The closed beta for Mr Football ran for three months with some hardy souls asking some obvious and not-so-obvious questions, which forms the basis for this list of Frequently Asked Questions about the game. (This FAQ is written by m0nty, a.k.a. Paul Montgomery, the sole developer of the game.)
What kind of game is Mr Football?
Mr Football is a hybrid game, a combination of several different styles with which you may be familiar. It is a sports management simulation like Football Manager or EA FC, but it is also a hero collector roleplaying game like Summoners War or Marvel Strike Force. Also, the underlying match engine is based loosely on tabletop games using six-sided dice, with Blood Bowl a major influence.
Is Mr Football free? Will it have microtransactions and lootboxes?
You will notice many of the games in the previous answer include microtransactions and, yes, so will Mr Football. There is no upfront cost, and to begin the beta there will be no in-app purchases as the facility to pay for rubies (the hard currency of the game) has not been implemented yet.
The roadmap for the game does include paying for virtual currency, card packs (a.k.a. lootboxes, a.k.a. gacha) and other virtual items (though probably not “cosmetics”, items that are just for show with no other game purpose). That will come only after the rest of the game has been implemented. Probabilities for receiving each of the prizes in card packs and wheel spins are explicit in the game, and full loot tables will be maintained and updated on the official game wiki on this site.
It will be possible to access all features of the game as a free-to-play (f2p) coach. The f2p experience is a very important part of a game like this, lest it turn into a pay-to-win (p2w) kind of game which is off-putting for too many prospective coaches. My openness on Reddit and other social media will mean if Mr Football strays too far into p2w territory with game design, I will hear about it loud and clear, and rightly so.
I hate lootboxes and gem-based economies. Are you evil?
I (m0nty) am just one bloke trying to make a game that I would want to play. I love this kind of game, greatly enjoyed its enhancement of my enjoyment of Star Trek in Star Trek Timelines which I played for years, and wanted to bring its better qualities to my favourite sport of Australian rules football. I am not a multinational conglomerate answerable to faceless shareholders. The hard currency in the game is named after my daughter. I don’t want to go all Tim Gossage about this, and I’m not hiding behind my kids, but I am genuinely trying not to be scummy about this game here. If you or your loved one gets in trouble buying too many virtual items in Mr Football, I am accessible and will respond to requests. I do not want any Mr Football coaches to fall prey to gambling addiction and, if any do, then I will give all assistance I can.
Why doesn’t the game do things I am familiar with from [insert other game]?
Mr Football is not a clone of one game, it incorporates influences from multiple sources. You aren’t allowed to buy, sell or trade with other coaches like in EA FC, and maximum card statistics are not able to be raised with extra cards or tokens like in some mobile RPGs. These are stylistic choices, some made to align with the rules of the real sport of Australian rules football (where players are not bought and sold, as such), and some to make the game… a game. Is it arbitrary? Yes. Will m0nty respond to feedback? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Worth a try! 😀
Why is the interface so overwhelming, too many things to do and elements on the screen!?
This has been a frequent early feedback item. A partial answer is that the user interface is built primarily for mobiles with smaller screens, so on browsers it may look a bit weird.
The colour scheme of the game is deliberately bright and varied, with green as the base colour but many other vivid colours on black backgrounds, also aiming at mobiles where I understand high contrast is suited. This design may be modified on feedback if more people think it’s an issue. Perhaps just toning the colours down a little might make things easier for some people.
What’s this I read in the Rulebook about Seasons? Will you wipe all the items I paid for?
Most of the hero collector role-playing games that Mr Football is partially based on are perpetual, in that once you earn the right to use a particular hero in your squad battles, it can never be taken away. The FIFA series (now EA FC) was not the first to merge the concept of seasons with a card collector system, where many of the virtual assets of each coach are completely wiped once per year to start all over again, but they are the most popular.
The plan with Mr Football is to combine a seasonal reset of soft currencies and cards with a qualification system to earn special Legend cards that can only be used normally in guild game modes, called Faction. This system will be built out towards the end of 2024, so more about that as it is being constructed.
Will Mr Football have anything to do with the blockchain, crypto or NFTs?
No.
Is this like the other .io games?
Not really. The mrfootball.io Web site is using the .io top-level domain as a shorthand to indicate that it’s a massively-multiplayer online game, that is all. It is not much like most other games with that site suffix. It has the advantage that it actually is fully online, unlike a bunch of other .io games which were shown to be populated by bots and not reliant on Internet connectivity at all.