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[Lamme Lennie]

Important upcoming changes to contracts


On the February 3rd's morning we're going to release a set of changes to how contracts work here in Footstar. These changes will hopefully reduce the number of possible "exploits" in the game, at least in what the financial status of the players are concerned.
The list of changes is as follows:

Contract changes

- Signing fees
Signing fees will be completely removed from the game.
Despite being a realistic feature, signing fees were an easy way to give an unfair advantage to some players. Since the economical balance of the game could be at stake, we've decided on the easier option to solve this: remove the feature. This way players will have to build up their funds by signing good contracts instead, so we believe in the long-term it will lead to more fairness in the game (and also to a better understanding of it and a better way for managers to control their expenses).

- Wage restrictions
Some wage restrictions will be introduced to prevent unrealistic sudden changes in players' wages. Consider this as a set of "board rules" in which your club's directing board won't allow you to run the club's finances on a crazy manner. The complete list of changes follows:
On signing:
- The highest allowed wage will be 1000% of the lowest player wage on the club. This will hopefully lead, in our opinion and to some extent, to more balanced wages. Example: if your lowest-paid player receives 500€ per week, you will only be allowed to pay a newly signed player 5000€. The lowest wage on your club will be the lowest wage you pay a human-controlled player; bot players will not be taken into account (as you cannot obviously control their wages).
On renewals:
- Same rule as before applies to all renewals, except if a player already receives more than the 1000% cap. If he does, he'll be allowed to renew for his current wage but no more than that. Example: if a player receives 10000€ per week and the 1000% cap sets the maximum at 5000€, the maximum wage you can offer the player will be 10000€.
- The maximum allowed wage increase will be set at 100% of the player's current wage. Example: if a player has a 500€ wage, on renewal you'll only be allowed to pay him 1000€ tops (double his current wage).
- The maximum allowed wage decrease will be set at 50% of the player's current wage. Example: if a player gets 1500€ per week, the maximum decrease will be 750€ (half his current wage).
- You will only be allowed to offer a game bonus of a total of 50% the maximum allowed wage (example: maximum wage 1000€, game bonus 500€).
- You will only be allowed to offer bonuses (except the game bonus, described above) of a total of 25% of the maximum allowed wage (example: maximum wage is 1000€, you will be able to offer a maximum goal bonus of 250€, assist bonus 250€, etc., not cumulative).
- You only be only allowed to renew a player's contract every 2 weeks. Old rule (in the meanwhile removed) was a full season, and it proved highly "unrealistic". Though, it's a necessary measure to get the rule back. We think the 2 week period is a good choice for the restriction and will allow some "freedom of movement" to managers.

Signing restrictions/Club control restrictions
With the contract changes we will also release a couple other restrictions concerning managers changing clubs (or getting fired due to FS Fan expiration) or players changing clubs/managers:
- You won't be able to take control of the same club you left for at least 6 months. Example: your FS Fan period expires and your club turns bot a week after that. If you decide to renew your FS Fan after that week period, you won't be able to take control of your old club, having to opt for another one instead.
- Players won't be able to sign for the same club and/or manager for a period of at least 3 months. This includes bot clubs from the date when the changes take effect on. Examples: - a player leaves a bot and immediately tries to sign for it again: he won't be allowed to do that; - a player plays for a club managed by manager X. Manager X in the meanwhile is fired (for some reason) and takes control of another club in the following weeks. The player won't be able to sign for his old manager's club for 3 months after the manager first left.

Conclusion
These rules will come into effect after some possible exploits were "found". Some other exploits may still be possible (although a lot less effective with the new rules), but, as you can imagine, some are very complex so we're relying on your help to find them in the future so we can cover all possible fronts.

Reason for the Feb 3rd "deadline": since this is a economical update day, we have set it as a deadline so managers can in the upcoming days make the necessary changes and plan ahead the future of their club's economy. Even though, sorry for the seemingly short-notice. As we always say, the game is yet in its very beginning (although 3 months old already) and prone to relevant changes. Hopefully these changes will balance things out some more and other radical changes won't be necessary in the future.

This being said, happy planning and, as always, let us know what you think by starting up a discussion thread in our forums with constructive suggestions. And thanks for reading this far!