[Discussion] Make promises more clearer

[Terrance The T-Rex]

promises in this game are extremely vague and can easily be interpreted in many different ways, I am currently just made a promise with my board to "make acceptable transfer dealings" in order to sign a player, but what the hell does that mean, does this include purchases, sales, loans in/out, trials. does this also include staff transfers. it should be easily marked what you have to do in order to fulfil that promise and also clearly show if u are on track in completing the promise instead of it just saying "in progress"

 

[Abdullah Patel]

Hi @Terrance The T-Rex ,  In this situation transfer dealings refers to everything you mentioned other than staff transfers and trials. In progress means that you are neither passing or failing, essentially that it is too early to tell. It changes as you get closer to either passing or failing. Left open for more opinions and changed to discussion to allow for more fleshing out of the feedback.

[lamp]

An example of a good promise mechanic is the points target: get 9 points out of your next 5 league games, and you can measure the progress exactly.

Examples of vague promises are ones where you have no idea if you have made zero progress, half progress, or almost all of the progress: "improve the coaching staff", "improve the midfield", things of this nature. You might think improve the coaching staff means getting coaches with higher rating, but no -- it seems to have more to do with their reputation and with filling empty slots on the staff if there are any (even non-coaching staff like U18 physios possibly? Again, difficult to tell!) Also there's no feedback on whether pending transfers are going to be enough for a player or not -- or whether transfers already agreed upon factor in. For example, a new transfer Player X demands you improve the midfield, and a new midfield signing occurs before Player X lands on the roster and that seems to have no effect on the promise.

Once, I signed a player that I promised to make vice captain -- an empty slot at the time -- and then the calendar date for selecting team captains occurred one day before the new player landed on the roster. I was forced to pick another vice captain who threw a fit after the signing completed.

IMO it's better to simply take out all the mechanics that aren't fully thought through and tested along with all their corner cases, and also presented in a clear way to the user. I would suggest that a lot of factors (including random ones) can make a player content to stay or absolutely require to leave a club over time -- largely outside the scope of signing promises. As for situations where players want a stronger midfield than you currently have, or a better coaching staff etc, I suggest making those players completely uninterested in signing a contract with your team until the situation has already changed.