HTs on Global/Fans

If that's the case, how could we answer differently? We can't should say A when it is B, just for the sake of populism, to appease those who say "It is not A, it is B".

It has not changed.

Also, these threads tend to mix a whole bunch of completely different things.

I'll here just comment the complaining about losing supporters, which is what this thread was originally about, until it was hijacked by users who prefer spreading sarcasms about "intelligent fans" (taking things badly out of context while so doing) and complain about their spectator outcome in general.

Losing supporters: The complaints tend to be founded in a complete lack of understanding how the fanclub size relates to what league level you are in. Many people think that just because it worked fine to pile up fanclub members early in their HT career, then it will remain linear like that forever. However, as I've repeatedly tried to get the message through: the size of your fanclub is strongly related to what level you are in.

There is a "balance size" for each division level. If you're doing OK, then you will reach this level and neither lose nor gain supporters a typical week. However, it is possible to be doing "above average" for a while (including using press spokesmen and similar means to boost fans mood). If you manage to maintain this "enhanced" situation for some time, your fanclub size will grow beyond the balance level.

But when your team then screw things up (lose in the cup against a worse team, for instance, or lose 5-0 in an important series match), then so much worse the fall is: You fall from an enhanced state.

Here's an example (hypothetical, and with dummy values NOT taken from the actual formula): Let's say a certain division has a balance level of 2000 fans. your team has 1900. For some time your team starts doing well and the fans stay happy. You will reach 2000 at an "accelerated speed" because you are currently below the balance level. However, the further beyond 2000 you go, the harder each new recruitment gets. And when finally, bad luck strikes and things start going wrong with the team, you will lose quite a lot, say lose 100 withing a few weeks, going from the exhanced level of 2200 to 2100.

Does this mean that it is meaningless to gain fans? No. If you stay at 2200 for some time, you will still have had 10% more income (although for a limited time) from the things depending on fanclub than you would have had otherwise. Just because it doesn't last forever, you'll still have gained more money than if you had stayed at 2000 all the time.

So, there are a few things to note: The 10% fanclub gain when you go up to higher division is not the big advantage of promoting. The big advantage is that you'll have a higher balance level. In fact, the 10% you gain may (or may not) bring you above the balance level of the new division. This is what some users have experienced as a drop of fanclub size early in the new season after promoting.

Why do we have a balance level? For starters, this rewards promotion somewhat. It is also an element of realism (yeah-yeah... I know, we have limited the realism on the whole on the matter of spectator sizes, but let's not take up that discussion here, I've answered that elsewhere).

Furthermore, it prevents the early starters from benefiting eternally from "a head start". I mean like this: If supporter gain had been linear, so you keep gaining fans as long as you win, then we could easily have had a situation where the oldest teams had fanclubs of 20.000 rather than 2000 members. So there has to be a limitation, although, we ALWAYS shun strict limits, we've made the limit "soft" (so you can cross it, but only temporary).

The fans want you to take all important matches seriously. The cup is very important to them. Like it or not, but that is the way the spectators of the HT universe thinks about things. Them fans are stubborn crazy little fools, but hey - that's why they fork out the fee to the entrance tickets each week (except when they are too angry with you failing them). When it comes to stubbornness of your fans, you have to take the bad with the good.

Over and out,

In round 2, however, they are going to play one of the two top ranked teams, perhaps even away. The result would normally be quite a massive loss which then would kill your supporter mood, especially if that team lost to the other top ranked team the week before. Hattrick would count that as a top team (the lousy newly promoted one) lost to a bottom team (in reality probably the best or second best team in the league). The consequences would be absurd to both teams. A very good team would get loads of new supporters for beating a really weak side, and the weak team would lose lots despite losing to a much better team.

As for the cup it has already been made a lot less painful to lose in general

The attendance formula has not changed, as I think you know. But the attendance formula is affected by the supporter mood, and that formula was changed two seasons ago which led to a spectator (and income) loss last season. To this season attendance incomes were raised, and teams today (globally) get more attendance income than they got two seasons ago. Not much more, but slightly more. The fact that we had a huge inflation two seasons ago should also be taken into consideration when discussing this. This means we're back and even past the income figures we had two seasons ago, but I wouldn't worry that much about a new huge inflation as the costs are better optimized than before.

So, the fact is that teams make more money out of spectators today, but still there are complains about the spectators. This, I think, is a pretty normal reaction, as the first thing you see is how many spectators came to watch a game. The overall income from the spectators comes secondly, if one even care to check it out.

Finally some words about the spectators formula. We could of course of course have changed the formula, but we chose to increase attendance money instead. This because the formula is one of those formulas you don't easily change. And as this formula effects the global economy a lot, you better be very sure of what changes it will cause. And in the situation we were in those days we didn't want to risk a huge inflation again nor a bigger deflation. I'm not saying there never will be a change in this formula (and I'm not saying there will be either ;)), but it will in that case require a lot of testing before. And a healthier economical situation. :)

all teams in the bottom of their division, loses supporters, sponsor income and most of all spectator income.

So you think it is strange that losing teams lose fans, sponsors and spectators? I don't. Besides, for some reason you totally "forget" the fact that ticket revenue per ticket was increased this season too. You are also missing that sponsor money is only partially affected by results. The most important factors for sponsors are what level you are in (division) and your spokespersons. I have been losing most of the season but my sponsor money keeps increasing week by week.

Now only an idiot or someone who really don't care about the economic part of the the came, would promote before they're sure that they can be among the top 4

There are a number of statements in this post that implies that you simply do not understand how a lot of the factors work. First of all, you mention sponsor money - the single factor except spokespersons that has the biggest importance for your sponsor money is the league level you are at.

The only things that affect supporter mood in the league is if you win/draw/lose and the number of goals you produce/let in.

Yes, you are right. That also plays a part

Below is the 20 Swedish series with the highest total attendance so far this season. It hardly supports the theory that the biggest crowds come in division III.

Rank Series Total Crowd 1 A 2,669,254
2 Ib 2,445,256
3 Ia 2,191,579
4 Id 2,084,586
5 IIh 1,810,724
6 IIm 2,056,888
7 IIn 1,703,095
8 IIo 2,053,330
9 IIk 1,578,861
10 IIg 1,833,706
11 IIa 1,764,395
12 IIl 1,852,822
13 Ic 2,009,250
14 IIj 1,820,445
15 IIe 1,792,622
16 IIf 1,716,267
17 IId 1,820,115
18 III.31 1,586,021
19 III.37 1,561,839
20 III.22 1,630,809

That has no effect whatsoever in the league. The only things that affect supporter mood in the league is if you win/draw/lose and the number of goals you produce/let in.

In the cup however, it matters what league level (division) the team you play is in. If I, who play in the top league in Sweden, lose against a team from division VII, my supporters will probably put out a contract on my head. But if I do better and eventually lose to a team from division I, they will only be slightly upset (if I don't go out 9-0 or something like that).

No. That has never been the case.

No. That has never been the case.

I am fully agree. I opened a thread about this in the 2nd matchday in the Israeli confrence, where we have the luxury(?) to have a semi-HT, flameron, to answer us. Thing is, he wants proofs to everything we say, but not everything is available, and even then, we "don't understand the system". That's also including not modifying your stadium according to the new changes. But he did said some intersting stuff, which might interest you:

*Against the claim of "Higher division teams earn lower ammount of money" he answered: "Yes, but they still earn more than a low-div team both from crowd and sponsors. They do have to pay more salaries...I would say that some users just don't know how to manage their team financially"

*He gave us numbers last season, where you can see a drop in the top 3 leagues, and a raise in the lower (5 and under) leagues. Div 4 is more or less the same income.

*The system doesn't encourage team to stay too much in their league - for good (not demoting) and for bad (not promoting)

*There's an importance to both your place, and the difference (!) between you and the opponent. The closer, the more fans will come.

* Teams' place is very important factor in determing how many crowd will come

* The first matches has big impact, therefore, their outcome is much more important and critical.

* Season expectation change from round 4 and onward (My team has been in the last places since the first round, and still my fans think I worth top-4, but heck). This change is relatively to the points you could earn.

*He gave us the following factors for the crowd arrival (or mainly - not arriving :P), not in any importance order: Host fanclub members is one of the main parameters. Host fans mood. Weather (of course, if you'll have enough sits with roof, there will come more people on rainy and cloudy weathers). Host place in the league. Difference of the host and the visitor in the league (talking about places) - the higher, the worse. Round - Very important. Visitors fanclub base and mood. In cup matches there's also an effect of the margin between the divs - the more, the merrier.

*Fans mostly affected by the last score, but since the formula is based on accumlative calculation, previous scores also count.

That's all I have (and thought was relevant, I can give you the link for the Hebrew thread, but I doubt any of you will understand :P). Hope I helped you and contributed a little bit to this thread

Just to make other readers know most of what you say was never said by me the way you write it. I don't know where the problem is, lack of Hebrew reading ability or translation issues but please do not use the information in the above post as if it was written by me.

This point was new to me. Could you please check what exactly he said? The rules state season expectation is calculated just once in the beginning of the season...

It is not re-calculated. I said that maybe it should show how fans adapt to the new season performance in their expectations. Today it is shown in the match to match fans exp but not as a title change which might confuse people.

There is a reason for that and its quite common users forget that their actions and choices do have impact on the team factors.

The number of spokepersons is important and you forgot you changed their number in between.

Sending love poems is the most extreme fans mood. Even a tiny drop will cause a drop in visual fans mood. When you have a value which is the most extreme any small change will always cause a drop, it’s not something you can avoid. Obviously its optional to make the small drop invisible but it will not make it more logical or less just less apparent. You can say that 6-0 with 9 spokespersons should keep the highest level of fans mood while 2-1 with 10 should not be enough. I see no point in arguing about it as I guess any user will define how it should work in a different way. In any case we are talking about a visuale level but insignificant in any other term. Would you feel better if the sending love poems be hiding small changes around the maximum fans mood level?

Do you have any suggestion how to make it optional for fans to know the other team strength?

It is taken into consideration. The only argument Ratsia has is that it’s too low in effect. Making it higher carries its own problems.

I am in Div 6, and my friend promoted to 5. Even though his Fans expectation for the season was to struggle, and mine was to Win the Title (again), we both firmly believed that he would have greater attendances (less bots) and a regular increase in Fans, by being in the higher division (Fan base Cap would be higher).

His Fans expectations were correct, he is struggling in 5, but as a result, he is getting lower attendances at home than I am, sitting in 3rd in Div 6.

HT set out to encourage teams to promote, but I am much better off financially staying in 6, than he was promoting to 5. This has to be wrong !

I agree that attendance look down across the board, but you would have thought that those that can make the effort to promote, should be rewarded more than those that don't (or can't).

This is an important claim I want to address.

The system favors teams with lower past performance. It does not mean that 3rd place in 6th division will earn less then a 5th division team in 5th position. It will not guarantee it, that’s for sure. The new system is helping those teams to a certain level but its not a sure thing that you will gain more in ticket revenue if you promote. An example of why it shouldn’t is in the case where a certain team sacrifices long term performance to promote. In that case it should be better if a manager that chooses to build his team to its future challenges, not promoting this season should be in better position. The new system did not make new promoters a winner in any case. He should still be able to compete in its new league.

Use the maximum average match rating of the last competetive games

Both the last suggestions are a bit simplified.

Example: A certain team forgets to field a lineup for one game. Use that info or not?

maybe a solution where closer results like 1:2, 1:3 1:4 have a effect like today and clearer results with a big difference in goals have a none-proportional higher effect.

Gradual effect should be part of the system otherwise it could be manipulated. This is how it works now. You can argue that the response rate is too slow and I might agree to certain level. Yet, all the teams see a fair impact on fans mood due to this while any change that will make single game result more important carry a risk that the next opponent of a team that lost 6-0 on bad luck will see very high fans expectations, etc.

Example: A certain team forgets to field a lineup for one game. Use that info or not?

I'd say use it. Maybe not on a linear but on an exponential scale. Let's say you look at the last 10 or so competetive games. If the opponent team doesn't field a lineup for 2-3 games it should not have a big effect but if it's 8-10 games there could be a significant increase in expectations

To a degree it is how it works now. As I said you may say its too weak and takes too long till the fans notice a non competative team but if they will spot such cases faster they should also react faster to actual season performance taking away all the new system goal. I'm not saying the current adaptation rate can not be increased, just saying its not an easy answer what should be this speed. Eventually the problem is quite small with positive effect on users (bot / not active teams giving WO or clear wins) and the fans exp is smaller in effect compared to the actual result the teams get by playing those teams. I see no reason to change the system for that purpose only.

In the old system, the only visible difference ever observed in fan mood was between 1 and 2 SP. Moreover, the effect of the SP on the fan mood (and consequently the crowd) was one of the least known and less important of all the variables. Can you say that it is still the case? (If ever that was the case)

As i recall, Tjecken only answered about the SP still having an influence on fan mood after several people asked, and even then, had to check. So, how important is it?

The system is working at the same way in regards to spokespersons. Due to the change in the way the system works it might be more sensitive to the number of spokespersons in certain domains then in the past and vice versa in other areas. In any case it is similar enough that you can not really say it’s something to think about if you know the older system. When dealing with the max fans mood I would say that the main difference in the systems is visibility and not the way the system works.

I have demoted last season and am in the same position as you. I find my income quite high. Sure, if I was promoting team I would earn more but I still earn a lot of money compared to most my rivals in the league and since my position is better then them in terms of team strength it seems I get too much income. The true thing about the system is that now teams that overspend in higher division and fall to lower division are hurt harder then before, but teams like mine that have good performance in the lower league still have nice income and keep the relative advantage they had, especially if they manage the team in a good way in the higher division before relegating.

Next wednesday I'll play the 2nd team from the highest league in Belgium and they are slight favourites (They have the edge) according to the fans. What do they want from me? They should expect me to get well beaten. A team playing in 5th division shouldn't reach this stage in the cup. But my cuprun had to save my economy.

There are teams from higher divisions that complain that the late cup rounds fans expectations are too high from them. You can see that you and them see the same expectations as wrong, each one wants to have lower expectations from his team. I think the expectations are ok. The issue you need to know is that late cup exit costs very low price, especially for the lower ranked team. You will see when you drop. Even a 5-0 lose will not hurt you much.

It seams like it's best to grow slowly and never aim higher than the fan expectations. This way you can keep pleasing them and keep getting decent crowd income. If you fear you might end up higher, put your focus onto the cup. ;)

To a degree this is the motivation the system gives. Do not overspend as the price of that is huge. Do not wait too long as income is shrinking. As before it is about finding the right balance for your team between team building and short term success.

Like real life, the PR is important for fans perception.

It makes no sense for a team to be better off in a lower division, even if they can't compete in the higher division. Higher divisions are supposed to earn more money.

I do not agree. Even in real life there are cases like that. There were big clubs in Israel that when demoting to second league had 5x bigger crowds in the second league then team in the top division. You can not simulate real life to 100%. It’s a game and not reality. Find the sense for the game behavior in the gaming logic. You should think why it should be the case for healthy game and not how reality works. I agree that real life resemblance is important for the game but it can’t be the same as real life as no one would play.

If he lost 5-0 in an early cup match with "they have the edge", his fans would go crazy.

Why the difference?

Don't you see early and Late cup exists as different things? This is the difference.

This system isn't working well, to be honest. I've stopped looking at my fans page ever since it caused my first "LOL" reaction. With time, you'll have everyone start ignoring the page, because it doesn't tell them anything useful.

I think you show here why users will always feel such system is not working well. It is because they expect the fans to "read their minds" and expect what they expect. I can only say the system has logic but its a certain logic designed to achieve certain goals while being as best as it can be in simulating real life fans behavior. Obviously a system that will give “good” simulation will be so complex that users will fail to understand it. To a certain degree that is what happening with the new system. It is maybe too complex by being much more close to reality in how fans behave. The old system was simple. Last game good result = good fans mood (but in some cases it failed and you needed a lot of games to recover, but lets leave that a side for now). Last game was a defeat = low fans mood. The new system is more logical but users are still not happy. They now expect a complete reasonable behavior at any circumstance. Some ask to make salary and TSI in the formula (which I think is a bad idea), some ask for faster adaptation to league position (which has its risks). Some think the old system was more logical in simulating real fans.

When fans say they want "X" and "Y" happens, then I expect their reaction to *always* be the same when they want "X" and get "Y", regardless if it's a first round cup exit, or the fourteenth league round loss.

No. There are X and Y which are always the same. However X+Y is then treated differently according to the round in cup / league.

Early league games has lower impact (both for winning and losing).

Cup games are always the same on the positive side (when you win) but are smaller in their negative effect the higher the cup round you exit on. In addition the lower ranked team has another factor which decreases the negative reaction on cup exit which is dependent on the difference between the team and the team that bit it in the league structure.

I think this is really logical that even when fans expect Y and the result is X that they react in a different way.

Yes. I understand its a problem that things happen and you do not know how, but there is a problem with telling everything as well. Originally the idea to give a measure to how the fans will react was considered as well as the impact of cash in the bank but since it becomes too much it was decided to leave it out. I think most fans reactions are really logical and users’ understanding of the system is much higher then some choose to present here. There are some minor cases of problems especially with bot teams or not active teams. Long term it will change as future actions will deal with that, not necessarily by changing the fans system.

The main reason there is so much “noise” on the conferences is that how you simulate human reaction will always trigger controversy especially when you try to do it in a simple way that will also create the right gaming motivation. In addition it does not help when people say the system is not understood or just have no logic in it while presenting extreme cases. Many users agree here that the system is not working properly by presenting their case and how it does not match their thoughts on how fans should react. Then the other user agree and say something else about his case. They all agree but they actually never confront on actual game design issue. This means they would never agree on how fans should react they just agree that they think it should work in a different way.

In any case I will discuss with Niclas (HT-Tjecken) if and how to model the fans rules section to include more info. I am not ruling out several changes to presentation of fans mood changes to allow better Transperancy of how it behaves as well.

The fans exp for next season will be lower (if not visible level at least invisible). If you will have another season like that they will reduce their exp another time. Eventually you might find them expecting you to be among the top 4 or aiming at the title depending on your performanc in this league in the coming seasons. Already if you promote next season the exp will be quite moderate for second league. The key here is to build your team long term. I think the new system give good managers a door to promote faster on the expense of overspenders.

Maybe something helpful would be to understand how the season's expectations are calculated. Over how many periods? Are there any weights used for the past periods?

It might be optional to explain it better in the rules. It is composed of past performance in each league level taking into consideration not only league level and position but points as well. Last season is the most important factor and each season in your past has lower impact the longer the time since it ended. They adapt quite fast so if you demote (like you did) two seasons in a row and then being on the top of your new division for 2-3 seasons that they will start expecting "aiming to the top" instead of immidiate promotion. If you perform well in the new division it is true that you earn less from other team with the same performance that promoted to the same league but you still earn more then poor performing teams in this league. You might earn even more then a team in 5-6th position in the division above you that some users might think is not ok.

As with the old system I can almost always guess rather accurately what crowd and income I will get (so it don't seams that complicated mechanisms).

My only concern are that I´m afraid that as I cant promote from my division my supporters might get to demanding if I´m able to stay for a long time in my division. Eventually this might force me to demote even due I don't have to demote, to get lower expectations in the future. Would you say that this is a valid concern or not?

There is no need to be concerned unless you "Beltix" your division. In this case some negative effects are in place probably. It is true that the new comers will have better crowds for the same performance but its not like your crowds are going to decrease to very low crowds in such case.

Take into consideration that this will improve your future income by a fraction in most cases unless you are going to perform significantly worse in the next season due to the capped nature of the system (there is a maximum fan mood level).

If I decided to lose them on purpose, I probably would play essentially without attack but with strong midfield and relatively high defense. Perhaps add play creatively, which will always hurt my team. That way I can make it very likely that the opponent will not score more than roughly 2 goals, whereas I will not score any. I might get a draw, but losing 1-0 or 2-0 is the most likely result. My fans are not even expecting me to win those matches, so they shouldn't get that angry.

PS. The whole scenario is rather hypothetical, since I am an underdog in both of my away games anyway, though I may win the latter because the opponent possibly cannot MOTS it.

I took your case to see the impact. I really checked it using the numbers but did not went to fine details like exact fan club size. The result shows you will lose more by losing the next game then you can gain by the small effect it will create on next season exp. The loss is enough if we consider the next game income loss only with a moderate loss effect on fans mood. I assumed no income loss due to lower fan mood on the first match next season. If you will lose more then one game this season the impact on next season income will be higher to both sides (negative by having partial reset on fans mood and positive by having even lower fans exp. Yet, it seems you can not improve your situation by losing).

The above does not mean you can not profit from such actions in any scenario but I can say that I’m certain there is no logic in doing such actions unless you know exactly how the system works and you are able to generate exactly the results you want. Even in such case the profit will be really insignificant.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean but the fans mood season exp is a continues function displayed with denominations and same for the moving cap of fans mood.

since I believe that is the only way the statement could hold (I will probably lose 2 levels of mood for a single home match if I lose with a small margin, whereas a one level lower cap could have meant 6 league matches where I always lost 1 level of mood, plus all the effect on cup income).

The effect of one loss / win on next season exp and by that on the next season fans mood cap is not even close to one level of fans mood. As I said, I checked it and I can not see this motivation to outperform as a future problem unless users decide to do bad things for their team.

Does that mean that their is no Beltix effect in reality? Or that Ratsias team are already considered a Beltix team by the fan formula?

Or something else?

One loss or win do not change much, but if Ratsia will win his season with 42 points or 28 it will make a significant difference. What I said is that even though this is true it is almost impossible to make profit from underperforming since the loss in cash on the next game will be higher then the future profit.

If you want you can view it like that – the better you perform the harder it gets to make future revenues. Yet, underperformance will generate less cash then performing to your best. What could be said about Ratsia case for example is he could save money and performing worse generating similar profit this season and making it easier to generate profit in the next season. This is why I tend to say that the system is punishing over spending. I used Ratsia case as an example of winning big time a division but I did not check if he was enjoying some luck that enabled him to do that or he really could manage with lower costs to win the title.

What do you think should be the way the system work?

Why?

It works as you expect it to.

Edit: Bad phrasing of my question. How do you think a bot team / WA team existence in the division should be handled?

Sure. But this is one sided argument. Aren't there other benefits to teams having bot team in their league?

Lets not make it me and you who discuss this. You can feel free to discuss it among yourself. I will read. What is the way to deal with such teams taking all the effects into consideration?

This could happen only if the fans mood is very high. In this case fans mood drop to lower level do not mean that they are unhappy just that they need a bit better result to keep their happiness level so high.

In my view meeting the fans expectation should keep them on the same level

I guess this is a problem of many users. I thought about changing the fans expectations to Sports reporters’ expectations due to this fact as the logic behind the system is that match and season expectations are neutral (according to fans “logic”) while the reaction is a bit “emotional” (so you would get a drop in fans mood even if the result is better then the expectations in case of a loss).

Fans mood is volatile as it was before (but a bit less volatile and a bit more “memory” of previous results). The fans react in a basic negative / positive way to loss / win. The expectations are weaker in their impact than the actual result and hence the above situation in which better then expected result (in case of a loss) might create negative fans mood move. Actually, most losses will create a drop in fans mood and most wins will create an increase in fans mood level. This is not true only on extreme fans mood levels or on extreme match expectations.

They are all ready having a hard time understanding, that the denominations of the seasonal expectations mean close to nothing

Not true at all. This has huge impact over a season. It’s just not that high per match. Even per match the difference between being the favorite and having only the edge may be in average case half a level of fans mood.

… and that fullfilling those isn't enough to keep the fans happy

This is the problem. Fans do react to last results and not to the actual position in the league. I believe even in real life this is the case. The manager is focused on position and long term success and this is why users feel there is something wrong in the fans reaction, it’s just because they expect the fans to be more loyal due to historical success. I believe this is actually the situation in real life as well. In any case I do see this user’s perception as a problem I would like to solve.

But you can't expect that the masses would do the same

I believe this problem will be solved by interface issues rather by changing the system.

Like in Hattrick :)

Anyway, you took the main point of what I say by relating to this part. I did not mean to say HT simulate real life in a good or better way using this system. I meant to highlight the fact that a manager and fans in real life have a different perspective on what is the "right" reaction to certain scenario and therefore that the fact in HT users feel the fans are "dumb" might relate to this same bias in the point of view of a manager and a fan.