The moment we’ve all been waiting for is finally here…

Footium’s first season, arriving 8th of October, 2024.

That’s right, Footium is launching, and with it comes a host of new and exciting features that will elevate your club ownership experience to the next level. After months of feedback, testing, and enhancements following Season 0, and 0.5, we are ready to introduce some of the most anticipated updates, including real money rewards, promotion and relegation, player aging, training, and more.

Join over 1,800 active clubs in our Discord to ensure you’re fully prepped for what’s to come: https://discord.gg/footium

tl;dr

• Season 1 launches on Tuesday the 8th of October with matches starting 1 week after.
• Promotion and Relegation: Compete to move up the leagues or risk dropping down.
• Real Money Rewards: Reward displays will now show what you can win based on your current league position, and the accumulated rewards for your division.
• New Formations and Positions: Enhanced tactical options with Left Forward (LF) and Right Forward (RF) positions, and several new formations.
• Player Aging and Retirement: Players will age by one year per season, with retirements starting at age 32.
• Training Tweaks: Training windows with updated balancing to reward strategic management.
• Inactive Club Display: Clubs who are inactive will face penalties, including being ineligible for rewards.
• Game Engine Improvements: Bug fixes to improve match simulation quality, including set-piece balancing and other minor fixes.

Key Updates and Features

Promotion & Relegation

For the first time, Footium will feature promotion and relegation between divisions, making every match more critical. The top two clubs in each division will be promoted, while the bottom four will be relegated (except in Division 1, where only relegation occurs, and Division 8, where only promotion occurs).

Your division placement directly impacts the quality of academy prospects and the likelihood of rare player appearances, so reaching for those top spots, and avoiding relegation is key to building your club’s dynasty.

Relegation spots are marked with a red key on any league tables in the hub, with green denoting promotion spots.

Real Money Rewards Displaying

One of the most exciting additions for Season 1 is the ability to see your real money rewards throughout the season. Your league’s total rewards will be visible, dynamic, and you’ll also be able to view how much you could win if the season ended with your current standing.

To view your league’s current rewards, you’ll need to head to the leagues tab in your Footium hub, and click on rewards in the top right. This figure, updated periodically, will increase as Club Owners in your division sign academy players, and make transfers directly contributing to your rewrads.

For more information on exactly how rewards are calculated, and who will be eligible, read our full guide here.

As a reminder, these are the base amounts for each league’s rewards in Season 1, which have increased since the release of our rewards article. Below, you’ll find reward amounts as of September 29th, which will continue increasing as clubs in your division sign players, and make transfers during Season 1.

New Formations, and the inclusion of LF & RF Positions

Tactics in Footium are getting a major upgrade with the introduction of new formations, including options that feature Left Forward (LF) and Right Forward (RF) roles. In addition, the formation dropdown has been updated to show which setups include wing-backs, which are more attacking, and more.

We’ve also added in new formations to give managers more flexibility with their tactical options during Season 1. You’ll have to wait until October the 8th to see all of the options…

Lastly, we’ve also now updated formation UI, to include precise notation for player positions. RCB/LCB, RCF/LCF and RCM/LCM will now be labelled correctly in your tactics page. This will have no impact on player ability or rating, any CM, CB or CF will play as normal in a role defined by left or right orientation.

Inactive Club Display and Penalties

With real-money rewards being introduced for Season 1, we want to remove any uncertainty about whether your club is eligible for rewards . We’ve implemented a system that will flag clubs as inactive if they aren’t managed regularly, warning owners of potential penalties, such as ineligibility for rewards

.Your club will display as inactive in the hub homepage, as well as showing green strikes on your club drop down menu. Make sure you’re active on any clubs you own to avoid missing out on rewards.

Player Aging and Retirement

The Footium universe just became more realistic with the introduction of player aging. At the launch of Season 2, every player in your club will age by one year. Players who reach the age of 32 will retire and no longer be available for selection.

Once a player retires or ages, their metadata will change on the transfer marketplace, and retired players will be added to a retired players list in your players tab.

This feature adds a strategic layer to squad management as you plan for the future and develop new talent, make sure you’re consider age, alongside skill when signing new players!

Full Training + Updated Balancing

Thank you again to everyone who supported our load testing during, and after Season 0.5. We’re now confident in the launch of training for Season 1, impacting on-chain assets, giving you a chance to boost your player’s stats.

So, how will potential unlocking, and training, work? A player will need to play 350 minutes to unlock one point of potential, to be used in training.

Once that potential is unlocked, it can be used in training to increase the players overall skill in one of 16 different positions. Training time for a players first potential used starts at 2 hours, and slowly increases for every point used in training, thereafter.

Fun fact: a player with 40 potential takes over a day and a half to use up their final point of training!

These are the figures we’re using for Season 1, however, these totals may change in the future dependent on feedback, and user behaviour.To say thank you for your help with load testing in Season 0.5, and to make up for training not going live previously, we’re opening training a few days earlier than originally planned.

So, Training will now be fully live a day before games kick off in Season 1, and will close on the last game-day of the season. We’ve rebalanced the training system, making it essential to balance training schedules with player condition and match time. Training will reward strategic management and add depth to player development.

Ratings gained during training will persist through to future seasons, but be warned, training impacts your players condition — and potential can only be unlocked through playing matches!

Set Pieces Fix

We’ve resolved the set-piece issues that contributed to weaker teams scoring goals disproportionately. This fix improves the fairness of matches, ensuring that player ratings and tactical setup have the appropriate influence on set-piece outcomes.

Thanks to community feedback and confirmed with statistical analysis, we discovered an issue where weaker teams were outperforming at set pieces. This should now be resolved for season 1, and though weaker teams may still shock you from a corner or free-kick, it will be far less likely!

Academy refresh

As with all Footium Seasons, you’ll once again have access to new academy prospects to sign in your academy page at the launch of the season. Alongside this, Season 0.5 academy prospects will be released a few days before Season 1 deployment. Therefore, we’d recommend signing anyone you still want in the next few days!

Signing players will continue to require you to have Ethereum in your Arbitrum wallet. Signing prospects will add them permanently to your squad, with the payment contributing to rewards in your division.

As with Season 0 and 0.5, signing prices are adjusted each season to account for changes in ETH price, as well as ensure the footium economy stays balanced. Updated divisional prices can be found below.

As an extra, Academy players when signed go straight into the squad even if the transfer (registration) window is closed. Academy Player prices are set per division, with an increase towards Division 1, to reflect the talent of the players coming through each division, and there may be some difference between seasonal prices — dependent on a variety of factors.

How do I prepare for Season 1?

• 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. Here’s our official guide:
• 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 Twitter, Discord and Newsletter for upcoming announcements and competitions for the chance to upgrade your club for the launch of Season 1.

How you can help

Word of Mouth

As we gear up for the full launch of Footium’s Season 1, we need your help! If you know anyone who already owns a Footium club — friends, fellow managers, or people you’ve convinced to join in the past — give them a nudge. Let them know that Season 1 is about to start, and they’ll want to get their club sorted ASAP for a shot at real money rewards.

The same goes for anyone who’s shown interest before, or members of the web3 groups you’re part of. Now’s the time to remind them that Footium is launching with serious rewards on the line.

Let’s make sure no one misses out!

User Feedback

As always, your feedback and thoughts are important to us. Season 1 is the launch of our core Footium system, but we’re not stopping here. Your feedback is invaluable, and this season provides another opportunity to gather insights and make adjustments based on your experiences and suggestions.

To submit feedback, bug reports, or to request help, make sure to head over to our official discord, and keep an eye out for feedback forms at the end of the season.

What’s Next?

Post-Season 1

From Season 1 and beyond, Footium will now have live seasons on a regular basis — no more 2 month wait between playtests! This means an adjustment to our way of working as a game studio, and also how we deliver features to the game.

Our focus is now on regular delivery of content and updates to Footium. As we switch to this model of seasons happening on a consistent and regular basis, we’ll keep you as informed as possible as to dates + additions for upcoming seasons.

This will allow us to ensure the game-world is constantly improving and also running on a regular schedule, with us constantly making improvements across seasons!

Footium’s Future Vision

Over the last few seasons, from Season 0 to 0.5, we’ve received an incredible amount of feedback from our community. This feedback, along with our internal goals, has helped shape our vision for Footium. We haven’t been able to incorporate all of this feedback into the game for Season 1, but rest assured it has been heard and is being considered during our discussions planning for the future of Footium!

Our focus remains building a game that you, the community, feel connected to and excited about, ensuring that it evolves with your desires and ambitions. It is important for us to balance this alongside what we as game developers see is important for the future of the game and the game economy, and both sides of this are being taken into account with our future planning.

We have an initial draft of our priority roadmap which outlines key features and improvements we’d like to introduce over the coming seasons.

You can expect us to share this medium-term vision for Footium before Season 1 kicks off, outlining what we will be working on bringing to Footium in the next few seasons. We want Footium to be a game that grows with its community, but also grows its community too! Therefore, we’ll also be sharing details on our growth plans, too. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks!

Get Ready!

Footium is entering a new era with Season 1. With the introduction of real money rewards, promotion and relegation, player aging, and new tactical formations, we’re providing a more competitive, immersive, and rewarding experience for football manager fans.Get ready for the Season 1 launch on 8th of October, and prepare your club for the exciting updates ahead. Make sure to join our Discord for real-time updates, Q&As, and to stay connected with the Footium community.Your football management journey is about to kick into high gear — see you on the pitch!