Using the MOTS should have a cost. A cost that shouldn't be paid in any misure with credits or token and should be at will.
I guess that any team should be allowed to play all the MOTS she wants but for example at the price of not having friendlies in that week.
A match of the season should be a pretty well prepared match with the players gathered togheter in an isolated place for a special preparation that should affect the morale of the players itself. I guess that a team under a MOTS effect should play like under the effect of a superb morale.
Otherwise it could be that after the MOTS the morale of the players could fall into poor but that way it could not be used at will.
this makes no sense. firstly, if you can use mots only if you don´t play friendlies, what happens when you are in the cup? you don´t play friendly anyway, so will you be able play mots every match? or, if you suggested to sacrifice a match for mots, if you are in the cup, you cannot sacrifice any match, because they are all automatically generated, so you cannot use mots at all. and what happens if your rival to the title is out of the cup? he could use mots, but you can´t. he is losing some 30-40k G, but winning the championship, and that is 1 mil G. is it a fair trade-off? no, it isn´t. further more, if you have to sacrifice a friendly for mots, then if you don´t play friendly that monday, your opponent knows you will mots him, so he can adjust his tactic accordingly. for example, a super-defensive positioning with contain tactic. definitely not a good idea.
second issue, about morale, it´s totally unrealistic! where have you seen a team playing a derby, winning, and the players being upset, with low morale?! they have the highest morale possible!
another suggestion was to offer a bonus. ok, but: in real life, if the team does not win (or draws), the bonus is not being payed, so there is no cost associated with using that particular mots. and it makes sense, you don´t reach the target, you don´t get the bonus. but even if this gets implemented in the game, it might not be completely fair and it could be exploited: imagine you play against your rival to the title (or to any position in the championship you aspire to, say: avoiding relegation); you are 3 points ahead and have a slightly better goal average; if you lose at a small difference, you end up on top; using the bonus only to lose at a small difference gives you an advantage at no cost, because you still lose, so you don´t pay the players.
Brian, there are other bonuses in real life football than performance bonuses. teams do offer bonuses the day before the match. it might not be in the top championships, but it´s common practice in some countries and it´s common practice towards the end of the season, to avoid relegation or to get a european cup spot.
your suggestion of having to log in a certain number of times in order to be allowed to use mots is not a good idea. you can just log in and out 50 times within 10 minutes. there, target achieved. now you can use all the mots you want, even if you haven´t logged in for 2 months.
your post about great coaches being able to motivate the players by just being great gave me an idea: how about making mots depend on the team´s coaches, training ground and fitness center? usually, small teams don´t have those facilities upgraded too much and don´t have coaches with 15-17.000 G wages. mots should add a constant number of levels to a player´s performance, according to the facilities and coaches. example:
a new team, with no upgrades and 3 x1500 G coaches should have a player´s performance increase from 45 to 47. if an old team, having facilities to very good and 4 x 16.000 G coaches, is using a level 45 player, his performance should increase to 52. (just throwing in some numbers to make you understand what i mean. not the actual difference it should be, i haven´t put any thought on what the difference should be)
this way, weak teams that get to the cup semifinal and have a semi-active manager will, most likely, have weak facilities and coaches, therefor, even if they mots, that will not make such a big difference against a developed team (top level team or not).
about wcc: in the rules there is specified: League prizes in countries with inactive players are lower than league prizes in countries with active players. the teams from those leagues should not be able to use mots (or the formula should contain a multiplication factor according to the league type; for inactive leagues, it should be x 0,05, meaning the effect is 5% of the maximum achievable gain. example: super-upgraded team with super-players from an inactive league comes with most players at superb morale, but using a mots should get a level 70 player to increase only 0,25, from 70 to 70,25).
the second category of teams from wcc: teams from active leagues. all the leagues should be ranked by the average level achieved by all the teams in the previous season (ex: team from 1st place: average season level 702,1; 2nd place 698,9; etc... league average level of all teams from all matches in the previous season: 665,5).
this ranking should be divided into levels. example: under 550, multiplication factor 0,45; 550-574 - 0,50; 575-599 - 0,55; 600-614 - 0,60; ...... over 700 - 1,00)
maybe this idea could change things and make the weak teams able to exploit less the fact that they play in weak leagues. it should not change things too much in top level leagues, because the teams that make it there are usually developed teams (at least in the very active leagues), and, after all, it is not unusual for a 12th place team to equal or win against 2nd place team.
