We would like to thank everyone for participating in the recent survey regarding the upcoming developments of the match engine (ME). I would like to share the results with the whole community,
Key findings
Key points the community made in the survey:
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3x more users rated ME positive rather than negative
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Tactics influence should be increased
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ME should be updated once per season
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ME should be tested in additional friendly matches only
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Most wanted update: team chemistry
We also filtered results to see if all communities have similar opinions. We found that quite similar feedback is received from users in WL 1-3 as from users playing in lower divisions.
Testing ME
Last few seasons we tried testing ME in the national leagues’ matches. The goal was to get feedback from the community. However, it did not work as we planned. We got very little feedback from the matches in the national league. At the same time we got many complaints that having two different ME is not acceptable.
The survey also confirmed these consumptions.
So from the next season the main ME will be used in all leagues.
Frequency of Match engine updates
Currently we believe that ME is built well enough to slow down the updates and give some love to other parts of the game.
So instead of having multiple updates in a single season we are moving towards single ME update every season, as preferred by the community vote.
After the new testing ME is created, we will give the community a few days to test it - in additional friendly matches, free of charge. Afterwards it will be used in all friendly matches.
If something really bad is found - we will present a new testing version next season.
If everything looks OK - the main ME will be updated at the end of the season.
How users should train players if we keep changing things
Part of the community believes that more time should be given to prepare for each update of the match engine.
Despite providing ample time for preparation, we have found that the majority of managers still do not prepare and there is still a significant level of dissatisfaction following the release. We observed a similar situation with such changes as: free throw skill removal, long term tiredness, dribbling skill influence and others.
Regarding the survey results, we can see that the majority of the community is looking forward to the updates. We value the feedback and plan to continue updating the match engine accordingly.
Key points we recommend for training players:
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Do not ignore any single skill. We definitely plan to increase the influence of skills that are ignored today (such as dribbling). And we are emphasizing this constantly.
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Do not focus on training a single skill to the top level for the entire team. If we find out that some skill works too well - we will reduce its impact. The goal is to have a balanced game.
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Keep in mind that even if the skill has -50% inner potential, it can still be developed to at least average level. You should not expect to reach the best results by only training skills that have +% inner potential.
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Single sided players will have more difficulties in the future. It is ok to have a few players perfect in one area, but it should not be the whole team.
Upcoming ME updates
The current season is coming to end. We will include the updates that are already prepared - for the beginning of the next season.
In the next season we will focus on:
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Balancing offense IQ and dribbling skills. "Offence IQ" was one of the most wanted updates by the community. Dribbling skill has been one of the less valued skills by the elite teams and we want to increase the impact of it. For example, post players with good dribbling skills will ask for the ball and try to create good situations themselves. On the other hand, players with low dribbling skills will be guarded from closer distance, thus increasing the defensive pressure.
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A few small cosmetic updates and bug fixes
We expect to release the update of the new testing ME version in the middle of the season and it will be used in friendly matches only.
Most users in the survey voted for implementing team chemistry. That is a huge update which would change the game considerably. This update will most likely be implemented as a separate update after it is at least partially financed by the community (via new investment area).
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