Feature Spotlight - Academy Trials
Hi everyone
Just a quick update!
We are very pleased with how everything is progressing. We are going to focus each of these updates on a particular feature or change that will be part of the big update coming at the end of August, and this month we are going to give you a quick overview of the revamped Academy Trials feature.
Please note that the feature is still in development and is subject to changes based on testing, but this should give you a general idea of how the feature will work.
Academies will no longer be a Pro feature. Every club in the game will have one. The academy trialists will no longer be tied to a single club. Instead, you will be competing directly against other managers to identify and sign up the best prospects.
Every club will start the season with a number of academy trialists at their club. As with the current system, these trialists will start with very few attributes revealed. The huge challenge that you’ll face with your Academy is that you can only hold a limited number of these trialists at your club each night.
Each club will have a number of “Hold” slots, which they can assign to the trialists that they want to keep hold of based on the attributes that they can (and can not) see at the moment. Each trialist that you have assigned a “hold spot” will be kept at your club until there is a day you decide you want to switch him out. You no longer release trialists. Instead, any players that are not assigned to a “Hold” slot will be discarded and not stay at your club.
“What happens to these trialists that are discarded?” I hear you ask! Well, they will go back into the pool and “shuffle” to other club’s academies. So, the trialists that you don’t hold on to will pop up in someone else’s academy the next day. And some of the trialists that other users have discarded will end up in your academy! This means that over a season you have access to a huge amount of different trialists, far more than you do at present.
Those who run academies in their current guise will know very well that a player that looks very promising early on can be turned into a very average player with a few poor reveals, and, on the other hand, a player who looks distinctly average can suddenly look a damn sight better with a few key reveals. Holding on to those trialists that you feel could turn out well will be a key skill here as the season goes on and more and more attributes are revealed! But stubbornly holding on to the wrong trialist could mean you end up missing out on a promising prospect as he “shuffles” elsewhere.
For example, in the attached screenshot, this club has 6 "Hold" slots (3 of which will Graduate at the end of the season), meaning that this club will keep the 6 trialists assigned to those slots overnight. The rest of the trialists will go back into the Pool to be assigned to another random club the following day. On the final day of the season, the 3 trialists currently occupying the 3 Graduate slots would be the trialists that sign for your club at the end of the season. On that final day the trialists occupying the “Hold slots” will be discarded along with the others.
Again, please note that these numbers are for illustration only - this may change as we attempt to find the correct balance in testing.
As you can probably tell from the screenshot, the UI for the feature will allow managers to check players without having to move back and forth between screens. This should make it much easier and more convenient to check and change trialist slots as required.
The feature will become much more engaging than it is at present. It'll be worth checking every day to see which academy players have been shuffled to your club and ensure that you don’t miss anyone you’d like to keep hold of.
Do you have an eye for talent? Your ability to see what others don’t see could put you in a position to grab some nice prospects that others miss.
Hopefully this has given you a little overview of the feature. It will be more engaging, more competitive and very, very challenging!
The sharp-eyed amongst you will also have taken note of some of the changes to the UI in the screenshot above. It’s a work in progress at the moment, and we’ll talk more about that in a future update!
Thank you for taking the time to read, and we’ll have another update next month.
Just a quick update!
We are very pleased with how everything is progressing. We are going to focus each of these updates on a particular feature or change that will be part of the big update coming at the end of August, and this month we are going to give you a quick overview of the revamped Academy Trials feature.
Please note that the feature is still in development and is subject to changes based on testing, but this should give you a general idea of how the feature will work.
Academies will no longer be a Pro feature. Every club in the game will have one. The academy trialists will no longer be tied to a single club. Instead, you will be competing directly against other managers to identify and sign up the best prospects.
Every club will start the season with a number of academy trialists at their club. As with the current system, these trialists will start with very few attributes revealed. The huge challenge that you’ll face with your Academy is that you can only hold a limited number of these trialists at your club each night.
Each club will have a number of “Hold” slots, which they can assign to the trialists that they want to keep hold of based on the attributes that they can (and can not) see at the moment. Each trialist that you have assigned a “hold spot” will be kept at your club until there is a day you decide you want to switch him out. You no longer release trialists. Instead, any players that are not assigned to a “Hold” slot will be discarded and not stay at your club.
“What happens to these trialists that are discarded?” I hear you ask! Well, they will go back into the pool and “shuffle” to other club’s academies. So, the trialists that you don’t hold on to will pop up in someone else’s academy the next day. And some of the trialists that other users have discarded will end up in your academy! This means that over a season you have access to a huge amount of different trialists, far more than you do at present.
Those who run academies in their current guise will know very well that a player that looks very promising early on can be turned into a very average player with a few poor reveals, and, on the other hand, a player who looks distinctly average can suddenly look a damn sight better with a few key reveals. Holding on to those trialists that you feel could turn out well will be a key skill here as the season goes on and more and more attributes are revealed! But stubbornly holding on to the wrong trialist could mean you end up missing out on a promising prospect as he “shuffles” elsewhere.
For example, in the attached screenshot, this club has 6 "Hold" slots (3 of which will Graduate at the end of the season), meaning that this club will keep the 6 trialists assigned to those slots overnight. The rest of the trialists will go back into the Pool to be assigned to another random club the following day. On the final day of the season, the 3 trialists currently occupying the 3 Graduate slots would be the trialists that sign for your club at the end of the season. On that final day the trialists occupying the “Hold slots” will be discarded along with the others.
Again, please note that these numbers are for illustration only - this may change as we attempt to find the correct balance in testing.
As you can probably tell from the screenshot, the UI for the feature will allow managers to check players without having to move back and forth between screens. This should make it much easier and more convenient to check and change trialist slots as required.
The feature will become much more engaging than it is at present. It'll be worth checking every day to see which academy players have been shuffled to your club and ensure that you don’t miss anyone you’d like to keep hold of.
Do you have an eye for talent? Your ability to see what others don’t see could put you in a position to grab some nice prospects that others miss.
Hopefully this has given you a little overview of the feature. It will be more engaging, more competitive and very, very challenging!
The sharp-eyed amongst you will also have taken note of some of the changes to the UI in the screenshot above. It’s a work in progress at the moment, and we’ll talk more about that in a future update!
Thank you for taking the time to read, and we’ll have another update next month.