Quoting my semi-serious suggestion from the Isle of Man TT. Would take extensive testing how simulated results differ from 3d races, dunno if they're any more realistic in 15.
cio93 wrote:
Why don't we just use a random number generator for TT results.
We should just simulate those races. Gives us better results
Haven't played PCM15 in ages, but simulated TTs in 17 can give even weirder results, and usually exaggerate gaps in shorter ones.
But in theory: 3d race once to take screenshots, exit before the stage ends, then simulate and make up intermediate times that fit the simulated results or scrap them altogether.
Looks like a real TT, gives results like a real TT.
Haven't really read everything here indepth, but just a few comments:
I am very pro lower cost for lower stats for training, and very against a lifetime training limit on riders. Will be both nightmare to admin, and a nightmare in transfers as you could plan to train a rider just to realize it is impossible.
Some other suggestions I could be for, if it wasnt for time management for the reporters/admins here. Peaking in months etc would have SN/Roturn make 10 databases instead of one, including the time it takes to update stats. Just eats up a lot of time, and (as far as I know) they are not paid to do this :-p
Injuries, I have always been a fan of having them in the game, I like the randomness. And I am still pro (even after TDF...), but if it is right that it is decided by pure random before the race and then dooms certain teams is something I dislike. I would still like injuries to stay in, but I am less for it than before.
TT's I believe there is no good solution for. Don't know if simulations could work
jandal7 wrote:
If you turn off random fitness does daily form still form in? Obviously we want some random but for TT classics it could be a nice medium ground.
Renewals:
I liked the old format better, as it actually felt like negotiating the salary. The rider came with some expectations, the manager counteroffered, and the rider would then say something like "Well I expect quite a bit more than that" or "It's a decent offer, but I would like an increase", and then you would know in what kind of region the riders were looking for.
As it is now, well, I think I know how it works so I won't tell, but from a roleplaying point of view it feels a bit definitive. Either accept, reject without a note or get snubbed. That's not how wage negotiation works.
And to be fair, I believe that the new format favors the more experienced managers, rather than the old format - and I don't like that.
Also I like to have some sort of closure after doing my thing. Here it just feels like an open end, with no result of what went good, and what went bad. With the old format you would always know if you did good or bad. I liked that a lot.
Crashes:
This season I haven't been hit the hardest (Not by a long shot), but I have been in the past, and I know for well what it does to the motivation. In the earlier editions a rider crashed, lost some time, was maybe injured for 1-3 stages and then returned to normal. This doesn't seem to be the point anymore, hence we really need to look at how and what we can do to take down the numbers of injuries.
Crashes in itself isn't a problem imo, and will mostly level out over time. But crashing again and again in the same races (especially the Grand Tours) ruins the fun for everybody. Spilak won the TdF because of a crash, and that wasn't even a bad crash. If we could somehow reduce crashes to such a level (The Dekker crashes aswell) then it would be fine by me, but obviously we can't. And seeing a team like Iberia relegate because of an estimated loss of 1100-1300 points from Tenorio crashing out of every race he enters is really really crappy.
At one point I was close to throwing the towel myself. I had spent a huge effort in landing Markus Fothen, and then he crashed out of the Giro, crashing twice, and then also later crashing twice in the TdF to end 18th. That season could have been a winning season, but instead became a huge frustration. The same goes for Contador crashing at a vital moment, and later that season crashing out of 3rd in the GC of a week long raceday because of a crash within the final 2500meters. Or Ricco crashing out of the Giro on stage 18 being 4th in the GC.
If things like that happen too often, then the fun of the game is going to vanish.
So I really think that we need to find some way of handling crashes, in a better way than we have done this season. It should apparently be the same as last season, but I think it has been much worse this season. Random, maybe. Durable? No.
I dislike the idea of removing crashes alltogether, as crashes is a way of letting lesser riders shine on behalf of the leader that crashed, but the current level of lost points due to crashes for some team is unbarable I'd say.
Scorchio's new concept:
+1 statgain to a rider with less than 74OVL (74.00, I guess)
Stat must be less than 78
I like the concept, but I think it needs to be fiddled with to be useful.
In my team all top level riders and top domestiques are above 74OVL (Including Vasyliv and Novak).
So for me the highest rider on offer would be Charalampas Kastrantas, he is 73,49, and I have been playing with the thought of making him 77-79HI at one point myself, but it haven't been a viable solution. So this could open for that.
BUT:
Training Kastrantas +1HI would make him 74,18, and thus ineligeble.
I could, however keep on training him for 3 seasons to become 76MO/75HI and still have him at 73,84OVL. IMO that will make him a better rider than 73MO/76HI, but not in terms of OVL.
Also, as Knockout has stated before, some riders have a ridiculously low OVL compared to their actual qualities.
A rider such as Yannick Stoltz is 68,92 OVL. Let's play with the figure of him being 25 instead of 29.
Then he could become 74HI for free, while still being 72,79 OVL, and thus becoming quite a handy rider with a HUGE number of racedays still available.
But for a concept, I really like the idea of handing over a point to a local or loyal rider (Could be a rider that have a minimum of 2 years in the team, now starting his 3rd - or something like that). Especially as it would also be more interesting (for me personally) to sign local riders. Had such an idea been implemented earlier I am quite sure that I would have signed riders like:
Nikolaos Ioannidis and made him 76MO
Ioannis Spanopoulos and made him 75MO and 75TT
Axel Domont and made him 77MO or 77HI
Alexandre Mercier and made him 73FL and 78ACC
For me those riders have been close to being signed numerous times, but both have then been stalled because of the development time, and their final outcome, well knowing that I would never actually train them.
If Ioannidis would be 76MO for free, than I feel like it is very realistic that I would train him to 78MO myself, and then we would suddenly have our first ever greek GC rider capable of breaking the top 20.
For me, especially, those greek talents are looking very very interesting, but they are just maxing out with too little to become actual usefull PT domestiques with the current level of PT riders. And having to max them from level 1 it is just not viable when I can sign a similar level 4.00 rider or slightly worse 4.100 rider for 50K and use them right away.
This could be a way for me to make them just slightly better than the average 50K rider, and thus making it very interesting for me. Had those riders had the stats I suggest here, they would have been my first pick for the team instead of pick no# 40 and 51 (like they were now).
Basically the same applies for Bouglas, whom I signed anyway, but who really need atleast +1FL to be a decent leadout rider. Stylianos Farantakis, whom I signed on a stagiare contract have a similar problem. So instead of signing those guys (normally) I sign riders like Emerson Santos, Murilo Affonso and Manuel Stocker who are basically not fitting in as well as those greek riders, but have the needed stats to do what is required of them, while none of them will ever get above 100 points in a PT season.
Sorry for fitness confusion, I got confused and meant daily form
A massive NO to some kind of crash ratio in between 0 and 100. This gives less chances for them to level out and means crashes are rarer, and so f one hits you it has more impact on your season relative to their teams. The opposite of what we want surely?
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
jandal7 wrote:
Sorry for fitness confusion, I got confused and meant daily form
A massive NO to some kind of crash ratio in between 0 and 100. This gives less chances for them to level out and means crashes are rarer, and so f one hits you it has more impact on your season relative to their teams. The opposite of what we want surely?
I don't agree with this. Purely mathematical you might be right, but the chances of your rider being hit twice is surely also lower if we go to 50 rather than 100. So true. If disaster strikes, then you are worse off, but how can anyone be hit worse than Iberia this season?
Lowering the crash ratio would have (statistically speaking) limited the crash to 1 at most, and hence Iberia would still have a small chance to fight back to survive.
So I really think that we need to find some way of handling crashes, in a better way than we have done this season. It should apparently be the same as last season, but I think it has been much worse this season. Random, maybe. Durable? No.
Some races have been hit harder by crashes, others have been less impacted by them. From what i've noted the overall picture, across all divisions and a variety of races, is much the same as last season.
Last season we were getting a crash about every 0.68 days of racing. This season that is higher, nearer to a crash every 0.87 days of racing. But we're still under a crash a day which i would agree is too high. I'll check again a little later into the season, and try and compare directly last season to this.
Now whether that's too much for some people is open to your own opinion, and why i suggest it going to a vote again.
Problem with crashes isn`t really imo that they happen often and that we could change it slightly with the 0-1 range.
It`s more a problem that it seems to happen randomly to specific teams per race. And then being hit by random in GTs is obviously more awful than in other races.
e.g. having a shit random ratio in the Tour sees your riders crashing multiple times and destroys 21 race days for you.
As long as this is random, it`s hardly balanced throughout the division and has imo a too big impact on the rankings.
Also there is no guarantee that a team isn`t hit twice by random in GTs. e.g. Team B has a crash prone ratio in Giro and Tour. This would obviously be really bad for the season.
Add SotD`s point of motivation. It`s a game supposed to bring fun. But when having those kind of crashes too often, it ruins it.
Hence for the fun side of the game, I would be for getting rid of crashes completely to avoid those kind of motivational issues.
roturn wrote:
Problem with crashes isn`t really imo that they happen often and that we could change it slightly with the 0-1 range.
It`s more a problem that it seems to happen randomly to specific teams per race. And then being hit by random in GTs is obviously more awful than in other races.
e.g. having a shit random ratio in the Tour sees your riders crashing multiple times and destroys 21 race days for you.
As long as this is random, it`s hardly balanced throughout the division and has imo a too big impact on the rankings.
Also there is no guarantee that a team isn`t hit twice by random in GTs. e.g. Team B has a crash prone ratio in Giro and Tour. This would obviously be really bad for the season.
Add SotD`s point of motivation. It`s a game supposed to bring fun. But when having those kind of crashes too often, it ruins it.
Hence for the fun side of the game, I would be for getting rid of crashes completely to avoid those kind of motivational issues.
Would editing the table you found so that every team has an equal amount be an option? For classics I guess it doesn't matter (since it'll be random for every race) and for tours we could fix it after the first stage, which would be fine if it started with a TT, though difficult if it didn't
This would require DB work with the editor for every single race! And I am sure it would just lead to other problems in case of wrong edits for example.
Plus issues with 1st stage possibly or what if it`s forgotten for some races? Hard to control and would just lead to a bad balancing.
Plus it can`t be changed for classics and hence would remain random there.
Random crashes at classics is OK for me, even when I'm hit by them.
It may cost 100-250 points, but hey, he's ready to fight for the next race, and it cost 2 race days. You have to be extremely unlucky for this to fuck up a season.
But the GC races is a real issue. Maybe just the Grand Tours though. I haven't checked through, but even in the GC races like Tour de Suisse it will be "minor" points lost, if your leader crashes. Maybe 300 points. If more, then it is riders like Taaramäe, Pluchkin or Schleck crashing out while normally they would win 4 stages, the GC, points, KOM and the team GC. That is really not that common, and would then be some sort of risk calculation. It probably happens 1 every 3 seasons or so.
However it happens EVERY time a GT top 5 favorite crashes and abandons or crashes and is too injured to get a reasonable GC result. And those points are expensive. Especially because you are also wasting domestiques. So ultimately it is 21*8 racedays wasted.
So maybe remove crashes from Grand Tours or take down the amount of crashes to a ratio of eg. 40. That way it is still a risk (it have always been, and some have planned for it), and it should be. But the risk is smaller. And IMO it needs to be.
This would require DB work with the editor for every single race! And I am sure it would just lead to other problems in case of wrong edits for example.
Plus issues with 1st stage possibly or what if it`s forgotten for some races? Hard to control and would just lead to a bad balancing.
Plus it can`t be changed for classics and hence would remain random there.
If PCM decides that a rider is going to crash before or during the stage it doesn't matter, it's still random who gets hit with the bad luck, the problem is that with a Tour the same riders are 'set' to crash on Stage 2, 3, 4...
So on the first stage of a stage race or a classic it wouldn't matter that it's been set beforehand, while following the first stage in stage races it'd be neutralised and 'fixed'.
The DB editing point is a problem though, guess I didn't really think it through.
I'm strongly against changing the crash ratio. It's a part of cycling, let it be a part of the MG as well.
I am even stronger against changing it for stage races compared to classics. Sorry, but that's just discrimination against teams aiming for the classics. No matter where you focus lies, there should always be a chance that bad luck ruins your plans.
Ollfardh wrote:
I'm strongly against changing the crash ratio. It's a part of cycling, let it be a part of the MG as well.
I am even stronger against changing it for stage races compared to classics. Sorry, but that's just discrimination against teams aiming for the classics. No matter where you focus lies, there should always be a chance that bad luck ruins your plans.
Doping is also an integral part of cycling. As is different budgets and materiel. This is a game. Not RL cycling.
And how is it discriminating? Isn't it discriminating that cobbled riders can ride every single cobbled race in the calender? Same goes for puncheurs basically.
Top cobblers ride all races suitable for them. Top puncheurs miss 10-15% of races suitable for them. Top sprinters miss 30% of races suitable for them. Top climbers miss 60% of races suitable for them.
We have no experience with a crash ration set at 50% - but if opinions are still divided after the season (I would personally say remove it compleetly) then why not attempt a season with 50% and see how it works out.
At least it would reduce the possibility that the same rider got hit several time in the same race. While keeping the risk that some managers prefer.
I don’t believe we can handle 100% in some races and 0% in others, as a reporter I would always be unsure if I forgot to change it.
However it happens EVERY time a GT top 5 favorite crashes and abandons or crashes and is too injured to get a reasonable GC result. And those points are expensive. Especially because you are also wasting domestiques. So ultimately it is 21*8 racedays wasted.
well if that is hitting you so hard pay less for GC riders and more for classics riders...you could just take a lower gamble and go for classics riders...
jandal7 wrote:
Sorry for fitness confusion, I got confused and meant daily form
A massive NO to some kind of crash ratio in between 0 and 100. This gives less chances for them to level out and means crashes are rarer, and so f one hits you it has more impact on your season relative to their teams. The opposite of what we want surely?
You could say the same if the ration was 200% and someone wanted 100%
As longs as we havent seen how 50% works, it is hard to tell if it will be more or less balanced. Especially considering that it may reduce the chance of same rider crashing more than one time in the same race.
However it happens EVERY time a GT top 5 favorite crashes and abandons or crashes and is too injured to get a reasonable GC result. And those points are expensive. Especially because you are also wasting domestiques. So ultimately it is 21*8 racedays wasted.
well if that is hitting you so hard pay less for GC riders and more for classics riders...you could just take a lower gamble and go for classics riders...
This isn't about what I want, but what I believe is best for the game. Trust me, I have enough experience in risk-management. The first time I won the PT it was entirely down to risk management, where I decided to take Simon Spilak out of the GT equation alltogether.
I don't think it's in the best interest of the game that several GT riders hit the deck and loses 50-60% of their racedays because of it. Not even from a Risk/Reward point of view is that viable imo.
I think it is bad for the game to have seasons where riders such as Spilak and Gesink doesn't want to ride a GT because the risk is too high.
I also think it is bad for the game, that managers end up losing interest or motivation because crashes determine their season result. Fair enough, if it is between ending up 7th or 11th. But between staying up or going down. Or between winning the rankings or ending 5th. Then it is a really bad thing for the game imo. There are plenty of random stuff going on, with our riders completely in the hands of the AI aswell as random +/- day. I don't think we want to add too much randomness in terms of crashings where it counts.
I don't care if everything is brought down to 50, or if the GT's are brought to 40 and everything else is kept as it is.
For me, this is much more than risk/reward debate. It is about balancing the game the most for the benefit of the participants. Not to please me. Hell, I just won the TdF because someone else crashed, and I have already announced for a season that it will be the last season for Spilak in the team anyway. So what should I have to gain from going 0 crash ratio in a certain area?
this wasn't entirely directed to you SotD (I know you're doing well with it), but more to the general risks of an "I pick one stage-race god and hope that he alone saves me" approach, that we have seen plenty of in the recent years...just wanted to emphasis that (the risk of) crashes can (and in my opinion should) be used as a factor in planning from the offseason on
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