Going Old Skool; WW-Formation Remixed

Lately, I've been feeling a bit silly. I was in the mood to experiment, so I figured I might as well go totally old skool and revamp an old tactic into something new for usage within Altobelli. The concept of that is not entirely new, as we did this before in Miller under the inspiring leadership of Richard Claydon, who is known to most under his forum-guise as WWFan.

I've opted for the re-creation of the classic WW formation, but with a twist. The WW was a development of the WM created by the Hungarian coach Marton Bukovi, who turned the 3-2-5 WM, as designed by Herbert Chapman, upside down. The lack of an effective centre-forward in his team necessitated moving this player back to midfield to create a playmaker, with a midfielder instructed to focus on defence. This created a 3-2-1-4 which morphed into a 3-2-3-2 when the team lost possession, and was described by some as a kind of genetic link between the WM and the 4-2-4. This formation was successfully used by fellow countryman Gusztav Sebes in the Hungarian national team of the early 1950s.

That's pretty much what it looks like. I'm still tweaking the player roles and team instructions, but the basic formation gets you the same effects as the basic 4-6-0. You're flooding the centre of midfield with players and ensuring a lot of high-paced short passing. It's generally enough to drive most opponents mad. I'll get back to this with more detailed stuff as soon as I have more.

Youth Development; An Exploit

I've seen people talk about this on the forums and naturally, it wasn't long before some of our more cheeky managers had a chat with us regarding the possibilities in Altobelli. I'm talking about Senior ranked competitions, set up as private competitions which only allow U17 teams to enter.

This is, in my eyes, an exploit because the system is designed so that players ratings are an indication that you are playing them at a level that they can cope with. The higher level means better progression but only if they perform well. By limiting the quality of the opposition and thus ensuring decent ratings, people are exploiting the youth development system.

Don't get me wrong here, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a manager playing their entire youth team in a Senior Ranked competition, as long as other managers are allowed to use their Senior teams in these competitions as well.

In most cases, a youth team entering the fray against senior teams will lose and get bad average ratings so there is no gain and no exploit. If the Youth players are good enough to play well against Seniors (like Arsenal's youths in for example the Carling Cup) then that is fine, but by limiting entries into private competitions to U17's alone, people have found and are exploiting a backdoor of the system.

The issue here is not Youth teams playing in Senior competitions versus senior opponents, but Youth teams getting a good rating in a Senior rank comp because they ONLY play other youth teams. If you are intent on fielding Youth teams in a private competition versus other Youth teams, make the competition reflect the strength of its members by setting it to U21 or U19. These competitions should be YOUTH competitions, not SENIOR ones.

I mentioned this earlier but this acceleration of youth players attributes (and the fact they are playing in "senior" games) clearly affects their Acquisition Fees and as a result their Market Values as well. If their stats go up faster due to them performing well in "senior" games, their ACQ and MV are bound to follow.

It's a way to make youth trading an even more lucrative business. So far, we've already seen multi-million offers for youths and with this stat boosting going on, the prices for youths will become more inflated. This could literally kill off the whole economy.

Imagine if you will the following situation. Spanish midfield maestro Jose Manuel Jurado happens to be one of my players. Valued at 1.4 million, on a 20k a day wage and at only 24, he's a talented and world class midfielder. However, when I see 16 and 17 year olds with an MV of 400k exchange hands for over nearly 2 million, why would I settle for anything less than such a sum for Jurado?

He's obviously five times the player these newgens are, as he is much older, can be fitted into first team instantly and generally has the same wages as these super newgens. If a 400k player can go for 2 million, thus five times his MV, why should I settle for anything under 10 million for Jurado?

Just hypothetically speaking ofcourse. There is no way on this planet that I am selling Jurado, especially not with these inflated prices. Either way, it shows the long term difficulties this exploit might bring.

I've strayed a bit off-topic though and I would like to get back to the original exploit. When I first noticed these competitions popping up, I immediately edited or removed them entirely, whilst asking for an official stance on this subject. Well, I got my official stance for now. Allow me quote a mailing I sent out in Altobelli after receiving word on our official stance.

If it's a senior ranked competition then any team can play in that providing it's not been set to stat pad. If we have proof that it was set for this reason then action can be taken - if we don't have proof but when checking results we see it has happened then we send a written warning saying don't do it again.

It's a grey area with many different parts to it, but playing youths in senior games is not against the rules.

There is a discussion going on about these competitions, as technically they are exploiting the game engine, but until there is no official ruling in place, we have to wait and allow these competitions.

So here's to hoping there's a speedy resolution, either SI coding something new or creating a rule which shows what we are and what we aren't allowed to do.

Class Forum Post

I stumbled across a lovely post on the forums right here. This post should be taken with a grain of salt, but it does show the trouble we have in the new GameWorld of Altobelli. It's not my text, but I do realise many of the issues, as we have some real people complaining about them.

1 - I don't win every game

Im seriously getting annoyed with this, personally I feel my team isn't the best team in the league but really I should be winning all my games. I hate it when we batter a team with long shots and none of them go in, I mean why does the opponents goal keeper suddenly become good, doesn't he know how good my team are???? He should roll over as soon as we shoot! Damn him! Also isn't annoying when the opponent scores? I mean come on my defence is rock solid and I spent ages tinkering with it only to have someone break through and score a goal! He only had chance! OMG!!!111 this never happens in real life.

2 - The transfer markets screwed

Whats going on with the transfer market, we spent the first 3 seasons buying and selling players like there is no tomorrow and now no one is buying, they all want to just better their squads??? Whats up with that? I was quite happy at the start, I managed to get 4 quality players (shame I had to bump their wages so high to get em) but couldnt afford them and had to release them. Now I look in the free agents and theres loads of quality players but with ridiculous wages??? I mean come on why do people ruin the best players by paying them high wages and making them impossible for anyone to afford? I did it for mine but surely not everyone is as stupid as me????

3 - Youth Squads

I wanted to start a youth squad (in the 7th seasons) and i'll be damned all the best players as gone?? How selfish is everyone that they took all the best players?? And when I check the daily influx of new youngsters they arnt all 5 star potential?? OMG SI!!!11 WTF! I finally got a squad together and suffered bad flaw in the ME (see point 1)

4 - Everyone is leaving/the GW is dying

So this guy joined our GW and he was a total noob, but I noticed he had a few quality players, knowing he was a noobie I decided to talk him into taking a few of my crap youngsters off me (I told him they were 5 star potential) in trade for his quality players. While I was chatting to him I also suggested a few DYM comps I was running at the time cause I know easy cash when I saw some. So he found out about this youngsters and was pretty ****ed, I told him to go **** himself and that he shouldn't be so stupid!! He told a mod but I knew they were powerless to stop me ha ha.
So anyway, why are all the teams leaving my GW?? Its stupid!

So what did I do after all this? Of course I did what any normal person would do, I Jumped GW to a newer one.

I quickly got my team together, played a nice 4-6-0 formation and got 2 DC with damn good Jumping/heading. First game I had was against another newbie, we start the game he says "GL have fun" this really ****ed me off! But with my experiance I managed to beat him 4-0 with one of my DC getting a hat trick. He said my formation and tactics were cheating but I explained him they weren't, I pointed him in the direction of a jounalists artical about 4-6-0 and said this proves its not a ME flaw. He soon shut up!

I know unless you sort out all these problems i'm gonna have to jump GW again and again just get some satiffaction from this game!

Come on SI sort it out, its your game and your the one thats made all these mistakes NOT ME!!

So yeah, a good post. The guy was obviously not serious in the issues he raised, as he was obviously taking the piss. He does mention a few serious points though, as these are the main complaints we have been dealing with in-game.

A Change In Strategy

We discussed the hyper inflation within the GameWorld before in an earlier post. To summarize it, wages will explode even further, leading to even more inflation. Your money becomes worthless. The few remaining players on normal wages will be highly sought after because now everyone will try to slash their wages.

This means that the end-of-contract wage auctions are even more critical these days. Players with normal wages will be attracting lots of interest and the desperate managers after them are willing to pay a high wage to get them because of their normal wages. You have to admire the absurdity of that. They are willing to pay a wage five times higher than the current one, because it would still be lower than the wages of some of the players in their team.

Either way, since you can only protect five players with senior contract locks, this means there's roughly six to ten others running around you cannot protect. So basically anyone outside your 5 senior locks and your youth locks goes to a wage auction 24 hours before the end of their contract. This means the highest bidder wins the player, and as compensation you receive their Acquisition Fee (AF) - which is somewhat below the market rate you could get for the player by selling him.

Wage auctions are a thing you want to prevent. You don't want your player to go into a wage auction, because this will most likely drive his price up. To prevent this from happening, you forge an alliance to circumvent this whole problem. There are other managers out there with a similar problem to your own. Their squads might get ravaged by the wage auctions as well. Use that knowledge.

Offer these managers a sort of partnership. Swap players. For example, you could swap your centre-back with an expiring contract for theirs, who is in a similar situation, possibly with some money to make up for the difference in Market Value. This way, both of you keep a good defender on decent wages, without the hassle of a wage auction.

A Throw-In Tip

I received a little in-game message through the mailing lists which I think everyone who reads this blog might appreciate. I'm not going to hog the credit on this one, so honourable mentions for Rui Pintos Xutos and Diogo Martins for their initiative of sharing this.

It's basically a sort of Rory Delap style of tactic, where you have one long throw cannon and a lot of movement around the box. Works a treat if you have the players for it.

Anyway, under Team Instructions, put Throw Ins on Long for both the right and the left side. The individual instructions (based on a 4-5-1, alter according to your own formation...) look like this...

WBR - Default in both

DC - Stay Back in both

DC - Stay Back in both

WBR - Default in both

DM - Go Forward in both

MRC - Right near post Left go forward

MLC - Left near post right go forwrd

AMR - Go forward both

AML - Go forward both

SC - Go forward

If it all works, it looks a little something like this.

As you can see, this leads to one player being isolated in the box, with plenty of time to control the ball and get a good shot or header off.

A 4-6-0 Template

As I promised in the Altobelli Tactics Room, I’d show you all a template of the 4-6-0 I am using. The formation and team instructions are basically enough, since all the rest is down to your players and what you want them to achieve. I’ll do this the easy way by just giving you two screenshots.

The Exodus Is Upon Us As The First Sign Of The Apocalypse

For the illiterates amongst you (you have to appreciate the irony of me addressing illiterates on a blog, really...), an exodus means a departure or emigration, usually of a large number of people. It's named after the biblical exodus.

The book tells how Moses leads the Hebrews out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the Mountain of God Sinai. Thus, an exodus is the emigration of a large amount of people.In the glorious Altobelli Game World, I have noticed the first exodus of players. With the pre-sale taxes on most players being reduced to about 35% to 30%, people have started to put some of their better players in auctions lasting for 7 days. Odd you say? No, strategic planning...

You see, in 7 days time the pre-sale taxes will have vanished completely, which means these guys get the full profits over the players they sell. It has to be said, most of the guys on auction are actually quite good, so it's a strategy that could have well paid off.

Did you note I used "could have paid off" instead of "will pay off"? Good... I'm pretty sure it won't really pay off and cause a massive inflation of wages and player values, as too many managers are using this strategy right about now.

The managers who were late into the Game World now see a chance to get good players or at least better ones than they currently have. The pre-sale taxes have pretty much stopped insane bids upto now, so most managers have a nice wad of cash saved up. This money is now used to make insane bids in the auctions.

For instance... Let's have a look at Jozsef Kanta. In real life, the lad plays for MTK Budapest and has won two caps. This means he's a decent but not spectacular player in FM Live. With an acquisition fee of 70,000 quid, he's not exactly cheap, but he's not a world class star either.

His manager managed to get the most out of him by fielding him as the main forward midfielder in a 4-6-0 formation. Jozsef bagged 171 goals in 169 appearances and has drawn some attention with this. As soon as he was placed in an auction, bids started pouring him, driving the value upto 450k. That's more than 6 times his market value...

This form of hyperinflation is happening all over the Game World in dozens of auctions. With most managers being smart enough to wait until pre-sale taxes vanished, this will mean a few guys will have a lot of cash to spend come the first series of wage auctions.

Now what do you think will happen? These guys have a lot of money, so they can pretty much afford high wages for the players they really want. The other managers will try to compete ofcourse. Nobody is going to back down to see their best players taken away. This means they will up their own bids for players to match what they think the rich managers are bidding.

This is where things start to become really critical. The concept of a normal auction is that you pay +1 on the second highest bid of a player. Wage auctions don't quite work that way... In a end-of-contract wage auction, what you bid is what you pay, even if the second highest bid was 10k lower than yours (Note: this doesn't apply when you actually OWN said player...).

I can pretty safely predict that the wages will explode even further, leading to even more inflation. Your money becomes worthless. The few remaining players on normal wages will be highly sought after because now everyone will try to slash their wages, thus leading not helping the situation... It may very well be the beginning of the end for the transfer market as we have known it upto now.

Overpaid Youths

Yup, one of my favorite topics to rant about. This generally only seems to happen as soon as people unlock the Judging Potential Ability skill, but in Altobelli, it has struck in week 1. Oddly enough I might add, since technically we are a beginner Game World. Then again, we already established the Game World isn't exactly full of beginners anyway...

Anyway, right now the youth wages are okay in most cases, but the highly rated ones are already a disaster-area. Every newgen that has appeared over the last month with an expected four star or more Potential Ability, is now earning at least 10k a day, if not more. I've seen 15 and 16 year olds with 19k wages. All of this within the first weeks of the Game World launching...

People fail to realise how much money this is costing them in the long run. 10k a day means 70k a week, 280k a season... For a 15 or 16 year old player, whose future is highly uncertain, as you need to nurture and develop this youngster. He won't be ready for regular first team football before he hits the age 20, so you're paying 1,12 to 1,4 million for this youth.

And let's not forget we're still not sure if the youngster can actually live up the high expectations. You're taking a huge, huge gamble when you pay wages like that to such young players. If he fails to develop into a class act, there's no way you'll be able to sell him for the amount of cash you have invested in him.

Last but not least, there's the time of this hyperinflation... The FA's started on Monday, two days ago. That means that most teams barely have any money to spend, yet some are investing heavily into players... Let's not forget you have to pay a signing-on-fee of ten times a players wage as well... That's 50k for a 5k wage, on top of the acquisition fee. For starting teams, 50k is a lot of money...

I'm not sure how this situation will develop, but I can say it's not looking good. If people are investing this heavily in youths without having Judging Potential as a skill, imagine the carnage as soon as JP actually becomes available... I'm not sure I like the prospect of that... Hyperinflation galore and the youth wages might go completely insane...