Football Manager Draft Rules of the Game - A classic snake-format draft game. Each participant picks 18 players squad. - Instead of a criteria (eg. all-time Europe, World Cup, etc) you will pick players from a custom database, found here: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/0B3S2cmjqIgJZWmZkem9XQ0JmVmM - Instead of posting your tactics and vote on the best team, your teams will compete against each other on the Football Manager 2017 engine. Database - The database includes over 400 football legends for you to choose from. - The database should cover players of every different roles and styles, however, there is not enough players of every style, to force style scarcity. - The players' profiles have been done to the best of my ability, but is still up for change. Anyone who JOINS the draft is allowed to contribute to database changes (including adding new players), up to the point where the draft begins, where there will be no more changes. - Players attributes explanation can be found at: http://www.guidetofootballmanager.com/players/player-attributes - Players Preferred Moves explanation can be found at: http://www.guidetofootballmanager.com/players/player-preferred-moves Gameplay - A tournament will be set up, and games will be played each week. The double-elimination tournament will have a UCL format where it starts with a group stage, before going into knockout with two brackets. - Before each game week, you must send in your tactics and starting lineups for the week (a tactical form will be provided for you to fill out). - Failure to hand in your tactics will result in an automatic 3-0 loss. Advantages Other than the fact that we haven't had a draft in a while, I think this draft addresses two of the major weak points in other drafts: 1. People rate players differently. This can cause frustration as you have no idea how other people rate the players in your team. I know some people even draft in such a way where they pick popular players, rather than players they think are better but less well known. With a database, even if you think players are over/underrated, at least there's transparency and you can clearly see how the players are rated in the game. 2. The voting part is easily the least fun and most tedious. People usually don't enjoy it too much, and the game usually feel likes it's 'over' at that point. In this draft, there's actually gameplay after the drafting is done. You will actually get to utilise the teams you so carefully draft.
Allow me to tag some of the people who were interested in previous drafts: @lanman @Polemarch @frasermc @cr7torossi @Holy__Joe @Karloski @soccernutter @thebigman @Michaelf7777777 @Steller @J'can @Perú FC @babaorum @Twenty26Six @Excape Goat @PDG1978 @comme @Sammer's Hammer @Bestie @billyireland @msioux75 @argentine soccer fan @annoyedbyneedoflogin @La-Máquina @argentine soccer fan @Pipiolo @leadleader
Sounds interesting. I will join if the participation is high enough. Do you want me to mention it on the Man Utd board, in case anybody their is interested?
For those of you who are concerned, there is zero need for knowledge of the game FM. The mechanic is very intuitive, and your general football knowledge will suffice. I'll also be helping anyone who needs help.
Don't you people have jobs? PS Thanks for tagging me. @Blueallthru didn't see you and don't know if you are interested
Adding my confirmation of participation on this thread too, and @PuckVanHeel said he would play on the other thread (legends database one started by Poetgooner too - still on the 1st page if La-Maquina and others want to see the suggestions/discussion etc....although I know Poetgooner already edited some things based on the earliest comments). So that makes 9 of us I think doesn't it so far. Maybe any less than 16 (or at least less than 13 - maybe with that many some 'CL' style groups could just contain 3 teams?) and we could do just a round robin phase, playing on neutral grounds if that's feasible in the mode we'll play in. Then perhaps semi-finals and a final and possibly 3rd place match? I wonder (especially if we do get less than 16 teams by a few) whether although I think fitness/injuries won't come into play on the game itself, we could have a couple per team randomly ruled out each game using a random number generator based on squad numbers? And maybe instead of a 3-0 automatic defeat Poetgooner could just make sure not to include the best two players (or first two drafted players) for anyone who doesn't submit the line-up in time (which hopefully wouldn't happen anyway though) - maybe even choosing the line-up himself and putting the team at a disadvantage in tactics/line-up (even including naming the 5 subs as the next 5 best players)? Just a few random ideas and thoughts Poetgooner!
I'm going to refresh the fitness of the players before each game, so they're always 100%. The 18 man squad is for tactical uses and in-game injury/redcard subs. There is great merit in changing your tactic to counter your opponents on the FM engine. What we can consider is if someone suffers a bad injury (red cross sign in-game) or gets red-card, we could ban his use for one game? With 9, I'd probably do one group of 4 and one group of 5. Round-Robin two games against each opponent. All the matches will be played on random stadiums. So it could be anything from 100k seater in Spain to 2k all-standing park stadiums in 8th-tier England. Just to keep things interesting lol. I'd rather do the 3-0 punishment and I think we need something harsh to encourage people to be active. Just for fun, I'll probably sim the results and post it, but the official result will still be 3-0.
I think we're up to two groups of 5 then now probably! Maybe we should have a live draw haha (whether anyone is around to follow it or not!). Do we all pick a real club to represent too, or can you create new clubs? I guess if the teams are about equally matched (with the match day squads only containing edited all-time players) it shouldn't matter if some have more prestigious clubs as far as the game is concerned anyway?
I counted 11. This is what the tournament would look like with 11: https://challonge.com/bigsoccerfmdraft If we have 12, then I'd make 3 groups of 4 instead.
I'll let people choose a real life club to represent them. The prestige factor has no effect at all. The teams you choose is for aesthetics (eg. jersey colours) and role-playing purposes only.
Or for 12, even though it's further from 'CL' style, maybe two groups of 6 (to allow all teams more games played even if knocked out in the group stage) and then even potentially 4 from each going through to quarter-finals?
I'm afraid that if the groups get too big, group stage would take forever, and the final matches might not mean as much. If the numbers force us, I don't have a problem making it 6 or 5. However, if it was 12, I'm even considering doing 4 groups of 3. That way, we can have all 12 teams advance into the knockout stage. The 4 no.1s get a bye as their reward. The other 8 teams make up the quarter-finals, with the 2nd place teams pairing off against 3rd place teams.
Yeah, you'd have quarter-finals phase 1 and 2 in that case! Up to you mate anyway of course (although I guess others might have their ideas too). Yeah, I guess if sticking to 3 groups of 4 and similarly awarding byes then one team would have to get one based on points/goal difference/goals scored (which might then be used to 'reward' one third placed team with a tie against a fourth placed team too). Probably before I should have typed 'more opponents' rather than simply more games though when thinking of reasons to try two groups of 6. It could even be the teams would only play each other once in such groups....
I don't rate him that highly as a center. As a starter, his goal +assist total equals Lahm's, despite playing for park the bus Chelsea. That should yield a higher percentage of overall production. Both players were great in the big games. Anyway, we have a deal!