Season 12 changes.

TheVoodoo

Few interesting changes in there.

For Everyone
1) Allow hiring of level 2+ staff if the previous level has been hired before, rather than having to currently employ a staff member of the previous level. DO NOT go firing your staff just yet though. We haven't built in anything to track previous staff members. Wait until season 12.
2) Allow advertising for multiple level 2+ staff members at the same time.
3) Allow all skills to be team trainable. Previously Speed, Jumping, and Kicking could only be trained at the individual level.
4) Changes to league promotion. See this poll for more info. This will come into effect for the first time at the end of season 12.
5) Due to feedback about the devaluation of the Youth Manager. We will increase the number of youth player skill reveals to a compromise between their original amounts, and the current amounts:
Level 1 Youth Manager: 5 reveals per week
Level 2 Youth Manager: 10 reveals per week
Level 3 Youth Manager: 15 reveals per week
6) Increase youth training amounts slightly for both team training and in-game training to make it more valuable to leave players in the youth academy for longer.
7) Reduce randomness of initial player experience levels. The initial experience level of new players will start at non-existent for 16 year olds.
8) Reduce randomness of birthdays for scouted players to be based on the scouting date. Birthdays will be randomly picked from the 7 days prior to when the player was scouted.
9) Add the intensity level used by both sides to the match summary (delayed by 24 hours for free members).

Match Engine
NOTE: ALL of the following - with the exception of adding interceptions to creative plays, will be *slight* tweaks.

To give more value to the under-valued kicking aspect of the match engine:
1) Increase turnovers at lineouts.
2) Pressure of chasers can increase handling errors of kick reception.
3) Pressure of chasers can reduce length of return run before return kick.
4) Pressure of chasers can reduce quality of return kick.
5) Increased handling errors at up and under contention.
6) Reduce distance made from kicks taken close to side-line due to angle of kick.
7) Tweak overall consistency of quality of gameplay kicks.

To reduce the value of over-valued creative gameplays.
1) Add the possibility of interceptions
2) Increase handling errors (Chances are based on difference between opponents rather than raw skill levels to ensure newbie teams can still make use of creative plays).

General
1) Give minor bonuses to light-weight players on stamina, speed and agility
2) Give minor reductions to heavy-weight players on stamina, speed and agility
3) Improve tracking of missed tackles statistics

These changes will be released only for friendly matches as a trial until week 8 of season 12.

Bot flush
A full team re-balance and bot flush will take place at the start of season 12. All teams will be re-balanced within each division. For example, all teams in a division will be taken out, sorted by ranking/ability, and placed back in horizontally. Best team goes to the first or last league (random), the next team will go to the other league of the first or last, then the third team will go to the middle league (furthest from already used league), and so on to ensure talent is spread evenly across the division.

Once rebalancing has been done. The bot flush will take place where any bots will be flushed downwards allowing the best humans teams from the division below to be automatically promoted upwards.

International/U20
1) Energy hits will be increased to more appropriate levels.
2) Add dual-nationalities. Up until now, all players have had one single nationality. As of season 12, if a player has resided in a nation different from that of their original nationality for 3 consecutive seasons (based on the real life IRB rules), the player will gain a second nationality (maximum of 2) allowing them to represent a national team or U20 team for that new nation providing they have not represented their original nation at the senior international level.

This will be back-dated, so if on Season 12 Round 1 Day 1, a player fits the criteria for a dual-nationality, this will be applied.

If there is a conflict between two National/U20 sides who both want to call up a player, it will come down to the player's owner. As of season 12 the owner will have to "release" a player into a national side after receiving an invitation by the National/U20 manager, each time the player is called up.
3) Also in-line with the real life IRB rules, players will be able to play at the senior international level for a dual-nationality country, even after representing their original country's U20 side.

Premium
1) Add drag and drop sorting for shortcuts.
2) Add the intensity level used by both sides to the match summary (immediate).


Miscellaneous
1) The placement algorithm for new signups will use a 4:4 human to bot ratio during league selection. See this poll for more info.

satory

No not another bot flush... I thought they said last time that that was the final one?


I better end up in a league with a fellow boardsie


I'm also slightly against the intensity ratings being shown... Does that mean I can check my next opponents intensity rating for last game? or is that only for the managers of the fixtures teams? Managers should be able to get an idea of what intensity an opponent played by their energy levels, shouldn't they?

crisco10

satory wrote: »

No not another bot flush... I thought they said last time that that was the final one?


I better end up in a league with a fellow boardsie


I'm also slightly against the intensity ratings being shown... Does that mean I can check my next opponents intensity rating for last game? or is that only for the managers of the fixtures teams? Managers should be able to get an idea of what intensity an opponent played by their energy levels, shouldn't they?

On the other hand, its a classic premium feature. Doesn't give you a massive advantage, but is nice.

The changes to the ME are interesting too, kicking may become de rigour. Although hopefully, the ME won't be over compensating!

Overall a nice bunch of changes I think.

satory

yes its a premium feature, but they have given it to everyone (after 24hours for non premiums).

corny

Being able to train speed and kicking will be nice next season but knowing the intensity your opponents played last time detracts from the game a little for me. It was a fine art monitoring upcoming opponents energy levels.:)

Gelio

First changes in a while that I really like. looks good imo

eoferrall

ajeffares wrote: »

First changes in a while that I really like. looks good imo

Just looked at these now. I agree, nothing here that I am going "ah...no" and some are nice.

Have to look at tactics now to see how to tweak with the changes coming!

FewFew

Kicking changes might be nice once they don't over-due it. I've found a higher kicking ratio against a comparable team will nearly always get you stuffed, so this will be nice if it allows a team with a young O'Gara to work the territory angle more effectively.

Intensity level is an interesting one. On the one hand it helps lazy managers (which I currently am) but um, lazy managers shouldn't be helped. It'll help enforce intensity agreements and will allow managers to gauge the effectiveness of their tactics rather than guess at intensity in the mix.
It'd be nice if they kept the intensity data just for the two teams involved, as they do with some other info, it means there's still some guess work as to what the teams might do next week.

I like the change in skills when it comes to heavy/light weight players. It'll cripple me, cause I'm currently building a team of massively heavy players in every position, just planning to steamroll everyone, but... I guess it does make things more realistic.

The Bot-flush might be nice. Not so much the Bot Flush really, but the sorting out of the leagues. At the moment you've got the top few leagues in Div III being super competitive leagues of death, whereas the lower leagues are on occasion just a small step up from Div IV. It's one way of solving the promotion issues where the top promoters get into the top leagues etc. At least the top loading won't happen again for a fair few seasons.

Gelio

Fewcifur wrote: »

Intensity level is an interesting one. On the one hand it helps lazy managers (which I currently am) but um, lazy managers shouldn't be helped. It'll help enforce intensity agreements and will allow managers to gauge the effectiveness of their tactics rather than guess at intensity in the mix.

I like it, WNWIM agreements can be checked, wonder if we'll be able to check old games from a while ago? See if those sneaking suspicions were right after all.

The Bot-flush might be nice. Not so much the Bot Flush really, but the sorting out of the leagues. At the moment you've got the top few leagues in Div III being super competitive leagues of death, whereas the lower leagues are on occasion just a small step up from Div IV. It's one way of solving the promotion issues where the top promoters get into the top leagues etc. At least the top loading won't happen again for a fair few seasons

Don't we know it!

daveharnett

To give more value to the under-valued kicking aspect of the match engine:
1) Increase turnovers at lineouts.
2) Pressure of chasers can increase handling errors of kick reception.
3) Pressure of chasers can reduce length of return run before return kick.
4) Pressure of chasers can reduce quality of return kick.
5) Increased handling errors at up and under contention.
6) Reduce distance made from kicks taken close to side-line due to angle of kick.
7) Tweak overall consistency of quality of gameplay kicks.

I bought this lad to train as a winger a couple of weeks before the announcement

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

I bought this lad to train as a winger a couple of weeks before the announcement

He's Huge for wing... damn you!

daveharnett

eoferrall wrote: »

He's Huge for wing... damn you!

Yep the plan is to eventually fill the back-line with guys who are tall enough, but not heavy enough to be decent 2nd/back rows. It will require a ridiculous number of agility/speed sessions, but should be very hard to defend against.

eoferrall

daveharnett wrote: »

Yep the plan is to eventually fill the back-line with guys who are tall enough, but not heavy enough to be decent 2nd/back rows. It will require a ridiculous number of agility/speed sessions, but should be very hard to defend against.

A squad of Matt banahans! Would a squad of shane williams piss all over these lads?!?

daveharnett

eoferrall wrote: »

A squad of Matt banahans! Would a squad of shane williams piss all over these lads?!?

It's a nice thought, but I reckon my atomic supersquad would crush their skillful little bodies.

FewFew

daveharnett wrote: »

Yep the plan is to eventually fill the back-line with guys who are tall enough, but not heavy enough to be decent 2nd/back rows. It will require a ridiculous number of agility/speed sessions, but should be very hard to defend against.

Why is a team full of tall backs going to be a major advantage? The tall skinny ones are the easiest to cut in half with a tackle surely?

daveharnett

Fewcifur wrote: »

Why is a team full of tall backs going to be a major advantage? The tall skinny ones are the easiest to cut in half with a tackle surely?

Because as well as being tall, these lads will have decent jumping. Should make an up-and-under centric game a real possibility.

FewFew

daveharnett wrote: »

Because as well as being tall, these lads will have decent jumping. Should make an up-and-under centric game a real possibility.

Dave you be crazah!