HT announcements

[fantastic flying froggies]

Hot off the press :

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD>Announcement 1: Midfield; secondary skills


There are a couple of long term changes that the game is undergoing since many many seasons. One is that midfield is slowly slowly being made less dominant. This change is now nearer it's completion than it's beginning. However, there are going to be some further minor changes along the same line for a few more seasons.

The other long term change that we want to mention is that secondary skills (and the 3rd skill and 4th skill and so on), for instance passing and defending for midfielders, or passing and playmaking for defenders, are being encouraged. This change started only a few seasons ago and will continue for many seasons on.

We never turn the Hattrick World around in a single blow. The game is about building up a strong team over many seasons. Therefore we always use tiny tiny steps.

We use reminders such as this one to make you all aware that the game is not static and to avoid sudden jumps in market prices and to not make strategies obsolete overnight.


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IMHO, not much in there...


Discuss.


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[Alf]

Prices for midfielders with only PM skill & no secondary will even be lower than it is now. Awaiting annoucement 2 (since this one is noted Announcement 1)

[FrogMan]

very interesting, at least they are acknowledging that they have been making midfield less important over time, and as said Alf, PM training for players with no secondaries will take a huge hit...

FM

[fantastic flying froggies]

But they don't mention only PM, also other positions.

There is gonna be a rush on secondaries...

[fantastic flying froggies]

And, as Alf very keenly foresaw, here's announcement 2 re Daytrading

Announcement 2: Daytrading
We are aware that there is intense debate in the forums about "Daytrading". We do follow these debates, and also keep a constant discussion open internally about this aspect of the game (as well as others).

Our view of "Daytrading" is that we do think buying and (later) selling players for profit is both an essential part of the game, and always has been, and necessary for keeping the transfer market work properly. However, we will not allow "Daytrading" to become a necessary thing for all teams to engage in. We don't consider it to currently be necessary in order to climb the ranks. But if measures are necessary to curb such tendencies towards some future point, we will take them.

We do want to make it possible for the average user to make a good (and bad) deal on the transfer now and then. This is an important part of the fun with being manager of a team. We do not want to see extreme profits from extreme "daytrading" to accumulate at a small group of teams.

[lytic]

annoucement 2 is about DT.

I dunno why they tease me like this. PM will be needed at all position, so it will still be the most important training to do.

[fantastic flying froggies]

What are the bets on having annoucement 3 ? ;)

[lytic]

hopefully they say:
Announcement #3
"we screwed up on Counter Attacking, we are sorry for screwing up your life and your team. CA will be twice as effective in the near future as long as you can pull a magnificent or higher."

[Alf]

07-05-2004 Follow up to Daytrading announcement
The Daytrading announcement has been misunderstood somewhat, so here's a clarification:

Yes, we do think there are some problems with the amount of daytrading today and an even larger potential problem for the future and thus we WILL take measures to make sure that the game is the way we want it to be.

We do not discuss the exact timing of those measures, except that, as pointed out in Announcement 1, we hardly ever make all changes at once, but prefer making them over a longer period, including time for announcements such as these.

[lytic]

oh well, one could hope.

[OldGiants]

I'm interested in hearing more HT vets comments. My reaction is in line with the above, "so what?"

If they want to make secondaries more important, shouldn't they make training secondaries more efficient? But how to do that since one player's secondary is another's primary? It makes youth pulls even more of a lottery than it is now--that is, only YP's will have secondaries and a YP without a secondary will be even less likely to bring a decent price in the future. This twists the strategy/luck balance a little more to luck. That makes HT a tiny bit less interesting for me.

I've never had a problem with day trading. If you want to do it, fine. If not, that's fine too. As far as the 'average player' comment goes, an average player should get average results, that is, play roughly .500 ball. This isn't Lake Woebegone.

[Raven Hawk]

My take on the announcements:

Announcement 1: I have always held a belief that HT wants to make the game as real as possible and my beliefs are confirmed with this announcement. This would seem and obvious move for HT. If you look at RL soccer, you don't have people make it to the EPL who have 'wretched' passing or 'disastrous' stamina. If they do, it's because some other skill they have is beyond measure. The truth is that most players are relatively well rounded. Or at least they have fundamental skills in all the areas.

Announcement 2: Do your research on how much to sell a player for and you won't be taken advantage of. The only reason that daytraders can make money is because previous owners of the player didn't know how much the player was worth. Or because the previous owner was so desperate to get rid of their player that they listed his starting bid too low. If you do your research and if you're patient enough you can get a fair price. Does Sweden still have a market advantage? Absolutely. They may not have to be as patient as other countries to get the fair price.

Announcement 3: Seems like a complete turn around on announcement 2. Misunderstood? Completely. I'm not even sure what they are doing now. It looks like they will not eliminate daytrading, but try to curb the gross overuse of it. I think that they just want to make it so you don't HAVE to daytrade to raise enough income to field a competitive team at the highest levels.

[YoSoySean]

If they want to make secondaries more important, shouldn't they make training secondaries more efficient? But how to do that since one player's secondary is another's primary?

Making training them more efficient won't make them more important, jsut more prevelant. The only way they can make it more efficient is to tweak how much it effects the match rating, which is likely what they'll do.

[bronconick]

The only thing i can think of is that they'll increase the amount of influence playing a Defender offensively, or playing a midfielder with special orders will have on that part of the field. The only other thing that could weaken midfield that I could think of is to make counterattacking more "workable" for teams that get between say, 33-40% possession. I dunno, I've only played for 2+ seasons so I didn't see how much more dominant midfield was.

[OldGiants]

By more efficient, I meant in the sense training being shorter so you get more bucks back quicker out of training player's secondaries higher.

What I was thinking of as I was driving around yesterday was this:

Make Passing take less time to pop a level. Not necessarily as quick as Set Pieces seem to work, but perhaps 3-4 weeks per level for teen agers--and even for oldies, too. Another possibility (in addition to speeding up the popping rate) is to make Defenders eligilbe for Passing training, too. This would have the benefits of making Counter-Attack abilities of Defenders rise (if I understand how CA is calculated, no expertise there for me). Thus the prime secondary for any position could be increased and CA would become more useful at the same time as upping market rates for training a secondary.

Perhaps that's too radical.

[OldGiants]

I just took a quick tour of the big countries' transfer markets searching for Passing skill greater the Excellent and came up with less than a dozen players. Of these, two were Outstanding, the rest Formidable. Half the players had no primary skill above Weak.

Seems to support the concept that Passing training needs a boost.

[fantastic flying froggies]

Announcement 1: I have always held a belief that HT wants to make the game as real as possible and my beliefs are confirmed with this announcement. This would seem and obvious move for HT. If you look at RL soccer, you don't have people make it to the EPL who have 'wretched' passing or 'disastrous' stamina. If they do, it's because some other skill they have is beyond measure. The truth is that most players are relatively well rounded. Or at least they have fundamental skills in all the areas.

True, but in real life, you don't half the team training one thing and the rest of the squad just sitting around...

[vex]

True, but in real life, you don't half the team training one thing and the rest of the squad just sitting around...

Manager Zone incorporated this. Not that I actually like that game.

[fantastic flying froggies]

Manager Zone ? Don't know the game. Any good ? (apart from the fact that you don't like it...)

[Matt2You]

I would have really liked more foresight than this. Their really screwing around with anyone who trains playmaking. It changes plans. It's fustrating. It makes me rethink. Transfer prices are going to be screwy I imagine. I don't like the seconadaries thing, but whatever. The seconadary thing will improve the game... after people can deal with the blow to their trainees without great secondaries.

Daytrading? Whatever....

[vex]

Manager Zone ? Don't know the game. Any good ? (apart from the fact that you don't like it...)

I know back when I played it, it was REALLY slow. They had a lot of neat features, like training for the whole team, awesome match kits, and other stuff I can't remember.

Another downside was the whole coaching factor, it was screwy. You would put a request in for a certain coach, and you would get a reply in 2-3 weeks whether or not a coach was found matching your criteria. If it didn't. Too bad, you had to start over. Also, to enter the MAIN cup there, you had to pay a dollar. While not much, it just didn't seem right.

[Alf]

Manager zone is now a pay game (as of May 1st)

[saintjo]

any have any idea or heard any rumor as to exactly how passing will contribute to your team in the future? think they will just boost how much it affects your attack ratings or will it help your midfield rating?
personally i have a feeling they will do both. i have no proof or any supporting material, im just making these comment by how i have seen them make changes in the past.
but i could see a slight boost for attack ratings from midfielders with passing. and i could see them make passing affect playmaking similar to how stanima and form affects it. almost like a percentage multiplier.

[saintjo]

bump.
anyone heard any more rumors on the midfield and passing changes for next season? im going to be in the market for a new midfielder next week and im curious on what exactly i should be looking for with the changes.

as far as daytrading, i could see them making a minimum number a weeks (like 2-3) that you must own a player before transfer listing him (excluding youth pulls).