Team setup, live card combining, reward tiers. First full day playing the game in regional (3rd) tier. Earnings. Ideas for beginners.
It's been a little over 1 week since the ranked rewards in GL Goals actually started. Card combining is now available, as are the higher tiers and levels.
(I will write about LPs and rewards at the bottom.)
Below are my first experiences, a little calculation regarding ranked rewards. How much is the game worth playing?
Since I plan to regularly write about the game in the future, especially about my development, I'll start with the team setup first.
There are several ways to setup a team:
1. The pay to earn way
Just pick 7 players (1 goalkeeper, 2 defenders, 2 midfielders, 2 strikers) and 1 coach from the best hard stat ones, pay the not-so-budget-friendly price for them, and you're good to go.
2. Ecomical
Trying to make use of the maximum 22 players, and we are trying to put together a still effective, high ROI team from the other, significantly cheaper players. (In this case, we swap around players between starters, substitutions and reserves for maximizing the daily gameplay, earning potential.)
3. Middle road
Select 2 starting7, with 1-2 substitutions, and fill the remaining few spots with relatively bad and low RP (Roaster Point) players for extra fans. (or leave them empty) In this case, players with a slightly higher RP can be included in the team, even some of the best, but it will not be possible to compose exclusively from the best due to the RP limit. (360 RP for starting 7 and 5 exchanges.)
An example for the first version:
I assume, I won't reveal any surprises, that most active players chose the first version. Fortunately, not everyone. Personally, I favor the 2nd one, but you have to think about the 3rd option to reach the higher tiers. I can't say how useful this might be at this point. However, I can already see that it will be difficult to reach the National tier and the highest one with Regular Foil cards.
Personally, I put together 1 RF and 1 GF teams, both using the maximum possible players.
Here, for now, only the RF follows.
As you can see, I tried to maximize the strength of the team and the number of daily matches, taking the costs into account. Within the team, there are 3 lines in each position + the eternal substitute GK Kann.
Yesterday, this also meant that I could play a maximum of 15 matches per day (5 per row) with the team, since 1 turn costs 0.5 health (1 match 40 turns, so 20 health). But today it means more. With yesterday's update, the cost of 1 turn was reduced to 0.3 health. So 1 match is 12 health. (1 player has 100 max. health, it is re-charged from 0 to 100 in 24 hours.) In other words, I could currently play a maximum of 8 matches with 1 line, 24 at the team level.
I already combined all players in this RF team to star level 3 (4bcx), even created more 4bcx cards, because swap the same player for another copy doesn't cost synergy. In this way, I can potentially play even 3 times more (maximum 72 matches) and anyway, my early target idea was somewhere between 15-30 bcx.
Just be careful with the estimated (lowest listed) value, as it shows the same for combined cards like single bcx atm.
Combining is simple and easy. Pick a player, select the highest dynamic stat for first (as it keeps the first card's dynamic stat) and just click to 'combine'.
Regarding what should focus on when selecting players, it is better not to form an opinion for now, as the matter is quite variable. I wouldn't do the same with coaches, since it's not public which one, how big effect has on the named abilities. (They promised to release the exact details of the coaches by next week.)
Despite the incomplete data, I still assembled the team early, knowing that it was largely speculation. I did all this to participate in the early phase, at higher levels as well. (Also was cost effective, doing it months ago.) Now is the time for that.
The requirements of the different tiers:
As you can see the 3 star combine level is good enough for Regional tier. (I'm still not 100% sure, you can reach it with less bcx, and you just get penalty for that, or it's a must minimum, however for fans, ratings, likely you will need to combine anyway.)
In the last 1 week, I played almost 200 matches with this team, so today I reached the Regional tier.
I don't want to mislead anyone. My win rate is actually nowhere near that good. About 30-35%. Previously, due to the more wins, more XP, I used the Genepool coach, which is still overworks to this day, and the only tactic that can be used against teams made up of the best players: shoot with the midfielders. (And this was cut back a few weeks ago.) I've been using Jeff instead of Genepool for almost 2 weeks. My winrate was way over 60% before the unbalanced combination of the 2 things above.
The regional tier gives about 22 GLX for 1 win or draw right now. This can only be won if the opponent is also in the same tier. If she is in a lower tier, I will also be limit back there, both my cards and rewards. (Local: 6 GLX, Solo: 0.6 GLX) I played 37 matches today. My income is 270 GLX. Of course, the biggest part consists of wins and draws in the Regional tier.
How much is it worth now?
I made about $1 with playing the game today.
The current cost of my team is $67.0 per row, i.e. for 22 players + 1 coach for 4bcx combined. Since this means only 24 matches / day, adding to this the 2nd row of 4bcx cards, total is $125.2 (it is not exactly double, because 1 x 4bcx is enough for a coach, since the coach has no health, it can be used for unlimited matches).
So I made $1 on the first day out of a $125.2 'investment'. It is not difficult to calculate that the APR is currently almost 300%, and this does not include the staked GLX rewards and the future tournaments and cups rewards.
Of course, it is very likely that these rewards will soon be cut back as the various bonuses are activated. Primarily given by GF cards, considering the 2.5% bonus.
However, if you do the math a little further, it becomes apparent that by choosing the right cards, you can make quite a significant return in the not-too-distant future.
At the moment, I haven't seen the point of going more into the costs and returns, since this is only the first day that I was able to play quite a lot of matches in the Regional tier, but in 1-2 weeks, I will see more precisely the expected average daily rewards. Also record my daily W/D/L ratio.
Then I will detail the cost of the team in a table, too.
Obviously, nothing is financial advice, but I would mention it if someone is currently in the team building phase or is planning to try the game, start with the goalkeepers, everything else only after that. (For the RF team above, 40% of the costs consist of the goalkeepers and the coach.)
A few other things worth mentioning.
Currently, the vast majority of teams, who play regularly, using the best players, and you can get paired with everyone, which is often a completely hopeless task for me as well. Defeat is guaranteed. In such cases, it is better not to play at all, instead of destroying your rating and fan level. (If it is already good enough for higher tiers.)
For these teams of mostly 7-8 players, the devs need to quickly come up with some kind of separate system, division in each tiers, because currently they kill the game with less than 10% of the total cards, because of the minimum 50-60 RP extra value in starting7, which they have compared to those who use 23 cards in a team. The outcome of the match is clear. And yes, it's optional, but still killing the game that these totally different teams are not separated from all the rest. Yes, we know, they are the strongest, will be the best, will earn the most, so let them compete vs. each other for highest rewards in each tier, and leave the majority alone.
If someone just starts to play: you also get XP for defeat (which is necessary for the above levels), so even if you leave it on auto-play, it is worth registering for a match again and again even vs. the strongest opponents until the maximum XP has been reached on a single card, then you can start to play for ratings and fans.
Synergy. Playing with time. It has a huge effect on the actions in the game. You can check others synergy by clicking on their coach avatar on the top during the match. If it's 20-30% higher, don't be surprised because of low %s, losses. Synergy fullfills in 30 days, if you do not change players during this period.
Liquidity Pools and Rewards
The LP rewards went live yesterday, today the liquidity providers will receive their first rewards.
GLX pools:
GLUSD pools:
GLGT pool:
Actually, I am not much interested in the LPs, but I know, many people are, so I just shared it's live!!!
Have a nice weekend!
Pictures are owned by Genesis League Goals.