While I think the redistribution is elegant and logical I am inclined to agree with TMM that mass adjustment will create too many winners and losers to be viable. I think his gradual approach is more workable. I would propose to accelerate it by retiring high value older unsigned riders faster.
IF I have the math right I don't think rider shortage is a problem. At the beginning of the FA there were about 1000 FA riders with OVL > 69.5. Assuming 60 teams at 25 rider each we need 1500 riders. There were 1000 riders renewed so that means we need 500 FA. Which means at the end of the transfer season there will be 500 unsigned riders with an OVL > 69.5 assuming not a single rider below 69.5 is signed I don't think you need to add moderate developed riders, they are sitting there unsigned.
I put the US riders over 69.5 who are likely to be unsigned (and probably undrafted) in the spoiler. While none of these is great they seem to me like the kind of riders who should be filling the last 3 or 4 roster slots on a team. Howes is a solid climber, Fisher, Sweeting and Keough could/should all be CT lead out men. Weiss is good on the fl and hills with a nice ACC.
1) It doesn't solve the core problem of more riders going up than down in stats. All your doing is moving the stat ceiling.
So in the exam example, you still have the same total's for A's, B's etc. In the MG you'd still have the same number of tier one riders, tier two etc, just at a different cap.
2) If you are going into to change different stats and different riders uniquely that raises huge questions of what is fair/unfair between changes. This is amplified in PCM where stats are non-liner (the gap between an 80 & 79 is bigger than 75 & 74) and where different stats carry different importance.
This carries a knock on impact depening on your teams current age. You have a young team, an unmaxed team, you can gain that loss back far easier vs an older team.
It's also far more impactful on the one-stat wonders vs the hybrid heroes.
Basically, hard to balance fairly and we need to try maintain parity as much as possible (or figure our a compensation system, which is a lot of extra work).
3) There's the history argument. A lot of MG managers are very big on their history, so much so i've been told many times we cannot lower an FA's stats. (this doesn't bother me, why i argue for a bigger reset) As well as the time and effort some managers have put in to multi-year planning (again not me, but Cio/SotD/LLS come to mind) being wiped away (let alone the training costs now wiped out that managers would have definitely used differently).
If you keep the same distribution's these don't matter, but you've also made no difference.
That's all vs more targeted changes to FA's (which we could lower all FA's and not hurt a manager) and talent adding, delcline rates etc. Which we can monitor year-to-year for parity, fairness and avoid making things accidently worse.
Stil see no evidence that working with wages is not the fastest, easiest, most fair way to fight rider increase , as it does not matter how many strong riders are in the dB as long as the teams have a limited possibility to hire them.
Working with wages would probable leave a few good targets in free agency - which would then be available for the CT draft. Depending on who is left on the market, that could even give the CT teams an advantage over the PCT teams. So that process might have to be adjusted in this case...
TheManxMissile wrote: Could be balanced by changing the wage calculations to include age as a factor (yes i'm aware that hurts managers with young teams, but this seems better than the game breaking & they can always take a renwals fine to sell for profit)
Add less talents. This will be slow for sure, but is overall less damanging. Works very easily too. For everyrider that is about to turn 33 and decline we add 0.5 replacements. Eg we have 100 riders turning 33, we add 50 new talents. Importantly the 50 new talents are roughly max-ing at the same level. So Ricki Nelson and Keukeliere would decline down from 81+80SP, one new rider comes in with an 80SP max. A 82 and 79 MO rider are to decline, an 80MO talent is added.
That's a lot of manual calculation to do, but split it between four or five people and we can make it work. Then over the next 5 years we'll see the DB settle down to better overall level.
But TMM, won't we start running out of riders? No, because....
Starting add older & lower potential riders. Most talents are added at lvl1-2, age 21-23, with a potential 4+. Why don't we make up the lost numbers from above by adding riders at 25-30, with potential 1-3, but importantly at 4-4.100 already at the 70-75 domestique range.
This keeps the FA pool topped up, allows us to add the random nation riders, and will help slow increases and speed declines.
We would need a bit of a DB clear out first (not a bad idea in general). Take the 100 declinging riders from above as an idea, we don't need to add 50 of these every year. Instead we only replace those who have retired from the DB.
So each season now we're adding 75 riders for every 100 declinging, and we are adding at a level to lower the DB overall. There will be enough riders for teams to fill up their old riders, but naturally raise wages of the young riders as we battle for them. After 5-7 years of this, the MG DB is back to a normal PCM DB level.
I'm actually not opposed to this negotiation element as long as the effect isn't too strong. Age would mean value as younger generations deflate, and thus could be compensated as such. It would have to peak at training age though rather than just the youngest age. Still, we see in real life that age plays a role in negotiations - old riders are worth less. Of course, having only one year contracts in MG changes this a bit and gets rid of the risk factor of age. But for a few years, it could at least balance the DB so the few 25-28 year old world beaters right now don't just carry their teams ahead of everyone else for the next decade.
I also think your talent idea is very well thought out. I'd just say that we also have to consider increasing the spread of skill of riders entering the DB. Now that I think of it, inflation coming down from the top will actually make this problem worse. So not necessarily replacing guys with direct counterparts, but staggering them over skill levels. We need to be more proactive in creating guys that are unique and will have genuinely different chances in target races depending on nuances of the parcours.
I will now suggest two dev changes that I think will help:
One is updated fighter development. I know I've gone on and on about this, but I actually think it could help. A strengthened, more versatile fighter gives a core build for an all around domestique, kinds of guys with upper 60's lower 70's in most stats, who can be plugged anywhere. They serve a real purpose in real life, but have no purpose in MG - so they're not developed. I used Krigbaum as an example last year, and I'll say it again. If training him as a fighter in the current system didn't make sense, there's basically no one it makes sense for.
Having that build for a versatile but lower level domestique will prevent these third and 4th tier guys from all specializing in one area and ending up with a 76-77 main stat. That's going to help I reckon, especially at lower levels, where those guys constantly mix with legitimate contenders, since those contenders are only 1 or 2 points above them. Upgrading fighter gives people a legitimate reason to have an all around domestique instead of making a one dimensional guy with 76 main stat. Yes, I know combinations are possible and can make interesting riders. But the fact is that doing so requires more costs than benefits in the current structure for most riders, primarily this exact type of guy. Maxing out a main stat right now will just score you more points and value, so it's a no brainer.
On the other hand, I'm really starting to think a couple of other development paths are overpowered. Look at Stage Race. It is the only training that focuses on 3 main stats to a high degree, and it's almost an obvious choice at this point if you have a climber with any TT ability at all, cause there's barely any trade off. I think we could easily decrease the hill given to Climber v2 levels (a dev I think is very under-powered and getting more useless in PCM 18). We have countless stage racers now, (and more on the way) with 76-79 mtn, and hill/TT well into the 70's. With such little distinction, we're creating a hole of competition diversity in CT and eventually PCT. And that's just one terrain.
Of course, nerfing certain devs will mess with manager's plans already and is thus down with absolute care. Only thing I could think that would fix this is grandfathering in talents already signed this year to the old system. This would make the whole process take longer, but at least guarantees fairness.
Other things:
- Absolutely no DB upgrades for FA's anymore to match real life achievements.
- Give riders legitimate weaknesses again if you add them in similarly strong. I know we're trying to make more well rounded riders built for PCM 18, but with so many riders now falling in the same maxed stat range, something has to differentiate them. I think certain types of riders this year were buffed in necessary backup stats without taking them down at all in their main stats to account for competitive balance. This also incentives people to go for combos or a new fighter and create domestiques instead of 4th tier leaders that bloat the DB and confuse PCM.
- Crazy idea, but perhaps we could have some sort of anti-training. You can decrease your rider's stat in exchange for money. Would have to be done in the renewals process I suppose. Keeps more money flowing through the game (which has been a problem the last two years) and will allow for non-uniform deflation, which would be useful. It's not realistic to real life at all, but who cares? There could definitely be a lot of issues with it, but if it had similar restrictions to training, that would keep drastic exploits to a minimum.
Tamijo wrote:
Stil see no evidence that working with wages is not the fastest, easiest, most fair way to fight rider increase , as it does not matter how many strong riders are in the dB as long as the teams have a limited possibility to hire them.
1) This doesn't actually tackle inflation (remember, inflation is about more increases than decreases. Not how easy/expensive it is to sign riders)
2) You can't dictate FA wages. The point of renewals is that it should be safer to renew a rider than fight in FA for one. But without tackling the cause you just end up with dozens of the same rider hitting Free Agency, making them cheaper, and devaluing renewals as a process.
3) Would require us to rework stagiere signings, CT draft, and amateur teams as well as figure out a new wage calculation.
4) Think this would also lead to needing to change the Loan Cap & Rules in order for CT teams to max out riders (weirdly, because FA is unaffected PT teams loaning out Lvl1 riders would be the same)
No it do not tackle inflation as such, still have to follow something like your rule of 2-out 1-in (level 7-6-5) until we get a better DB with a spread of top riders over different terrain, but if will be a fast way to reduce the number of +XX riders in every race.
FA is off course included first bid has to be the minimum wage showing in pre transfer DB
Stagier signings excluded, as long as they are within the current ruleset.cant see an issue there.
Would not be hard to set a max wage or OVL on amateur teams and free CT pick.
Dont see why we need to change loan cap, some lvl one might be a little cheaper but wont be game breaking.
Tamijo wrote:
No it do not tackle inflation as such, still have to follow something like your rule of 2-out 1-in (level 7-6-5) until we get a better DB with a spread of top riders over different terrain, but if will be a fast way to reduce the number of +XX riders in every race.
So if it doesn't solve inflation, why go through all the hassel?
The game is still working (mostly) at the current level and we can immediately tackle with additions and deleting FA's next off-season for significantly less disruption and work.
FA is off course included first bid has to be the minimum wage showing in pre transfer DB
True that balances out.
Still don't like creating more limitations on things. Part of the fun is the total freedom to design your squad inside the wage cap. With set minimum wages we wouldn't see the fun of Holloway in CT or Pluchkin in PCT.
Neither of those are due to inflation, but to managers taking risks! And that should be allowed.
You'd lose the fun of trying to slide a rider through FA undervalue, most of us have examples of a rider we got under what their renewal equivalent would be.
Stagier signings excluded, as long as they are within the current ruleset.cant see an issue there.
Well they just became relatively more expensive. Currently a stagiere at 10k is 1/5 of a normal rider, that drops to 1/3 at a 30k minimum for example. Not a huge change but it's another knock on effect to consider and plan for.
Would not be hard to set a max wage or OVL on amateur teams and free CT pick.
Again it cuts out a little bit of fun, trying to hunt out what rider was overlooked. Knowing a good rider is available but you are not allowed to sign them... that's not fun. If you spot a points scorer everyone else missed, you should not be stopped from getting them.
Which is why we need to tackle the inflation problem itself and reduce the number of riders with good stats, not your ability to sign them.
Dont see why we need to change loan cap, some lvl one might be a little cheaper but wont be game breaking.
Lvl one loans will be fine. But what if you have a high level talent at 4.xx in the CT? Feels like an extra challenge for CT (some PCT teams probably) that isn't particularly fair or well balanced (and i know a some managers feel leveling lvl4 riders is unfair as it is)
Yes we can change the rules, but it's more work and figuring out and more room for error to creep in.
We can immediately impact inflation with talent adding changes, and removing some FA's etc next off-season. None of which requires us to change any of the current rules. And we'll have to make those changes anyway to fix the core problem.
Not a personal attack or anything. I just don't see adding Wage Minimums as our best solution.
Was not expecting a radical idea like this to be accepted, just saying it would be a fast way to get rid of races with to many similar +80 riders.
Man-game is more conservative than the house of lords and for good reason as it keeps the traditions alive - working with new additions will be a long process - but as you say it works ok'ish, just that at least some races becomes a Dice Roll between 15 similar riders.
Oh, i'm all in favour of radical ideas being made!
It's why i genuinely stand by a reset as a legit idea (not just for inflation but a range of other changes we could make), or why i suggest re-working the divisions, or even as crazy as reducing a riders stats if he reaches FA
It's why i genuinely stand by a reset as a legit idea (not just for inflation but a range of other changes we could make), or why i suggest re-working the divisions, or even as crazy as reducing a riders stats if he reaches FA
It's why i genuinely stand by a reset as a legit idea (not just for inflation but a range of other changes we could make), or why i suggest re-working the divisions, or even as crazy as reducing a riders stats if he reaches FA
Ya, know you are in favour, but not sure how many others are. Personally I like the dB system as it is also the development and training is fine.
Nb: might also start with a post-transfer dB where all fully developed free riders above 26 was eliminated, if no team wanted them this time can’t hurt a lot.
As some would decline after the season, would help some.
quadsas wrote:
Instead of working on rider wages, a simpler decision would be too reduce team salary cap.
Unfortunately I feel this will likely just deflate wages and make more of the lower domestiques not get rides. Don't think it will actually help stat inflation.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
How about adapting the CT division up to 20 riders to 25, only adding enough extra wage cap for 5 €50,000 riders, scrapping the draft as they now have bigger squads?
Either that or you go the other way and do something to make the slightly weaker but more versatile riders more attractive to CT teams by playing with RD numbers ahead of next season.
My opinion is that the easiest solution to tackle a possible inflation, if there really is one, in the higher depth of the DB is to change how RDs work. I believe we should give less RDs to basically all the riders - the lower their overall currently is, the bigger should be the loss of their available RDs. Then we can also increase minimum team sizes of all teams in all divisions to like 24 in PT, 22 in PCT and 18+2 in CT, without stagiares counting as a half of a rider in PCT and possibly with a basic increase of CT teams wage cap. Let's say that if we increase the number of riders by like 20 percent, then we should decrease the number of RDs by 20 percent. So for example a rider like Jakub Danacik would get just like 66 RDs instead of 79. Michal Schlegel would go from 62 to 51. Sagan from 40 to 33. Starlists would get much more interesting and variable, although also more luckier, but is that a bad thing? Maybe it could also be like 5 percent decrease to top leaders and like 30 percent to PT quality domestiques. We just need to find the right balance for this, also with XP gains, but there is no reason why tackling the inflation in this way wouldn't help.
At the same time I think we should think about creating something like a 'luxury cap.' It would basiclly be a possibility to exchange your money for an increase of your wage cap to the maximum of 200k in total. IMO it could work a little bit like wild cards:
- for 100k you can buy 1st 50k increase of your wage cap
- for 200k you can buy 2nd 50k increase of your wage cap
- for 300k you can buy 3rd 50k increase of your wage cap
- for 400k you can buy 4th and final 50k increase of your wage cap
Easy to implement via transfer sheets and as much as 1M per team could be taken from the system in this way in an unique extra way to spend your money, it could be a nice new thing to play with during the transfers and it could work perfectly together with the increase in minimum team sizes.
After these two changes I believe the overall quality of field in all races would go down, while there would be a bigger use for all those depth riders we have in the DB.
As an extra I propose a 3rd change that may tackle some of the things some of you were talking about. 'XP training system.' Basically right now XP your riders earn are used just for those riders to improve their attributes. But what if we would count the total of your team's earned XP points during the season and use it for something next year? This would highly motivate all the teams to sign or loan in unmaxed riders and also to use them a lot. It could both possibly bring the quality of startlists down and also encourage the teams to develop talent. Older and maxed out riders get you more points, younger riders get you XPs. A basic trade-off for your transfer strategy. The only question for me is what for should the XPs earned by your team be used for. In my opinion this could be an alternative way how to train your riders that could somehow replace the loss of money potentially used for 'luxury cap' spending. It could work in a way that every 1 XP earned results in 1k for spending on training. In the current system CT teams have never money for training their riders. With this idea it would change. But it would also work for PT/PCT teams perfectly.
The result would be that inflation wouldn't really be much of a problem as there would be a bigger use for all those 77-80 riders, there would be a motivation to develop even 73-75 domestiques and training would also get potentially way more available for all teams, also with an extra way how to meaningfully spend your money during transfers apart of buying riders and spending on training.
There's certainly some great ideas floating around, but ultimately most of them are too risky. If a problem has slowly and gradually appeared in a complex system, it's better to also solve it slowly and gradually. Preferably by just reversing the process that caused the problem. That way you avoid causing unintentional side effects with your fix.
Problem: for years we've added more talented riders to the DB than were retiring and we've sometimes raised the stats of FA's. Solution: let's start a multi year period in which we add less talented riders to the DB than are retiring and let's reduce the stats of some high quality riders who hit the free agency.
This complex game has evolved over many years into something that is both fun and hard to exploit. Let's not underestimate the damage that radical change can do to something so delicately balanced.
