Welcome to Footium: Live
This is an unprecedented moment in Footium history — our first step into a fully interactive, Arbitrum gaming experience. Season 0 is a precursor to the grand unveiling of Season 1, which will be packed with the full features and the complete experience you’ve come to expect from our off-chain play-tests with Footium.
Join our Discord and keep an eye on our announcements to ensure you’re fully prepped for what’s to come. https://discord.gg/footium
tl;dr
- Season 0 live on 16th of April, matches starting on the 23rd of April, accessible to all footium clubs.
- Main focus is testing how our infrastructure performs at full scale.
- No training, 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.
- Many prizes available such as legendary & rare players, div 3/4 clubs, kits, badge upgrades and more!
The core focus for Season 0 will be ensuring scalability, engaging all club owners uniformly, and ensuring users can experiment with their players in an isolated environment before the introduction of real-money prizes. We’ll talk more deeply about this further in the article, but we’ll start with Season 0 details, like our new Academy system, raffle ticket prizes, and the schedule.
Configuration and Gameplay
For Season 0, All Footium clubs will be playing in their designated leagues, ensuring that the competitive environment mirrors the intended design of the game.
Clubs will use their real squads that were recently dropped to players on Arbitrum (read more here). 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.
The original drop included 23 players, carefully distributed to ensure competitive quality within divisions.
Academy
Alongside this, you’ll 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. You can see the mint prices above.
Prizes
Lastly, you’ll have access to Footium Prizes, which will be distributed in a raffle system based off of finishing position at the end of the season, There will be no real money prize pools for Season 0 for the aforementioned reasons. Raffle tickets amounts are viewable within your league tab, so you can see clearly how many tickets you can win for your final league ranking!
Raffle prizes are split into brackets, ensuring a fair distribution of prizes across leagues. There’s 110 in-game assets to be won, including Division 3 & 4 clubs. For the creatives among you, we are giving away 12 badge upgrades, and 24 real life kits — 12 of which you’ll be able to design yourself alongside our friends at Monarch!
Don’t worry, 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!
In The Details
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 as a ‘standalone’ experience, there will be no player training, potential unlocking, or aging. This decision was made as we are still working on training improvements and balancing, and as ratings and aging would be reset, we wouldnt want someone buying a ‘trained’ player at the end of the season only to have stats reset after the season ended.
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 8 AM and 11 PM 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. This system is designed to replicate real world windows, and to prevent users from shifting players from one club to another for the final run of the season.
Building on feedback from our Brazil playtest, Season 0 introduces a scaled gameplay experience, bug fixes, user experience improvements, and a structured prize system.
We’ve taken a light approach to game engine changes this season, prioritising bug fixes around event ordering and substitution issues. An upcoming article will delve into the current position of the game engine and outline future enhancements, so keep your eyes peeled.
How do I prepare for Season 0?
- Step 1: Transition smoothly by setting up your wallet on Arbitrum, and transfer ETH in preparation — find out how here: https://footiumofficial.notion.site/Footium-Arbitrum-Migration-FAQs-5d347707db14436aa977ce2f972b99f0
- Step 2: Buy a club if you haven’t already! 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 effectively to strengthen your team, keeping an eye on the strategic composition and potential of your squad, learn about Footium players here:
- Step 4: Get involved with our socials and upcoming quests for the chance to upgrade your club for the launch of Season 1.
So, why are we doing a Season 0?
Season 0 serves as a critical phase in Footium’s development for several key reasons, each designed to enhance the overall quality and experience of the game before we transition into the full-featured seasons that will include real money prizes and promotion/relegation mechanics.
Scalability Testing
The primary objectives of Season 0 is to test the scalability of our systems. As we anticipate a growing number of players joining the Footium universe, it’s crucial to ensure that our infrastructure can handle increased loads smoothly and efficiently.
This season allows us to monitor performance under production conditions, identify potential bottlenecks, and make necessary optimisations to support a seamless gaming experience for a larger user base.
Re-engaging Users
After various development phases and play-tests, Season 0 aims to launch Footium into a new era by offering you a taste of what’s available now, and what’s to come.
It’s the first opportunity for all 3060 clubs to feature within the game, for players to explore new features, and reignite your excitement for Footium’s future. This engagement is vital for gathering feedback, fostering an even stronger community, and testing scalability.
Bug Identification and Fixes
Despite thorough testing, complex games like Footium can still encounter unforeseen issues when faced with real-world scenarios.
Season 0 acts as an extensive test, allowing us to identify bugs and gather feedback at the same scale as Seasons to come. Addressing these issues before introducing real money prizes and promotion/relegation ensures a fair and stable experience for all players.
Production Configuration Testing
Running Season 0 in a production configuration provides us with invaluable insights into how our systems perform under live conditions.
It allows us to react to and resolve any issues that may arise, from server loads to gameplay mechanics. This hands-on experience is crucial for fine-tuning our operations, ensuring that we can manage the game effectively once full features are introduced.
Final Chance to Experiment
By design, Season 0 carries “less severe” consequences compared to future seasons. This approach allows both the development team and players to experiment, learn, and adapt without the pressure of promotion and relegation. It’s an environment that encourages exploration and feedback, which are vital for the game’s continued improvement and success.
In summary, Season 0 is a foundational step towards realising the full vision of Footium. By focusing on scalability, user engagement, bug fixes, and operational testing, we aim to create a robust and enjoyable experience for our community.
This season lays the groundwork for everything that Footium aspires to be, ensuring that when we do introduce a prize system, the game is as fair, engaging, and stable as possible.
What’s next?
With the platform going live a week before match kickoff, we’re setting the stage for a thrilling prelude to the full Footium experience. Stay alert for our announcements, alongside a suite of community Q&As, deep dives, and competitions.
This guide is just the beginning. We’re committed to providing ongoing support and detailed insights into every aspect of Season 0, from gameplay mechanics to beginner guides. Keep the game bookmarked, join our Discord for real-time updates, and brace yourself for an unforgettable journey into the heart of the Footium universe.
Let’s kick off Season 0. Prepare your clubs, set your tactics, and get ready to lead your team to victory. The path to glory starts here.
Join our Discord and keep an eye on our announcements to ensure you’re fully prepped for what’s to come. https://discord.gg/footium
