Soccer-Supremo

[davidjwest]

OK, this is still in beta but it is working with no bugs that I am aware of!

I need 4 more people for division/league 2 to begin.

There are loads of ideas I have to add more interest to the game and will be implementing this on an almost daily basis.

Thanks!

http://www.soccer-supremo.com

[hiigara]

Good luck. I am also making a footie manager. It seems a simple task when you start. But it's hell.
When you are writing a fantasy RPG you can make stuff up, no one complains. But a sports simulation has to be realistic. Finances, player evolution etc. And that's what makes it hard.

[Murzim]

The most challenging part would be the match engine. How exactly you resolved this ?

[davidjwest]

Good luck. I am also making a footie manager. It seems a simple task when you start. But it's hell.
When you are writing a fantasy RPG you can make stuff up, no one complains. But a sports simulation has to be realistic. Finances, player evolution etc. And that's what makes it hard.

Agreed and good luck to you too.  Please let me have the URL so I can have a look.

Thanks.

[davidjwest]

The most challenging part would be the match engine. How exactly you resolved this ?

Yes, that is probably the most complex code.

I decided to make it fairly simple to start with and gradually add more features to make it more realistic.

Basically it works like this:

Both teams pick their starting line-ups of 11 players and they also allocate modifiers such as home advantage points to their defence, midfield, attack etc.

Both teams are compared, for example MF to MF, the side with the highest MF gets some chances on goal, if a team has a higher attack than the opposition defence they get some attacks etc.

Each attack is given to a player at random, biased towards the attackers, there is a check to see if their shot is on target or not (based on skill) and then finally if the goalkeeper saves it or not, again skill based.

There's a fair bit more to it than that but that is the basics.

Results so far seem realistic enough but I will be tweaking them.

[saljutin]

"realistic" or realistic
how many games u simulated
I suggest you start some alpha/beta ASAP just to let some people test match engine...that would be the best feedback you can get and maybe tweak some things
and oh...NEVER tell your players that your match engine is easy/basic and you only let few numbers decide
and one more thingy ... do you get "lucky" days where lower ranked team wins over better one? I mean can that happen (small %) with your match engine - if not fix it

[Chris]

Yeah, real tests with real testers usually outbid talking I agree with saljutin that you should do it ASAP.

"lucky" days where lower ranked team wins over better one?

Somehow, I like this idea

As for match engine, I guess the important thing is how you present the outcome to players. I liked in SoccerStar how I got to see my character to intercept the ball. It was exciting. The engine there probably was rather simple. Althrough it is a "single player" game not "team management" game so you can not copy it directly.

Also I liked observing the battles in MMO2 (in theory you were playing the battles on tactical screen, but it was so simplified that I called it watching ), the key was the informsation I gort about the performance of my ships. This let me to adjust. The same information you should provide in your match, is the goalkeeper doing fine? Are the middleplayers intercepting the balls frequently enough?

I guess the actual match mechanic is almost irrelevant, it is all about how you provide the information from the match to the player. Actually, probably you could just make one level for each player and his "profession" then a setup where they are standing/how many of each kind there are and it could be fun and playable already.

[saljutin]

Chris is right!
sport game match engine should be:
- basic (because in 99% overcomplexity of match engine leads to bigger randomness factor)
- controlled randomness (people make it such...superb skill 95% shoot on target & goal which makes some players gods)
- players "made" with generator to suit position (but ok in soccer that is not so obvious then in basketball or something)
- fast! (if you write every single action in new row in database your game "wont work" if many people play it - was helping some guy with fixing this issue...)

[dbest]

I ran an alpha and beta test for my tennis management game. Somehow wasnt too convinced about the ME logic, so had to scrap the game after a few weeks online.
 

[saljutin]

tennis should be easier on first sight
its 1 on 1, like boxing
I always start with basic and then upgrade it...here it would be 1 player hits ball (strong-easy, good-bad) and 2nd tries to hit it back
A1 - if shoot is too easy then he can hit net, if it is too strong ball can go outside (OR NOT if player2 hits it back )
A2 - if shoot is good ball goes where he wanted to put it (ideal is that it hits maximum distance from player2, but still in field), bad is that he can hit net or outside or to player2
B1 - player2 manages to run to ball (because of his good reflexes/acceleration) so he can hit it (look A1+A2)
B2 - p2 cannot reach ball

that is basic....upgrade:
B1.1 - p2 reached ball with his last atoms of strength so his A1 is lower and A2 can be worse
add to players if they play aggro or safe (aggro means shots that almost hit net or almost out of field / safe means he waits for player2 to make mistake)
add stamina to players (after each set reset stamina to 100% or some % lower, so at end of game player cannot run so much anymore in one set)
etc.

[Chris]

Chris is right!

Truly a sentence worth quoting

I don't fully agree 1vs1 is easier. With team vs team you can simply replicate the same variable several times and this way you can make a rich system without much complexity. Like 1000 primitive lego blocks can privide as much fun as one high tech robot toy.

I would divide the report to zones:
"The ball is in the home zone, controlled by your team"
"The ball is in the center zone, controlled by your team"
"Intercept, the ball is controlled by enemy team now"
"The ball is in the center zone, controlled by enemy team"
"Long pass by enemy, intercept failed, the enemy gets an opportunity shot"
"Goalkeeper initiative check failed, -50% penalty"
"Goal!!! Enemy scores"

Since you know which players you put in each zone you can estimate how they are doing.

[dbest]

tennis should be easier on first sight
its 1 on 1, like boxing
I always start with basic and then upgrade it...here it would be 1 player hits ball (strong-easy, good-bad) and 2nd tries to hit it back
A1 - if shoot is too easy then he can hit net, if it is too strong ball can go outside (OR NOT if player2 hits it back )
A2 - if shoot is good ball goes where he wanted to put it (ideal is that it hits maximum distance from player2, but still in field), bad is that he can hit net or outside or to player2
B1 - player2 manages to run to ball (because of his good reflexes/acceleration) so he can hit it (look A1+A2)
B2 - p2 cannot reach ball

that is basic....upgrade:
B1.1 - p2 reached ball with his last atoms of strength so his A1 is lower and A2 can be worse
add to players if they play aggro or safe (aggro means shots that almost hit net or almost out of field / safe means he waits for player2 to make mistake)
add stamina to players (after each set reset stamina to 100% or some % lower, so at end of game player cannot run so much anymore in one set)
etc.

Cheers...
My match engine source code is available on my github project page.

[saljutin]

too many information at once
can you just describe your basic idea how you did calculations on points won?

[Kyle]

Not many if any sports games listed on my site.
You'd be doing me, and yourself a nice favor by adding it to my list. Just check my sig for the link