Season 20 Announcement

l3m0n5

There is alot of change for Attack

For everyone

Zone tactics
Certain tactics will be settable within four zones: Defending 22, Defending half (22 to halfway), Attacking half (halfway to opponents 22), and Attacking 22. These zones will be entirely optional, with a default mode where tactics are applicable for the entire field. The tactics settable within these four zones will be: Attack, Kicking level, Kicking type, and Discipline. Tactics which will always apply everywhere are: Defence, Intensity, and Allow drop goals.

New kicking type: Kick for territory
As well as the current options: Kick for touch, and Up and under; a new slider will be added called 'Kick for territory'.

Teaser: More tactics additions coming soon.

Raise youth caps
The current soft-caps where training speed largely decreases (based on the level of your academy) will be raised to allow for those higher skills to continue to grow while the player is still in the academy.

For National/U20 Managers

Assistants
National and U20 managers will be able to assign several assistants, who will be given lineup and press release privileges.

For premium members

Birthday search option in Transfer Market
Premium managers will be able to filter the transfer market by birthday such as "Round 1", or "Round 1, Day 3" for their convenience.

Season 21

Standing tickets major update
It's widely known by now that selling standing tickets in your stadium is not profitable. This will be changed in season 21 so that they are profitable. We are giving plenty of warning for this change - and will give further warnings closer to the time. At that time, all clubs will be offered an overnight construction providing the optimal number of standing placements should they chose to (even if they have more than this amount). Clubs will be opted-in to this offer by default, and can opt out if they wish.

Gelio

All good as far as I can see. Those tactics changes are long overdue and should make the manager feel he/she has far more control. And my YA is going to benefit too. Happy I held onto it

[Jackass]

Hmmm, very interesting changes.

Tactics will take a fair bit more consideration, but I'm happy enough about that. "Occasional" managers may suffer the most, more than regular log in players who will set tactics each week.

I don't really get the kicking changes, I always presumed kicking for touch was kicking for territory, regardless of if it makes touch or not. Probably good for teams with a weak lineout, or when playing a team with a strong lineout, but I find kicking loose is often punished more than losing lineouts.

I have no idea what "soft-cap" means or anything about youth academies.

The stadium is pretty good too, butttt sort of wish someone mentioned standing is not profitable before I tacked on an extra 1,000 spots as part of my expansion this season!:D

So does this overnight construction relate to standing ONLY or revamp of stadium entirely would be done overnight? I'm not sure that's clear, but is pretty important distinction - and when it says will be provided with overnight construction which automatically is opted in, does that mean it will adjust your stadium with optimal standing, or do you have to pay for it?

Phonehead

As far as I know the expansion will be to the optimal level of standing based on your membership. It will be free as far as I know:D

Kicking levels is an interesting one, currently when you kick and miss touch it is somewhat deemed as a punishment (bad kick) the ME will now look at these as an attack tactic and I presume we will now see balls landing in the opposition 22 and instead of somebody picking their way through your defence you will now see them kicking it to touch (earning you field position advantage or you will now see your players anticipating this ploy and getting to the receiver inside his own 22)

The soft cap removal on the youth academy is a great one IMO, currently once a player in the academy hit 12.99999 in a skill that was it for his development while in the YA system. There really is no point in keeping a guy in the YA until he is 20 and his best skill is 12.99999. I would guess some 17 year olds already hit this cap in the YA so at least now we will see 20 year olds promoting and actually being of value to your club.

crisco10

Yup, was silly to cap the skills in the YA like that.

have I read it correctly though, you can change your attack type over all 4 sectors, but the defense is the same throughout? To me that would lead to more tries, in effect you have 3 areas to combat your oppenents defensive strategy..

Phonehead

crisco10 wrote: »

Yup, was silly to cap the skills in the YA like that.

have I read it correctly though, you can change your attack type over all 4 sectors, but the defense is the same throughout? To me that would lead to more tries, in effect you have 3 areas to combat your oppenents defensive strategy..

You sure can change in 4 sectors, I'm actually not sure if it will lead to as many tries though! I'm pretty sure J has ran multiple simulations and he's confident that it won't lead to unrealistic scores. I actually suspect and knowing J it will lead to better defences, this probably now gives the defence 4 chances to win ball over the current system, currently you simply rock paper scissored on a full level scale now however the ME breaks it into 4 elements of attack and defence, in theory the same but now it's the best of 4 in the rock paper scissors instead of 1. I am hugely excited by this ME change, this is all but in name the dawning of Match Engine 2 and I can't wait.

Also something people will also start to see is that certain attack tactics pay better dividends in certain areas of the pitch! P&G is more effective out the field and driving attacking inside the 22, that was always there but once again now you can dictate where you play these tactics....

FewFew

Must say these changes are quite exciting!

I imagine it'll lead to some significant changes in league positions etc., with those able to adapt better placed to take advantage.

Going to be an exciting season.

eoferrall

i'm so screwed! I've been on a downward trend I feel this season due to other commitments I have not given it the time of prior seasons. can't even say who is my best team, need to sit down and analyse!

now I have to select four set of tactics, can barely remember to set one!:(:P

but really looks good and more in line with reality, though I agree with above. kick for territory, I always assumed was kick to touch... guess i was wrong!!

FewFew

Any word on the difference between touch and territory?

This really could change the game up drastically.

Gelio

eoferrall wrote: »

i'm so screwed! I've been on a downward trend I feel this season due to other commitments I have not given it the time of prior seasons. can't even say who is my best team, need to sit down and analyse!

now I have to select four set of tactics, can barely remember to set one!:(:P

but really looks good and more in line with reality, though I agree with above. kick for territory, I always assumed was kick to touch... guess i was wrong!!

You don't have to afaik. I think you can just set tactics the old way and if you want to you can set these 'advanced' tactics

eoferrall

Gelio wrote: »

You don't have to afaik. I think you can just set tactics the old way and if you want to you can set these 'advanced' tactics

Yes bnut you're playing people setting all four so likely putting yourself at a disadvantage.

also I like it as you have more control, as I can;t abide kicking to touch say when inside opponents half (inside 10m line, and definitely kicking inside 22 is just giving away and easing pressure.

Can have team play more as you imagine, rather than a hope and a prayer! :P

Gelio

Yeah of course. I was just saying that if you were less active than usual this wouldn't be any extra trouble for you in terms of time.

eoferrall

Gelio wrote: »

Yeah of course. I was just saying that if you were less active than usual this wouldn't be any extra trouble for you in terms of time.

True, but after the season I have had I had better start investing some time!!

Bought couple of players in last few weeks to replace some old ones.

overall I like the improvements, and if as wex says above this is bringing ME2 a step closer - even better!!

FewFew

Not to drag this too off-topic, but is there a link somewhere to what ME2 is likely to involve? I would have thought that this sort of territory based tactics was a key component of ME2. I mean, is this ME2 in stages or is ME2 a self-contained set of features/game engine that's under development? All seems positive anyhows, regardless of how it's coming.

daheff

I'm wondering what to do with regards to defending the new tactics???

I suspect people will spam creative moreso in the last quarter of the field...so defense of MOM is more appropriate for this (i think...heres where people tell my my tactics have been wrong forever!! :P). But what if the attacking team has a Driving/PnG/Expansive spammed for the rest of the field....i think we'll see a lot of players playing a default, good for all, defense type.

Its going to make defenders with high defense/speed more desirable.

Phonehead

FewFew wrote: »

Not to drag this too off-topic, but is there a link somewhere to what ME2 is likely to involve? I would have thought that this sort of territory based tactics was a key component of ME2. I mean, is this ME2 in stages or is ME2 a self-contained set of features/game engine that's under development? All seems positive anyhows, regardless of how it's coming.

Well ME2 can go two ways it seems.

The current ME can be refined for everything possible except live management which will never happen anyway (by this I mean making calls as you watch so we will always have locked in tactics)

Cards is the big one, J has explained that this can be easily switched on but he's very hesitant to do it because esentially it will be somewhat random, as the game is all maths the probability of a card will be whatever 1 in 3 so then who is the unfortuante team that may lose a big game because of some element radomness! peopel may start going crazy but I think if the calls are big enough to have realism then he will implement it.

Scrum collapses/resets/penalties, these can be coded but once again it may be furstrating come matchday when we have stop start, dominant scrums win turnover ball and throught the game it probably results in a try or two so the penalty is there just not in the form of resets and penalty kicks.

Timed subs, I'm pretty sure we will see that soon.

So that can all be done in the current M/E which pretty much means the current one constantly evolved equals M/E 2 of sorts.


So then there's those looking for 3D games, 3D means an entire new engine but it does have some serious drawbacks IMO, I don't think it's possible to have the same detailed commentary as we have that agrees to a 3D field - esentially it would be brief senetences, scrum half passes to centre, centre to wing, it's a ruck, player tackled (Personally after a few weeks of seeing the same 3d sequences I'd quickly lose interest in BR's matchday)

FewFew

Phonehead wrote: »

Well ME2 can go two ways it seems.

The current ME can be refined for everything possible except live management which will never happen anyway (by this I mean making calls as you watch so we will always have locked in tactics)

Cards is the big one, J has explained that this can be easily switched on but he's very hesitant to do it because esentially it will be somewhat random, as the game is all maths the probability of a card will be whatever 1 in 3 so then who is the unfortuante team that may lose a big game because of some element radomness! peopel may start going crazy but I think if the calls are big enough to have realism then he will implement it.

Scrum collapses/resets/penalties, these can be coded but once again it may be furstrating come matchday when we have stop start, dominant scrums win turnover ball and throught the game it probably results in a try or two so the penalty is there just not in the form of resets and penalty kicks.

Timed subs, I'm pretty sure we will see that soon.

So that can all be done in the current M/E which pretty much means the current one constantly evolved equals M/E 2 of sorts.


So then there's those looking for 3D games, 3D means an entire new engine but it does have some serious drawbacks IMO, I don't think it's possible to have the same detailed commentary as we have that agrees to a 3D field - esentially it would be brief senetences, scrum half passes to centre, centre to wing, it's a ruck, player tackled (Personally after a few weeks of seeing the same 3d sequences I'd quickly lose interest in BR's matchday)

I like the sound of the timed subs.

3D games are a bit of a meh point for me. Prefer the detailed commentary, because there's no way they're going to get the graphics up to the level people will be happy with (or, if they can, there's a lot more money in the development kitty than they make out)

l3m0n5

Attempted to set my tic-tacs for tonights boards game and man does my brain hurt after that.

Anyone find out what kicking for Territory means?

seanand

l3m0n5 wrote: »

Attempted to set my tic-tacs for tonights boards game and man does my brain hurt after that.

Anyone find out what kicking for Territory means?

have only logged on so havent looked but i read that kicking for territory means the ball should stay infield

edit in the news: Kicking for territory As announced, you can now control how much your players should kick for territory, (and where from if you use zone tactics). When players kick for territory, there will be less of an angle than with kicks for touch resulting in more distance and next to no chance of going out. If the kick is in range of your opponent's 22, the kicker will attempt to keep the ball just outside their 22 to prevent a mark being called. The better the kicker, the more chance of their kick being on target.