Pitchside Empire · published
Thank you to everyone who reported problems in the first few days. Two of them
were serious, and both are fixed.
Once your facility grew, the manager could freeze on 6/6 queued calls and every
new call was logged as missed — one player reached over 900. The cause: when the
manager closed one call and another was already waiting, the game closed that
one instantly too, and the timer that clears the call on screen never re-armed.
The queue stopped draining. It only appeared in bigger facilities because early
on the voicemail queue is usually empty.
Fixed, with a second safety net that keeps the queue moving even if the first
one ever fails. We also found the manager could not keep up at peak demand, so
calls they close now clear faster.
Autosave runs once a second, and in a long game a single write can take longer
than that. Every write used the same temporary file, so two overlapping writes
could collide and a half-written file would replace your save. The game then
showed the slot as empty. Writes are now queued, each uses its own temporary
file, and we keep a backup of the last good save and restore from it
automatically if anything is ever unreadable.
• Match sounds (whistle, crowd, goals) now have their own volume slider.
• Lowering sound effects genuinely silences the whistles — the reverb was
bypassing the volume controls entirely.
• The kickoff whistle no longer plays when a match ends, and simultaneous
kickoffs are announced with a single whistle instead of one per pitch.
Settings → Display now has an interface scale slider, 80% to 160%. It scales the
HUD and menus only, so the facility stays sharp.
Some of you said the game goes hollow once you hire a receptionist — that you
are just watching the money go up. Fair, so we changed a few things.
• New events. Downpours, pitch damage, council inspections and scouts
turning up, each with a real decision and a real cost. A neglected facility
now sees several a day; a well-staffed one with good pitches sees very few, so
staff and pitch upgrades finally pay off visibly.
• Reputation actually moves. It used to pin at five stars around day ten
and never move again, which is why brawls felt like they did nothing. Gains
now taper as you approach the top while penalties keep their full weight, so
reputation settles at a level that reflects how well you actually run the
place.
• Your manager is a policy, not an autopilot. Set their pricing line —
fill the calendar, balanced, or firm. Firm pushes above budget and some teams
will hang up. Which one wins depends on whether your calendar has room, so the
right answer changes as you grow. Evening subscriptions can also be put
through to you instead of being closed automatically.
• Goals. Three timed targets are now on screen, drawn from your own
recent performance, with cash and XP rewards.
Full changelog is in the game files. Keep the reports coming — they are what
made this update.