Subject: [idea] Option to reject promotion

+1000000

There are teams who play at top level in Poland for 10+ seasons. KS Polonia Skierniewice is in Ekstraklasa since season 63, so 13 seasons already. Most of them played at level 80+. You give him much more money throughout that time from tickets / sponsors / league results and he would be able to play for even longer. That - depending on level of financial difference between levels in pyramid - could congest the whole system and make it even MORE important to farm at low levels to be able to keep up with teams at the top, who would deter slower or even not at all depending on details. I doubt that it would be a good thing.

I agree. There can be many ideas how to fix things, starting with training detached from playing time, so people could train without affecting their league / cup results.

Would that be good? For those at the top yes, very good. They would be able to both play & make money, their teams if well managed would never get worse, some would stay strong and still increase their budget every season.

Potentially it could be also game-breaking, because a group of xx teams would have a hegemony and would be basically almost untouchable, except for high level farmers, which are a very small group of people.

Well, you have playing for results and actually achieving results. Money only can get you so far. You also need a prtion of luck to maintain at top tier level. If a team is hanging in extraklassa longer than the average team it means that he has been farming way better than the rest, getting much more money to build up a fairly young and balanced but overpowered team while maybe also have it's portion of luck to get maybe less setbacks than the average team. I was talking about the average first class team, not the exceptions, cause there will always be those who play slightly better than others or just have more luck, which is completely random.
Yet I still feel that IF they are achieving their goals, then they must be rewarded properly. With the intense rise of wages it's only fair for a strong team to maintain its power somewhat longer if they get the results.
Someone can also say, how is it fair for bottom tier teams to grow financially much faster than top tier teams?
The formula of this game is made so that you can do one or the other but not both simultaniously.
While it is good that you cannot train young players to profit your team financially while playing for results within top class, it's not good that you cannot at least maintain your finances while getting results in top class. I'm not saying you should grow financially without risking some places on the field to train younger players while still trying to fight for the best places, but burning your money because you play at top tier is imo not the right choice to make, gamewise.

maybe increasing the attendance revenue when you're getting results in top tier could already help, but imo the rewards for becoming your countries Champion should at least be triple of what is is now. I mean, top tier teams get more out of their revenue than what they get from playing champion in top class. Surely you would agree that this is not the way to motivate people to play for results, is it?

Again...it's good to have a game and it's good to get influences from real life football, but if one thing is based on real life and it's counter part is not, then the balance of the game is that it's only good to play in one certain style. And in the end, this ought to be a manager game, so multiple playstyles should be at hand to use, not making things hard to maintain, even if you do everything right. There's enough random within the game to increase the difficulty, but that does not mean your team will become poorer and poorer when you are achieving the highest possible goals you can make within the game. This needs balance in a proper way.

One solution could be to make youth teams more expensive to maintain, but also more rewarding. However, playing in top tier and maintaining a high end youth team should be much harder.
So f.e.make each spot you have within the youth exponentionally more expensive, but remove the ceiling of 30 spots.
Also, with each 10 spots within the youth, you should have 1 spot for advanced training less within the senior squad.
On the flip side, if you have no youth, you should have 3 spots extra for advanced training. Make it all about making choices, but make them fair and balanced.
But at least make playing for results rewarding!

Yes, that's why I think mega teams can only be hindered by limitations, not with bonuses for those at the top. Like a spending limit based on non-transfer revenue in recent seasons - so you can't just buy the best players while you're in a 50 rating league. But perhaps it is difficult to calculate in such a way that it doesnt hinder regular players.

I don't think you can encourage competition in a game where being anti-competitive is rewarded.
The best way to move these top clubs is to actually increase and encourage the competition below them.

Yeah, if I had been Polish in sokker I'd have quit the game by the end of the season.
Then again, they don't lack users, so it wouldn't matter that I did.

I wonder at this point you don't rebuild your team, though, ever.

You use your training program to build players for sales and use those sales to buy your players. Honestly, it's probably the smartest way to do things in ANY scenario. I'd have done it but I simply don't want to (removes fun factor as I perceive it)

In the bright future of Sokker when all countries have thousands of users, the fate of the Ekstraklasa will be the fate of all top leagues :)))

I wonder at this point you don't rebuild your team, though, ever.

I've actually started a rebuild, I'm gathering 10 high level/top players 16-17yo with intention to win trophies after fully training them and then stay at top for some time while burning down the 250m+ euro I will have after building the squad. At the moment I have 2-3/10 players and some others are still being "talent-tested". I have "free" 70m that I plan to use for buying the players but judging by prices it won't be really needed to spend as much, unless there's some kind of superstar that will be available, but that still shouldn't push the price higher than 15m/individual.

Honestly though I'm not really excited about it at the moment, just figured out that training a 16yo into peak lasts at least 10 seasons, which is 30 months... which in turn means I will be able to start playing for serious in 2 and a half years, so in ~summer 2028. In other words if I don't start the process now, then it's probably going to be never.

So yeah, build a team from scratch, burn all the money playing at top level for 10+ seasons and then it's retirement.
(edited)