How To Fix FFO?

[Dave Thacker]

Finally the North America Branch speaks up. My opinions are mine alone.

1. I enjoy the hell out of this game. JB's done a great job.
2. Running this is a lot of work, and I have encouraged JB to delegate what he can. I've offered some help with non-financial matters. It's his game to run, and any player should respect decision made. I do not see changes being made on a whim or to favor one player over another
3. The game is not perfect and never will be. I like it that way. I expect and welcome changes each season. I understand changes could make negative changes to my club. It's a game.
4. I like Discord much better than forums. I run two servers for clubs that I'm in. I suggest get some moderators with big balls and shut people off when they get out of line. Set lines and follow them. We're all adults here. Also put EVERY ANNOUNCEMENTS IN THE ANNOUNCEMENT CHANNEL. They can be searched and answers can be found.
5. I'm not a fan of media for money. It's a grind.
6. A club can be neglected by multiple managers and become very unnatractive, I caretaker a club like that. If the goal is to have 80 players, then I suggest that some modest accomodation be made by FFO to right the ship. If people think the caretaker is going to take of advantage and get a shiny new club, then don't allow then convert for a period of seasons.

That's all for now.
Cheers.

[The_Innocent_One]

Discord is ass.

[Ed@PSG]

Discord is ass.

It does seem to be the FFO Marmite

I think Garys idea to create individual invite only discord servers may be the way to go. That way, the head has more control over who can be allowed in, and what is discussed etc. The only potential downside i see is if admin put things in there either before they go on the forum (creating a window of opportunity - information is power etc) , or dont go on the forum (live draws or auction live reveals etc) as then you have people feeling that they are missing out by not being in these groups

[Tim@Leeds]

For me, bring discord back, have it moderated. Anybody being a dick = 7 day ban. Strike 2 = 1 month ban, strike three = permanently banned from the discord channel.

any questions or suggestions for changes can only be made on the forum. Discord is not a place for this as we can evidence from the past. Any questions that are asked or suggestions for ffo to be removed by mods.

fairly simple and effective I think. Just make discord an official announcement stream for JB and a casual chatting platform for managers (including Norwich’s JB) which is well policed by mods and people sanctioned for over stepping any lines

[JasonH@Wolfsburg]

I would say it should be social only. All announcements should be forum. That way people can respond to them on forum.

[Tony@Blackburn]

You do know you can just time out people on discord so they can’t post messages

all you need is moderators and as soon as people start taking it too far just time them out



create a discord mod team to run discord

any announcements are forum only, can have a discussion area for announcements once it’s been made on the forum

transfer area
media area


then you can also have a general chat section than members can request.
if you wanna chat random shit you can request the role to see the channel.
if you don’t request it, you don’t see the bullshit.

[Varkana]

This. Discord should be just chatting mode and Forum the official place with chat section

[bighill]

I will add some thoughts as somebody who has played the game for a while but is not particularly active.
I do not think that FFO is broken, but we should always be looking for ways to improve the experience.

Some have mentioned it already, I personally think we need a better balance of income vs expense. Maybe introduce some additional monthly income streams (TV money??) to help balance the books. When gate receipts and media are the only income options (and gates are fixed) then you are forced to write thousands of words just to break even. This becomes a chore and takes a lot of fun from the game, for me anyway.
As you will know I quit from Rennes towards the end of last season, largely for this reason. The fun is gone if you go into debt because you had a busy few months in your personal life and didn't write any media.
Partly my fault because I chose not to upgrade my stadium, but I did look around at the end of the season and couldn't find a club that wasn't making a, normally large, loss every month even those with big stadiums. So it seems a universal issue.

Something that could help with this would be to introduce a free transfer list with useless players, maybe 10/11 raters on low/no wages. Managers can choose to have these some of these in their squad to reduce the wage bill and still keep their squad at 23 players. The risk being that if you pick up a few injuries/suspensions you have to play one of these absolute no-hopers in your matchday squad.

Discord: I can take it or leave it. Was quite interesting for live drafts or cup draws but for the rest it didn't add anything to my personal experience of the game.
If people do want it then some sort of code of conduct and/or moderation team definitely seems to be required.

I would recommend JB to form an 'admin team' with a spread of big and small team managers. Not because I don't think you are capable of running the game on your own because you quite clearly are, given the popularity of this game and how long it continues to run. This is more so that you are always protected from accusations of self interest because all decisions are made by and defended by the 'team'.

And finally, of course JB should just go immediately back to Norwich. Nobody is going to take them on as caretaker anyway because we all know it is your team and we are just waiting for you to return to Delia's warm embrace.

[Matias@Barca]

I see a few main issues that were already addressed and agree with:

- Toxic behaviour
- Shows of disrespect to FA

I also feel that allowing managers to run limitless deals with players coming in and out several times from team to team during a season or allowing managers to dismantle whole rosters to just jump to a new team and do the same season after season results in leaving lots of unattractive teams that nobody wants to apply for.

And having managers who apply, stay for a few weeks, then quit.. just to return a few months later and repeat MO.

Also agree with many comments mentioning that Media has turned into a cash grinding machine, which takes the sense out of Media.