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1835 msgs.
International
 I'll rant a bit. Feel free to agree or disagree.

1) Communication - poor to non-existent. Improving thanks to the 4 new good @s. But this does not justify the prior atrocious communication.

2) The training roll out. FUBR. If you don't know what that means look it up (its vulgar fyi) You should find a picture of the new training roll-out next to its definition.

3) Averages - So we are told "Averages Don't Matter". Lies. If they didn't, why would people be punished for under-market transfers? How are the @s planning on regulating the market? HTF do we search for players if not by average? I can't use my Coach Secretary and key on "Speed" or "Ball Steal" or something. Poor poor execution. So Averages DO matter for the most important part of the game - MONEY.

4) The training design and implementation process is a failure and a joke. I manage software development. I can speak to this. Whoever is in charge is a laughingstock. No way would they ever cut it in the American corporate world. I'd be fired if this was my project.

5) Schools and Juniors are now useless. How on earth are they ever going to get to be promoted prior to age 19????
Continuing that train of thought, are the powers that be so naive that they really think lots of people will be playing this game 3-4-5 years down the line, when the juniors may be useful? Please! It's a joke.

6) The new training gave newer players zero chance of going anywhere. None. One of the key aspects of the game is finding high or decent progression players and training them. Now, when training goes up .1 MAX, how is good searching and training going to assist?

7) Without being able to train and sell, income is cut. Not good.

Thanks for reading. I hope that someone in a position of power wakes up and realizes the crap that's being produced. I'm not asking for the training last season. In fact, training certain attributes is an excellent idea. However, it needs to be changed. People want some sort of result after a week/month/season of training. Not "oh joy, after one season, my 70% progression IM went up 5 points! Yay!....

 08/10/2011 21:30
  - Div/Gr
Username
5205 msgs.
Golden Ball
 I understand your pain. I've lost 2 of the last 3 games to bugs, rather than my skill as a manager or the skill of my players. Communication is not yet running well, and everyone agrees, including the primary admins.

I want you to know that the 4 new @ are going to be your best friends on these issues. We all play the game, we have all experienced every issue you could think of, and more.

Having said that, I want to set some ground rules for how this debate will be played out, and ask you to play by them.

1) Trust the new @s to be your advocates

2) If you're mad as hell, DO NOT POST ON THE FORUMS! Please write to me directly. Yes, I can take the heat. Do NOT post on the forums in order to vent! I will edit or delete forum posts if necessary in order to keep things productive, but only as a last resort.

3) If you have found a bug, please find a forum thread that describes the bug, and post a "me too" message with a link (if applicable) to a game with the bug and where to find it (minute). If you've found a new bug, please start a new thread with the same kind of message (link, description of bug).

4) If you have an issue with a feature, please find a forum thread that addresses this feature. They all exist already, trust me.

We @ are your lawyers raising objection after objection. We are persistent, and we were chosen to be @ because we are persistent and communicate with you all directly and feel your pain because it is also our pain. Without these ground rules, we can't help isolate the problems and condense them into the single message the devs need in order to prioritize and fix them. Yes, we have in fact condensed ALL the critical bugs into 2 messages, a top ten and others list, and the devs are reading them and trying to fix them.

OK, next reply will address your message point by point. 		08/10/2011 21:44
  - Div/Gr
Username
6256 msgs.
Golden Ball
 + infinity. Nothing to add. If @bisho is correct and we have to lump it, you'll destroy your player base.

You guys have a much better product than most on the market, please protect it in a sensible way. It worked for a reason, that reason was that anyone felt they could eventually reach the top if they put in some effort to improve, 		08/10/2011 21:49
  - Div/Gr
Username
6256 msgs.
Golden Ball
@CelloG said:
I understand your pain. I've lost 2 of the last 3 games to bugs, rather than my skill as a manager or the skill of my players. Communication is not yet running well, and everyone agrees, including the primary admins.

I want you to know that the 4 new @ are going to be your best friends on these issues. We all play the game, we have all experienced every issue you could think of, and more.

Having said that, I want to set some ground rules for how this debate will be played out, and ask you to play by them.

1) Trust the new @s to be your advocates

2) If you're mad as hell, DO NOT POST ON THE FORUMS! Please write to me directly. Yes, I can take the heat. Do NOT post on the forums in order to vent! I will edit or delete forum posts if necessary in order to keep things productive, but only as a last resort.

3) If you have found a bug, please find a forum thread that describes the bug, and post a "me too" message with a link (if applicable) to a game with the bug and where to find it (minute). If you've found a new bug, please start a new thread with the same kind of message (link, description of bug).

4) If you have an issue with a feature, please find a forum thread that addresses this feature. They all exist already, trust me.

We @ are your lawyers raising objection after objection. We are persistent, and we were chosen to be @ because we are persistent and communicate with you all directly and feel your pain because it is also our pain. Without these ground rules, we can't help isolate the problems and condense them into the single message the devs need in order to prioritize and fix them. Yes, we have in fact condensed ALL the critical bugs into 2 messages, a top ten and others list, and the devs are reading them and trying to fix them.

OK, next reply will address your message point by point.


@cellog I trust you, but when you see other, older @'s saying "things won't change" and we still have the 4/4 league on fire stuff.........
 08/10/2011 21:51
  - Div/Gr
Username
5205 msgs.
Golden Ball
ABC DEFG said:
I'll rant a bit. Feel free to agree or disagree.

1) Communication - poor to non-existent. Improving thanks to the 4 new good @s. But this does not justify the prior atrocious communication.

2) The training roll out. FUBR. If you don't know what that means look it up (its vulgar fyi) You should find a picture of the new training roll-out next to its definition.


Please let the new @ rant publicly instead of you. We are REALLY good at it, much better than you are, and will get things done on both of these fronts . Please know that the new @ have been slaving away on 5 new FAQs to document exhaustively how the game works now, and how to handle it best, this will improve communication. We are also acting as a flesh-and-blood issue tracker for the devs to organize all the issues users have reported on the forums. A lot of this is behind the scenes, so it's understandable that you would not know about it.


3) Averages - So we are told "Averages Don't Matter". Lies. If they didn't, why would people be punished for under-market transfers? How are the @s planning on regulating the market? How do we search for players if not by average? I can't use my Coach Secretary and key on "Speed" or "Ball Steal" or something. Poor poor execution. So Averages DO matter for the most important part of the game - MONEY.


Averages DO matter, because the statistics they are based on matter. This is a misconception. What @Rand said is that the game simulator no longer calculates player performance just on total average, but instead uses the individual statistics. Clearly average matters, this is not in debate by anyone but confused users, and that is a communication issue.


4) The training design and implementation process is a failure and a joke. I manage software development. I can speak to this. Whoever is in charge is a laughingstock. No way would they ever cut it in the American corporate world. I'd be fired if this was my project.


Reality check: this is a game. Of course it's not handled like corporate America. It could be better, and several of us have made suggestions. It will be up to the devs to decide what to do going forward.


5) Schools and Juniors are now useless. How on earth are they ever going to get to be promoted prior to age 19????
Continuing that train of thought, are the powers that be so naive that they really think lots of people will be playing this game 3-4-5 years down the line, when the juniors may be useful? Please! It's a joke.

6) The new training gave newer players zero chance of going anywhere. None. One of the key aspects of the game is finding high or decent progression players and training them. Now, when training goes up .1 MAX, how is good searching and training going to assist?

7) Without being able to train and sell, income is cut. Not good.


All of these are the same point, condensed to: training solves the problem of teams getting great players too fast, a major problem on the spanish server. However, the solution also makes it impossible for new teams to catch old teams, and something needs to be found. I would like to point out that your message did not actually suggest anything better. You're a software development manager, suggest a better way to manage the problem, and you could be the hero of SM if it is implemented. That's better than being the loudest manager in SM (that's @rebsiot's job).


Thanks for reading. I hope that someone in a position of power wakes up and realizes the crap that's being produced. I'm not asking for the training last season. In fact, training certain attributes is an excellent idea. However, it needs to be changed. People want some sort of result after a week/month/season of training. Not "oh joy, after one season, my 70% progression IM went up 5 points! Yay!....


This is also more of the same. Why not just reply to the thread I started with a poll about the training? We're trying to provide answers to how the users want trainings to improve rather than just ranting. Come join the party, the beer is tasty and less rancid than the bile you're currently chewing on! 		08/10/2011 21:55
  - Div/Gr
476 msgs.
First-team player
 This ruling on training is unfair. To me it looks like the top teams got together and decided we have the best players now we don't want others to catch us up. Top looking after themselves. Last season, most enjoyment from the game was from training and developing players. This is a bad news for the game.

Edited by DaisyDoo 08-10-2011 22:14 		08/10/2011 22:13
  - Div/Gr
Username
1835 msgs.
International
 @CelloG - I'll discuss line by line. For the record, I do appreciate the 4 new @s. I've said that many times.

1 - I could've really ranted. This was nothing. But good to know others can also.

2 - Nice to know averages matter. Which makes the fact that they go up maybe at best 5 per season ridiculous. c

3 - Reality check: this is a game. Of course it's not handled like corporate America. It could be better, and several of us have made suggestions. It will be up to the devs to decide what to do going forward.

This is where you and I disagree. It is a game yes. But is something that provides income to some, and is therefore a marketable product. I'm telling you like many others also have said, the product is being ruined by extremely poor decisions. So simplifying it to "its a game" does not encompass the whole picture.

4 - Solutions. You want solutions. How much time do you have??? WHY was the new sim released with so many bugs. There wasn't a pressing demand for the new sim from the players, was there? Not that I remember....
Also, the testing, if one can call it that, was atrocious. You @s were fed to the wolves due to incompetent developers prematurely releasing a product the market WASN'T DEMANDING! So, the failures above are a start. You had to band-aid terrible coding (see friendlies, no training etc etc). There comes a point which was reached long ago when something is a failure pull it. You want my advice? Pull it until it's resolved. Another issue? Again the poor communication? SOLUTION - state in ADVANCE what to do when bugs are found, what the ultimate back-out solution is, and oh yea, WRITE AN FAQ about the changes, don't just add crap on the fly. Again, this isn't you, but there is a huge methodology breakdown. Go read a software dev lifecycle project outline for a good template. Then apply it to this rollout. Total opposites.

5 - Thanks for starting the poll. I did vote. I even offered a solution in someone's Doubts/Questions thread about training - Add up the .03 speed .05 ball steal .07 etc etc. But, part of offering solutions is knowing how the actual average is calculated. Without that knowledge, solutions are just random shots in the dark.

I'll try some of the other beer in the other thread also. I do tend to like mine though! 		08/10/2011 22:33
  - Div/Gr
Username
5205 msgs.
Golden Ball
 ABC: now that's more like it .

Regarding your point #3: I posted a suggestion that they use a public, open source bug tracker with links to several possible trackers (http://uk.strikermanager.com/foros/hilo.php?id=262384). This is an example of howI recommend suggesting changes. It also should show that we are on the same page regarding product lifecycle.

#4: Totally agree with you, and some new things are in place. There's a LONG ways to go to functional, in my opinion, but it is getting better. As for a rollback, at this stage that is impossible: it would take another 24-hour period to re-convert players back to the old stats calculation, with all kinds of unintended consequences. We @ have been trying to figure out workarounds for bugs until they can be fixed, and as soon as the devs go back to work on Monday, we'll clearly see some fixes forthcoming. I will stake my reputation on that.

#5: I think what matters is not the actual formula, but how much it looks like the player is improving. We want good players to look good, and bad players to look bad, instead of all players to look the same.

thanks for your indulgence and patience.

I've been watching as several of the most established players auction off their whole squads, and was extremely vocal on what I see as the unbalanced focus on punishment of users versus solving problems on the code side of things. I ask that you give us 7 days to see a real difference in communication from we @. Trust me when I say that the 4 new @ will not stand for anything less, and we've made this crystal clear to senior @. After those 7 days if nothing is better, well, then I won't try to stop your next rant .

Now go play the game and try to enjoy it in spite of the bugs crawling all over it! You have to admit, being able to watch the game is a step up.

 08/10/2011 23:29
  - Div/Gr
     
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