I agree with bbl that there is a clear unbalanced ttt/itt calendar on the CT level. This not only not reward versatile stage racers, but is also a pity for the time trialists, who really don't have a lot of individual chances in the division.
Another thing I'd like to raise awareness of, after doing so in the PCT thread as well recently, is the activity in the race discussion threads. I've done quite a lot of reports so far, and even though I like reporting, I am starting to feel tired of it. Not because of the time I "lose", but more so because of the inactive race threads, where it's always the same people being active. I don't care about a manager like KingTheManiak being inactive, as he clearly disbanded a long time ago, but it's definitely annoying to see people who are online daily and even post in other (MG) threads then never give a fuck about a six day stage race. That definitely takes the fun out of reporting, and honestly combined with others then only being very negative leads to reporters quitting. This is not an opinion, but rather a fact.
Like I said in the thread, I am not saying everyone "must' post a bbl/cio/... detailed post on every stage, but simply not caring about several races even though you have a team there or reading every report and just not posting or maybe once with a small post is a shame. I am not saying people can't be inactive because of (any) personal reason or whatsoever.
It does lead me to a question: is there any reward for being active? I remember that before I joined MG I read the FAQ, where it stated having an active HQ could be the difference when deciding between promotion/relegation. Is this actually the case? I like making up and reading HQ posts, and to be clear I'm not doing it in the hope of getting a promotion. Like I said, I like reading other HQ's as well, but real activity for me comes in the way of actually being active in the race threads. Is/will there actually be a difference in "punishment"/reward for people that are active/inactive?
Couple years ago being inactive regularly led to lose your team and being a disband from the game. That said, couple years ago the forum itself was more active in total which meant, long time Daily members regularly became new MG members alongside new faces.
There were even years, where not all members got a spot to the ManGame and some asked again the following season. Due to this disbanding less active managers was easy to do as there was basically more potential managers in than out.
More recently (also due to the team size in the MG being significantly higher than 5-10 years ago) there are often more managers out than in.
In especially some long term managers, who probably started the MG when in their early 20`s while studying and now turning 30+, having families, jobs etc. are less active but still have lots of MG history, which makes it hard to fully disband them when still being around here and there (obviously became less year for year). I agree that this is not really an ideal scenario as it indeed is annoying for reporters.
Though it neither would be very ideal to have some of the long term teams disband without proper replacement with new managers. It leads to chaotic transfers with lots of top quality riders on the market. 10+ teams promoting instead of the regular 5. Lots of money due to this etc.
That said, this is basically about a handful of long term teams.
You mainly though mean other teams I guess, where the managers aren`t that inactive but don`t care regularly. Could be argued, what is less productive obviously, both not ideal for a community game.
I admit, that this must be looked at as it´s hurting those reporters that keep the game running the most. And this is something that shouldn`t happen at all.
Nemolito wrote:
I agree with bbl that there is a clear unbalanced ttt/itt calendar on the CT level. This not only not reward versatile stage racers, but is also a pity for the time trialists, who really don't have a lot of individual chances in the division.
As someone who "benifitted" from the TTT this season I can confirm that it was a bit unbalanced. That being said, I purposely chose to focus on TTTs because of their presence in key races - otherwise I couldn't care too much. Overall, teams should be rewarded for investing in a TTT train (but not too much). As for next season I do agree, it would be fair to change some TTT in stage races to ITT.
On that note, I would like to see a TT classic for CT. PCT has Windhoek/Celtic Chrono, PT has Herbiers, but CT doesn't have one.
Nemolito wrote:
Another thing I'd like to raise awareness of, after doing so in the PCT thread as well recently, is the activity in the race discussion threads. I've done quite a lot of reports so far, and even though I like reporting, I am starting to feel tired of it. Not because of the time I "lose", but more so because of the inactive race threads, where it's always the same people being active. I don't care about a manager like KingTheManiak being inactive, as he clearly disbanded a long time ago, but it's definitely annoying to see people who are online daily and even post in other (MG) threads then never give a fuck about a six day stage race. That definitely takes the fun out of reporting, and honestly combined with others then only being very negative leads to reporters quitting. This is not an opinion, but rather a fact.
I think it's good that you're raising this point. I do agree with you even though I'm not a reporter. I do think sometimes I'm being a bit silly because I tend to follow other MG races - but I don't comment because I feel like I don't have a horse in the race. For example, I did check the Benelux results of this week. Very silly not to say anything and I'll actually post my interest in the future.
My point is: I'm sure there are a few managers like myself who follow but don't always post. I think we can make an effort to show our appreciation going forward!
Nemolito wrote:
I agree with bbl that there is a clear unbalanced ttt/itt calendar on the CT level. This not only not reward versatile stage racers, but is also a pity for the time trialists, who really don't have a lot of individual chances in the division.
As someone who "benifitted" from the TTT this season I can confirm that it was a bit unbalanced. That being said, I purposely chose to focus on TTTs because of their presence in key races - otherwise I couldn't care too much. Overall, teams should be rewarded for investing in a TTT train (but not too much). As for next season I do agree, it would be fair to change some TTT in stage races to ITT.
On that note, I would like to see a TT classic for CT. PCT has Windhoek/Celtic Chrono, PT has Herbiers, but CT doesn't have one.
I know you did, and you rightfully got/get the points you deserve because of that (Was not trying to say it was unfair or whatever) But one/two TTT's changing to ITT and maybe a ITT classic would indeed make it more balanced.
@roturn Yeah I definitely understand people's life getting too busy, definitely with families/jobs etc., I am not saying to just disband everyone who doesn't log in for a week
I also agree both the not being able to log in and the not caring about posting are not ideal for a comunity game. I don't really have any "perfect solution" right here right now, I was just hoping to put it in the thread and see what the reactions were, and if anyone had some ideas for a possible reward or punishment towards active or non active managers, and if, according to other managers/reporters, there is the need those. I do think something has to change though, as the current state of (in)activity is (also) making more reporters quit reporting, which in its turn puts more pressure on other reporters, who would maybe make the decision to quit reporting easier as well then.
Nemolito wrote:
Another thing I'd like to raise awareness of, after doing so in the PCT thread as well recently, is the activity in the race discussion threads. I've done quite a lot of reports so far, and even though I like reporting, I am starting to feel tired of it. Not because of the time I "lose", but more so because of the inactive race threads, where it's always the same people being active. I don't care about a manager like KingTheManiak being inactive, as he clearly disbanded a long time ago, but it's definitely annoying to see people who are online daily and even post in other (MG) threads then never give a fuck about a six day stage race. That definitely takes the fun out of reporting, and honestly combined with others then only being very negative leads to reporters quitting. This is not an opinion, but rather a fact.
I think it's good that you're raising this point. I do agree with you even though I'm not a reporter. I do think sometimes I'm being a bit silly because I tend to follow other MG races - but I don't comment because I feel like I don't have a horse in the race. For example, I did check the Benelux results of this week. Very silly not to say anything and I'll actually post my interest in the future.
My point is: I'm sure there are a few managers like myself who follow but don't always post. I think we can make an effort to show our appreciation going forward!
Oh, I think I wasn't clear enough, sorry. I don't mean posting in a race like Benelux if you aren't there (which obviously is always welcome, like it was nice to read Croatia's comments despite not being there) - I rather meant people actually in those races, active on the forum, but never commenting.
Massive sympathies Nemolito. Reporting is a lot of effort, and it really is kind of disrespectful of that effort and care for managers to ignore the races they're in. You're 100% right.
Unfortunately, roturn is right that the state of activity on the site is simply different than it once was when those activity provisions were written. 5+ years ago, the SN ban hammer was real. Not enough activity, and you're gone. The selection process was also much more rigorous with real applications and thorough review. When I first applied for the 2013 season, I was denied despite being very active on the site, as my contributions and application materials were not seen as serious enough (which was probably true). The same thing just couldn't happen today because we need every member we have for the game to continue the way it's been built.
It definitely would be nice to see activity rewarded and inactivity punished in some way, but I'm just not sure how it would be measured or how it could be done without causing more problems. The problem is that if you make the teams of lesser active managers worse, they'll probably just lose even more motivation and be likely to quit the game. A few might raise activity, but I'm not sure the cost is worth it.
If you guys have any idea on how to avoid that problem, I'd be happy to go with it - I'm definitely a little biased towards rewarding activity . But I'm not sure I can think of anything at the moment. Perhaps we could start by PMing the inactive managers (especially the one's active elsewhere on the site) and reminding them/asking for explanations? But it wouldn't exactly contain much leverage if we're not prepared to actually remove them from the game.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
I'd like to propose the following things (please, don't hate me):
- I think the best way to reward active managers is to give them bigger budget for next season. Changing the salary cap for each team based on their activity is not a good idea though.
- Promotion-relegation spots: IMO they should be decreased from 5 to 3. Also, if a team in one division disbands, it automatically becomes last and the teams who finished behind will be technically moved up.
ivaneurope wrote:
I'd like to propose the following things (please, don't hate me):
- I think the best way to reward active managers is to give them bigger budget for next season. Changing the salary cap for each team based on their activity is not a good idea though.
- Promotion-relegation spots: IMO they should be decreased from 5 to 3. Also, if a team in one division disbands, it automatically becomes last and the teams who finished behind will be technically moved up.
The first is difficult as it's hard to rate what activity is needed, what is good, what is bad. Really tough to rate. Can't be post count only, some can only check once a week but make more quality posts etc.
Promotion relegation. While second point might work, it still wouldn't be as fair as teams that "deserved" to disband could be saved.
And it's similar reason why the first part doesn't help. It is actually wanted to mix the divisions, giving more managers a chance to ride in PT. So when making promoting more difficult, teams more regularly miss out.
Edited by roturn on 12-05-2021 17:30
Not sure I like the idea of giving active managers a financial advantage over less active managers.
But I wholeheartedly agree that the bare minimum that every manager should reach in terms of activity is commenting at least once in every race thread their team is in. And if it's a stage race you'd at least expect an additional post every three stages. Anything less than that is pretty disrespectful of all the hard work reporters and organizers put into the game.
I also support reducing workload on the reporters by shrinking the game a bit. At least in terms of race days, but maybe even in terms of teams.
I was always for doing as little reporting as possible, as I understand it can be a thankless job at times and some race threads become barren. I always try to comment at least once for each 'progression' of the race (unless were so shit that I have no words), but I personally would be totally fine with races being semi quick-played, obviously I am extreme example but if we could find a middle ground between lenghty reports and quick sims I would be perfectly fine with that.
I obviously very much agree with Nemolito's points about activity. The actual reporting is a lot of fun for me (most of the time), but it's the interactions in the race threads that really make it worthwhile. Spending a few hours on some TT event only to come away with a total of like 11 posts is certainly frustrating.
That said, and having thought about it a bit, I don't see a way to properly reward/punish activity, at least when it comes to tangible stuff like budget. I had a longer text written here about how and what to measure, but generally I think it's just too complicated and too easy to lead to discord. Plus, which might be my biggest point against it, there are many legit reasons if someone's going through something IRL, whatever that may be, but I wouldn't want to force anyone to disclose that whether they want to or not, or face negative consequences.
Something that I think might be possible would be to do something that's not a competitive advantage or disadvantage. Like, if you have less than 20 (or however many) posts in race threads over the course of the season, you don't get to have a new jersey for next year. Or the color of your equipment gets randomized to some weird color But I think that might well just lead to even less motivation for the respective manager, like bbl said.
Or maybe in a positive way: Get X amount of posts and you're guaranteed to get a suggestion for a new rider accepted (within reason). Or you get to choose one stage that then might get included in some race (again within reason, and only for a pretty high post count, I guess, but could be a cool incentive if you have a Pyrenees stage that you always wanted to be raced or something. We'd need to make sure that this isn't then used to give your own rider a massive advantage though). Or every year there's a one day race in each division, let's call it the Great Daily Road Race, that has the division's top poster's name and that person gets to chose the terrain (Welcome to the baseballlover312 Great Daily Road Race 2021, for instance ).
But mostly, I think it's just important to call attention to it and I'm very appreciative that you did so, Nemo. Sending PMs to inactive managers a couple of times per season like bbl suggested could also be a good idea.
I agree it's disappointing to see some managers so inactive. Especially at PT level I think there are a few managers who skip large parts of the season (and some for a few years now). Not entirely convinved about a reward system though.
For reporting, some ICL reporters have experience with video reports. I can't say if it saves time for sure, but it does make you have to type waaaay less.
In order to activate budget gains from a successful goal, you have to comment in the race thread for that goal. It doesn't have to be immediately after the race is run, any time before the end of the season counts. But if you don't comment on a successful goal, it counts as a failure for budgetary reasons.
It would really only require the bare minimum of activity from managers and would be fairly easy to get record of (I'd be happy to do the job myself and mark everything in a spreadsheet if I had access to every team's goals).
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
In order to activate budget gains from a successful goal, you have to comment in the race thread for that goal. It doesn't have to be immediately after the race is run, any time before the end of the season counts. But if you don't comment on a successful goal, it counts as a failure for budgetary reasons.
It would really only require the bare minimum of activity from managers and would be fairly easy to get record of (I'd be happy to do the job myself and mark everything in a spreadsheet if I had access to every team's goals).
I generally agree that penalizing inactivity is challenging but this is pretty clever. Maybe soften it to 50% for the first offense. I also think it ought to be within X days of the race ending. Because I think maybe if you pull somebody back in for a race it re-engages their interest more generally rather than letting them do it all at the end of the year.
Just want to apologize for my recent inactivity! I had a very busy time irl, that made me stay off from Daily for a few weeks. This happened before, as some of you may remember, but as I usually stay active for most of the time, I'm optimistic to be back for good.
Will try to catch up with Morton's disastrous Tour as soon as possible. And thanks to all reports, of course! As a former reporter by myself, I obviously appreciate your efforts and dedication to the game.
In order to activate budget gains from a successful goal, you have to comment in the race thread for that goal. It doesn't have to be immediately after the race is run, any time before the end of the season counts. But if you don't comment on a successful goal, it counts as a failure for budgetary reasons.
It would really only require the bare minimum of activity from managers and would be fairly easy to get record of (I'd be happy to do the job myself and mark everything in a spreadsheet if I had access to every team's goals).
I actually kind of like this idea as it doesn`t change it too drastically but still having some impact clearly.
Not sure it must be race specific as it doesn`t help if the manager is inactive 90% of the season but then posting in goal races to get "full budget".
But it can easily be adjusted in the budget formula stuff in case of general or partly inactivity.
Need to think about this but might be worth a try.
If a manager is that inactive we have to figure a way to penalise them/reward others, we should be considering their position in the game.
With most managers we now have multiple seasons of reference, and if they've been poor for that time, it's even easier to hammer or penalise them separately from an integrated system.
My personal interest and comment level goes up and down massively across a season, even more so with my current squad where any race with a climb is boring to me.
A system that mandates me to not only comment, but make my comment of a certain quality, is concerning. Anything from illness, to work, to holidays step in, and this can build up a pressure then to catch-up born out of nessesity rather than want. And that is a killer for motivation and engagement!
Especially in a case where i feel this problem is very limited to specific races and managers that are in a very small minority.
We should be looking at a targeted approach specific to those problem managers. And if it turns out 51% of managers are in this boat we need to have a wider look at why half the game is struggling to comment anyway.
Do we have a count of managers comments vs the number of reports they were involved in?
If a manager is that inactive we have to figure a way to penalise them/reward others, we should be considering their position in the game.
With most managers we now have multiple seasons of reference, and if they've been poor for that time, it's even easier to hammer or penalise them separately from an integrated system.
My personal interest and comment level goes up and down massively across a season, even more so with my current squad where any race with a climb is boring to me.
A system that mandates me to not only comment, but make my comment of a certain quality, is concerning. Anything from illness, to work, to holidays step in, and this can build up a pressure then to catch-up born out of nessesity rather than want. And that is a killer for motivation and engagement!
Especially in a case where i feel this problem is very limited to specific races and managers that are in a very small minority.
We should be looking at a targeted approach specific to those problem managers. And if it turns out 51% of managers are in this boat we need to have a wider look at why half the game is struggling to comment anyway.
Do we have a count of managers comments vs the number of reports they were involved in?
Indeed this is not meant as only way.
If needed, teams will still disband completely from the game.
And as said above, I don`t think it is necessarily commenting in goal races only, which would make stage win goals difficult indeed, but more a general reduction based on activity, but not from the regular budget, but only from the goal based additions, making inactive successful teams getting less money.
This would also allow phases of less activity as I don`t want to punish anyone having a real life outside the ManGame, e.g. holidays, travel, family, jobs, university etc. It will be more on a full season check.
Regarding your mid part, I think this addition might indeed only hit a very few managers, but this is already a good beginning I guess to not "reward" those with extra money.
I'm obviously open to implementing that kind of budget policy in any way that the game organizers see fit and seems the most productive/fair. My point in using goal races was only to make the information easier to find and count, there's no reason is has to be limited to them.
Another idea - definitely more of a big change/controversial type thing - goes back to the inflation debate. Some users were mentioning in the ICL changes thread that higher difficulties in PCM yield not just higher stats, but higher stat differences between riders, since they're processed by a multiplier. I'm not entirely sure how that works, so I'm not assuming anything. Someone correct me if I'm wrong.
However, if riders being too similar is an issue, which I believe it is in the MG DB, why not report races on hard or extreme in order to make those differences a bit more meaningful? It would naturally spread out the leader distribution slightly more without any changes to the actual DB. If 85 is the cap and that is part of the problem with raising difficulty, we could lower all stats by 3-5 or something to give room for the top guys to not get limited. That would spread the matrix out more in race without requiring any intensive DB work. Not sure if it would be a meaningful difference though, so others could have more guidance on that.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
(Was not trying to say it was unfair or whatever) But one/two TTT's changing to ITT and maybe a ITT classic would indeed make it more balanced.
But I think that might well just lead to even less motivation for the respective manager, like bbl said. 
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