Stat gains: Cancellara type is a good addition. Would also think a decent addition could be a lead-out type of training. Could be like fighter, but swap SP for FHT. Plus I think we could probably do with some upgrades like giving sprinters DH upgrade (seems realistic) as well as some SP and ACC to classics type. Fighter should receive some MO/HIL, DH upgrade. Fighter is not really an attractive option right now IMO.
Minimum transfer fee: I like current system. Maybe we could make just one change: if fee is under the wage of that rider, selling team has to pay the remaining amount of required fee to MGUCI as a tax. Would be a fair solution to this situation IMO.
FA upgrades: IMO No problem with them at all if it suits the game. Sometimes you just need to balance things somehow or you see an opportunity to create an unique riders in this crazy semi-realistic world of MG.
Buying XP for young riders: Big no to forced loans. I like the idea about some sort of buying XPs for riders. Would allow especially CT teams to max out their lvl 4 riders. I think what could work: you can buy 1XP for 1k. That rider gets -1RD for every 1XP bought. The limit here: a rider can't go to negative RDs. There should also be some sort of a team limit of a maximum XPs bought per season. 200 could work IMO. Also to make this cheaper especially for CT teams: "Wage you are paying" of loaned in riders = free money to spend on XPs of your riders. This would higher the attractiveness of loaning in a rider and paying his wage.
Also another improvement could be to give more XPs for Tour of America. Makes sense IMO as a 21 day long race is surely a different experience. Plus it partially helps to solve the problem.
LVL 1 to LVL 3 clause: Love that SN's idea of a higher fee if you want the clause. Should be IMO an extra fee of wage of that rider to loaned in team. After that, current loan rules apply. If you don't have this clause, a rider should stop his progress as 2.99 rider to stop silent deals.
Training costs: I like the idea about making training cheaper for lower levels to make it both more worth it to train domestiques or CT leaders. I also like an option to allow more than only 5 training per season per team. With keeping the limit of 2 attribute upgrades per rider, it would not be possible to do another Velits or MVS. More options, the better. Cheaper training, more options for lower division teams.
Declines and stat inflation: I think current decline system for 33+ old riders works just fine. We just need to use lower pots that 4 more often than now. What could help - if a rider becomes a FA - lowering his pot rather than attributes.
But What I think could help could be some sort of a system like this: You have to decide after the last round of renewals which of your top 5 resigned riders according to OVL to decline -1 in all his attributes. Could work as a some sort of an injury happening or lost motivation to that rider. For this, you would receive an compensation of a fee that would be the same amount as the wage of that rider. Plus additionaly a chance to +1 for free all attributes of a maxed-out rider with a lower OVL than average OVL of all your resigned riders. The second option would be to pay some sort of a 'luxury tax', could be the wage of your best paid rider, then all your riders keep their attributes. The total amount of luxury tax collected by MGUCI could be evenly redistributed to all the teams that would go for the first option of declining one of their top riders.
This system would be IMO really funny, it would become a lot expensive to keep your superstars with their attributes, it would both tackle inflation and it would also move money down to mainly PCT/CT teams. Plus it would allow a way to improve by quite a lot an under avarage rider/your poor favorite.
Or another idea to tackle stat inflation at least somehow so things change: if your rider ends up in top 25 of PT rankings, you have to -1 him in his best attribute and can't train him again in this season/or at least with these compensation money. As a compensation you get back money for that attribute - you have to spend them on your other riders. In this way I would have to decline all Bewley, Sagan and Velits - would receive 5.7M back for them. Would have to use these money on training of riders like Vesely, Vakoc or even worse ones.
Stagiares: No need for a league IMO, I think we already have some sort of a youngster thing in U23 calendar. But what could be a nice improvement to stagiares could be to allow their use all year long, while they would receive as many RDs, as you pay them. 1k of wage = 1RD. New minimum could be 5k. Would create a more interesting market around stagiares as well as their involvement in races.
CT calendar: I agree that it needs some changes. I think what could be a help: as we don't know how many managers we will have next season - set an exact value before and plan according to it. If there are any spots opened without an outside interest when transfers end, allow active long term PT managers to enter their CT team, allow them to just sign any unsigned riders they want. After the season that team will disband in any case. Could also help to fill startlists where there are too few teams, would be a nice thing to dedicated manager legends like SotD and this would higher up the interest in discussions for CT races.
In addition to that: I think CT should have some sort of a speciality. More double-headers would be a good improvement. Maybe their own two-week GT in C2HC to increase variety? A team time trial stage race full of long TTTs with different profiles? Long TTTs should work nicely as I went with 90km long TTT in ICC. Maybe involve in some funny unique races like that cobble MO race in Bulgaria, downhill ITT (works as well, tested in CCs), maybe another series of races where you have to send same lineup but it works like classics - same as Grands Prix Cyclistes? Could be great to have back classics in Koln + Frankfurt + Hamburg. Or maybe - bring in a speciality to CT: you have to send same 8 riders in all races of a single band in C2HC. Would bring another type of tactical decisioning than in other divisions.
Agree with the idea that we need to make C1 races fields more full. More RDs for both PCT/CT teams could be given, agree with Aquarius.
PT calendar: I also agree that a few more RDs for PT would be a good thing - we could do with a little bit bigger variety of races. Another MO classic with a DH finish during Vuelta could IMO work as well as a pure Colombia type PT MO stage race. I think a few days long pure cobble SR could work, tested it. Or stage race with long TTTs could also be a great addition - maybe a double header with P-KV-P? Appia Antica should have hills closer to finish, we are also missing an opportunity for a cobble MO race. PTHC bands should have more cobble races to allow other riders to stop Bewley winning everything. Or a cobble double header. And Tasmania could ideally be a double header with a similar type of a race with a longer TT/bigger HIL to create a double header for TT riders.
Wage caps/team sizes: I agree with SN again. I think that we need to bring all divisions closer than where we are. Yeah, it is not realistic to have PT/CT teams so close to each other, but who cares if it is more fun for everyone? PTHC races are great to meet PCT teams with their leaders, the variety is great for both divisions. CT should have something like that as well, they should be allowed to go for it in C1 races. This should help to solve the main problem in CT: same favourites in all races. Also I like the idea about increasing team sizes: this should both help with making things more realitstic as PT teams should be bigger than PCT teams, as well as creating a bigger potential team depth that should result for better AI in races. I think something like this could work:
PT: 3.6M cap, 24-30 riders
PCT: 2.7M cap, 22-30 riders
CT: 1.8M cap, 20-30 riders
If CT teams get a little bit lower amount of RDs for their leaders, this should be perfect. I think C2 races could be then opened for all riders without restrictions as well. Opening CT like this should help us with stat inflation: more better riders move down the divisions - then there is a bigger need for such a big amount of good riders. Also this would allow a bigger competition on the FA market, IMO a good thing, more fun. And lastly promotion/relegation is not that big jump as now. I think teams should be allowed to have more of continuity than now. Relegated teams would also have a smaller advantage over new teams than right now.
Rider forms: One last thing - a reminder of my idea from last couple of years to shuffle with startlists over the season. It could probably work the best in a way when you have to select one month for all of your riders when the rider keeps his attributes. In all other months of the season the rider gets -1 to all his attributes. I also think that to expand this idea we could potentially allow to buy a 'training camp' for one of your riders, so he gets a +1 upgrade in a month, maybe with a bigger minus in all other months. Price could be linked to OVL of that rider. We would need 10 extra DBs, but would not be too hard to create them, just some basic DYN_cyclist mass editing.
But What I think could help could be some sort of a system like this: You have to decide after the last round of renewals which of your top 5 resigned riders according to OVL to decline -1 in all his attributes. Could work as a some sort of an injury happening or lost motivation to that rider. For this, you would receive an compensation of a fee that would be the same amount as the wage of that rider. Plus additionaly a chance to +1 for free all attributes of a maxed-out rider with a lower OVL than average OVL of all your resigned riders.
I think this idea is really interesting, though if it was forced rather than a choice, it'd be bad imo. Otherwise I like the idea of riders being able to go up and down like this, though I can think of two problems with it though:
1. A top-heavy team can abuse it - Take my team for example, we have Kwiat & Vantomme, then nothing really, our next three are LLS (77 hill), Rabottini (76 hill) and Domagalski (75 mountain), neither Domag or Rabottini have decent back-ups really but over two seasons of declining them, I could turn Sobota into an 80/80 sprinter, Bernas into a 78 flat/77 hill (75 acc) rider or Dahl - Olsen into a 76 CB rider (that's not even including unmaxed guys, with Nielsen or Kolev maxed I could give them 76 cb and awesome back-ups and 79 cb and weak back-ups respectively), all of which would be of more value to me than the two of them put together and I could always release them after getting the bonus.
2. What if somebody declines a rider who is important to you? - If Tastasol decided to decline Wisniowski (not that he would), I'd be disappointed, since he's a major Polish rider and I'm sure there are other examples of this (if somebody declined Bakari, Krasno or Thorsen it would be tragic).
But what could be a nice improvement to stagiares could be to allow their use all year long, while they would receive as many RDs, as you pay them. 1k of wage = 1RD. New minimum could be 5k. Would create a more interesting market around stagiares as well as their involvement in races.
I love this idea, though I think the min. wage should stay at 10k, just to make sure Knockout doesn't find a way to sign even less riders. (I think with a 5k limit, you could have a team with only 6 riders being payed at least the minimum wage - MVS, GVA, Skujins, Dzamastagic, Chavanne & ahh... Koch ).
Rider forms: One last thing - a reminder of my idea from last couple of years to shuffle with startlists over the season. It could probably work the best in a way when you have to select one month for all of your riders when the rider keeps his attributes. In all other months of the season the rider gets -1 to all his attributes. I also think that to expand this idea we could potentially allow to buy a 'training camp' for one of your riders, so he gets a +1 upgrade in a month, maybe with a bigger minus in all other months. Price could be linked to OVL of that rider. We would need 10 extra DBs, but would not be too hard to create them, just some basic DYN_cyclist mass editing.
Sounds great for PT - the big riders would peak for their GT, but maybe a weaker rider risks it for a small Tour, same for sprinters - go for a GT, March & MSR, Qatar? And Cobblists would peak for April, but could find another Month with TONE or Appia or something else more interesting, though I could imagine a few peak months would be better (a rider can peak multiple times in a season irl).
Though I think this might not be great in PCT/CT, given the races are so spread out - there's not specific months that are obvious peaks, there's just races all around the year, so it makes less sense.
Potentially a solution could be to give a choice on whether you take a +1 month(s) which comes with the negatives - or you could choose to have a consistent season -- for some riders the choice is obvious, EBH would be wasting points by accepting a negative in many months, but for others like say, a 78/79 PCT puncheur, a big +1 in a specific month could make them an outside interesting contender when otherwise they would be fighting for lower top 10s and often falling in the top 15 but they'd still take a hit in other months - would also be interesting for a domestique, you'd get a stronger one in one month but a weaker one is others.
But what could be a nice improvement to stagiares could be to allow their use all year long, while they would receive as many RDs, as you pay them. 1k of wage = 1RD. New minimum could be 5k. Would create a more interesting market around stagiares as well as their involvement in races.
I love this idea, though I think the min. wage should stay at 10k, just to make sure Knockout doesn't find a way to sign even less riders. (I think with a 5k limit, you could have a team with only 6 riders being payed at least the minimum wage - MVS, GVA, Skujins, Dzamastagic, Chavanne & ahh... Koch ).
Still have to fully read over the thread.
But this one just went into my eye.
Could be an idea to no longer count stagiares into the minimum amount of riders at all. This way the wage cap basically is same for everyone with 50k riders as minimum to be counted.
That way spending over your cap for 1-2 riders and then "filling" this gap with stagiares that are not even used "fully", would be gone.
The minimum rider amount would hence count for riders only that are eligible in any race of the season for you from January - October. Triple headers early on then would work with minimum amount of riders as well without any stagiare issues.
Stagiares I still like to be part of the game, but just like now it would be optional and more like getting some local talent, you then get "one year in advance".
Imo no need for a stagiare league etc. Would be extra work for small additions of the game really.
Likelier could consider how to change the U23 schedule to have it more interesting. e.g. as others said without level 4 riders for a more open field.
Regarding other issues.
- CT calendar: Basically my fault I guess. Was difficult to cut the calendar without being too drastic and still remain with a balance and then also get race days right. Surely can be adjusted for next season.
- PT calendar: Obviously more race days always sound nice. But it`s also a hard thing to do.
Obviously the reporting goes incredible fast this year. Something we didn`t had the last 2-3 seasons and hence considered the cut. Can`t guarantee it`s going as good as this year for the next couple seasons though and hence not sure it`s smart to add more races again.
The addition of PTHC in my opinion went pretty well. PT teams still having advantage of course but PCT can grab some big points, e.g. Boasson Hagen or some climbers.
The PTHC changes the picture a bit as no all PT teams participate and hence some decisions tactically for PT as well here, which I liked.
Obivously as well could need some adjustments. In especially for classics but then again it`s difficult race day wise as Bewley or Van Avermaet always will have it easier to find many classics while GT riders struggle to race a lot one day stuff and hence have less of a chance.
Not sure if realistic but might be an idea to no longer have a OVL -> RD system but also implementing the kind of rider. Classic riders should be reduced more than GT riders but haven`t thought about this a lot and not even sure it makes sense when looking on the rankings where next to classic riders also the GT riders are very high, at least the top riders that win GTs.
Crashes
Last but not least I am more and more for getting rid of crashes. I was not a fan of it last year but this year is extreme.
And some teams are hit way worse than others and hence can`t be just random luck I think.
In the end it`s a game that is supposed to be fun and enjoyable but when your team is hit hardest (e.g. Pokerstars this year or Oz for couple years already) then you lose the joy and motivation to be part of this game. And this imo is the least we want and when reducing it to a smaller number, then those that get hit, have it even worse imo as it`s even more random bad luck then.
Hence we surely need to consider this again for next season I`d say.
About the strength of the divisons...
I'm a little surprised with what has been said so far about bringing the divisions closer. If a PCT team can be as strong as a PT team and a CT team can be as strong as a PCT team, where is the allure of promotion in that? The only difference that would remain in that case would be the number of points one gains in different category races, and the fact that CT cannot participate in PT races and vice versa. As it, PCT is allowed everywhere.
About CT calendar...
I agree that the implementation of the PTHC band has been quite successful this year and maybe something similar can be done for PCT and CT. That way the number of races will not be increased but there won't be any races where teams are forced to race. My proposal for this would be to change the C2HC races into four bands of four races each (there are 16 races currently) and have CT and PCT teams select 2 bands of each. It will work similar to how PTHC works now. That way CT teams will have to pick more C1 and C2 races. Consequently, C2 races would be kept as it is, with the limitations for PCT, otherwise CT does not have a focused set of races. If three sets of band selections is too much for PCT, the HC band races can be made free to choose just like the C1 band. This will allow PCT teams the luxury of building terrain focused teams as well, and I know most of us love to see some of the specialized teams do well, and I'm no different.
Spoiler
I made a small edit from when I originally posted it.
A little off topic - but I wonder why it is made so that P1 riders decreese faster than P7 riders, expecially because it is 1-1 from P1-P7. I would think it could provide for some more interesting development options if lets say P7 - P5 - P3 was fast to decreese. and P6 - P4 - P1&2 was relative slow.
Agree with Roturn about the WTHC races (like I said before the season), as a cobbled PCT team, you get an extra hard time because the PT cobblers usualy have a few racedays left for these races, while the other rider types usualy have their calendar filled up with PT races already.
AbhishekLFC wrote: About the strength of the divisons...
I'm a little surprised with what has been said so far about bringing the divisions closer. If a PCT team can be as strong as a PT team and a CT team can be as strong as a PCT team, where is the allure of promotion in that? The only difference that would remain in that case would be the number of points one gains in different category races, and the fact that CT cannot participate in PT races and vice versa. As it, PCT is allowed everywhere.
Completely agree. Also this is IMO what is fuelling at least part of the stats inflation as when teams get more equal more top leaders are needed in every division.
This also increases the need to allow better riders in C2 races for PCT teams. Not the outright leaders but right now the riders have to be so weak that it can't even be a tactical choice for a PCT team to ride C2 races for anything but XP.
I think this would be better than letting PCT teams into C2HC races on full strength.
Minimum transfer fee: Could one perhaps have an early window with no fee to allow the easy transfer of pure helpers (even on lower level) to suiting (new) teams that may emerge so that they have easier access to riders from focus nations? 3-4 days really should be plenty for this kind of deals to go through-
XP for young riders: More XP for Tour of America would be great. Could also help boost that race a bit as it's often one of the races with the lowest interest.
I don't think there should be a fee for taking your own rider from lvl 1-3 in one season as that is one of the joys of being a lower ranking team and a way of climbing up the ranks a bit in the long term. I can support a rule preventing it from happening to loaned-out riders though.
But What I think could help could be some sort of a system like this: You have to decide after the last round of renewals which of your top 5 resigned riders according to OVL to decline -1 in all his attributes. Could work as a some sort of an injury happening or lost motivation to that rider. For this, you would receive an compensation of a fee that would be the same amount as the wage of that rider. Plus additionaly a chance to +1 for free all attributes of a maxed-out rider with a lower OVL than average OVL of all your resigned riders.
This system (as a voluntary one) would be great IMO. It would be a great help to a team like mine to build a strong base of local riders and to some extent lower the need of FA-tinkering to support teams from small nations.
Don't like the luxury tax bit. If it's needed to be more expensive to keep top riders then I think it should be regulated through wage demands in renewals.
Stagiares: Opening for more use during the season depending on wage spent could be a fun element to introduce
Tamijo wrote:
A little off topic - but I wonder why it is made so that P1 riders decreese faster than P7 riders, expecially because it is 1-1 from P1-P7. I would think it could provide for some more interesting development options if lets say P7 - P5 - P3 was fast to decreese. and P6 - P4 - P1&2 was relative slow.
Declination could probably use some tinkering but I think it still neds to be somewhat logical. Really I don't see the need for potential to influence declination much. That should IMO be more linked to stat levels than anything else.
Division Race Days
I can see PT teams wanting a few extra challenges in their planning, but giving them more race days comes far down my list. The CT is in more need of improvement first, and i'd argue the PCT could do with some more race days or challenges first as well.
As the CT continues to improve C2 restrictions make them pure XP races for PCT teams, raising those restrictions could make them more attractive options for weaker PCT squads (and as some CT teams are outscoring PCT teams hard to argue against this).
PTHC has been interesting, but definitely works more in favor of PCT stage racers against one-day racers because the bigger PT gc men gobble their race days in big PT races, whilst PT classics men have more race days to spare at PTHC.
In general a bit of a reduction, again, in overall race days would be welcomed. There's challenge to planning but for more one-dimensional riders it's still to easy to send them to all available options, baring calendar clashes. Especially at CT level, and quite heavily at PCT where we have more ability to select our races. For example i had no issues getting my leaders to focus solely on their desired terrains, G + Marcus at all my cobbles and then more races ontop of that.
Buying XP
Well it's a nice alternative to training, but takes away a significant challenge of developing riders. Being able to balance that development against your teams need to points has been big in the game, XP planning has defined my schedule and planning this season more than anything else in the game. Just being able to buy that XP instead, not fun or interesting.
That's supposed to be the cost of signing talents, you have to develop them and compromise your team in the short term. The reward is a good developed rider who'll have a lower wage.
Would work brilliantly to my advantage if introduced as i can't train Ewan, Yates, Stoenchev or Alaphillipe this season, so throwing my money at XP gains would be awesome. It's just cutting out a real challenge from the game to do so.
1>3 Loans, CT Lvl4
An extra fee for a 1>3 clause, sounds like a nice idea.
A way to get Lvl4 riders growing in CT is needed, adding lvl4 XP to C2HC seems like a good way to start this. PCT teams can't ride those races, so only CT teams gain. Maybe not possible to 4.00>4.100 just off those races, but combined with Avenir XP. Not sure, numbers would need some more thought. Maybe over 2 seasons it should be doable.
Romans +1/-1 Attribute Moving Thing
Sounds like all i would need to do is pick my older riders, decline them and boost my younger riders for nothing. For example: Marcus Burghardt on my team is a Top5 rider but he's old and declining. I can drop him -1, no harm to me long term, and +1 a younger guy like Yates. I'm saving hundreds of thousands in training cost, gaining years of extra benefit, and losing nothing as my rider was already old. And i could do the same with Thomas, and gain free stats on a good rider. In 2 years i could get Yates to 79HL/77SP (from 77/75) for free! Plus with the thousands saved on that rider i can afford to plough more training at other young riders (Ewan).
Can we do this? I really like all these free gains!
Rider Form
Like previous seasons, not in favor. Works with a fixed calendar, knowing a month where boosting a rider is actually useful, but with a PCT calendar where things are really spread out and flexible it's not appealing. Plus the need for unique DB's for each month.
Minimum Transfer Fee
If you want to get a rider to a specific regional team, just sell them for the minimum fee or release them. If the other team doesn't want to pay £50k that's their choice to make, and if they go higher on FA that's just how the market should work.
Heck, i was able to sell regional riders to a regional team for £50k when there was no minimum fee!
Crashes
I did start out the season keeping track of various statistics, quickly came the conclusion it was pointless. Crashes in PCM don't relate to real crashes. Where, when, why a crash occurs was random. Some teams and riders where involved more often, but without knowing if every rider in every crash was listed that data is incomplete. My conclusion would be that leaders fall far more often than helpers, but that's more because they get mentioned in a report where helpers don't. Teams with more leaders/options crash more, but again because they get reported more than no-hoper teams/riders (i can see in screens roughly which teams are falling and it's far more balanced than reports suggest).
Later in the season i might do what i did last year, pick a ton of race-days at random and analyse them.
TheManxMissile wrote: Romans +1/-1 Attribute Moving Thing
Sounds like all i would need to do is pick my older riders, decline them and boost my younger riders for nothing. For example: Marcus Burghardt on my team is a Top5 rider but he's old and declining. I can drop him -1, no harm to me long term, and +1 a younger guy like Yates. I'm saving hundreds of thousands in training cost, gaining years of extra benefit, and losing nothing as my rider was already old. And i could do the same with Thomas, and gain free stats on a good rider. In 2 years i could get Yates to 79HL/77SP (from 77/75) for free! Plus with the thousands saved on that rider i can afford to plough more training at other young riders (Ewan).
Can we do this? I really like all these free gains!
Nope. You wouldn't be able to do that.
His suggestion is that you could add to a maxed-out rider lower than your average OVL. In your case that would mean that only Nardin would be eligible for the bonus.
Edit: Applying the formula to my team as well and seeing only Brynjolfsson and Tiainen eligible I think the numbers could probably do with a bit of tinkering.
Also it would need something to prevent managers for just only renewing the top 10 OVL riders to be able to apply the bonus on a better rider than if the helpers AVL dragged the AVG down. Perhaps basing eligibility on pre-renewals OVL-average of full-time riders would make it harder to abuse the rule?
Excluding stagiares helps giving a more appropriate average as well IMO (adding Arissol to the list), but even then I feel it could be a tad low?
Edited by Atlantius on 13-02-2018 11:51
Atlantius wrote:
Nope. You wouldn't be able to do that.
His suggestion is that you could add to a maxed-out rider lower than your average OVL. In your case that would mean that only Nardin would be eligible for the bonus.
Ok my misunderstanding.
What if i didn't resign all my low OVL riders to boost my average OVL, got the stat gain on a better rider then refilled my team in transfers?
Sounds like a nice bonus to having some older declining riders and a range of average helpers. Rotate the helpers around every season via FA, quicker decline my older leaders, and free boost a decent rider.
As a rough example: This season i only re-signed Burghardt, Talansky, Thomas, Ewan, Yates and Nelson. Gives me an average OVL of 76.24. I can decline Marcus, who's still a top divsion cobbler, and boost Nelson with OVL 75.25. Saves me over a million in training cost, and i've still got a top cobbler and my main sprinter is now 82. Ok i need to rebuild my core, but as i lack depth that's no damage, my good talents are protected, i've saved money, and i'll probably be able to resign my domestiques anyway.
(Yes i know i didn't start renewals with Marcus or Talansky, but for making an example it works realistically)
What i'm saying, it seems like an easily exploitable idea (in its current format)
Edit: I see we had the same idea on making your average OVL higher
It's seems overly complicated for minor changes. Just make it more expensive to keep multiple leaders in renewals, make low end training cheaper, control additions carefully, don't edit FA's up without balance. Easier ways to control inflation that can't be abused or complicated.
Edited by TheManxMissile on 13-02-2018 12:01
I still think it could be a fun idea that could help teams in a larger degree shape their team profile while decreasing sub-top stat inflation.
Using the pre-renewals AVG (excl. stagiares) would limit the possibilities to abuse it IMO.
Me boosting Tiainen at the cost of Samoilev wouldn't ruin anything for anyone else, but would make it a little bit more fun building a small-nation team.
Atlantius wrote:
I still think it could be a fun idea that could help teams in a larger degree shape their team profile while decreasing sub-top stat inflation.
Using the pre-renewals AVG (excl. stagiares) would limit the possibilities to abuse it IMO.
Me boosting Tiainen at the cost of Samoilev wouldn't ruin anything for anyone else, but would make it a little bit more fun building a small-nation team.
Make the whole concept an option in the first place, so you can choose whether to decline someone for a boost. Make it pre-renewals OVL, excl. stagiares. Only riders 32 or under (not declining) can be declined. A rider must be 4.100 for a season before being increased, same as training.
No penalty cost to hold your stats. No extra financial gain from declining a rider.
I am so strongly against forcing stat drops on contracted riders. Or on charging managers to maintain stats. These things, like transfers, loans, trainings, wildcards MUST be optional.
Stat inflation can so easily be managed and worked on without forcing changes onto managers and their teams. Controlling additions, balanceing FA changes, altering statgains + declines. Nothing there that will directly advantage or hurt current teams and managers, and are all systems currently in the game we can alter and control.
I'm against it. there are riders where the OVR does not match the quality of a rider. take my own Yannick Stoltz as an example: 80 PRL but an OVR in the sixties. He's already 29 so i only would have 3 years befire the decline but till then he could be 83 FL, 88 FIGH, 82RES, 83 PRL, 77ACC, 79 STA. You dont want to open the door for training someone like him for free.
The other example would be lowering a guy like Krasnoperov/Bakari to train someone useful.
Atlantius wrote:
I still think it could be a fun idea that could help teams in a larger degree shape their team profile while decreasing sub-top stat inflation.
Using the pre-renewals AVG (excl. stagiares) would limit the possibilities to abuse it IMO.
Me boosting Tiainen at the cost of Samoilev wouldn't ruin anything for anyone else, but would make it a little bit more fun building a small-nation team.
Make the whole concept an option in the first place, so you can choose whether to decline someone for a boost. Make it pre-renewals OVL, excl. stagiares. Only riders 32 or under (not declining) can be declined. A rider must be 4.100 for a season before being increased, same as training.
No penalty cost to hold your stats. No extra financial gain from declining a rider.
I am so strongly against forcing stat drops on contracted riders. Or on charging managers to maintain stats. These things, like transfers, loans, trainings, wildcards MUST be optional.
Stat inflation can so easily be managed and worked on without forcing changes onto managers and their teams. Controlling additions, balanceing FA changes, altering statgains + declines. Nothing there that will directly advantage or hurt current teams and managers, and are all systems currently in the game we can alter and control.
Absolutely agree that all the things mentioned by you here should be optional!
As this should take place after renewals (thus with wages based on old skills) I don't see a need to further limit. It's still one of the best 5 riders getting significantly worse and harder to sell as his wage is based on his old level.
This I see as something that should only ever be a minor thing and would probably only be used by teams with narrow focuses lacking sufficiently good helpers. Anyone else would be stupid to sacrifice one of their top riders for the season in order to boost a rider who will likely still be on par with rider you can pic up for 50k on the FA market.
I'm against it. there are riders where the OVR does not match the quality of a rider. take my own Yannick Stoltz as an example: 80 PRL but an OVR in the sixties. He's already 29 so i only would have 3 years befire the decline but till then he could be 83 FL, 88 FIGH, 82RES, 83 PRL, 77ACC, 79 STA. You dont want to open the door for training someone like him for free.
The other example would be lowering a guy like Krasnoperov/Bakari to train someone useful.
Good example. If it were to be introduced perhaps a limit to the highest "trainable" stat to prevent riders like Stolz and crazy 1-stat wonders from becoming even more crazy.
Say no stat can go higher than 75 using this rule or something like that.
Edit: Perhaps excluding riders with a main stat over 75 all together.
Edited by Atlantius on 13-02-2018 13:12
There are lots of interesting ideas here, some I'm not a fan of, some that I think can be considered, but so far I don't have any particular input on them.
One thing I want to address though and, unless I'm missing something, am very much against is increasing the minimum team size of (at least PT) teams.
I've historically been on the lower end of team size and on the higher end of average rider AVG (and therefore on the lower end of overall race days to distribute). Even with those parameters, I struggle to give my 10th-15th best riders full race days every year.
So increasing the mandatory team size would require one of the following things:
a) we decrease RD all across the board even more, which isn't feasible imo
b) we expand the calendar again, which would counter the initiative to speed up seasons
If I have to sign four additional riders next season just to comply with a rule, I'd either risk giving my good riders half of their possible race days, or I would just play along and sign four useless riders for 50k that don't get to ride any races.
Great to see lots of chat going on and ideas coming forward. Only have time for a short response right now, probably more at a later date once I have had time to think more deeply.
My main thesis for next season though would be if it ain't broke don't fix it! We've got great pace going now, we shouldn't do anything that will mean off-season requires major downtime through change.
So in that vain, fix races that have major issues (as being identified in another thread), and leave race/calendar alterations pretty much to that with minor tweaking of e.g. swopping in a hill stage into one or two of the CT mountain-fest parcours, maybe swap in a different (but already existing) GT routes, and not much more.
I'd also include switching crashes off. I still hold strongly to my argument last season, that the crashes only decrease the 'fun-factor', not increase, so should be removed.
The +1/-1 stuff (to me) is most relevant/useful/beneficial in PT, but potentially rife for 'gaming' the system. I'd propose if their is a majority in favour of this, have a small test of the system and I have an idea to avoid 'gaming':
Pair up races.
(i) If a rider is doing 2+ GT's, can take +1 in one and -1 in another (this by default rules out the 'top' riders).
(ii) In the Ardennes triple, if riding all 3, can take +1 in one and -1 in another.
(iii) If riding both Flanders and Roubaix, again can take +1 in one and -1 in another.
That would be the only options available (or something similar).
Regarding the relative strength of teams between division, even before this debate, I had been thinking that there are too many riders in PCT who should really be in PT. Take GT's as an example. Certain GT fields this season have had very weak either GC and/or sprint fields (in terms of depth). On the other hand, PCT riders are able to challenge for the overall podium. That doesn't feel quite right. I'd suggest we need to widen the gap between PT and PCT wage caps. In my mind a target of PT: 4 million, PCT: 2.5 million(as is) and CT: 1.25 million (small tweak but additional minimum of 16 riders, so in reality another 50K rider 'for free' ).
This would have an additional benefit of taking some money out of the PT system (i.e. don't change the overall budget formulas).
To me, a 500K wage cap increase might create a bit of a shock to the system, so do it over two years, 250K, then 250K. At the same time increase the rider minimum in PT by 1 in each case (so, 21, then settling on 22).
@Atlantius - If it's being limited by OVL and then limited to 75, the better solution for getting weaker riders up is to lower training cost at that level. This would allow more PCT and CT teams to train as well, taking more money out of the system and not having it circle up to the PT.
Division Strengths
I guess i'm a little lost why the divisions need to be closer/further apart.
If it's a problem of "PT riders in the PCT", what's a PT rider? And why shouldn't a smart PCT team be allowed to buy a strong rider?
Or is the issue that wages are too low and that too many PCT teams have multiple PT competitive riders, and too many CT teams have PCT competitive riders?
Because the first needs a transfer restriction to prevent, the second needs adjusting the wages or lowering caps.
(I think with a 5k limit, you could have a team with only 6 riders being payed at least the minimum wage - MVS, GVA, Skujins, Dzamastagic, Chavanne & ahh... Koch 
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
