Hello!
Recently, I just started playing this game again after a decade or so from the game. Even searched for my old team, can't believed I quit after 10 seasons. Had to focus on College soon after. Became a web/software developer after completing my studies then continued to work and get better. It was great!
I came back after 11 years. Registered and begun looking back at this.
So here's what I think.
There's a lot of things different. There's an arena designer. There's new staff members. There's apparently a new tournament for lower tiers. Everything are clearly now to us managers unlike 40 seasons ago. I can afford Supporter package now. I think Player Merchandise didn't exist before (or I just have horrible players at the time). There's game preparations; now I can beat up bots without any trouble. But despite this, there's way, way less players now that it did before. I understand it's because the market is way more competitive for free games. But we can't market it ourselves if it doesn't create enough magic or become trendy.
As a kid, I never understood the strategy/tactic aspect of the game. I never really cared about it because I wasn't educated to it. It took time. What hooked me was that I can have my own team with stories and moments I can relish. A legacy I can have with this game. The spectacle is what I seek.
As an adult, I now understood how to win in this game. What sort of moves I should make. How I can proceed. But now it just felt like numbers and statistics. It feels good to win and make progress. But I wish we could get more 'personality' for the game.
These are my suggestion. Mainly the quality of life and personality.
During games, perhaps we can add Sound Effects (unless my browser is not playing sounds for some reason). During defenses, make the home crowd chant "DEFENSE!" or every time the ball goes, it makes a swish sound (perhaps Supporters can add custom sound effects lol). If they brick it, just make a clank sound. If perhaps, there's a crucial possession, make the crowd go wild (like a *cough* buzzer-beater, a game winning shot, or just an empathic dunk or block).
In-game team/player personality. Most of the action is just things that could affect the box score or they're simply old. "Someone stole the ball!", "Player Hello passes to Player World for a two-handed dunk", "Shot Blocked!", "Player A does a lay-up!", "Player B shoots a 3-pointer". I think we can add a few more phrases to it. Add Floaters, Step-back threes (again, I might be missing these in-game), Windmill Dunks, Finger rolls, Posterization, Spin move layup/dunk, crossover jumper, some sick passes like elbow pass, no-look pass, full court pass. Heck why not make reactions like "Player A roars in intensity following a monstrous dunk. Team A has a 12-0 run!", "The bench stands up in excitement as Player B knocks down a 3-pointer", "Player C stands at the side to in-bound the ball", "Coach is shouting obscenities at the ref!". We all know how the visuals work. But we could improve how we see the game by having additional details so we can better visualize the action better.
There's a reason why people always say LN > Manga > Anime or Book > Series/Movies. We like to read because there's great potential to imagine it.
Visuals. UI/UX. Some folks are better than me in this one but I'll try to explain it briefly. We can improve the user experience if we could adjust how each page looks like based on its purpose. If it's the news, it should scream the news. If it's the tournament, it should scream the Tournament. Most of the design feels very text-heavy. I don't know much about aspx files (Most likely made in VB.net or C#) but perhaps there's a way we can improve the UI on the browser. If it can't be made then perhaps we can consider a technical migration. Not necessarily with the latest tech, but built with good security, robust and accessible framework/architecture.
tbc