FML update patch v0.68

[Butcher]

Gradually getting closer to v1.0 (Public release)

New features

- Added concept of moderator notes
- Added public and private user and player notes (available to everyone)
- Implemented warning and carding system which allows moderators the ability to issue warnings, yellow and red cards. Red cards result in a suspension from the game.
- Added an ignore user function which greys the user out of chat panels and blocks them from requesting private chats
- Added moderator ability to mute a user. Currently a user is muted for 5 mins.
- Moderators can now review chat logs when dealing with incidents and reports of abuse.

Improvements

Skills

- Changed the way coaching skills impact on player progression which should not only serve to make them less effective but also make them work in a more realistic manner
- Tidied up the skill description items by adding full stops at the end of every sentence - I did get an English GCSE honest!
- Fixed a bug in which players unavailable to be signed (as the user doesn't have enough Scouting knowledge to have uncovered them) could not be viewed on the user's shortlist
- Fixed a bug in which it was possible for a user to learn a skill much quicker than should have been the case if they had been idle for some time beforehand
- Fixed a bug in which the user available skills panel could report that a skill was in progress when in fact it was a skill from a different category that was in progress
- Fixed a bug in which when viewing another team's squad a user would 'inherit' that user's skills, meaning they could in some cases view Potential when they shouldn't be able to etc
- Fixed a bug in which switching from training a skill to training another skill in a different category (i.e. on a different tab) would always display that the user was training level 1 of the skill, regardless of the level they were actually working towards
- Fixed a bug in which new skills could only be learned if the skill was dropped directly onto a blank part of the grid - new skills can now be learned by dropping the new skill anywhere on the panel
- Funked up the user_skills_panel by adding *s next to the level and also made the available skills panel wider (shrinking the description panel) to allow enough space for the icons
- Fixed a bug in which the skills panel table would default to the bottom, it now shows the skills at the top first
- Fixed a bug in which clicking on another user's skills would cause the client to crash
- Made some changes which will mean that a user can no longer see what skill another user is currently training
- Fixed a bug in which if the selected user was currently learning a skill their skill profile would always miss one skill off the list of known skills. This isn't actually an issue now anyway as you can no longer see the skill another user is currently working on, but should we ever bring it back it will work properly!
- Made a change so that clicking on known skills on your skills panel shows a description in the same way as clicking on available skills does
- Nerfed the influence skill so it doesn't take such a ludicrously long time to train any more
- Added an extra check when processing the learning of a new skill which should hopefully eliminate the server error some people have been experiencing
- Added code to ensure that the last_progression_update field is only updated when the user progression is in fact updated - this should serve as an extra check to ensure that user skill progression cannot freeze

Match Engine

v663

- Fixed v662 bug where players stop in their tracks and let ball player go
- Tweaked AI mentality slider ( applies to FM 8.0.2 only )
- Tweaked effect of consistency attribute a little ( a few more off days )
- Fixed bug where defenders may commit foul in area when ball nowhere near
- Fixed v662 bug where player marking ball player sometimes drops off suddenly and illogically
- Tried to eradicate more instances of players stopping on ball and being caught in possession
- Reduced ability of players to change direction with ball at high speed
- Stopped team all out attack setting overriding goalie mentality and sending him forward for corners late on
- Made players move towards ball that is theirs for the taking ( broken in 661 )
- Fixed bug where player set to man mark specific player would drop way deeper than his defensive line
- Made attacking teams a little more adventurous with passing in safe areas
- Reduced instances of refs giving fouls mistakenly when player clearly gets the ball
- Tweaked keeper ratings down a little

v662

- Fixed injury time being extended too easily
- Improved positioning for free kicks around the corner of opponents area
- Spread attacking players around a bit more at corners
- Improved marking at corners to account more for "mark tall/small player" instruction
- improved descriptions for some competition stage / round combinations; basically when there is only one knockout round in a stage, then no need to display '1st Round' etc. as it is meaningless, and the stage name itself should be sufficient to describe the round. Also made it so that in stages that *do* have multiple rounds, it displays things like "Last 16" on all occasions where there are 2, 4, 8, 16 etc teams remaining, rather than sometimes display '1st Round', '2nd Round'.
- Improved position of player standing with taker at free kicks
- Fixed instance of match not kicking off after goal
- Fixed bug where player is fouled but carries on running and then play gets pulled back with no advantage played
- Tweaked AI mentality slider ( applies to FM 8.0.2 only )
- Tweaked assistant manager team talk suggestions ( FM 8.0.2 only )
- Improved AI use of back arrows for one defensive midfielder in 442 formation ( FM 8.0.2 only )
- Improved AI use of opposition specific instructions ( FM 8.0.2 only )
- Improved default player to mark for each player according to formations
- Fixed bug where referee can "teleport" after a goal
- Reworked effect of "creative freedom" slider on player flair attribute
- Made AI teams sub very tired players earlier
- Fixed run past opponent being counted and reported in comms when defender too far away to think about a challenge
- Fixed some instances of players running ball out of play needlessly
- Fixed some instances of player being clean through and shooting first time unneccesarily
- Improved direction of shot when player lunges in on ball close in
- Made full backs stay back more often depending on forward run slider or team mentality slider being very defensive
- Stopped marginal offsides being called when ball has been touched since original pass was made
- Fixed bug where keeper doesnt react properly to slow or still ball and lets attackers in
- Stopped too many players going for same ball when corner swung into far post
- Improved positioning of closing down player when he finds himself being caught wrong side of opponent
- When keeper way out of position defenders now close down ball player immediately
- Fixed bug where keeper picks up ball then clears wildly as if under lots of pressure
- Toned down finishing a tad when chance not clear cut
- Improved trajectory of free kicks on goal
- Toned down length of keeper kicks from hand
- Made players play more back passes when under pressure
- Improved near post flick on from corners/crosses

General

- Removed user date of birth from display in both the user lists and the user profile pages
- Fixed bug where it displayed the wrong player name after "Defensive Instructions" on the player instructions panel on the tactics page.
- all tactical sliders that previously had positions from between 0 and 20 are now just 5-position sliders as it's not really logical for a manager to give a level of precision for, say, closing down, covering 20 or so different settings. As part of this, ensured each of the 5 positions has it's own accompanying text, rather than be able to move a slider and it still say, for example, passing 'Short' for several slider positions.
- Fixed up player attribute processing so that player attributes shouldn't shoot up (or down) to unrealistic values
- Fixed a bug in which players were being processed twice per progression cycle, rather than once - causing players to progress too quickly
- Fixed bug where the shirt number and condition columns on the match player stats panel was too small to display double-digit shirt numbers and 100% condition when the window was at it's minimum supported size (1024 x 768)
- on the team honours panel as displayed on the team's 'Profile' tab, changed it to display senior honours only, not youth honours as the intention for this section is really to portrary which teams are the properly successful ones in the GW. The youth honours, and unofficial history, is all still available on the 'History' tab, but this section on the 'Profile' tab should be reserved for senior official honours only.
- Fixed bug where it wasn't deducting loan wage contributions being received in a team's financial projection if they had loaned a player out and the loaning team was paying a contribution. Since loans can no longer be ended early, and thus the money is now guaranteed, this can now be factored into the projection.
- Fixed a bug in which setting refereeing strictness to lenient in a competition would in fact make the referees stricter, and vice versa! In the process also improved the way referees deviate from their natural tendencies according to competition strictness guidelines
- player contracts are now described as either '1 season' or '2 season' instead of either 4 or 8 weeks, and have been amended so that all new contracts (including auto extends and auto rebids) will now expire during the off-season. Existing contracts will expire as normal until a new contract is signed and aligned to expire during the off season. The intention is to promote transfer activity in particular during the off season, to help compensate for lack of activity caused by lack of federation matches.
- Added code to fix any regens incorrectly created with weak left and right feet
- Added icons to the achievements panel
- Fixed bug where setting the various Do Not Disturb options wasn't properly picked up by the server when it received this request and thus had no effect. Nice touch.
- improved the system for allowing matches to be played against the AI by delaying switching into this 24 hour state for a particular match until the start of the play time that follows the 'final' play time when the match was meant to be played. To accomodate this without lengthening competitions, competitions now schedule their fixtures so that there is a spare play time at the end that can be used for the last of these AI matches.
- Added a morale calculation to the confirm squad request so that team morale is calculated form the moment a user confirms their squad
- Fixed the wording in the 'Accuracy' achievements news items
- Added code to ensure that reputation drops for free agents don't kick in until the player has been a free agent for at least 30 game days
- Added code to gradually drop a player's reputation the longer they are a free agent - this will cause some players who have been unsigned for a long time (for example Buffon) to drop their wage demands
- Fixed a bug in which regens could be weak with both feet
- after a competition match the system re-evaluates all match resolution dates for the competition ensuring an even spread is maintained from now until the end of the stage. This should have the effect of putting back resolution dates for some matches as a user plays matches that weren't scheduled for auto resolution until some time later on, and hopefully having a positive effect on the number of matches that get played 'live'.
- when signing in it brings up the following popups sometimes; 1) if it's their first ever sign-in then the 'Customize Team' wizard. 2) if they haven't picked and confirmed a squad, then the 'Auto Select Squad' wizard. 3) if they have confirmed their squad, but not yet joined a federation then the 'Federation Finder' wizard. This is intended to prompt folk into doing the thing that needs doing, emphasize it's importance etc.
- when entering a competition, it now allows managers with more than one squad to specify the squad they want to allocate to that competition as part of the entering competition step, rather than rely on them explicitly choosing the squad later. This was leading to problems where the system would auto submit an unsuitable squad for a match if the manager wasn't present, leading to a 0-3 forfeit.
- further tweaked match highlights so that it doesn't cut things off so abruptly. This lengthens the highlights overall by a little, but this is not a bad thing as some have commented that highlights are too brief in the current build.
- Added option to see a player's last season stats (will need this code to be active for a season before this takes effect.)
- in the various places throughout the game where it includes a group letter in a sentence e.g. "UFFA Cup Group Stage Group B" then made it so that clicking on this goes to the correct group, rather than defaulting to Group A all the time.
- Added the season number to the bottom left corner of the screen to indicate what season the GW is currently in. Also modified federation competitions so that when a fed competition is created or restarted, it ensures it's 'season' is correctly aligned with the game world season.
- Fixed bug where winning a competition stage (but not the overall competition) was treated as a competition won by the achievements system.
- Fixed bug where no team descriptions were being displayed in suspension news items regarding extended bans for players
- produced a more compact team stats panel, in a similar vein to the player stats panel changes, and similarly combined senior and youth stats on one page, and added tabs for 'This Season' and 'Last Season' so last season's stats can be easily viewed.
- removed the database locking taking place when a match highlight ends and is stored in the DB to try and reduce those long pauses during the match. Locking for this shouldn't be necessary as nothing else should conflict with the uploading of a highlight.
- Fixed incorrect row height for rows on the past meetings table between two teams, when viewed from the team - squad page.
- Fixed scrolling issue on team competition history panel, where the top row wasn't scrolling
- Fixed discrepancy between AF shown on a player's profile and that listed in the player list panel; both should show the 'estimated' value, non-affected by user skills
- replaced player stats panel with a more compact and useful one which shows less information (for example only showing the Passes Completed % and not the individual number of passes and the number that were completed.). With the new size, arranged both Senior and Youth stats on the page.
- Used this new compact panel as part of a player history overhaul which involved ripping out the old 'year by year' storage system and using a 'season-by-season' one instead.
- Fixed bug where the manager's description was a link to the manager's profile. Also corrected the ordering of these on the injury news item.
- Fixed a bug in process_players_following_transfer in which leadership was not being correctly converted to the 1-100 range
- Fixed server error if you reject a transfer bid when the other user has already withdrawn it whilst you are on the reject dialog
- Fixed a bug where the wrong icon would show up on the player feedback history panel
- when a server error happens, all modal dialogs are removed from the screen (this prevents a crash in some circumstances).
- Added code that will make the time remaining on the user skills panel count down rather than staying static
- Fixed server error if you made a bid for < £10 with a deposit of £1, where the client would let you choose an installment option that didn't equal the total balance still to be paid
- Tidied up the player list panel so that if a user doesn't have any scouting skills the panel will not make space for a player potential rating icon (as there will never be one to display)
- Added user and team descriptions to all transfer related news items
- Added missing player name to the title for 'Defensive Instructions' section of the player instructions panel
- replace player and team 'rolling' stats with season-based stats as this fits more logically into the current season-based model used in the game. Stats are reset at the start of each season, so the 'off season' is considered to be the back-end of the previous season since occasionally competitions overlap into this period, with the exception of the build-up to season 1 which is considered *part* of season 1.
- Fixed a bug on the calendar panel where a scrollbar appeared when it wasn't meant to
- receivers now place players in auction with a starting bid of half of their acquisition fee rather than £10k, and set an instant buy to equal their full acquisition fee
- Added user and team descriptions for some finance, world rankings and transfer news items