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Bryan Robson naar
Iedereen
Hi guys,
We are pleased to announce that the terms of the Sokker investment agreement have been reached. The purpose of this agreement is to keep continuous improvement and work on further updates which has already started.
As per the agreement, the game is granted funds for further development and two new people join the group of owners – Raul and Mekene. They also join the group of game’s developers and give us support in project management, marketing and game design. Both of them know Sokker almost from its beginnings, therefore we are more than happy to have them truly engaged on-board, devoted to the spirit of the game.
The Sokker improvement plan involves the two-stage activities:
1. Securing the stability of the game in the case of Flash support expiration on web browsers. In the coming months, specific elements of the game, written in this technology, will be replaced. Starting with smaller elements, ending with the most time-consuming visualization of matches.
2. Upgrading the game significantly, which hasn't been done in recent years. We plan to implement couple of changes like adapting the game to the up-to-date reality and current standards, including both- enhancing interface, UX, graphics, but also the gameplay itself (additional options, changes and improvements to some of the current functionalities). Also, the entire back-end of the game will need to be rewritten and updated. The effective date of these changes will not come before the first stage of work is completed.
SK community will be kept informed as the work progresses. Meanwhile we are planning a wide review of implemented changes, remaining open to new ideas. Hope we can count on your support!
We strongly believe that this is a turning point in Sokkers history and the return to its best days.
We are pleased to announce that the terms of the Sokker investment agreement have been reached. The purpose of this agreement is to keep continuous improvement and work on further updates which has already started.
As per the agreement, the game is granted funds for further development and two new people join the group of owners – Raul and Mekene. They also join the group of game’s developers and give us support in project management, marketing and game design. Both of them know Sokker almost from its beginnings, therefore we are more than happy to have them truly engaged on-board, devoted to the spirit of the game.
The Sokker improvement plan involves the two-stage activities:
1. Securing the stability of the game in the case of Flash support expiration on web browsers. In the coming months, specific elements of the game, written in this technology, will be replaced. Starting with smaller elements, ending with the most time-consuming visualization of matches.
2. Upgrading the game significantly, which hasn't been done in recent years. We plan to implement couple of changes like adapting the game to the up-to-date reality and current standards, including both- enhancing interface, UX, graphics, but also the gameplay itself (additional options, changes and improvements to some of the current functionalities). Also, the entire back-end of the game will need to be rewritten and updated. The effective date of these changes will not come before the first stage of work is completed.
SK community will be kept informed as the work progresses. Meanwhile we are planning a wide review of implemented changes, remaining open to new ideas. Hope we can count on your support!
We strongly believe that this is a turning point in Sokkers history and the return to its best days.
Long, long overdue. Hopefully it will lead to action, as things have been said in past and materialised to nothing.
Sure this not some sort of April fools joke?
I am sure I have heard stuff like this before...
I am sure I have heard stuff like this before...
Development Diary 1: COMMUNICATION & CONSULTATIONS
Let us introduce first publication of weekly cycle about Sokker development. For the start we will present our ideas for project transparency and overall communication, closely linked with community involvement and consultations, to give you possibilities to affect our direction and upcoming range of changes.
COMMUNICATION
Development Diaries – every next Friday you can expect another work summary. In that kind of news we will publish different scopes of information’s – focused on already made upgrades and changes, sometimes based of prepared ideas, or encourage you for discussion about specific range. Our main principle is to keep project regularity and transparency.
Sokker Development (en) – we created dedicated forum, pin up as default for any user. Its purpose is not only to take over “Ideas” forum role (so give you chance to share own ideas and update requests), but also to create a place for complex game development communication. You will find there any news and information published by Dev’s and general discussion about all changes.
Please note: creating new forum doesn’t mean, that we will forget about “Ideas” forum. All threads gathered there will be soon researched and analysed in terms of our current work.
CONSULTATIONS
As we mentioned in Monday announcement about Sokker Development Project, we believe that community involvement is a necessary part of whole process, to keep proper “game spirit” and use its full potential.
From the early beginning your engagement is noticed, we receive and read lot of great ideas. But to give them a chance to get realized we need to organize the way of working between us, prepare form and sequence of applications. Discussion will be proceeded in stages, to set specific topics and areas to start consultations with.
At Sokker Development (en) you can find first three consultations threads:
„Sokker – main motivation” – we would like to know what is essential for “game spirit” for you, what exactly keeps you in the game for such a long time.
„Most expected change” – from the other side, we would like to read about opposite – most annoying, demotivating part of the game, that maybe sometimes even makes you to think about leaving.
„Begginers problems” – with game development we need to make Sokker more attractive for new users, so we will be glad to hear your opinion about new managers and problems they force, why it’s so hard for them to keep playing?
As you can see, we will start with some general discussions, but extremely important. Based on your responses and thoughts we will set some crucial game values and project assumptions, to find a clear guidance for game development direction, choosing new ideas and evaluate relevance of proposed solutions.
Hope to meet you soon at Sokker Development (en), we count on your help and knowledge!
Let us introduce first publication of weekly cycle about Sokker development. For the start we will present our ideas for project transparency and overall communication, closely linked with community involvement and consultations, to give you possibilities to affect our direction and upcoming range of changes.
COMMUNICATION
Development Diaries – every next Friday you can expect another work summary. In that kind of news we will publish different scopes of information’s – focused on already made upgrades and changes, sometimes based of prepared ideas, or encourage you for discussion about specific range. Our main principle is to keep project regularity and transparency.
Sokker Development (en) – we created dedicated forum, pin up as default for any user. Its purpose is not only to take over “Ideas” forum role (so give you chance to share own ideas and update requests), but also to create a place for complex game development communication. You will find there any news and information published by Dev’s and general discussion about all changes.
Please note: creating new forum doesn’t mean, that we will forget about “Ideas” forum. All threads gathered there will be soon researched and analysed in terms of our current work.
CONSULTATIONS
As we mentioned in Monday announcement about Sokker Development Project, we believe that community involvement is a necessary part of whole process, to keep proper “game spirit” and use its full potential.
From the early beginning your engagement is noticed, we receive and read lot of great ideas. But to give them a chance to get realized we need to organize the way of working between us, prepare form and sequence of applications. Discussion will be proceeded in stages, to set specific topics and areas to start consultations with.
At Sokker Development (en) you can find first three consultations threads:
„Sokker – main motivation” – we would like to know what is essential for “game spirit” for you, what exactly keeps you in the game for such a long time.
„Most expected change” – from the other side, we would like to read about opposite – most annoying, demotivating part of the game, that maybe sometimes even makes you to think about leaving.
„Begginers problems” – with game development we need to make Sokker more attractive for new users, so we will be glad to hear your opinion about new managers and problems they force, why it’s so hard for them to keep playing?
As you can see, we will start with some general discussions, but extremely important. Based on your responses and thoughts we will set some crucial game values and project assumptions, to find a clear guidance for game development direction, choosing new ideas and evaluate relevance of proposed solutions.
Hope to meet you soon at Sokker Development (en), we count on your help and knowledge!
Hello, lads!
We are looking for a native English speaker to correct and publish Sokker news for world wide.
Please send me sk-mail if you are interested.
We are looking for a native English speaker to correct and publish Sokker news for world wide.
Please send me sk-mail if you are interested.
Dev. Diary 2: MAIN ASSUMPTIONS
Today we would like to share with you our main assumptions, in terms of the changes we are working on. Thanks a lot for the exciting discussions at Sokker Development forum, sharing your best ideas and a very clear vision of what is most important for you in the game.
The assumptions we have prepared will keep us straight in evaluating different solutions, creating new ones and help us as a guide for the game development direction.
GAME SPIRIT
First of all we would like to share with you the things, that won’t change. After last week's consultations via forum we see practically full compliance. Moreover, we also fully agree with you about some major points:
Game without pay2win – Competitions were honest and this won't change. We don’t want to develop any paid bonuses giving a real advantage over players without a subscription. Of course the game needs revenue to be developed (especially in case of needed changes), so that's why we'll work on PLUS ideas to make it more attractive, but you won't be able to “buy” a better place in league or any other improvements.
Game engine, tactics and 2d matches – These things will be changed only as much, as it’s necessary according to technical problems (flash expiration, new code, etc.). We believe, that one of most important game advantages is the option to make a real impact with tactics and to see how our ideas are executed by the players on the field. Visualization is simple and intuitive. We will develop it, but we will try not to lose its original spirit.
Simplicity – The main aspects of Sokker are easy and simple to learn. It’s also easy to notice the impact of our decisions on various elements of the game. We will avoid unnecessary new elements and try to focus on upgrading and extending current ones. Some of the changes and novelties will be designed for more advanced players, but there will be no need to use them for everyone.
Moderate game timing – Sokker is different than a lot of quick mobile games and we believe, that it’s a huge advantage. Our game needs patience and long term thinking, giving a chance to fit for different players. There is no huge difference between everyday players or those, who have much less time. But, few elements will be changed for sure – according to the fact, that the current length of a whole season is a barrier for new players.
Community – Being a Sokker community member is not only building your own best club, it's also the atmosphere and fun around the game. We'll keep an eye on forum and relationships and try to make them alive. There is no need to change too much in that area, but for sure we'll add some improvements which can benefit conversations.
CHANGES
So, what will be changed? Here you can find the main game areas that need to be upgraded or developed from scratch. These are not final ideas – it’s a kind of overall map for you, to point out the most important priorities to be addressed.
Play to win – The current game mechanism is demotivating for players focused on results. We will propose some solutions to change that, giving extra motivations for winning, new official competitions to fight in. One of the biggest issues is, that club development is possible only by using a second match in the week for training. That lead us to some upgrades about the training system (but one training update per week on Thursday will not change). Our new idea is to avoid forcing managers to let all their players play for training.
Competition optimization – We want to address the issue of the extremely long season in Sokker (only 3 full seasons per year, which is demotivating for many new players) and also give managers a chance to join different kinds of tournaments. We will propose a new competition idea, with some small game acceleration, to make the season shorter, and to add a completely new Cup. We want to present our ideas for consultation in the upcoming weeks.
Game balance – With the game's long history it’s easy to notice what areas are not balanced enough. Currently we have a huge number of top players, even in low divisions (like in Poland). The transfer system promotes daily trading and benefits managers, who are slowly gathering their founds to invest after a few seasons in their “dream team”. New players have huge problems to reach higher divisions.
All these issues are very complex and connected, so we need to act carefully and with some different, but consistent solutions. We need to upgrade the game mechanics to create more balance: to give some motivation to reach as high as your team can get, and also to help beginners improving their teams much easier than experienced players. It will be much more difficult to train the best Sokker players and differences between league levels should become less significant. To achieve all that we need to change the game economy, training speed, and a lot of small parameters, that need to be analysed and tested.
Easy to learn, hard to master – Sokker is an easy game and it should stay that way. But many game areas have a great potential to be extended, as long as the manager is given the choice to explore them or not. We want to let you some freedom to decide how deep you want to dive in. It’s a kind of a major development philosophy we will follow. It will be implemented in different areas, from game interface to stadium or youth school management. It’s also most important for beginners, to give them guidance and the right path to learn the game step by step (few options will even be blocked for new managers).
Goals and achievements – Only a few managers are able to fight for the highest prizes, since there are not too many places in the top divisions. But we know, that everyone of you has individual goals and aspirations about different game challenges. That’s why we will develop new, more feasible achievements, starting with seasonal goals, a more detailed team history and progresses presentation, ending with some new ranks and statistics, not only connected with game results.
Storytelling – This is a very important point for us, but untill now it is almost non-existing in this game. A lot of users tell stories for themselves, create own rankings, summaries, club articles, or even some “Sokker news” initiatives. We believe that most of you want to feel that history of your club being alive. Managers write their own stories, create legendary players and the game world is dynamic and full of events. We will apply storytelling on a few areas:
Dedicated „pressroom” page – Here we will see news about our club and competitions, but also reports from our staff, like training summary or tips from our assistant, and many more.
Extended statistics and records – This will give you a chance to follow different rankings and summaries, based on team, competition or players.
“Follow” option – You'll get the ability to follow news about some other parts of the game – national teams, contests, specific players, etc.
Bot teams elimination – Sokker is most attractive when we compete with real players. Therefore clubs without managers will be withdrawn from competitions at the end of the season.
New graphic design and UX – We need to redesign game graphics and user experience, to make it suitable for current times. We will focus on new players, to give them a chance to engage in the game and learn it with some tutorial help. For some fans of the classic design: There is no need to worry, we will keep the old graphic as an option, too.
Summarizing: As you can see, the areas that we are working on are not a revolution for the game. We rather focus on the best parts, to improve and rebuild them if needed. The development process will be long enough to give the managers a chance to fit into the new reality and adjust their club strategy.
In the upcoming months we will share more detailed solutions with you, divided on specific areas, to consult them more closely and one by one.
Today we would like to share with you our main assumptions, in terms of the changes we are working on. Thanks a lot for the exciting discussions at Sokker Development forum, sharing your best ideas and a very clear vision of what is most important for you in the game.
The assumptions we have prepared will keep us straight in evaluating different solutions, creating new ones and help us as a guide for the game development direction.
GAME SPIRIT
First of all we would like to share with you the things, that won’t change. After last week's consultations via forum we see practically full compliance. Moreover, we also fully agree with you about some major points:
Game without pay2win – Competitions were honest and this won't change. We don’t want to develop any paid bonuses giving a real advantage over players without a subscription. Of course the game needs revenue to be developed (especially in case of needed changes), so that's why we'll work on PLUS ideas to make it more attractive, but you won't be able to “buy” a better place in league or any other improvements.
Game engine, tactics and 2d matches – These things will be changed only as much, as it’s necessary according to technical problems (flash expiration, new code, etc.). We believe, that one of most important game advantages is the option to make a real impact with tactics and to see how our ideas are executed by the players on the field. Visualization is simple and intuitive. We will develop it, but we will try not to lose its original spirit.
Simplicity – The main aspects of Sokker are easy and simple to learn. It’s also easy to notice the impact of our decisions on various elements of the game. We will avoid unnecessary new elements and try to focus on upgrading and extending current ones. Some of the changes and novelties will be designed for more advanced players, but there will be no need to use them for everyone.
Moderate game timing – Sokker is different than a lot of quick mobile games and we believe, that it’s a huge advantage. Our game needs patience and long term thinking, giving a chance to fit for different players. There is no huge difference between everyday players or those, who have much less time. But, few elements will be changed for sure – according to the fact, that the current length of a whole season is a barrier for new players.
Community – Being a Sokker community member is not only building your own best club, it's also the atmosphere and fun around the game. We'll keep an eye on forum and relationships and try to make them alive. There is no need to change too much in that area, but for sure we'll add some improvements which can benefit conversations.
CHANGES
So, what will be changed? Here you can find the main game areas that need to be upgraded or developed from scratch. These are not final ideas – it’s a kind of overall map for you, to point out the most important priorities to be addressed.
Play to win – The current game mechanism is demotivating for players focused on results. We will propose some solutions to change that, giving extra motivations for winning, new official competitions to fight in. One of the biggest issues is, that club development is possible only by using a second match in the week for training. That lead us to some upgrades about the training system (but one training update per week on Thursday will not change). Our new idea is to avoid forcing managers to let all their players play for training.
Competition optimization – We want to address the issue of the extremely long season in Sokker (only 3 full seasons per year, which is demotivating for many new players) and also give managers a chance to join different kinds of tournaments. We will propose a new competition idea, with some small game acceleration, to make the season shorter, and to add a completely new Cup. We want to present our ideas for consultation in the upcoming weeks.
Game balance – With the game's long history it’s easy to notice what areas are not balanced enough. Currently we have a huge number of top players, even in low divisions (like in Poland). The transfer system promotes daily trading and benefits managers, who are slowly gathering their founds to invest after a few seasons in their “dream team”. New players have huge problems to reach higher divisions.
All these issues are very complex and connected, so we need to act carefully and with some different, but consistent solutions. We need to upgrade the game mechanics to create more balance: to give some motivation to reach as high as your team can get, and also to help beginners improving their teams much easier than experienced players. It will be much more difficult to train the best Sokker players and differences between league levels should become less significant. To achieve all that we need to change the game economy, training speed, and a lot of small parameters, that need to be analysed and tested.
Easy to learn, hard to master – Sokker is an easy game and it should stay that way. But many game areas have a great potential to be extended, as long as the manager is given the choice to explore them or not. We want to let you some freedom to decide how deep you want to dive in. It’s a kind of a major development philosophy we will follow. It will be implemented in different areas, from game interface to stadium or youth school management. It’s also most important for beginners, to give them guidance and the right path to learn the game step by step (few options will even be blocked for new managers).
Goals and achievements – Only a few managers are able to fight for the highest prizes, since there are not too many places in the top divisions. But we know, that everyone of you has individual goals and aspirations about different game challenges. That’s why we will develop new, more feasible achievements, starting with seasonal goals, a more detailed team history and progresses presentation, ending with some new ranks and statistics, not only connected with game results.
Storytelling – This is a very important point for us, but untill now it is almost non-existing in this game. A lot of users tell stories for themselves, create own rankings, summaries, club articles, or even some “Sokker news” initiatives. We believe that most of you want to feel that history of your club being alive. Managers write their own stories, create legendary players and the game world is dynamic and full of events. We will apply storytelling on a few areas:
Dedicated „pressroom” page – Here we will see news about our club and competitions, but also reports from our staff, like training summary or tips from our assistant, and many more.
Extended statistics and records – This will give you a chance to follow different rankings and summaries, based on team, competition or players.
“Follow” option – You'll get the ability to follow news about some other parts of the game – national teams, contests, specific players, etc.
Bot teams elimination – Sokker is most attractive when we compete with real players. Therefore clubs without managers will be withdrawn from competitions at the end of the season.
New graphic design and UX – We need to redesign game graphics and user experience, to make it suitable for current times. We will focus on new players, to give them a chance to engage in the game and learn it with some tutorial help. For some fans of the classic design: There is no need to worry, we will keep the old graphic as an option, too.
Summarizing: As you can see, the areas that we are working on are not a revolution for the game. We rather focus on the best parts, to improve and rebuild them if needed. The development process will be long enough to give the managers a chance to fit into the new reality and adjust their club strategy.
In the upcoming months we will share more detailed solutions with you, divided on specific areas, to consult them more closely and one by one.
Dev. Diary 3: Status of work
Today we will inform you about things that we are already working on and describe some elements that we changed or will change in the upcoming days. As mentioned in our first news Flash replacement is our main priority right now. We will give you more details about that and about some other improvements.
Flash
The process to replace Flash started a few weeks ago. We already found developers who rewrite all the game elements based on Flash. The work needs to be completed step by step, of course, and the most time-consuming parts, e.g. the match engine, need a lot of work and patience. In the upcoming days we will replace a few Flash elements like:
1. Stadium viewer
2. Players portraits
3. Post game summary and statistics
We have already been working on the match kits configurator and the tactic editor. They still need to be improved in the upcoming weeks however.
We will also fix the problem with Google Chrome and the 2D match viewer. It will only be a temporary solution, but it should help some users to enjoy the game until the new visualization is completed.
Game engine – code upgrade
Parallel to replacing Flash we also started rewriting the back end, especially the “daily update”, which pushes the game forward day by day. Due to outdated technology some pieces of code need to be replaced with PHP. Our work on that part will be invisible for users (and also doesn’t affect gameplay), but it is necessary to give us a chance to implement any other, more advanced changes connected with Sokker and its game mechanics.
Leagues - reorganization
For now we have a lot of abandoned divisions in Sokker. There is also some potential for reducing the number of leagues at some levels. After the current season we will merge leagues and delete unnecessary divisions.
This should lead to more exciting rivalries between new managers, since they are facing more human controlled teams even in the lowest divisions. We will also drastically reduce the number of bot teams.
Other changes
300 sec. match viewer waiting time deleted – We decided to remove that element. Users without Plus will not be forced to wait for their game to start. To be honest – video-advertisments before the game will be introduced with the full relaunch of the game, but for sure with shorter duration than before. The advertising on YouTube is the best benchmark for it, with an included countdown button.
Relegation bug in junior leagues – There is a bug, that allows users to stay in their junior division even if they are endangered with direct relegation. Using the withdraw option and then joining the league later again, managers can reset their position and start a new season in the same division. That bug will be fixed and withdrawing a junior team will result in relegation to the lower level league.
Today we will inform you about things that we are already working on and describe some elements that we changed or will change in the upcoming days. As mentioned in our first news Flash replacement is our main priority right now. We will give you more details about that and about some other improvements.
Flash
The process to replace Flash started a few weeks ago. We already found developers who rewrite all the game elements based on Flash. The work needs to be completed step by step, of course, and the most time-consuming parts, e.g. the match engine, need a lot of work and patience. In the upcoming days we will replace a few Flash elements like:
1. Stadium viewer
2. Players portraits
3. Post game summary and statistics
We have already been working on the match kits configurator and the tactic editor. They still need to be improved in the upcoming weeks however.
We will also fix the problem with Google Chrome and the 2D match viewer. It will only be a temporary solution, but it should help some users to enjoy the game until the new visualization is completed.
Game engine – code upgrade
Parallel to replacing Flash we also started rewriting the back end, especially the “daily update”, which pushes the game forward day by day. Due to outdated technology some pieces of code need to be replaced with PHP. Our work on that part will be invisible for users (and also doesn’t affect gameplay), but it is necessary to give us a chance to implement any other, more advanced changes connected with Sokker and its game mechanics.
Leagues - reorganization
For now we have a lot of abandoned divisions in Sokker. There is also some potential for reducing the number of leagues at some levels. After the current season we will merge leagues and delete unnecessary divisions.
This should lead to more exciting rivalries between new managers, since they are facing more human controlled teams even in the lowest divisions. We will also drastically reduce the number of bot teams.
Other changes
300 sec. match viewer waiting time deleted – We decided to remove that element. Users without Plus will not be forced to wait for their game to start. To be honest – video-advertisments before the game will be introduced with the full relaunch of the game, but for sure with shorter duration than before. The advertising on YouTube is the best benchmark for it, with an included countdown button.
Relegation bug in junior leagues – There is a bug, that allows users to stay in their junior division even if they are endangered with direct relegation. Using the withdraw option and then joining the league later again, managers can reset their position and start a new season in the same division. That bug will be fixed and withdrawing a junior team will result in relegation to the lower level league.
Bryan Robson naar
Lord Legolas
Thats great about league organization, will there be more teams in each league?
16 teams in each league and 2 league games a week would be good [if your knocked out the cup so it gets postponed like real life]
The other cup tournament is great news, more proper games the merrier we can ditch the friendlies :)
(gewijzigd)
16 teams in each league and 2 league games a week would be good [if your knocked out the cup so it gets postponed like real life]
The other cup tournament is great news, more proper games the merrier we can ditch the friendlies :)
(gewijzigd)
aluminium naar
Bryan Robson
It's definitely the case that one league game isn't really enough. Especially when there is no cup. That being said, the gulf between leagues is generally massive so have to see how work to narrow that goes. My team a case of that. Cruise through III but guaranteed to be 7th or 8th place when promoted to II as things stand.
Dev. Diary 4: League system
Today we are going to open the discussion about something that already became a hot topic on Sokker Development forum – How we want our league system to be organized. We have listened to you and among all of your ideas we have selected three options. Here are the key points that we want to achieve in our new league system:
1. Shorter season: We are targeting 12 weeks, which would be 25% less than now.
2. We want you to have the opportunity to play more games. Currently those teams eliminated from the National Cup are only left with one league match per week.
3. We want to keep our moderate week flow as much as possible. Sokker is not a fast arcade game with matches played every day and we would like to keep this unique character of the game.
Below you can see visualisation of three different season fixtures with description. We are putting it up for your discussion. We would love to hear what you think, so please share your opinions with us on Sokker Forum and please take a minute to fill out the survey. Feel free to share your thoughts about your own ideas and amendments. Before we show you our three options, we want to propose some new general rules first.
International Cup – we are introducing a new international cup which is very similar to the very well known UEFA Champions League. The competition format will consist of a group stage with home-away system and the two best teams from each group will play in a knock-out system. In play-off there will be only one match. The losing team will be eliminated from the cup.
It is important that all players will get the opportunity to play in a cup. This will be a great chance to compete against other players from different countries and of course this will provide you with better match earnings. The competition format will be similar to our league system. Lower levels will have more teams. On the highest-level champions of the top leagues will play against each other and consequently if you are the champion of one of the lower leagues you will play against a team from a different country at a similar level to even out chances. The Cup will be designed in a way that the higher level you play, the better financial rewards you get, and fans will be more likely to buy tickets. By doing this we are aiming to motivate you to try to achieve the highest possible position in your league.
National Cup – we want to start a discussion about two possible options:
1. All teams from the same country are eligible to take part in the National Cup. This means that clubs from lower leagues might get the chance to play against one of the top teams in their country.
2. As an alternative to this proposal, we will have two Cups: A National Cup and a League Cup. Only teams from leagues 1-3 will play in the more prestigious National Cup. That way we should be able to keep a higher level of competition and teams from league 4 and lower will be less likely to get eliminated in the first rounds. Leagues lower than 4th will be divided into regional cups (4 League Cup, etc.) accordingly to number of leagues on certain level. One cup will never have more than 512 teams.
We will open a separate topic on Sokker Development Forum with an attached survey to give you the opportunity to have your say.
Training – this will be discussed in details in a separate Developer Diary where we are going to introduce proposition to changes, but as you can already see an increased number of matches will require a little bit of different approach to training. We want to give you more flexibility while setting up your squad. There will be a balance between the desire of upgrading the skills of your junior players and trying to achieve good results in official games.
Promotion and relegation Play-offs - Teams will fight in play-offs where the winner of two games (home and away) will be awarded with a promotion to a higher league. Teams that aren't playing playoff games can play friendly matches instead.
Friendly matches – From now on friendly matches will only have a minor effect on your training. You will be able to play friendly match only after being eliminated from the cup. This will not apply to Arcade matches as they have no effect on Sokker reality.
Propositions to the league system
Option 1
Each season has 12 weeks. Each week has three matches that are played on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Three league matches will have to be played on a weekday. Since the International Cup requires six matches during group stage, moving a few league matches to weekdays at the end of the season will allow us to play two official matches almost every week, even for teams that are already eliminated from the cup.
Option 2
In addition to option 1, league matches and cup matches will always take place on the exact days as previous weeks. Additional league matches will be scheduled on Tuesdays. Due to the same reason as above those matches will be played at the end of the season.
Option 3
This proposition is the most revolutionary. We are increasing the number of teams per league to 12. Similar to the current league system, each week day will have its own competition assigned. The biggest change here is that there will be two league matches weekly but as a benefit, we will be able to increase the number of teams per league to 12. This will also affect the promotion and relegation system: The two best teams will have a chance to get promoted to a higher division, the six teams occupying the last six positions can be relegated.
Apart from league matches we have set two consecutive days for the national and international cup.
We cannot wait to see what you guys are thinking and what your choices are. We would like to ask you just for one thing before you leave your comments. Try to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who just joined the game. As much as we value our current users, we would also like beginners to get more involved in the game.
You can find the polls here:
* League system: https://www.webankieta.pl/ankieta/523386/league-system-options.html
* National Cup: https://www.webankieta.pl/ankieta/523392/national-cup-options.html
Facebook profile
Last but not least we would like to invite you to join our official Facebook profile where you can find up to date information regarding game development.
Today we are going to open the discussion about something that already became a hot topic on Sokker Development forum – How we want our league system to be organized. We have listened to you and among all of your ideas we have selected three options. Here are the key points that we want to achieve in our new league system:
1. Shorter season: We are targeting 12 weeks, which would be 25% less than now.
2. We want you to have the opportunity to play more games. Currently those teams eliminated from the National Cup are only left with one league match per week.
3. We want to keep our moderate week flow as much as possible. Sokker is not a fast arcade game with matches played every day and we would like to keep this unique character of the game.
Below you can see visualisation of three different season fixtures with description. We are putting it up for your discussion. We would love to hear what you think, so please share your opinions with us on Sokker Forum and please take a minute to fill out the survey. Feel free to share your thoughts about your own ideas and amendments. Before we show you our three options, we want to propose some new general rules first.
International Cup – we are introducing a new international cup which is very similar to the very well known UEFA Champions League. The competition format will consist of a group stage with home-away system and the two best teams from each group will play in a knock-out system. In play-off there will be only one match. The losing team will be eliminated from the cup.
It is important that all players will get the opportunity to play in a cup. This will be a great chance to compete against other players from different countries and of course this will provide you with better match earnings. The competition format will be similar to our league system. Lower levels will have more teams. On the highest-level champions of the top leagues will play against each other and consequently if you are the champion of one of the lower leagues you will play against a team from a different country at a similar level to even out chances. The Cup will be designed in a way that the higher level you play, the better financial rewards you get, and fans will be more likely to buy tickets. By doing this we are aiming to motivate you to try to achieve the highest possible position in your league.
National Cup – we want to start a discussion about two possible options:
1. All teams from the same country are eligible to take part in the National Cup. This means that clubs from lower leagues might get the chance to play against one of the top teams in their country.
2. As an alternative to this proposal, we will have two Cups: A National Cup and a League Cup. Only teams from leagues 1-3 will play in the more prestigious National Cup. That way we should be able to keep a higher level of competition and teams from league 4 and lower will be less likely to get eliminated in the first rounds. Leagues lower than 4th will be divided into regional cups (4 League Cup, etc.) accordingly to number of leagues on certain level. One cup will never have more than 512 teams.
We will open a separate topic on Sokker Development Forum with an attached survey to give you the opportunity to have your say.
Training – this will be discussed in details in a separate Developer Diary where we are going to introduce proposition to changes, but as you can already see an increased number of matches will require a little bit of different approach to training. We want to give you more flexibility while setting up your squad. There will be a balance between the desire of upgrading the skills of your junior players and trying to achieve good results in official games.
Promotion and relegation Play-offs - Teams will fight in play-offs where the winner of two games (home and away) will be awarded with a promotion to a higher league. Teams that aren't playing playoff games can play friendly matches instead.
Friendly matches – From now on friendly matches will only have a minor effect on your training. You will be able to play friendly match only after being eliminated from the cup. This will not apply to Arcade matches as they have no effect on Sokker reality.
Propositions to the league system
Option 1
Each season has 12 weeks. Each week has three matches that are played on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday. Three league matches will have to be played on a weekday. Since the International Cup requires six matches during group stage, moving a few league matches to weekdays at the end of the season will allow us to play two official matches almost every week, even for teams that are already eliminated from the cup.
Option 2
In addition to option 1, league matches and cup matches will always take place on the exact days as previous weeks. Additional league matches will be scheduled on Tuesdays. Due to the same reason as above those matches will be played at the end of the season.
Option 3
This proposition is the most revolutionary. We are increasing the number of teams per league to 12. Similar to the current league system, each week day will have its own competition assigned. The biggest change here is that there will be two league matches weekly but as a benefit, we will be able to increase the number of teams per league to 12. This will also affect the promotion and relegation system: The two best teams will have a chance to get promoted to a higher division, the six teams occupying the last six positions can be relegated.
Apart from league matches we have set two consecutive days for the national and international cup.
We cannot wait to see what you guys are thinking and what your choices are. We would like to ask you just for one thing before you leave your comments. Try to put yourself in the shoes of somebody who just joined the game. As much as we value our current users, we would also like beginners to get more involved in the game.
You can find the polls here:
* League system: https://www.webankieta.pl/ankieta/523386/league-system-options.html
* National Cup: https://www.webankieta.pl/ankieta/523392/national-cup-options.html
Facebook profile
Last but not least we would like to invite you to join our official Facebook profile where you can find up to date information regarding game development.
Bryan Robson naar
Lord Legolas
I love option 3 until I read 6 teams could get relegated, that just plain silly, 4 out of 8 teams is also curently silly, how come we can't make it so only 4 teams out the 12 have a chance of being relegated? and 4 could get promoted....
It's also a lot of games per week once you add in junior league, champions cup, watching/organising the U21NT, and Senior NT.
But at least option 3 has everyone on set days.
If they extend it back out to 14 weeks, some of the early options should be able to have it all on set days as well, and if the International cup, becomes an International league, it will guarantee everyone has a season full of 2 important matches, not just getting knocked out first round of National Cup and International Cup.
But at least option 3 has everyone on set days.
If they extend it back out to 14 weeks, some of the early options should be able to have it all on set days as well, and if the International cup, becomes an International league, it will guarantee everyone has a season full of 2 important matches, not just getting knocked out first round of National Cup and International Cup.
Dev. Diary 5: New Training changes
This week we would like to present our new training approach. You will find all informations below.
At the same time we are working on the final version of the new season calendar. That part will be presented next week, as it still requires some time.
Training changes
The training system is going to be adjusted. The main goal is to fit the maximum number of trainings into a higher number of matches in a week. This will make training more flexible so that it is possible to build the team not as trained formation vs untrained but more as it is in real life - experienced players vs young players introduced to the first team.
The key change is that instead of having one training match order you will be able to prioritise training for several formations at the same time. Obviously ther will be some limit which is 10 slots per week to allocate.
Additional rules to new training:
1. We keep training match order limits – you can train a maximum of 6 strikers, 2 goalkeepers. Playmakers and defenders will fit into the limit. You can assign a different skill for each of the 4 positions.
2. The players assigned to the 10 training slots will always receive training, even if they haven’t played a match during the week. However, they will receive a significant bonus to their training depending on how many minutes they played.
3. Minutes played in official games will be much more valuable than the same minutes gained in friendly games.
4. To achieve a training bonus which is close to maximum, the player that you set in a training slot should collect about 90 minutes across the week’s official matches.
5. The players who played but had not been put into training slots will only receive general training and just a bit of the training for their match-order.
6. The players who are not assigned to the training slots and who are not playing a match are slowly losing their skills.
7. The players who played an official match and against stronger teams will gain an extra bonus to their training.
8. In the scenario of speeding up the season up to 13 weeks, training speed will be also increased but to a lesser extent. In the scenario of 14 weeks’ season, training will rather stay at the current intensity. Scenarios will be presented with the next Dev. Diary.
9. The effectiveness of the coaches will be visible – you will be able to make decisions about your coaches seeing how their skills affect the effectiveness of each of formation’s training as also the general training.
10. The exact proportions and dependencies will get confirmed after several number of tests on the new testing server. We will simulate appropriate number of speeded up seasons to make sure that the game is balanced accordingly.
11. Stamina training needs to be reworked a bit. The other training rules remains unchanged.
This week we would like to present our new training approach. You will find all informations below.
At the same time we are working on the final version of the new season calendar. That part will be presented next week, as it still requires some time.
Training changes
The training system is going to be adjusted. The main goal is to fit the maximum number of trainings into a higher number of matches in a week. This will make training more flexible so that it is possible to build the team not as trained formation vs untrained but more as it is in real life - experienced players vs young players introduced to the first team.
The key change is that instead of having one training match order you will be able to prioritise training for several formations at the same time. Obviously ther will be some limit which is 10 slots per week to allocate.
Additional rules to new training:
1. We keep training match order limits – you can train a maximum of 6 strikers, 2 goalkeepers. Playmakers and defenders will fit into the limit. You can assign a different skill for each of the 4 positions.
2. The players assigned to the 10 training slots will always receive training, even if they haven’t played a match during the week. However, they will receive a significant bonus to their training depending on how many minutes they played.
3. Minutes played in official games will be much more valuable than the same minutes gained in friendly games.
4. To achieve a training bonus which is close to maximum, the player that you set in a training slot should collect about 90 minutes across the week’s official matches.
5. The players who played but had not been put into training slots will only receive general training and just a bit of the training for their match-order.
6. The players who are not assigned to the training slots and who are not playing a match are slowly losing their skills.
7. The players who played an official match and against stronger teams will gain an extra bonus to their training.
8. In the scenario of speeding up the season up to 13 weeks, training speed will be also increased but to a lesser extent. In the scenario of 14 weeks’ season, training will rather stay at the current intensity. Scenarios will be presented with the next Dev. Diary.
9. The effectiveness of the coaches will be visible – you will be able to make decisions about your coaches seeing how their skills affect the effectiveness of each of formation’s training as also the general training.
10. The exact proportions and dependencies will get confirmed after several number of tests on the new testing server. We will simulate appropriate number of speeded up seasons to make sure that the game is balanced accordingly.
11. Stamina training needs to be reworked a bit. The other training rules remains unchanged.