Potential issue with Appearance and Unused sub fees

[jcp1417]

I'm not reporting this as a bug, at least not yet, which is why this is on the main forum. I'm hoping someone can give some insight if this is working as intended or to let me know if my assumptions are correct.

I've been testing the budget impact recently since it affects your remaining budgets. I'm thinking there may be a bug here. I've discovered that the promised playing time has a direct effect on the budget impact. Since a star player should appear in more games than a regular starter, the budget impact is greater than a regular starter with an equal contract due to the greater number of estimated appearances (appearance fee). However, I think that the game may not be estimating appearance correctly, thus your remaining wage budgets may be impacted.

Using the screenshots below, I've promised this player as a future prospect. I zeroed the guaranteed wage and set appearance and unused sub fees at 10k each. The wage impact is 519k. This means that it's being estimated that the future prospect will be in the match day squad, starter or sub, 52 times. If I remove the unused sub fee, the budget impact is 104k, which means that it's estimated that he will make roughly 10 appearances. 10 appearances seems a little high for a future prospect, but the real kicker is the estimated 32 bonuses for being an unused sub.

Another one is emergency backup. Using the same method as above, it's estimated that the player will make 5 appearances and would be unused on the bench another 47 times. Even youngsters are estimated 5 appearances over 10 games in the match squad.

I think this is a bug, but maybe my assumptions are incorrect. I am assuming that players do not get bonuses if they are not in the senior team match day squad, as a starter or bench, for league or cup matches. Meaning that players on the senior team and are not on a match day bench, do not get the unused sub bonus. Players do not get paid for senior team friendlies, U23, or U18 matches. If my assumptions are correct, then I think it's clear that this is a bug and I will report accordingly.

In the meantime, there's a few conclusions I can draw from this. I need to be very frugal with my bonuses if I want to keep an accurate remaining budget. This means very low appearance and unused sub fees for players that are unlikely to regularly be in my match squad. All prospects should probably be tagged as youngster to minimize the estimated fees. Unused sub fees should almost be removed from every contract since only the youngster is estimated to only be in the match squad 10 times. Every other playing time promise estimated 52 games. After thinking about this more as I write, I'm almost positive this is a bug but I just want to be sure.

Edit: it appears that the "52 games" is not actually an estimate of the number of games, but rather 52 weeks in a year. If viewing wages in weeks, it divides by 52. There's a problem with that but I can't put my finger on it.

Edited March 21, 2022 by jcp1417

[thecaveman]

Based on my understanding of the game, what you have identified is an issue as far as the expected playing time (number of games) goes. The impact is, as far as I know, not directly on your budget but on your committed budget spending. In my opinion this is somewhat related to the ongoing issue relating to players being upset/concerned/alienated with their playing time - I have a Squad player that has played 7 of 14 games and is "Concerned"  because he is not playing enough.

I have always suspected that Appearance and unused sub fees were causing issue elsewhere and have started removing Unused Sub fees from contract negotiations. In addition I have noticed that Appearance fees are always around 20%-25% of wages.  I wonder if Players will whine about playing time if there were no Appearance/Sub bonus clauses in their contracts?

Also - if A Squad Player received $0 Appearance Fee and 30% of Wages as Unused Sub - would their playing time "concerns" disappear??

Edited March 21, 2022 by thecaveman
spelling

[jcp1417]

1 hour ago, thecaveman said:

Based on my understanding of the game, what you have identified is an issue as far as the expected playing time (number of games) goes. The impact is, as far as I know, not directly on your budget but on your committed budget spending. In my opinion this is somewhat related to the ongoing issue relating to players being upset/concerned/alienated with their playing time - I have a Squad player that has played 7 of 14 games and is "Concerned"  because he is not playing enough.

I have always suspected that Appearance and unused sub fees were causing issue elsewhere and have started removing Unused Sub fees from contract negotiations. In addition I have noticed that Appearance fees are always around 20%-25% of wages.  I wonder if Players will whine about playing time if there were no Appearance/Sub bonus clauses in their contracts?

Also - if A Squad Player received $0 Appearance Fee and 30% of Wages as Unused Sub - would their playing time "concerns" disappear??

Committed spending vs wage budget is actually a bit confusing to me, but if your committed budget is in the red, it will actually prevent you from signing players. I just took an old save, and added a 5 million appearance bonus for my star player and my committed budget went way over my wage budget. This now prevents me from signing anyone or increasing anyone's wages. I believe this to be a real problem now. the unused sub bonus is a very easy way to eat into your committed spending since it's added for every player, for every week, except youngsters, where it's only added for 10 weeks. 

 

[thecaveman]

Like I said- I remove all Unused Sub Bonuses with every contract negotiation.

1. Because it messes with the budget - especially in leagues where you carry 12 subs

2. Because I am cheap and refuse to pay someone for sitting on their ass every week. Never understood Appearance Fees either- imagine saying to your Boss- Right now I am happy with my salary but every-time I come to work I what a 25% Bonus??????

[TokyoWanderer]

hace 44 minutos, thecaveman dijo:

Never understood Appearance Fees either- imagine saying to your Boss- Right now I am happy with my salary but every-time I come to work I what a 25% Bonus??????

Appeareance fees make a lot of sense because they are performance-related incentives. For example, if you have an injury prone player, you should offer a lower fixed wage and higher appearance fees. 

 

Edited March 22, 2022 by TokyoWanderer

[Speedyol]

in lower leagues where players do not have a wage and only apperance fee this is very frustrating. If you have 30 players, you can ONLY use 11+3 guys per match. Its impossible to pay 30 guys their apperance fee every match. but the budget seems to think its possible. And this makes it harder to keep such a large amount of players, or even get together a decent squad.

Idea/Sollution: I think the wage budget used should be based on previous actuall expenses for lets say past season where the most recent 3 months have higher weight than the other 4-12th months (or something). Lets say you spend a average of 110k per week the past 3 months then the budget used is 110k,, instead of this theoretical number they calculate, that almost always different from the number on the finances expenses page anyways.

Edited March 22, 2022 by Speedyol

[kevkel]

Stumbled upon this and got interested, so i've gone into contracts and offered the same contracts to each playing time and it's all worked out on percentages and they differ as to the playing time.

Actually gives an insight into the expected amount of games per playing time aswell.

 

For each Playing Time I offered £1000 wage first and each playing time as expected came out with estimated £1000 per week

Then I added a £1000 appearance bonus, that went as follows

Star Player weekly estimate £1800 (£1000 wage + 80% of appearance bonus)

Important Player weekly estimate £1700 (£1000 wage + 70% of appearance bonus)

Regular Player weekly estimate £1600 (£1000 wage + 60% of appearance bonus)

Squad Player weekly estimate £1400 (£1000 wage + 40% of appearance bonus)

Impact Sub Player weekly estimate £1400 (£1000 wage + 40% of appearance bonus)

Fringe Player weekly estimate £1300 (£1000 wage + 30% of appearance bonus)

Emergency Backup weekly estimate £1100 (£1000 wage + 10% of appearance bonus)

Breakthrough Prospect player estimate £1200 (£1000 wage + 20% of appearance bonus) 

Future Prospect player estimate £1200 (£1000 wage + 20% of appearance bonus)

Youngster player estimate £1100 (£1000 wage + 10% of appearance bonus)

 

Then I added £1000 Unused Sub bonus 

Star Player weekly estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 80% of appearance bonus + 20% of unused bonus)

Important Player weekly estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 70% of appearance bonus + 30% of unused bonus)

Regular Player weekly estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 60% of appearance bonus + 40% of unused bonus)

Squad Player weekly estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 40% of appearance bonus + 60% of unused bonus)

Impact Sub Player weekly estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 40% of appearance bonus + 60% of unused bonus)

Fringe Player weekly estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 30% of appearance bonus + 70% of unused bonus)

Emergency Backup weekly estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 10% of appearance bonus + 90% of unused bonus)

Breakthrough Prospect player estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 20% of appearance bonus + 80% of unused bonus) 

Future Prospect player estimate £2000 (£1000 wage + 20% of appearance bonus + 80% of unused bonus)

Youngster player estimate £1200 (£1000 wage + 10% of appearance bonus + 10% of unused bonus)

 

So it actually gives a good insight in to the expected playing time for each player

Star Player estimated to feature in 80% of matches

Important Player estimated to feature in 70% of matches

Regular Player estimated to feature in 60% of matches

Squad Player estimated to feature in 40% of matches

ETC ETC...

 

Obviously it doesn't solve the problem the OP brought up about taking space in the available budget but it does give a little insight into why players get unhappy with playing time.

As for the OP it be worth us changing the way we pay the bonuses

FOR example 

Fringe Player on £1000 wage £1000 Appearance Bonus £1000 unused would estimate £2000 a week

Fringe Player on £1000 wage £1500 Appearance Bonus and just £500 unused bonus would estimate £1800 a week