Footium launched on Arbitrum with our first step into a fully interactive gaming experience, kicking off with Season 0.
Now we’re returning, earlier than expected with an additional summer season before our Season 1 launch. Season 0.5 gives us the opportunity to gather feedback on further improvements, with Footium’s core feature set and polished systems arriving for Season 1 in late-summer.
Join our Discord and keep an eye on our announcements to ensure you’re fully prepped for what’s to come.
tl;dr
- Season 0.5 live on the 17th of July, matches starting on the 23rd of July, accessible to all footium club owners.
- Main focus is testing our improvements since Season 0, such as training, rare players, bug fixes and match engine improvements.
- No aging or potential unlocking this season.
- No real money prizes or promotion or relegation.
- Academy mints will cost ETH and players will persist to future seasons, with spending accumulated for future prize pools.
- 1 game per day, each league plays at a fixed time each day.
- Rare player rewards finally given, and available as rare spawns in academies for the first time.
- Complete club and squad management, including transfers, tactics, and training…
- An updated prize pool and distribution available such as rare players, div 4 clubs, badge upgrades and more!
The core focus for Season 0.5 is to give you a chance to continue your Footium journey, helping us refine the requests, ideas, and fixes you’ve suggested, while you compete for glory live on Arbitrum. We’ll talk more deeply about this further in the article, but we’ll start with Season 0.5 details, like our updated training platform, game engine updates, and new positions you may see popping up on player cards.
Season 0.5 Socials
Season 0.5 introduces new social integration tools for club owners, starting with Twitter handles being added to club pages. Users will now have the ability to add their personal, or club handles to their club pages.
We believe this update should help owners contact other clubs when playing matches, making transfers or planning seasonal strategy. To use the new feature, users will need to input their twitter handles into the new box on your club page. Twitter handles will be verified internally, and any content linked that violates our Footium content rules will be removed.
Step-by-Step Guide:
- Sign In: Log in to your Footium account as you normally would.
- Navigate to the Game Hub: Go to footium.club/game.
- Access Club Areas: On the left-hand side, you will see a menu with various club areas.
- Select ‘My Club’: Scroll down and click on “My Club” to view your club profile.
- Locate the Social Media Section: At the top of your club profile, above the club title (e.g., BRAT BRAING), you will see a Twitter logo and an “Edit” button.
- Edit Social Handle: Click on the “Edit” button. A text box will appear where you can enter your social media handle (e.g., BRATBRAINGFC).
- Save or Cancel: Once you’ve entered your handle, you will see two options:
- Save Name: Click this to confirm and save your social media handle.
- Cancel: Click this if you decide not to make any changes.
You will need to sign a short confirmation to finalize the change.
Content Guidelines:
- Keep It Safe: Do not link to any content that is not safe for work, inappropriate for those under 18, or provides financial or legal advice.
- Personal or Club Handles: Use your personal social media handles or your club’s official Twitter accounts.
- Community Standards: All social media links will be checked for compliance with our content policy, any infringing links will be removed.
On Configuration and Gameplay
For Season 0.5, All Footium clubs will continue to play in their designated leagues, ensuring that the competitive environment mirrors the intended design of the game.
Owners will continue to use their registered squads on Arbitrum. Any new players purchased during the season can also be integrated into your squad, enhancing your team’s capabilities, assuming they are registered during the transfer window.
Match Engine Update
We’re excited to introduce several significant updates to the match engine in Season 0.5, alongside bug fixes to key issues like GKs scoring in Season 0.
Our major updates focus primarily on two new positions, and refining how inputs impact match result calculations to enhance gameplay and reduce zombie wins.
We don’t expect this to rule out all upsets, but it should reduce issues significantly, while we work on improving further for Season 1.
Most importantly: we have made a crucial update to how match results are calculated, specifically targeting the reduction of zombie team wins by lowering the potential floor rating for teams with poor management. This improvement aims to provide a more competitive and fair gameplay experience, and further punish teams who aren’t actively participating.
Although these calculation changes have been extensively tested internally, we need to validate them in a live environment during Season 0.5. This will allow us to make any necessary final adjustments before the full launch in Season 1.
We believe there will be further adjustments to make, and are doing this alongside honing in on a system to combat inactive players while introducing new active players to the ecosystem.
New Positions: Left Forward (LF) and Right Forward (RF)
You might spot some new positions appearing in training and on player cards. The addition of LF and RF is based on detailed analysis from our game design team, ensuring that these positions will enrich tactical options and overall gameplay for club owners.
Although no RF/LF players will spawn in academies or be given as rare players during Season 0.5, all existing players will receive RF/LF ratings. This allows you to start training players in these positions during the training window.
During the open training period, you’ll have the opportunity to train your players for the RF/LF positions if you choose. This flexibility ensures that your player development is aligned with future updates.
LF and RF positions will feature in various formations in upcoming seasons. They will also be available in academies, and we’ll distribute some RF/LF players before Season 1 to maintain balance in the player economy. Specific details on this distribution will be shared closer to the time.
We want to be clear: adding new positions such as LF and RF is a unique update and not something we see as a monetisation tool happening frequently in the future.
By addressing floor rating issues, refining rating calculations, fixing bugs related to goalkeepers scoring, and introducing LF/RF positions, we aim to enhance your strategic options and overall enjoyment of Footium. Stay tuned for further updates and enjoy the new features in Season 0.5!
Rare Player Drops
Yep, that’s right, rare players are arriving into the Footium universe. You’ll see two forms of rare players in this season. Competition winner rare players, and academy minted rares.
Competition winner rare players will arrive a day after the platform goes live. These players will look slightly different to academy players. They will have a higher rating, with some potential already used, alongside being older than academy players.
Academy rare players have a chance to spawn in all academies, with spawn percentages reduce the further down the Footium pyramid a club sits.
Rare players will cost a flat rate to sign, regardless of their division. You can see the mint prices above.
Academy Update
Alongside this, you’ll once again have access to 5 academy prospects to mint. Minting these players will require Ethereum on Arbitrum, and will add them permanently to your squad, with the payment contributing to prize pool funds in your division. As an extra, Academy players when minted go straight into the squad even if the transfer (registration) window is closed.
Mint prices are set per division, with an increase towards Division 1, to reflect the talent of the players coming through each division.
Training
Training will make it’s first appearance during Season 0.5, impacting on-chain assets, giving you a chance to boost your player’s stats. Training will be available for 2 days during the season, kicking off on the 2nd of August, and closing on the 5th of August. The registration window will be closed at this time.
While we’re only making training available for a two days during Season 0.5, the speed of training will be increased and the time constraint curve will be flattened, to reward you for joining us during 0.5, and helping Footium build the platform further with your feedback.
This means for this season only, it’ll be comparatively easier to train players who have already used up a significant amount of their potential — allowing you to get the best out of players who are further along their career journey.
The ratings gained will persist through to future seasons. However, do bare in mind that training will be slower in season 1, returning to similar constraints as you may have seen in our Playtest Brazil.
Prizes
Lastly, you’ll have access to Footium 0.5 Prizes, which will be distributed in an updated system based off of finishing position at the end of the season. Rewards for this season will be in-game assets only, and the higher your final position, the more prizes you’ll be available to win. Points are viewable within your league, so you can see clearly how many raffle tickets you’ve earned, and what prizes you have available to you! For example, this season, only first place finishers will be in contention for clubs.
Raffle prizes, as with Season 0 are split into brackets, ensuring a fair distribution of prizes across leagues. There will be an activity requirement for raffle entry — ensuring managers who have paved their way to success through tactical prowess and careful management will be rewarded for their efforts. Make sure to log in when possible to check your teams, and set tactics!
Season 0.5 Player Registration Update
In previous seasons, club owners occasionally faced issues when buying players and being unable to register them. To prevent this, remember to unregister a player before selling them. For now, if you encounter this issue:
- Open a support ticket in Discord here.
- Include the player details.
- Tag George & Roland for assistance.
We are conducting a mass automated unregistering of players who are in a different wallet to their registered club when we do the Season 0.5 deployment. This should resolve any outstanding issues from the previous season.
For Season 0.5, we have investigated and found that unregistering players before selling them effectively resolves this issue. If the problem persists as the player you purchased wasn’t unregistered, set up a support ticket, and we will manually fix it.
Don’t forget…
The transfer market, operated via OpenSea, will continue to feature a 5% transaction fee. Players will need to register their new purchases while the registration window remains open.
To keep Season 0.5 as a ‘standalone’ experience, there will be no potential unlocking, or aging.
You’ll be playing daily matches! The season will consist of 22 games, with teams playing one game per day. This pace is set to replicate the rhythm of a real football season, providing ample opportunity for strategy and club management.
Matches are scheduled to run between 7 AM and 12:00AM UTC, divided into 16 slots throughout the day. There will be two transfer windows, where players bought from other clubs can be registered.
The transfer window schedule can be found in our graphic below, registration of new players will only be closed while training is open.
How do I prepare for Season 0.5?
- Step 1: If you haven’t already, set up your wallet on Arbitrum, and transfer ETH in preparation — find out how here.
- Step 2: Buy a club! Make sure you’ve budgeted for players, or negotiated a deal with a club owner in our discord for a club + players.
- Step 3: Use the transfer market and academy effectively to strengthen your team, keeping an eye on the strategic composition and potential of your squad.
- Step 4: Get involved with our socials and upcoming quests for the chance to upgrade your club for the launch of Season 1.
Why are we doing Season 0.5?
Season 0.5 is a crucial step in Footium’s development, aimed at refining the game based on feedback and preparing for the full launch of Season 1. Here are the key reasons behind this interim season:
🪲 Game Engine Improvements
The primary goal of Season 0.5 is to test and refine the game engine improvements before introducing real money prizes. This will address key bugs faced during Season 0, such as goalkeepers scoring and the prevalence of zombie team wins, ensuring a smoother and more realistic gameplay experience.
🏃 Season Transition Testing
Season 0.5 allows us to test the new season transition systems. These transitions will happen at the start of Season 0.5, ensuring that in the future, the game can flow seamlessly from one season to the next without requiring a new deployment after every season. This will help us maintain a consistent and uninterrupted gaming experience.
⚽️ Training Overhaul
We’re excited to introduce our training overhaul, featuring a full UI revamp and numerous ease-of-use fixes. Season 0.5 provides the perfect opportunity for players to experience this new training system, which will be available for a few days during the season, with ratings gained persisting into future seasons.
👁️ General Bug Fixes and UX Improvements
As with any development phase, Season 0.5 includes a range of general bug fixes and UX improvements across the app. We encourage you to explore and spot these enhancements, contributing to a more polished and enjoyable gaming experience.
🏗️ Infrastructure Improvements
We’re making significant infrastructure improvements to support the game’s growth and stability. This includes how we patch the game mid-season, continue development for upcoming seasons, test prize calculation models, and implement various backend fixes for enhanced stability and security.
🗣️ User Engagement and Feedback
Season 0.5 is designed to keep you engaged and involved in the development process. Your feedback is invaluable, and this season provides another opportunity to gather insights and make adjustments based on your experiences and suggestions. This collaborative approach ensures that Footium evolves in a way that best meets the needs and expectations of its community.
In summary, Season 0.5 is a pivotal phase that builds on the foundation laid by Season 0, focusing on key improvements, testing new systems, and enhancing the overall quality of the game. By engaging with this interim season, you’re helping to shape the future of Footium and ensuring that when we introduce real money prizes and promotion/relegation mechanics, the game is as fair, engaging, and stable as possible.
What’s Next?
As we prepare for Season 0.5, we’re gearing up for an exciting prelude to the full Footium experience. The platform will go live a week before match kickoff, with rare players arriving a day later, setting the stage for a thrilling journey. Stay tuned for our announcements, which will include community Q&As, in-depth discussions, and competitions.
This is just the beginning. We are dedicated to providing continuous support and detailed insights into every aspect of Season 0.5, from gameplay mechanics to beginner guides.
Bookmark the game, join our Discord for real-time updates, and get ready for an unforgettable adventure in the Footium universe.
Let’s kick off Season 0.5. Prepare your clubs, set your tactics, and lead your team to victory. The path to glory starts here.
