What's wrong here?

[Uwain]

I start on very easy, Junior Tour with reasonably balanced stats that I figured out over the course of a few days.
I can finish the season as top earner and top scorer with very little money left (due to training/improving my stats).

Now, whether I choose to go pro or not the second season is impossible... suddenly on the 2nd season in the Junior Tour there are players with 3 star overall ability!!

I'm still stuck at 2 stars. My stats are barely better than when I started the game - but now I can't earn the money to improve further. Inevitably, season 3 is worse... and I go searching for answers!!
Is this deliberate? Am I expected to plod along hoping for the odd improvement from practice rounds?

Can anybody please tell me that I haven't just wasted my money on this "game" and demonstrate a competitive player with sustainable development/growth?

Thanks

[PointGuard]

I don't think you've wasted your money. It's a good game. But my experience has been that it's very difficult to take a player from the junior tour to the pro tour and be successful. Not saying it can't be done, but pretty darn tough to do.

I've found you can create a nice little career though by starting in the Pro Tour and developing over the years. The game is both fun and challenging.

You may want to send a question that relates your experience via a Support Ticket. I am not sure if Gary is open to making modifications to the game, but maybe your comments will get him interested in exploring further development of this game.

[Rizzo]

I haven't played out my career past one season on a junior tour before but from everything I have read on these forums is that it's very difficult to progress when starting as a junior.

[Uwain]

Thanks for the replies... I hadn't thought to try starting as a pro... I'll try it next.

I have noticed, that if you make yourself competitive in the pro's then you can more or less keep up and improve slightly each year; I imported my own skills into one of my junior starts.
The big sponsorship contracts help a great deal - I can devote whole seasons to development with all that cash!

There also appeared to be a season where there must have been retirements or something... as I remained very competitive one season (somewhere around 12-13 years in?) even after the season end/restart losses. After this I found it too easy to stay top 10 for a few years.

Also, maybe I have been starting too young... do the younger players lose more skills at the season restart?

I do think that if there were stat items available to buy/earn/win and maybe some vanity items or something to spend all those winnings on that the simulation/replayability may be a little more appealing. Rewards (even just temporary ones) for promoting from the Junior tour to the Pro's would help with the transition.
It almost makes me wanna dust off my coding skills and try some things myself! If only I could make things look pretty!! And code things that would be a surprise for me so that I could enjoy it too! I would defo code some keyboard shortcuts to help save my poor mouse.

They don't make a game like this for snooker players/managers I suppose? I don't wanna actually play snooker, just manage a career(s) thats slightly more complex/varied than the old 8-bit home computer games.

Thanks again for the replies.