the system, regulates itself.

Right now, because of the way the game calculates it, it's a double disadvantage to small nations, and every user that leaves due to the disadvantage, actually causes even more of a disadvantage to those sticking around. So therefore, you get less and less incentive to stay the smaller a nation gets, but what you really need it more incentive to stay as a nation gets smaller, in an attempt to help it grow.