Also, thanks to those of you who recommended I take a look at Top Eleven in the other threads. Anyone familiar with it will have seen the inspiration their auction system provided. It gave me some valuable insights which I then built on and incorporated in to the context of iGP.
Just to clarify (as it might've been my mistake on not putting it together properly or due to a typo): I didn't want to push Top Eleven's transfers system into iGP (I'm actually indifferent to it), just intended to show how not to do peer-to-peer negotiations and keep the game competitive and not P2W. But If you (and the rest of the community) liked their system, I'm happy by being the catalyst of that, in some sort of way ?
Several of the accounts using these scripts have accumulated 50+ Chief Designers with the best possible attributes, as an example, totally unbalancing the game for everyone else. The scripts are instantly rendered obsolete by this update. We will decide separately what to do about those accounts, but that was all we wanted to achieve today.
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As was mentioned in the changelog, there will be work done on the transfers list to improve the availability of the sorts of drivers and staff that people were looking for, but within the proper structure of how the game is supposed to be played.
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Thanks to those who put constructive feedback, we'll take all of that in to the subsequent updates (which will come within days). The situation at this exact point in time is only a temporary one. We want to get everyone playing the game properly, so first we wanted to shut down all the "silly" ways of playing it that involve scripts, loopholes, opening hundreds of browser tabs, typing in random URLs, or exploits (notice the trend in recent patches).
Just to clarify (again): I'm not disappointed in taking down those loopholes... but with the way you did it. The new Hall of Fame isn't the greatest thing in the word, but it was ready when the previous one was dethroned and it keeps players engaged in a daily basis. Taking down "Sell now" out of the blue without giving us any solution only caused some frustration about a "fix" we didn't even knew we needed ?♂️
The scarier prospect, apparently, is that these drivers and staff should start appearing on the transfer market. Heaven forbid, we see good drivers and staff on the transfer market. Yet we've been told forever that the reason exploits were necessary is that no good drivers and staff appear there, and now you're concerned that they will be there... I can't be the only one seeing the contradiction.
Tbf I don't really mind the strength the newly generated CD comes with. It's worth, most of the time, 59 or 109 tokens to buy one that can stay 500 races in your team by just fixing their Strength/Weakness. What really matters is how many of the 5* (5 stars) exist on the market for level 16-20 teams. This includes TD and also DR (which is a shame the 5* ones not working 100% of their capabilities). That's because the game is also about team management, which includes tokens savings and their future allocation.
In my second post I explained why a limit on staff won't work. E.g. If we limit everyone to 5 staff, they'll make 10 accounts instead. They still get 50+ chief designers. We will likely add some kind of cap in addition to the update we've done, to double down on squashing such activity, but not as the whole solution, because it isn't one.
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Several of the accounts using these scripts have accumulated 50+ Chief Designers with the best possible attributes, as an example, totally unbalancing the game for everyone else. The scripts are instantly rendered obsolete by this update. We will decide separately what to do about those accounts, but that was all we wanted to achieve today.
It's not about the full solution, but rather slowing the managers doing such things down. It takes a lot of time to level up a brand new account to level 19 where it causes the most damage, so if they need to create new accounts to keep their staff it's won't be possible and those staffs will be sent to the market again. 5 of each staff sounds good enough for me. Specially if don't have a punishment in mind yet ?
Giovanni Caruana
At least you should make us able to filter all the transfers by stars and not show only 30 random drivers or staff.
This is the kind of discussion we've been having about how to improve the system. We'll look in to it.
If the game does follow some of Top Eleven's transfers system features it might need some sortings to save time while looking them all up in a 4min bid system. And, as a player of the said game, what usually happens is: we open the "Transfers" tab when it has less time than the maximum available to make decisions on the current market. Considering how different the games are, it will come in handy. For example:
Sort Staff - "Function | Level | Stars | Age | Experience" and;
Sort Drivers - "Talent | Height | Overall driving | Overall mental | Stamina | Experience | Age".
And may I suggest a "sort by star" in a "given level"? {It might not be too effective depending on how you guys implement the new Office staff recruitment, but I just wanted to say it as it can be added to iGP as a "shortlist filter"}
For example, let's say I want to help someone in my league to look up for a level 17, 5* CD. In the current system me, as a level 20, can only see 4* for all of them in my shortlist so it's all about trial and error. As it may sound too complicated for newcomers, it can be added as a "Advanced search" below the usual sortings or something like that because, in Top Eleven, a given star rating applies for all levels... and it doesn't work like that in iGP ?
We will also likely add email validation or some other layer of security to increase the difficulty in creating multiple accounts.
Last, but not least: I'm not a fan of that, but completely understand the need for it... just don't do that now! A blow at a time ?
Anyway, keep the results of your good work coming... but please, don't make big decisions out of the blue like this again ?
Have a nice day! ??
CEO & CTO
