"First, they have agreed terms with a computer manufacturing company which will invest in the HFA, with the money going straight into the pockets of all Hattrick teams." Does this mean more money for sponsership? I wonder how much this total is going to be. What they need to do if they want the TL and econOmy to go up is educate people through their diploma program with regards to how you become successful and make money in the game. I think new players coming in and buying nothing but 29 yr passable players for 50k and not making any real money is the root of the problem. The amount of players who can be competitve for good players on the TL has decreased, Im sure that why transfer fees for players has dropped.
Actually I think it is the other way around. Only trainees are snagged for the most part, and as a first-full season newbie I can't afford to bid with anyone who wants a decent trainee. So then whats the point? I'm better off buying 20-23yos with some upside and hoping I can win my division and put butts in the seats. Then I'll get a coach and a truly class trainee or two.
According to the HT's on Global, this means more sponsorship money, less agent fees at transfer and less interest on money saved in the bank. The thought by them is to increase the amount of money/team. You will have to read the thread in Global to get a better understanding of their thought process, I guess. I would however, shy away from your suggestion that the devs help teams with actual processes to be successful. First, there are so many different ways to run a team and be successful. Secondly, there are plenty of resources out there (BS's HT board for one) that can help new teams get a good start. The newb has to be proactive in finding and using these myriad of resources with a little direction along the way. We all had to make mistakes along the way, but that is how you learn. Just giving them the answers is not the way, IMO.
My question is how is giving teams more money gonna solve the transfer market? Unless agent fees are greatly reduced, that isn't gonna make much of a difference. I still don't think this will solve the problems with the market.
reducing the interest on savings could have a significant effect for higher end players (if the reduction is significant enough). all those people hoarding cash (who are they?!?!) will have less of an incentive to do so, and therefore more incentive to use it e.g. purchasing players.
My daughter's team has almost $5 million in the bank. But I am not sure she will be ready to spend right away. I am not sure how many other people are in her position.
I've got between $5-$6 million in the bank. Now that I've got a team that has a couple players at world class or so, the $55k interest ($40k net) per week really helps offset the wages I have to pay. It used to be I was very comfortably making money every fortnight. I've known that training income is the primary income stream in the game, but I used to not need it so much. Now I do. I don't see what's wrong with hoarding money. I understand the economic arguments, but what's wrong with rewarding people who hang onto their money? I'm almost as cheap with HT money as I am with real money!
My arguement would be, why are we so dependent on the market in a soccer sim? Not saying the market isn't an important part of the game, but it shouldn't be the central focal point and our enjoyment of the game solely judged by its status. I'm not an economist and will not attempt to fix or stabilize the market, but I do like the some of the thoughts and ideas coming out behind the changes. I will see what the changes actually are and will then adjust my actions based on the way things falls. BTW, I still hate the Youth Squad and it's lottery characteristics when pulling, but that's for another thread.
If the economy doesn't work right, any online game involving any monetary element is rather pointless. I'm sure many a book, magazine article, and doctoral dissertation will be written about the economies of online games.
I need some time to digest this also, but at first glance it makes some real sense...I'm glad they are trying something before things get too bad. Hopefully the money hoarders come out and start spending...
exactly, the economy isn't just the TL either, it's the bonus', crowd revenue, and another of the big problems, wages....
thing is, I don't see that helping the market that much. People still aren't gonna pay a lot for certain players just because they have to spend their money or get less back now. Prices for players are still out of wack and salaries are still a major problem. It is a start though.
Which was my point. The outcry I hear is about the market. The market problems are more a product of over-supply than anything. Think about this a second. When I started this game 21 months ago (Jan '05) there were just barely 400K users. Now there are over 900K and they have all been indoctrinated into a philosophy of train... train... train. They have now flooded the market with too many players and are not buying enough upgrade players to compensate for what they put on the market.
My question is, why is everyone so hung up on the transfer market needing to be "solved"? It's working perfectly fine IMO. There's some saturation of skill levels in the upper-mid-range, but the main impact there is that high level teams have less opportunity to subsidize their operation by trading players down to lower level teams. I'm not convinced that's a bad thing. The main thing I think the HTs need to keep straight in the economy is the balance of salaries vs. income for the "mid-range" divisions. No matter what they do, ultimately teams at the top are going to have to run a deficit to get there, but that should only extend through the top two or three divisions.
Reducing agent fees significantly would mean that trading would be the fastest way up again, which I'd hate. I just hope that the transfer fees will mostly affect players who have been on a team for a long time, e.g., going up to 99% for long-time players. Please HTs, don't create a revival of daytrading... All these changes just affect symptoms, while the real problem (oversupply) is not affected. And yes, the transfer market is a problem as long as it's dropping. Because it means that the profits from training are greatly reduced while most of the cost factors (all except buying new players) stay the same, and particularly stadium expansions, which only were a fourth of the price once when more training profits could be made. I wouldn't like the reduction of interest rates, only reducing the cap.
Agreed on both points. Lower transfer prices won't have much effect if you plan to reinvest sales in player purchases. Sure you get less on a sale but get much more on a purchase. The salaries are the biggest problem as teams are being punished for training players to higher levels. Fixed salaries make it impossible for the market to dictate what salaries should be.
Interesting that you should mention that. Maybe HT should introduce free agency? Dunno if anybody else plays it, but one of the hockey manager games (Hockey Arena) has a system where players become restricted free agents when they go out of contract at (or past) age 27. Prior to that point, players are on 70-day contracts (the same length as the season, but starting when they're pulled from the YS or team inception), the FA contracts are 210-day (or three seasons). There's a skill-related minimum salary, so it's not entirely up to the market.
That would be really interesting. How hard would it be to teach that sort of system to newbies? Maybe they could differentiate between some divisions having a Professional and semi-professional status. IV and Up could be "titled" Pro and have a contract structure.
I do like the free agency idea. Even if that is too radical they could attempt to adjust salaries based on the supply of players. The top players would make X amount, which might increase slightly per year to mirror real life salary inflcation. Then adjust the players downward based on the top salary or tie it to transfer fee's. If an oversupply of supernatural PM's causes the transfer price to drop then salaries should adjust downward to match the current market valuations. Anything other than the current situation where players get trained to divine and are then priced out any team that wants to play for the long run.
This may help with salaries, but will not fix the root problem of over-supply. There are too many Divine +++'s as it is right now. It should be very difficult and time consuming to train a player up to Divine, and there should be caps on skill talents at low divine, IMO. As a player goes up the skill chart, it should take longer and longer per pop. It should take twice as long to pop from Utopian to Divine than it does to pop from Formidable to Outstanding, as an example. Sadly I don't see how this type of drastic change could be implemented now. Stamina drops is one way to curb training, but will not be enough.
On top of giving less trading fees and now fixing the tsi?? I think they should revise the salaries which is the main reason that the market is down. Not having enough money to pay for divine++ players have hurt several teams.