S22 State of the League Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

[Canadice]

Updated State of the League

The S22 season is almost at an end and we felt it necessary to provide some updates about the upcoming couple months.

Short updates

As you may know, a new version of FM is set to launch (FM26) which is the first iteration using the new Unity engine. As it is essentially a completely new game, we have no idea how it would suit the needs of the SSL and will not be moving to it for the foreseeable future. We will certainly look under the hood about database editing and the impact of the engine and UI changes in order to make a final assessment if FM26 is something we can move to within its lifetime or if we skip it and take a better shot at the next iteration.

The WSFC is set to occur after the conclusion of S23 and we are still looking for applicants for Regional Manager. More information about this can be found in the WSFC Announcement.

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Changes to the sim schedule for S23

This season was the first with the extended calendar and 12 total organizations. The increase in number of teams has proved to be cumbersome for the sim team with scheduling, recording, commentating and post producing so we have discussed possible adjustments to make it a bit easier on the involved parties. The S23 season will see the same league structure as current, but we will try a couple of different changes to the sim schedule to help mitigate/reduce the workload. We are always looking for more people to help out (see simmer and post-producer job posts).

The exact details of the schedule have yet to be decided but the changes we will do or attempt include:

• Remove Monday live-sims - They hinder the start of the simmers work week and doesn't provide as much positive impact as was envisioned.
  
• Add Sunday sims - Moving the Monday sim slot to the Sunday after keeps 11 slots per week while at the same time allowing for more weekend sims.
  
• Changing when Commentary Only (CO) games occur - Focusing on CO games during the weekday would allow for Extended Highlight (EXT) games during the weekend.
  
• Combine matchdays with 3 EXT + 3 CO games - This would allow us to reduce the number of sim slots needed in a given week.
  

The total number of CO highlight games will be at most the same number as is current, but will hopefully be lower. Details to follow once the schedule has been properly figured out.

This is not a permanent solution which leads me to the second big part of the announcement, a change in league structure for S24.

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Change in League Structure in S24

First some background.

The changes to the sim schedule for S23 are only solving the symptoms and not the actual issue we face of matchday congestion. Within the BoD we've had a long discussion spanning multiple seasons about the league's "final form", or at least a structure that we can strive towards, keeping in mind the restrictions of Football Manager and the sim league format. This discussion centered around a sim league with 32 teams that can hold between 352 - 416 (with subs) active players. For reference, we are currently hovering around 220-240 active players.

This increase in teams would provide even more issues with matchday congestion so weighing different options against each other, we voted to focus our efforts on defining a 16 team promotion/relegation league for the Major and Minor affiliates as the "final form" league structure. Within this structure we would see:

• Fewer required sim slots overall
  
• Fewer commentary only games (essentially 0 with proper scheduling)
  
• More important games further into the season
  
• A split FM file for effective use by the sim team during the week
  

We are aware of the issues this structure had earlier in the league's lifetime and they are definitely something we will keep our eye on. However we believe that the league is in a very different spot with bigger organizational locker rooms, deeper user base, more dedicated managers within each organization etc. that the consequences of a relegation will have a lesser negative impact overall.

Initially this "final form" was meant to be implemented once we get to 16 organizations, but the scheduling issues that we have experienced this season within the sim team and league feedback warranted some type of adjustment sooner rather than later. We also didn't want to spend time working on another league structure so ultimately we decided we will begin the work to implement a promotion relegation system within the two leagues with the current amount of organizations in S24.

The league(s) will look as follows:

• Major League
  • Division 1 with 6 teams
    
  • Division 2 with 6 teams
    

• Minor League
  • Division 1 with 6 teams
    
  • Division 2 with 6 teams
    

The cup will still be shared between leagues so all teams from both divisions of the Major and Minor league will follow a similar seeding setup as they currently do.

The specific details of this will be worked out over the course of the next couple of months, but we wanted to announce our direction well in advance especially with the results of the S23 season determining the initial split of the divisions. Barring anything unforeseen the initial plan is to split both the Major and Minor league following their respective final standings of S23.

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Change in starting TPE

With the length of the season now definitely permanent we have also voted to reduce the starting TPE from 350 to 250 TPE starting with the S24 Draft Class. An added week of both capped and uncapped TPE (weekly predictions) would provide around 100 TPE before the first regression compared to the previous calendar. In order to mitigate TPE creeping after our big regression overhaul we will be more vigilant in squashing these instances when they show up.

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Bug testing of new version of portal

We have a new version of the portal in the works, essentially an overhaul of the underlying framework that I hope to be able to launch as soon as possible. Before that happens we need testers to find all the bugs. There is a standing invitation within the League Offices that anyone in there can use, but sometimes the more people that test it out the faster we can find and squash the bugs.

If you are interested in helping out with that, reach out to me and I'll send a link and instructions.

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TLDR

Keep in mind we are in S22 with the S23 Draft Class in the Academy.

• Not moving to FM26
  
• Apply for regional manager for WSFC
  
• New sim schedule for S23, with hopefully less Commentary Only games
  
• 250 starting TPE for S24 class and future
  
• Apply for simmer and/or post producer
  
• Promotion/relegation league structure within the Major and Minor league in S24
  
• Shared SSL Cup within this structure
  
• Bug test new portal pls
  

Exciting futures ahead!

/Commissioner and the BoD

[Froste39]

Big fan of having promotions/relegations again.

I'm hopeful that this will increase engagement with the Junior teams apart from them being farm teams for the big clubs.

[Prikulis5]

Big fan of having promotions/relegations again.

I'm hopeful that this will increase engagement with the Junior teams apart from them being farm teams for the big clubs.

I understand that they will remain as 'farm teams' for big clubs, just that both leagues will be split into two tiers

[Froste39]

Big fan of having promotions/relegations again.

I'm hopeful that this will increase engagement with the Junior teams apart from them being farm teams for the big clubs.

I understand that they will remain as 'farm teams' for big clubs, just that both leagues will be split into two tiers

Yes, that is right, but promotion and relegation will provide incentives to care more about your junior team's success now as well imo.

[woog]

I love seeing the return of promotion/relegation. Winning promotion for SFV was almost as happy a memory as winning the championship a little later on.

A devilish part of me wants to see the four resulting divisions all chained in the same promotion/relegation system. Something like this: 

1. the winner of Minor D1 swaps places with the last-place team in Major D2
   
2. the promoted team steals the minor-league affiliate of the formerly-major team
   
3. the Major team whose affiliate the newly-promoted Minor D1 winner was gains the newly-demoted Major D2 loser as their new minor affiliate.
   

Realistic? Almost certainly not. Extra spice in the promotion/relegation game? Absolutely.

[Ghost]

Promotion/relegation might be cool, yes. But a division consisting of only 6 teams sounds incredibly boring.