• struś
• 2023-01-25

Today, a brief update on the changes related to the national teams.
One relates to the functionality already added, the other is developmental, depending on your feedback.



MAKING PLAYERS' SKILLS AVAILABLE TO NATIONAL TEAM COACHES

We have introduced the possibility for national team coaches to see the skills of their country's players.
We are aware that not all managers wish to reveal the skills of their players, which is why we have introduced the option of setting the visibility for each player separately.
In the player view, there is an additional icon to turn visibility on/off and information about the current visibility status, respectively:
- Sharing skills with NT coach is enabled. - indicates the visibility of the player to the national team coach and provides an icon to disable it "disallow for this player"
- Sharing skills with NT coach is disabled. - means no visibility and provides an icon to enable it "allow for this player".
We hope this solution will satisfy both groups of users - supporters and opponents of the accessibility of national team coaches to the players skills.

!!!ATTENTION - we have set all players to visible by default!!!
National Team coaches will not be able to see the skills of the players (even enabled) until next week.


ONE MORE TIME ABOUT INJURIES IN NATIONAL TEAM

As the recent change regarding injuries suffered by players in national team matches was met with a mixed reception, we decided to ask you about your most preferred solution.
This is only a poll at the moment, but we will take a close look at the results and do not rule out further modifications if one of the options gains a significant majority.

We propose three solutions:.
1. Leaving the current compromise (friendly matches of the national team on an arcade basis, with no injuries but also no training efficiency benefits).
2. Remove injuries from the national teams completely, but also no training bonuses (i.e. all national team matches on an arcade basis).
3. Restoring injuries to all national team matches, but increasing the benefits of a player playing for the national team (e.g. more fans coming to club matches, financial compensation if a player is injured, shortening of injuries, refund of the player's salary, etc.).

The poll is available at THIS LINK and is open to all users.
We encourage you to express your opinion.

• struś
• 2023-01-21

Welcome back after some break. In today's material, I'll talk a bit about the current changes and improvements, reveal some future plans share the new look of the club's homepage. I kindly invite you to read the article below.



CHANGES AND RECENT IMPROVEMENTS:

Declines in the skills of senior players.
For a number of seasons you have raised objections to Sunday skill adjustments for senior players, arguing that it was impossible to react and possibly replace a player in such a short period. With this in mind, we have moved the skills review to Thursday, so that all skills changes (both drops and increases) occur on the same day. There has been a bit of concern as to for sure the drops are now not happening twice a week. Let me clarify, not only do they not, but the last Sunday before the change was free of drops. With this change, the skill reports and charts should work better.

Injuries.
Finally, the player injury issues were resolved. As we know, there was a point during the implementation of the changes where players, despite being injured during a match, were not excluded from further games - as in arcade matches. We guess that this was the bug you were most pleased about, but it had to be removed. Injuries now work as planned, which means:

Injuries will remain active if players have suffered them in:
- League games,
- National cups,
- Friendly club matches,
- Champions League matches,
- National Teams official games.

Injury-free matches:.
- National Teams friendly ganes,
- Arcade matches.

Please note that appearances in injury-free games do not affect the training efficiency calculation.


Minor fixes:.

- If we're already talking about arcade matches - we've also removed the other effects of these games. They no longer affect either the club ranking or the tactical discipline of the players,
- We have improved the player stats accounting - until now, if a player came in from the bench and had no contact with the ball, the match was not counted for his stats,
- We have fixed a bug that did not allow to put some results (ex. 0-0) in the game studio Prediction(s) and comments,
- In the line-up selection menu, we have improved the functionality of the "view" button, which did not work if two tactics were set up,
- In the squad table view, we added the possibility to expand "tactical discipline" into "teamwork" and "experience".

NEW LOOK OF CLUB HOME SITE:
We are still working on the new design of the club website. It's not 100% ready yet and we're still giving ourselves some time to tweak it, but you can take a look here already:
https://sokker.org/pl/app/my-club/.

A QUICK SHOT ABOUT THE PLANS:

Financial reform.
It is easy to see that shortening the season while accumulating matches has significantly affected the economics of the game. Instead of 7 "home" games in 16 weeks, we have 11 such games in 13 weeks. In addition, pre-season bonuses fall more often. So far, we have not interfered in any way and are observing the effects. After this period of observation, we are now sure that a reaction is necessary and are considering various scenarios. The most likely ones are:
- an adjustment in the number of fans willing to come to the stadium,
- increasing the weekly salaries of top players (we note that teams in the higher leagues have benefited the most, so the adjustment should remove this advantage),
- an increase in certain fees and/or taxes.

Managing players from abandoned teams.
To date, there are no clear and standardised rules relating to the players remaining in the squads of teams whose owners have been removed from the game. The practice is to put players who are members of national teams on the transfer list in such a situation. This is possible after reporting to the administrator and his ad hoc action. This is not an optimal model - first of all because it is not equal for everyone. It happens at various points during the season, with the result that sometimes a strong team without an owner beats some of its opponents and is sold out before meeting the next ones, We want to avoid such situations, so in the perspective of a few seasons, rules will be developed to introduce automatic player listing, eliminating any participation of administrators and arbitrary decisions, And there will also be specific 'transfer window' periods during the season, when such listings will take place.
We hope that, in addition to standardising the rules, the introduction of "transfer windows" can be an interesting add-on for many users during (for example) the mid-season break.

• struś
• 2022-09-14

The intensive work on the two big reforms, which were undoubtedly the reform of the league system and the reform of training, resulted in a lack of time for minor adjustments and generated additional errors and problems.
Now is the time in which we focus on detecting and correcting them.





Incorrect assignment to new leagues.
The biggest and most impactful problem for users was the incorrectly working algorithm for assigning new leagues for direct relegation and promotion.
It turned out that when assigning teams to new leagues, the system incorrectly ranked the teams - instead of creating an aggregate ranking table from the whole season and assigning teams to the respective leagues according to this, the system ranked the teams by ID ignoring the actual results.
The error has been located, the algorithm corrected and, most importantly, it will be applied back, which will mean a reshuffling of the league line-ups for the directly promoted and relegated teams. The error did not affect teams playing in the play-offs.

Minor, recently resolved issues:
- corrected training reports (previously displayed incorrect information)
- corrected Thursday form update - for some time all changes were limited to +/-1
- added possibility to open a player's profile from the training settings view
- added ability to delete coaches in the new transfers view (previously only players could be deleted)

Translations:
The fast pace of the reforms did not allow the content to be made available immediately with local languages. These backlogs are being made up and for languages that have already been developed by our Linguists are being introduced. If there are gaps or inaccuracies, please contact the Linguists appropriate for your language directly.

Warm-up matches:
We have come to the conclusion that with the changes to the league structure and training, there is no need to artificially maintain another type of match which were warm-up matches during the inter-season break.
The current season was the last one in which warm-up matches played on a play-off Sunday gave the effectiveness of training as official matches. With the current possibility of playing three matches a week, the opportunity to optimise training is so great that it no longer requires such strengthening.


That's it for today, and we're back from working on further fixes and improvements.

• struś
• 2022-09-14

The intensive work on the two big reforms, which were undoubtedly the reform of the league system and the reform of training, resulted in a lack of time for minor adjustments and generated additional errors and problems.
Now is the time in which we focus on detecting and correcting them.





Incorrect assignment to new leagues.
The biggest and most impactful problem for users was the incorrectly working algorithm for assigning new leagues for direct relegation and promotion.
It turned out that when assigning teams to new leagues, the system incorrectly ranked the teams - instead of creating an aggregate ranking table from the whole season and assigning teams to the respective leagues according to this, the system ranked the teams by ID ignoring the actual results.
The error has been located, the algorithm corrected and, most importantly, it will be applied back, which will mean a reshuffling of the league line-ups for the directly promoted and relegated teams. The error did not affect teams playing in the play-offs.

Minor, recently resolved issues:
- corrected training reports (previously displayed incorrect information)
- corrected Thursday form update - for some time all changes were limited to +/-1
- added possibility to open a player's profile from the training settings view
- added ability to delete coaches in the new transfers view (previously only players could be deleted)

Translations:
The fast pace of the reforms did not allow the content to be made available immediately with local languages. These backlogs are being made up and for languages that have already been developed by our Linguists are being introduced. If there are gaps or inaccuracies, please contact the Linguists appropriate for your language directly.

Warm-up matches:
We have come to the conclusion that with the changes to the league structure and training, there is no need to artificially maintain another type of match which were warm-up matches during the inter-season break.
The current season was the last one in which warm-up matches played on a play-off Wednesday gave the effectiveness of training as official matches. With the current possibility of playing three matches a week, the opportunity to optimise training is so great that it no longer requires such strengthening.


That's it for today, and we're back from working on further fixes and improvements.

• struś
• 2022-07-22

A new training mechanism will be launched today.

Below is a description of the assumptions and a short guide, worth reading to avoid surprises next Thursday :)
In the following days, the below texts will be additionally inserted into the rules of the game and into the hints on the training page.
This process will take a while, translations into further languages and proper attribution of the content are necessary.




PRINCIPLES

TRAINING:
To develop the skills of your players, you can take advantage of the several training options available. The optimal choice of training settings and the correct assignment of players to the right rosters will be key to achieving success and training your own star players.
Remember that the ultimate success is greatly influenced by a player's talent, which is an individual and secret skill. Its value can only be estimated by observing training progress.

ADVANCED TRAINING:
The most effective training to rapidly develop selected skills for selected players.
- Available for up to 10 players in a given week.
- Requires assigning a player to the advanced training list and selecting the formation with which he will train.
- The player will intensively train the skill indicated for the selected formation in the "PLAN YOUR PLAYERS' TRAINING" table. Other skills will be developed only slightly.
- The effectiveness depends on the number of minutes played in the week before training (the preceding Friday to Wednesday) in official, friendly and national team matches.
- If there are no minutes played in the selected position, the player will receive advanced training at 50%.
- The real increase in a player's skills depends on the coaching staff, with the value of the coached skill with the head coach having the greatest influence, followed by the sum of the overall level of the assistant coaches.
* additional information under the "?" sign next to the list of advanced training players

FORMATION TRAINING:
In order to ensure the development of players who did not catch the advanced training, formation training is available, which is much less effective, but still allows some progress to be made and, very importantly for older players, prevents a decline of skills.
- Training is available to all players who have not been selected for advanced training and who have played at least one match in the week prior to training (any range of minutes).
- Requires the player to be assigned a formation to train with.
- The player will moderately train the skill indicated for the selected formation in the "PLAN YOUR PLAYERS' TRAINING" table. Other skills will be developed to a minor effect.
- The effectiveness depends on the number of minutes played in the week before training (the preceding Friday to Wednesday) in official, friendly and national team matches.
- In case of a shortage of minutes in the selected position, the player will not train.
* additional information under the "?" sign next to the list of formation training players

TYPE OF TRAINING VERSUS FORMATIONS:
Player skills are divided into two categories, positional and complementary.
Positional skills can only be trained for the formations corresponding to them, namely:
- Keeper - GK (goalkeeper)
- Defending - DEF (defender)
- Playmaking - MID (midfielder)
- Striker - ATT (striker)
what to keep in mind when setting up the "PLAN YOUR PLAYERS' TRAINING" table.
Complementary skills, i.e. Stamina, Pace, Technique, Passing, can be assigned to any formation and will be trained with the same effect for each formation.*
* additional information under the "?" sign next to the "plan training" table

EFFECTIVENESS:
In order to manage the training of your players more easily, you can use the information about the projected training effectiveness.
For this purpose, there are two additional columns in the training menu:
- Games (matches)-which indicates how many minutes on the formation selected for training and in which type of matches the player has played since the previous training. The higher the total minutes, the higher the training efficiency will be.
- Eff. (Efficiency) - indicates the projected training efficiency with the chosen formation. The higher the value, the higher the skill gain.
If the Eff. column shows "!", try to better adjust the position assignment or field the player in an extra match.
Remember that ultimately the speed of player development is also determined by talent and the quality of the coaching staff.

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GUIDE
The following information will be in the relevant sections of the training settings page - they will provide a quick hint.


Plan the training of your formations
- Indicate the skill to be trained for each formation.
- Skill types can be repeated for different formations.
- The skill selected for a formation will be trained more effectively for players with assigned training for that formation.
- Remember, however, that player skills are divided into two categories, positional and complementary.
Positional skills can only be trained for the formations corresponding to them, namely:
- Keeper - GK (goalkeeper)
- Defending - DEF (defender)
- Playmaking - MID (midfielder)
- Striker - ATT (striker)

The complementary skills i.e. Stamina, Pace, Technique, Passing, can be assigned for any formation and will be trained for each formation with the same effect.

Formation training
- For each player in this list, specify the formation with which he will train.
- The player will receive an average effectiveness training of the skill assigned to this formation in the training plan and a slight training of the other skills.
- The condition to receive training is to play any number of minutes in the week before training. However, the higher the number of minutes, the more effective the training.
- If there is an exclamation mark in the Eff. (Effectiveness) shows an exclamation mark "!", this means that the player in question will not be trained. Try changing his formation or fielding him in an extra match to reduce the risk of his skills dropping.
- The + button on this list, takes the player to the list of advanced training players

Advanced Training
- You can add players to the advanced training list from the formation training list by pressing "+".
- You can add a maximum of 10 players
- For each player on this list, specify the formation with which he will train.
- The player will receive an intensive training of the skill assigned to this formation in the training plan and a slight training of the other skills.
- The efficiency is related to the number of minutes played in the assigned formation in all matches in the week before training. Keep this in mind!


Important note: We do not intend to give all the information directly. As with the old mechanism, you will have to discover and estimate some of it yourself. Therefore, do not ask for exact calculations on efficiency, impact of trainers, etc. We will not answer these questions.

• struś
• 2022-07-14

With great joy and satisfaction,
I am pleased to announce that
the programming work and tests
for the implementation of the new training rules
have been completed !!!!




Next to last season's competition reform, this is certainly the biggest change and the biggest challenge our team has had to face. It is safe to say that with these changes in place, we will finally welcome the new Sokker that the development team has been talking about since the beginning of the work.
This does not mean that we will stop there, but the most important milestones have been reached!

CALENDAR OF TRAINING RULE CHANGES:

- [14.07.2022] this was the second-to-last training under the old rules.
- [15.07.2022 - 21.07.2022] the whole week from tomorrow until next Thursday is the last week in which the old training rules apply, remember to position your players accordingly.
- [21.07.2022] on this day will be the last training under the old rules
- [22.07.2022] on this date the new rules will take effect, this will also be the first match day to count towards the new training algorithm.
- [22.07.2022] the old training settings page will be replaced by a new one with the interface shown below.
- [28.07.2022] on this day your players will train under the new rules for the first time.

WHAT IT WILL LOOK LIKE:

At this link you can get a little familiar with the look and mechanics of the settings. The link is already working, you will see your players there, but until 22.07.2022 the settings made there will not have any influence on the game. This is just an exercise.

https://sokker.org/pl/app/training/training-setup/


RULES OF THE NEW TRAINING:

We wrote in detail about the rules in Dev Diary #63 - it was a while ago, you might want to remind yourself before the changes take effect.

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We have done our best to render the best possible version for you. Remember, however, that training is always the essence of our game and, as well as being attractive, it is also very complicated and difficult for developers.
We have to reckon with the fact that with such a major change interfering so deeply into the structures of the game, bugs may appear and there is no other way than to correct them during the current season.
Let's hope there are as few of them as possible!

I wish you all a GREEN THURSDAY.

• struś
• 2022-06-17

Work on the training reform is slowly coming to an end.
The main programming changes have been completed and are currently being tested on the test server.



Before the changes can be implemented on the main server, the interface to the new training needs to be tweaked and the long-term development of the players tested. We need to make sure that the changes do not cause anomalies in the game and do not upset its balance.
This work will take a few more weeks, which means that the changes will come into effect during the season, we estimate it will be the third or fourth week.
We have decided that it is better to do more work before the changes are implemented in order to minimise the number of adjustments on the main server once they are available, which could affect the stability of the game.
The changes will be preceded by an announcement and will take place after a full training cycle, after one of Thursday's updates.

After that, we will work on adapting the training reports to the new rules. This may take another couple of weeks but will not cause any further delay.

Regarding the questions asked during the season. The rules described in Dev Diary #63 will still apply, but after listening to your feedback and reconsidering, we have removed the training bonus for playing against a stronger opponent.

We hope the changes will meet your expectations!

• struś
• 2022-05-11

On behalf of the entire Staff I would like to apologise to all users for the weekend's technical problems.

As compensation for the weekend inconvenience, the assistant function will be enabled for Thursday and Friday for all users.

You have also asked about the reasons of the breakdown and the possibilities of preventing similar situations in the future.

The direct cause was a problem with connecting to the database, which required an improved configuration. We are aware that the new server is still undergoing tuning, which combined with the work on the changes in the on-line mode is associated with a certain risk of failures.

In the near future, perhaps already in the next season, we want to introduce the functionality of automatic suspension of transfers in case of technical problems, so that even if a failure occurs, it will be less annoying.

• struś
• 2022-05-11

Due to confirmed cases of transfers that were not transferred despite the deadline during a server crash, we are extending the ability to undo transfers to all transfers between 12:00pm on Saturday and 9:00am on Sunday.

Additionally, the time to request a transfer reversal is extended to 24:00 on Thursday.

• struś
• 2022-05-09

As you may have noticed, we had a major game server breakdown on Saturday.
At the moment the situation is stable and we are able to take some measures to mitigate the effects of the crash.

The most affected users were those who were selling their players during the crash. Therefore we are opening the possibility of reversing transfers of players whose deadline was between 12.00 and 17.30 CET on Saturday. Later transfers have been postponed.

IMPORTANT: To undo a transfer, the selling player must report to the local game administrator with a request for cancellation. The deadline for such requests is Wednesday 11 May at 10.00 a.m. Requests made after this date will not be processed.

No adjustments will be made for replays of matches that took place during the breakdown.