I figured this was a good time to fire up the Developer Diary again, now that I have a lot of time available for looking at the simulator.
I can use this to keep you all updated about what is happening inside our most precious piece of code, the most sacred inner working of ManagerLeague. No formulas, as always, but still many players will find a lot to be happy about here, as the next weeks go by. (Or so I hope anyway!)
The overall goal of the planned changes to the simulator is of course improvement. There are several "issues" in the current simulator (even though it is in it's 10th version already), and for those of us who have played a long time, a little renewal is always welcome when it comes to the commentary we have read a million times.
Please note that all things that I mention in this blog-series, are things that I am working on at the moment, and it does NOT mean that these upgrades are coming next season, I assure you, they are not. Everyone will see plenty of very visible announcements before any of this goes live.
So, what have I done so far then?
- Added functionality for the referee to spot "turbulence" in the box for instance on corners. He may now give a freekick to the defending team if he feels the attacking team is a little unfair to the goalie etc. The "harder" your team decides to tackle, the more likely they will commit a foul here.
- Own-goals may now occur from certain failed interceptions in certain set pieces. Innocent deflections can sometimes go horribly wrong.
- Corners may now be intercepted with clearance leading to either a new corner or a throw-in. Currently, a corner could only be deflected to a new corner by the goalie, but now defending players may also do so.
- Goalkeepers can now be injured! Watch out, and keep a goalie on the bench, just in case!
- Goals, goals on penalties and owngoals now have different icons on the match-report (in the player-listing)
- New implementation of off-side traps, normal-offside and linesmen in general. There is now a higher benefit from a high off-side team-stat.
- The offside stat is used defensively only for checking if a team managed to set someone offside or not, it is NOT used for getting better to avoid being set off-side. This is handeled by the players perception-stat.
- You can also expect a greater penalty if you decide to play with an off-side trap , but have a poor offside-stat for your team. There will be clues in your match-reports if your attempts to set players off-side fail...Be observant!
- There is now an added bonus for attackers about to finish on goal if there are suspended defenders on the opponent team. (Meaning it will be easier to get into a better finishing position even if you play with "shoot on sight") So, yes , finally, for all those asking for it the last 2 years, changes have been made here to allow the penalty work both offensively and defensively after players have been sent off.
I think I'm off to a nice start here, and I am eagerly looking forward to further development. Right now I have some logic-routines to finish, before I can get cracking on a brand new thing here, called counter-attacking, something ML has been lacking for a long time. This involves a lot of work, and will take some time, and should, if I can do this right, also give us another option under "pressure" in tactics, so you can chose to play with a "counter-attacking" pressure. This will mean that "defensive" is more a "lets kill the match a bit, and not take chances" while "counter-attacking" will mean more focus on quick counters. This will also mean a new team-stat in fact, but more on that later...
Have a nice summer, enjoy July, and I will keep working on this!
- Spinner
