In June 2004, the HTs launched a new economy for the game with version 6.6, with a brand new wage formula that should make people stop producing so many single-skilled monsters and instead produce more multi-skilled players.
In their announcement, the HTs stated the following: "Let us underline that we always monitor the state of the global HT economy. Whenever it starts moving in the wrong direction, we will take action... remember that it is the overall state of the economy that we monitor, not the fluctuations of the transfer market.
On this page, I will use the excellent transfer-statistics offered to
hattrick-supporters to analyse the effect of version 6.6. I will argue for the following:
Since I'm Danish, I've analysed the prices on the Danish transfer-market. I wouldn't expect prices to bee much different in other countries, so I assume that this analysis is relevant to all.
For analysis, players have been divided into 4 categories based on TSI:
Low quality: 1.000 - 4.000 TSI
Mid quality: 4.000 - 16.000 TSI
High quality: 16.000 - 64.000 TSI
Star quality: above 64.000 TSI
Players below 1.000 TSI have not been analysed because they really don't matter.
HT stats have no data for June and July 2006 (probably because of the breakdown) so these have been estimated:
Estimated stats for June 2006 = ( ("stats for May 2006" x 2)/"stats for August 2006" ) / 3
Estimated stats for July 2006 = ( "stats for May 2006"/("stats for August 2006" x 2) ) / 3
The data for analysis has been cleansed for minor variations/noise using a 3-period running average. This means that the value for a specific month (say "September") equals the average value of a three-month period (in this case "August", "September", and "October").
The launch of version 6.6 is marked in the graphs with a red line
This graph shows that the amount of transfers has increased steadily the last 7 seasons though this increase seems to be fading off for lower-TSI players. The graph also shows that higher-TSI players increase at a higher rate than lower-TSI players do.
Conclusion: the amount of managers in hattrick has been steadily increasing. The quality of the players has also been steadily increasing and hence the average wage-burden must have done like-wise
Note: For "high" and "star" quality players the amount of trades is sometimes below 100. These stats have been excluded from the rest of the analysis, because I think it is too few trades to say anything about a general trend.
This graph shows the average TSI for traded players. The "high", "mid", and "low" categories are very stable which
makes sense - the average TSI for players between 1.000 - 4.000 TSI for example should always
be roughly the same. The "star" category on the other hand is open-ended and here average TSI has actually been changing.
The average TSI for "star"-players indicate the portion of single skilled-monsters traded -
this portion grew in season 26-28 but fell again in season 29. It is difficult to know
exactly if averages for players traded accurately represent averages for players in the game,
but the fact that the curve seems to have stabilised now indicate that there now
is a smaller portion of single-skilled monsters in the game than before.
Conclusion: The production of single skilled monsters has stopped - i.e. the new wage-formula has worked all though it seems to have taken a while.
This graph shows the price-disaster. The disaster didn't start right after the launch of version 6.6
- actually, prices were stable for 4 seasons after the new wage formula.
However, in season 27, they started to drop dramatically and there is no indication of prices rising again.
I would argue that this price-drop is connected to the new wage formula - even though it happened 4 seasons after the launch - for two reasons:
Conclusion: When version 6.6 was launched, the quality of players was not high enough to affect the vast majority of managers. Hence, they didn't react to it since their economies were OK. As the quality of players improved steadily, more and more managers began to have trouble with their wages. Since the wage increase steeply as a player gets better, it makes sense that a great number of managers suddenly got in trouble and wanted to get rid of their wage-heavy players due to the general increase in player-quality - supply increased and prices began to fall.
Some argue that managers should stop complaining about prices and instead adjust their strategies to the way the economy works now. In other words - there is no disaster only conservative managers. I think that the price-drop is a disaster that has damaged the game because of two things:
No one could have predicted that the wage formula would produce a sudden change in the transfer-prices 4 seasons after its launch, and I don't think that the HTs are too blame for this. In addition, I don't think that this situation has ever been intended, since the HTs usually seem to want a stabile economy.
At some point prices must stabilise but the absurdity of the price system won't correct itself and all other bad effects on hattrick masters and the vast amount of 'farmer-teams' for instance won't correct themselves either.
The big question is why this drop in prices still is ongoing.
The HTs seem to be thinking that it is because more and more managers save up for better times
lowering demand and intensifying the general trend. If this is the reason
then their announced action might work.
But I think the statistics point to something else - if people started to get in trouble because of the increased quality of players, and this steady increase is still ongoing, then more and more managers should be getting into financial trouble and prices should continue to drop as they have done so far. Lowering agent fees will just decrease the amount of money lost on transfers, it won't decrease the amount of managers getting into financial trouble because of wages (it may delay it for a while though).
As I see it, there is only one cure:
1. Change the wage formula: This only has to be a minor correction to make the wage increase
less steep. As the new wage formula actually seems to have had the intended effect I don't think the general
principle of the formula needs to be changed. It only needs to be changed slightly so that star-quality players again become more expensive
than high-quality players.
2. Change the effect of training: It is likely that the production of single-skilled monsters only stopped in season 29 because
it only was at that time that the prices for star-quality players had dropped to the level of high-quality players
- i.e. when it comes to training, managers only care about wages if they effects prices (maybe because they don't intend to keep their training objects). So if prices for star-quality
players rose again (as I think they should) this might trigger an increased production of single-skilled monsters again.
To keep people from producing these players, without creating an absurd transfer market, the effect of training needs to be changed,
in a way that makes it harder to train players with higher skill-levels. This changed
effect of training only needs to be modest to have a large effect on people's behaviour I think.
The hattrick economy is in crisis because more and more managers get into financial trouble. They do this because the current wage formula is too steep.
As I see it, the best cure is two modest adjustments of the game:
1) Make the wage formula slightly less steep for high-skilled players
2) Decrease the effect of training slightly for high-skilled players
This should cure the transfer-price disaster without reintroducing the old disease of too many single-skilled monsters.
It might also make it able for normal teams with healthy economies to win the hattrick masters and have players on the national teams.
All in all these two changes could make this game a lot better.
10-11-2006 by donkjaer, manager of FC Kjærland IV.40 - Denmark
See also HAM's TPE statistics