Gaffers, we need YOUR help testing new features!

The Board have requested your help with a very special assignment - to test a couple of brand-new features. This is open to anyone who has NUTMEG!

PLEASE NOTE: WE RECOMMEND MAKING A COPY OF YOUR SAVES, AS WELL AS TO START A NEW CAREER RATHER THAN USE YOUR PRE-EXISTING SAVES TO AVOID INCOMPABILITY/OVERWRITING. THIS BUILD MAY ALSO CONTAIN BUGS.

All you need to do is enter the following password in the 'Game Versions & Betas' section of the game properties from your Steam Library to unlock the "playerfeedback" branch - F33db4CkW4nt3DpLS

This Experimental Branch will be live until 10AM BST on Monday June 1st.

Firstly, a highly requested feature from Gaffers all across the globe has been greater control of who on your team plays during delegated matches. As such, we have designed a brand new delegated XI selection clipboard to allow you to create your dream team for every match.

We'd love to hear how you find this new feature and any pain points you may have.

Secondly, we've heard rumblings that some managers want an extra challenge to spice up their career. As such, we've created a brand new 'Gaffer Mode' - which further tightens the strings on finance, increases the length and difficulty of broadcasted matches, and creates extra hurdles for you to overcome. In addition, we've renamed 'Hardcore Mode' to be 'Marathon Mode' to better reflect the different playstyles.

Thirdly, we have also added new mini events, replacing existing setbacks, to create more challenges mid-season. These will happen periodically, some of which are good and bad, and will test your versatility and resilience.

This experimental branch is in English Only, but when these features are in the live version, there will be localisation.

Please let us know how you find this new Gaffer Mode - we're keen to hear about your experience!

Below is the behemoth of patch notes for the Experimental Branch for your reading pleasure.

Features:

Random Events:

• Introduced a new Random Event system.

• Events occur in months 2,5, and 8 and can last up to three months.

• Events can be good, neutral, and bad.

• Staff, facilities, stakeholder sentiment and other factors go into determining these events.

• Some events can be mitigated by having the correct staff and facilities.

• As a result of this new system, Setback Challenges have been removed from the game.

Formation Editor:

• Formation Editor has been added, allowing Gaffers to choose their starting XI for any game.

• Formation Editor is accessed via the corkboard and gameplan.

• This is done by dragging and dropping players like Gaffers would do pre-match in a Broadcasted game.

• Players will no longer be automatically added (if a new signing) or removed (if injured.)

• Removed the ‘Prioritise for Team Selection’ option.

• Added a button that will allow the best starting XI to be picked.

Difficulty:

• New Difficulty Options have been added

• Standard Mode is the existing difficulty mode.

• Gaffer Mode is a harder variant – with harder and longer broadcasted matches, stricter finances, and fewer easy-to-complete to-dos.

• Gaffer Mode trophies will receive ‘gaffer’ in their tooltip to show off to your friends in screenshots!

• A custom mode has been added, allowing these more challenging elements, and some other elements, to be enabled/disabled to your taste.

• Loading an existing save will require you to choose one of these difficulty modes. Please be aware this may cause incapability after this branch has been concluded, so make a back-up of your saves!

• Hardcore Mode has been renamed to Marathon Mode to better reflect the gameplay loop.

Additional Changes/Additions:

• Historic Transfer Deals will now be offered to a player. These are one time offers based on when a star player is transferring in history.

• Calling the Head Coach can now allow you to push the team to train harder, increasing potential progress at expense of team morale.

• ‘The Good Boy’ boost card has been added as a random pull in Target packs.

• Hundreds of new lines of commentary have been added.

• Poor performance teletext articles will now appear if a given stakeholder is particularly unhappy.

• The Board will now call at the start of every season to reflect on last year’s progress.

• New late game To-dos have been added which are more challenging and less focussed on teaching games systems.

• A ‘Level Up’ Perk has now added to perk pool, which allows players without skills to learn new skills.

• 4 New accolades added; Gain 60k Manager Score, gain 100k Manager Score, get promoted with a team in Gaffer Mode, and win Division 1 in Gaffer Mode.

• Hereford, Halifax, Tranmere, and York, now all have the ‘Quiet Year’ culture perk which blocks the Event system from triggering in 1980.

Balancing and Bug Fixes:

Broadcasted Match:

• Shot, One on One, and Long Shot, will now weight relative player power much more to determine base event percentages.

• Opposition teams now receive flat boosts on some events based on which division they are in. This means that Division 1 teams will play better than Division 4 teams.

• When a player performs a Counter, they will now be the player that begins the next Counter run.

• The Tactical deck setup, as determined by Formation and Orders, has had a balance pass

  • Variance between formation cards reduced and variance between orders increased.

• If the next event has a projected chance of 100%, the 0% event cards are hidden, and the guaranteed outcome is centre-aligned instead.

  • Playing a boost card that affects the outcomes will cause outcomes to reappear.

• Bookings are now more likely when a foul occurs.

Delegated Matches and Friendlies:

• The match simulation algorithm for delegated games should now produce fairer results, more in line with user expectation.

• Match injuries from delegated games should now overwhelmingly select players who participated in the match.

• Friendly matches no longer trigger media interviews.

• Friendly matches now have dramatically reduced attendance compared to regular league matches.

• Red and Yellow cards earned in friendly matches now no longer carry over into the league.

Perks:

• Many perks unlock criteria have been rewritten for clarity.

• Added additional clarity with ‘Sniper’ Perk discount to correctly display as stacking with ‘Bargaining’.

• Perk challenges in the final quarter of a season will now be picked from a bigger pool, making it less likely for a user to get stuck on a challenge that they find difficult.

Transfers and Players:

• Top end players are now divas, with poorer negotiation rates. Furthermore, top end players will not want to join your team if their role is already filled out by other talented players.

• Future player potential now has a much higher weighting when it comes to base negotiation acceptance rates.

  • Old players aging out will be very eager to join, young superstars in the making will now be more picky.

• Transfer fee calculation is now no longer flat across all player types based on value:

  • Forwards will cost 20% more

  • Midfielders will cost 10% more

• Top international players have been improved across their skills, traits, and statistics.

  • AddedPlease NoteExisting saves with these players will not see a change. A new career must be begun for the new player data to be instantiated.

• Interests are now correctly revealed when scouting a player.

• Some erroneously duplicated players have been renamed.

Sentiment and Stakeholders:

• Teams now start with a different amount of starting Board Sentiment from each other, primarily based on division.

• Media interviews now limited to 1 per month.

• Large team sentiment movements should now affect individual player morale more acutely.

Additional Tweaks:

• Merchandise demand sensitivities adjusted.

• The league ladder on the TV now has colour-coded promotion and relegation spots.

• Tutorial reworked to include new formation editor feature.

• Gaffers are no longer able to press Back whilst Considering Options at the end of a season. This prevents a risk of accidentally losing progress.

• When calling the commercial director after unlocking sponsors, sponsorships will now be offered immediately rather than requiring the user to call back a second time.

• Various missing tool tips added.

• Season challenges refactored, new and improved with the aim that it shouldn’t be often trivial to achieve.

Boost Cards:

• ‘Tidal Wave’ is now correctly playable in defensive half.

• ‘Rising Tide’ is now correctly playable in defensive half.

• ‘Iron Curtain’ is now playable only in the correct half.

• ‘Thread the Needle’ is now playable in more events while in the correct half.

• ‘Clear Cut’ now replaces Save rather than Miss, allowing Gaffers to feel the benefit of the +% boost.

• ‘Hard Reset’ now stacks correctly with existing ‘Back Pass’ events.

• ‘Intimidate’ and ‘Manhandle’ now trigger fouls less often.

• ‘Cynical Foul’ and ‘Manhandle’ are now more likely to cause injuries to the opposition when a foul occurs as a result.

• ‘Rave Save’ now only adds +50% to Save, down from +60%.

• ‘Penalty King’ now only adds +60% to Save, down from +80%.

• ‘Windswept’ now only adds +50% to Clearance, down from +60%.

• ‘Shooty and Sweep’ now only adds +60% to Clearance, down from +80%.

• ‘Clear Cut’ now has a -5 Stamina cost.

• ‘Clear Out’ now has a -10 Stamina cost.

• ‘Crystal Clear’ now has a -20 stamina cost.

• ‘Goal Plated’ now only adds +50% to Goal, down from +60%.

• ‘Hand of God’ now only adds +60% to Goal, down from +80%.

• ‘Enduring’ now correctly has a silver finish.

• Nutritionist cards are now no longer returned via momentum.

Known Issues:

• There may be instances of missing text in non-English languages, where the original line has been rewritten in English.

• There is now no direct shortcut between the Corkboard and the Stickerbook, as the Formation Editor now utilises the clipboard.

  • The radial menu can still be used however to access the sticker book from the corkboard. The default binding is L CTRL

• The Recommendation button isn’t automatically set for existing users.

  • To fix, reset bindings to default or manually set ‘H.Coach Formation’ binding.

• The Player placement sensitivity feels too high and easy to misplace players in Formation Editor.

• Crashes may occur at the end of the season if using an existing save. We highly recommend not using an existing save.

• The Club sticker changes rank colour when clicking on Club Info on Corkboard.

• Players don't receive a phone call to specify that the Mini Event "Out of Touch" is over.

• The “Poorly Chosen Words” mini-event allows the player to sign a new sponsor after losing their current one.

• The UI for the badly injured widget remains displayed in the game after getting this and receiving a phone call at the same time .

• Gaffer Mode does not showcase differences between itself, and Standard Mode.

• The UI icon is incorrectly displayed for the Head Coach's near the Bench UI.

• Two Thunder Clouds can appear above player card when low morale is active.

• Using Alt+Enter to change to Fullscreen mode via keyboard will show the widget that player was before going to Fullscreen.

• Goals scorers overlap with the penalty cards in the notepad in the match.

• Players cannot be added to reserves slots even though empty slot is highlighted.

• Fixtures list does not update correctly after receiving a Reminder Help Call.

• After pressing resume game, the Calculator is not displayed on the corkboard.

• Head Coach Formation default bindings do not include controller bindings.

• The Substitute football players are not displayed in Formation Editor if they get injured after a match.

Thank you all so much – we look forward to hearing your feedback!

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