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I'd like to suggest a new feature that I think will improve a number of concepts of this game. The U21 Club Competition will speed up the game in order to appeal to new managers (with the need for instant gratification) without sacrificing the long term appeal that exisiting managers appreciate. Specifically, it will help the following concepts:

1. New managers will be able to compete sooner;
2. Existing managers can realize their ideas about players/teams much more easily;
3. Training for U21 (and both training and U21 in general) will become much more appealing;
4. Player market improves because of more training;
5. Feedback on changes in the Game Engine, skills and salary will be much faster.

Elaboration on the points:
1) is pretty clear I think. One of the biggest problems for BB is to keep new managers around, and by providing this new feature in which new managers can compete quicker I think we'll make a significant improvement on this part. Because of the cap at 21 years, it's much easier for a new manager to compete at a high level because there's a much smaller gap between them and exisiting teams.

2) helps the tactical minds among us, which I think is a large portion of our community, that have great ideas about players and teams but have great difficulty in realizing these ideas. Training is slow and you can't train a full team effectively, and buying the players you can't train is near impossible when you try something new. The U21 Club Competition would be the perfect setting to bring these ideas to reality, because it requires much less time to train a competitive player.

3) helps the tactical minds that have tried to realize their ideas through the National U21 competition. However, with the decreasing user base and the fact that you need to get others to train the players for your idea it's difficult too. Managers that do train, train for the adult NT or the long term in general with MVP+ trainees cheap now. NT/long term training requires secondary skill or 1v1 training in the early years, which is not effective for U21. With the U21 Club Competition, the incentive to train U21 players becomes much bigger and it will greatly improve the U21 National competition too.

4) is the result of more training; more training leads to more useful players on the market, which helps the market function properly.

5) is the result of new ideas for players and teams that are tested much faster. We had changes to SB and JR in the GE and salary implemented for a long time, yet we saw no change in balance because managers didn't get to test it. There were no players that had good levels of SB and JR, thus we could not verify the changes, and because we couldn't verify the changes we did not train SB and JR more, which resulted in no players to test with. With training being such a long term commitment, the U21 Club Competition helps reduce this commitment so changes can be tested much sooner providing feedback on changes faster.

How do you guys feel about the proposed feature and how it would help the points mentioned? Do you see more possible benefits, or reasons why the feature wouldn't achieve the predicted benefits?

How do you think it should be implemented?
Would it need an extra game each week, and is that possible or would it require too much too process? If it's not possible, how would the games need to be scheduled?
Would it be possible to facilitate in the current teams, or would it need a seperate U21 team? I would think it would be possible in the same team.
How would the competition be organized; a construction with divisions or should it be some sort of tournament?
Any other challenges?

Last edited by Jeründerbar at 10/17/2017 6:09:36 AM

I've read your suggestion 3 times now, and maybe I missed it. What are you suggesting? I see what you want to accomplish but no actual suggestion.

I think he's suggesting that every manager gets a development u21 team along with the main teams we have right now. Which I think is a brilliant idea btw

Sorry I lost my initial message because of logout due to inactivity and had to rewrite it, and cut it because of the lenght. First of all, thank you for taking the time to read my suggestion.

The idea is to create a seperate U21 competition in which you can compete with your own players with your own team, so a U21 competition but for clubs instead of countries. I don't have a specific suggestion yet because I'd like to know if the idea and the benefits it tries to achive is deemed viable, before talking about actual implementation because the implementation could be done in different ways for different reasons (like server capacity, supporter requirement etc).

One way it could be implemented is that you can compete in this competition with players from your own team with age up to 21 years. Another way would be that you'd need to create a seperate U21 team like a Utopia team, but I'd prefer it if that wouldn't be necessary.

The competition could be like our regular competition with divisions, or a league to which you need to apply like private leagues. Another possibility is to make it a tournament style like the cup.

It doesn't really matter how it is implemented, as long as you can participate with your own team I think the benefits can be achieved, and that's what I wanted to discuss first.

Does this make it more clear, or should I work out the implementation in order to make it clear?

Also, thank you @Underwood for your reaction!

Last edited by Jeründerbar at 10/17/2017 6:52:54 AM

That destroys the idea of Under 21... Just wait till you get one the incentive is the same no matter what imo...

I see multiple options, and I don't have a specific preference as long as the benefits are achieved. I think we should look at what the easiest way to implement is.

Seeing that not every team will have enough players eligble for the U21 competition by default, I think a private league equivalent for U21 would be easy to implement, maybe as a pilot. You can apply for a private league that is specifically for U21 players, and nothing else needs to be done for it. In this case, it would be merely an addition to private leagues to make them U21 and it would be super easy to implement, though with only a small effect.

I think it would be nice to have a bigger/wider competition to increase the appeal, the adoption and thus the benefits. In the end it could be both national and international, but for now a national U21 club competition would be nice already. It could be the perfect step towards the current U21 NT competition; a U21 coach could scout the best players from the U21 club competition for his u21 team. That would lessen the burden on U21 coaches to guide managers to train U21 players, because they would now already have an incentive to train u21 players.

Thank you for your feedback, and I concur that it might be difficult to implement, but that's why I'm sharing my idea here, so we can find a way to realize it together! As long as the benefits are worth it, a big implementation might not need to obstruct the realization of the idea.

To address your points:
Amount of U21 players on roster - yes currently most teams do not have enough youngsters. It can be solved to make it an optional competition, so competing teams might not join but rebuilding teams will. Another option is that managers will just purchase/train extra U21 players, as they can help in the cup too. To offset the extra salary for those players, the competition could generate money for wins or just ticket sales.

Minutes/gameshape - One way this could be solved is the minutes played in the U21 club games do not count against the weekly minutes for training/gameshape, like then National team games and B3. Another way, which might be even ideal, is let the minutes count, so the U21 (trainees) will make the 48 minutes in the U21 club games and then just as a backup in the real competition for the full team. We could even change the training system a little, so that players receive training for minutes played in the U21 competition (maybe even all positions). That way, managers don't need to play trainees in real competition games losing them games, but they can play them competitively against other trainees.

Achievements - I think the U21 club competition provides an opportunity for even more achievements, if that's important. I do not really value them, but I don't see a problem in adding extra to replace those that make less sense because of the competition.

I would suggest an expansion draft to fill out the U21 roster of around 10 trainees maybe? How this draft is conducted is up for discussion. U21 team members can be freely switched between your main team roster if you wish to play them in regular season games. Rookies drafted during the succeeding seasons can also be placed on the U21 roster or main roster as you see fit. A separate training schedule should be in place so both teams will have a chance to be trained. U21 games should generate income (but lesser than regular season ticket sales income) to cover for salaries.

Thank you for your feedback! So you think it's best to have a seperate roster for U21? Don't you think it's possible to just keep 1 roster, which might be easier to manage and implement?