Season 2 changes: Experience & Condition

It's time to take a look at how Experience and Condition (and Confidence) are changing in Season 2. Out of these, Experience will behave most like it does now, while Condition will hopefully add some more depth to the game and deeper rosters might become a real choice. At leat long term.

Experience is not going anywhere

Experience is one of the main attributes in the game, and it is also a key feature in ensuring that every player gets better as long as they play. It guarantees that no matter what kind of luck you were blessed with, your players will be stronger after playing a full season. For Shakuras Reborn I made the choice to cap it, to stop it from growing eternally which is one of the things that lead to issues previously. 15 is quite a big number admittedly, and it will take quite a few seasons for a regular player to make it there.

It grows only through official play, a little per game, more slowly the more a player already has, and it caps at 15. None of that changes in season 2. What changes is how much it is worth at different skill levels. This is meant to be a relatively small but targeted nerf.

Experience right now

Experience is very important, just as important as a players skills are currently. Between equally skilled players the veteran wins far more often than not — that part is the design. But the same weight held all the way up the ladder, where it should not: a plainly better young player still lost most of his games to a capped veteran. A world like that drifts toward being ranked by seniority rather than by ability, which most of us veterans remember from the old Shakuras. Experience essentially adds a multiplier or a bonus to a players skills. The aim was to soften this effect so that the better the players become, they will be more likely to play "to their fullest effect" even without the full experience. Think of it as lowering the total skill ceiling of attributes + experience combined.

What changes?

From season 2 the weight of experience fades as a player's own skills rise. For developing players — it is almost as heavy as ever. The higher a player's raw ability climbs, the less effect experience will have, and at the very top the experience multiplier narrows down closer and closer to nada. In lab testing, a debutant clearly more skilled than a capped veteran used to lose most of their meetings. Now he wins most of them. Bear in mind though, that this supposes skill level differences of around 20+ overall, which we will eventually begin to see. Not right at the start of next season, but as those super amateurs level up, they will be soaring.

Does it actually work?

The testst I've had Claude run say that it does. I know it might sound like it would make the effect of old low skill vet even better, but because they also dont get the full 100% effect anymore, it does seem to work as intended. Experience never hurts, and it never turns the overall better player into the underdog. At equal experience the more skilled man is still always the favourite. This was tested specifically — at the thin margins near the top of the skill scale, where a fading bonus could in theory misbehave — and it holds everywhere.

Condition in season 2

Condition is the weekly clock: official games cost it, rest brings it back, and a worn player fights below his skills. In season 1 it was, frankly, decorative. Everyone recovered two points a night whatever his age, so the whole world sat at 98 or 99 all season and there was nothing to manage — and on the rare day a player really was worn, the penalty was savage. Season 2 turns both of those around.

1. EVERY PLAYER HAS A COMFORT LEVEL
It is 100 condition at eighteen and eases down by 0.75 points a year: 97 at 22, 94 at 26, 91 at 30, 88 at 34. Below his comfort level a player bounces back quickly — 1.5 points recovered per night. Above the level, the last stretch to a true 100 comes at half pace, 0.75 points: so one night of rest for every year of age past eighteen.

2. BEING TIRED COSTS HALF WHAT IT DID
A worn player is now diminished in proportion to how worn he is — a real handicap, but an honest one. A man at 92 is visibly below his best and might still be worth fielding in the right spot. The absurd condition cliff has been mostly erased.

3. THE EFFECT OF AGE ON MATCHES
The extra toll age takes on every game — about 3% a year — now starts at eighteen instead of twenty. This adds a little extra toll on the oldsters- the same mechanic as is currently, but just brought down to 18 to match the design intent everywhere.

4. THE LENGHT OF THE GAME MATTERS
A win still costs 1 and a loss 1.5, but the length of the game now moves that by up to a tenth either way: a quick all-in costs a little less, an hour-long slugfest on rich ground a little more.

5. WINNERS LEAGUE STREAKS TIRE FASTER
In the Winner's League the man who stays on stage plays each further game a little more tired than his number says, and each game of a streak wears him 10% more than the last. Essentially, each match adds condition loss, and they also get an extra stacking condition debuff that only affects their performance during the streak (does not affect their overall condition once the match finishes). This debuff was put into place as a brake for excessive all-kills, since the effect of a single point of condition was diminished.

WHAT TO EXPECT
The goal is very simple, no more sitting the full team at 100% condition. This is likely to add variance, and force depth choices more often. Winner's league and ISL runs should have a noticeable effect. This is a big change to how playing the game feels to you as a manager, so I expect some growing pains. As usual, we will have to see how the change plays out long term- but this should be a welcome change from the binary that condition currently is.

Rotation is now a weapon, a deep bench is what makes rotation affordable, and the wage you pay your sixth and seventh men finally buys something: fresh legs on the day your star cannot give you his best. Long term, condition becomes essentially a retirement mechanic. The older the player, the less often they can play at full strenght. Their skills might not fade, but their consistency does. If a real skill decay is ever added, then condition will likely be looked at as well.

With the world living between 90 and 100 rather than pinned at 99, the condition words have been retuned, and there are four of them. Fresh, from 98: full strength — a point or two off is noise. Fit, from 95: a touch under, and still ready for the field. Worn, from 90, in amber: about a full skill level down — fieldable, but a fresher fifth man may be the better call. Exhausted, below 90, in red: rest him.

WHAT STAYS THE SAME
Only you see your own players' exact numbers. Academy players keep their simple nightly recovery: the comfort level is a professional's burden.

Your players carry their current condition into the update, and the new recovery applies from the first night once the patch rolls out.

In the next post in a few days, I will be going over the new features such as 2v2, random race players, and changes to amateur scouting.

-VD with Claude providing the draft.