I just can't see how lowering riders that are not used, will help the spread at top level or the general situation of stacked fields. If no manager cared to pick them up last season it is most likely because they are worthless.
If you did it to riders from abandon teams on the other hand it would help in the long run, but lowering FA is rather bad if you want new managers to come to MG - hard enough to make it to the top as it is. Not a single manager starting the last 6 years, are in PT now. (one abandon).
I agree this randomness should not be added. MG is all about knowing the exact numbers 10 years in advance.
Furthermore, I do fear this will make worse instead of better. Top riders declining less fast means even more subtop riders, which is pretty much the current problem.
I just can't see how lowering riders that are not used, will help the spread at top level or the general situation of stacked fields. If no manager cared to pick them up last season it is most likely because they are worthless.
If you did it to riders from abandon teams on the other hand it would help in the long run, but lowering FA is rather bad if you want new managers to come to MG - hard enough to make it to the top as it is. Not a single manager starting the last 6 years, are in PT now. (one abandon).
A lot of managers sacked 78-80SPR sprinters because their wage was too high, only to pick them up at 50-60K. If there wasn’t anyone to pick up, or only few, the wage would represent the actual worth of these riders. And if not, they would be removed.
I would personally give -5SPR to all non maxed FA riders that are currently in the DB. That is an easy solution, and then we could give -1/2 SPR to everyone else that ends up in the FA pool, meaning they can still work as leadouts, but probably not as lead sprinters anymore.
I just can't see how lowering riders that are not used, will help the spread at top level or the general situation of stacked fields.
I think that gets to the point of what SotD wrote: What is the problem we're trying to solve? Do we want fewer riders with 83 or more in their main stat? Then no, my suggestion won't help with that. But is that really the issue? I feel like those riders for the most part perform as they should, and their strength is balanced by race days and wages.
bbl mentioned the problem of too many riders, especially too many cheap riders from free agency, in the 76-79 range. Why is that an issue? Perhaps because riders in the 78-81 range who are supposed to be leaders, especially in CT and PCT, don't stand out enough from the big pack of domestiques and superdomestiques to perform accordingly. Also, riders in the 73-75 range aren't as viable as they maybe should be (although that is subjective, I guess).
That is what I was trying to get at with my "solution". I don't mean riders who were free agents last year, by the way, but riders who are free agents after renewals. So not completely worthless riders but those where the manager wasn't happy with the price/value relation in renewals. It's fair to examine if that hurts FA and gives a disproportionate advantage to established managers. But again, you could couple that with increased wage demands, so that PT teams couldn't keep their squads together the way they are.
This would reduce their strength while bringing the overall level of the database down, but it gives managers more flexibility with regards to roster construction (i.e., with selective protection from decreases, if you have one major leader, it's easy to simply protect him, whereas you're more hurt if you have more depth. With my method, in theory I think you could taylor the decreases more to your team structure. Although I have to admit, this is all in theory, so I might also be wrong about that. In the end, I will trust yours and others' longer experiences).
Also, remember that even if the level of riders available in FA goes down, their value does not necessarily diminish if we actually want weaker riders to be more useful. We could also increase CT/PCT transfer budgets. But again, it's probably important to distinguish between problems, and promotion being too tough for newer teams might need a different solution.
In the end, nothing gets done. We've talked about this stuff on and on for years, and nothing has ever changed. Nobody can agree because no solution is perfectly fair to everyone or can satisfy everybody's desires for improving/preserving the game. It's all a waste of time and energy.
Agree with a lot of what you say. But after years of advocating you got your new fighter path last year. So things can change on a more modest basis. I think that example is a model for changes that are realistic.
1. Incremental - radical changes are just too likely to be controversial or risky
2. Balanced - avoid impacting different teams differently while recognizing no change can be completely fair.
3. Clearly defined - specifics make for a more actionable outcome.
4. Limited in scope - fix one thing at a time.
So while I may agree some more radical surgery on tthe DB would be nice I don't think it is realistic.
So I am going to narrow back down to my favorite topics - sprinters and make a specific proposal there. I think if we can find something that works for sprinters then it could be expanded to other rider types in the future. But right now sprinters are the biggest issue.
So my suggestion is a refinement of what Roturn suggested like 3 pages ago. It would apply only to free agents:
if Current Speed Is
SP + ACC reduced
84
No Change
83
No Change
82
No Change
81
Reduce randomly from 0 to 2
80
Reduce randomly from 1 to 3
79
Reduce randomly from 1 to 3
78
Reduce randomly from 1 to 2
77
Reduce randomly from 1 to 2
76
Reduce randomly from 0 to 2
75-
No Change
Like many of the ideas here, I like this, and unlike many of the others, it basically hurts no current managers. The surprising thing is that we have done this or something like this with FA's several seasons ago.
baseballlover312 wrote:
The main issue are in the 76-79 range imo, at least on most terrains. Almost all maxed domestiques come from this range, regardless of division. Every team can get a 50k domestique in this range (except cobbles) without any issue. This is worst at CT, where the difference between leaders and domestiques is especially small, but it is the case at every division. After the leaders, there isn't actually much of a difference between teams with lots of depth and teams without it, because there's a essentially a stat floor right now because of the oversupply in the DB.
a) That is just not true. Across all divisions, there are 149 maxed riders with a mountain stat of 76-79 (and a hill stat of at best 76, to exclude Beltran type of guys). Just 39 of them make at most 55k. That's not even enough for one per PT and PCT team.
To my count here are currently 44 non-sprinters who have a 76+ main stat in FA right now. If you include sprinters, it's 116. Are all of these guys worth a 50k spot? Apparently not. People choose to get more versatile guys or talents instead a lot of the time. Not everybody wants a cheap pure mountain/hill/TT/sprint domestique. These guys are often less well rounded or have worse backups (though certainly not all of them, there are 18 over 74 OVL alone, and plenty with some versatility). But regardless, I stand by my claim that any team can pick riders like this up, and many do year to year. And on any given day, on their preferred terrain, PCM can make that rider score better than a lot of riders who make a lot more than them because the main stat distributions are so truncated. And this is especially true in depth positions, where PCM has a lot of randomness based on positioning.
I don't think this DB can really be healthy when there are any 76+ guys left in Free Agency each season, unless those guys have Bakari/Bos level backups. Until CT teams can have a one terrain 73-74 main stat domestique again (I say again, because we have forgotten that this was viable as recently as 2015-2016), inflation as I perceive it will continue to worsen our experiences. But that's just my perspective, and I realize I may be magnifying what may actually be a very small issue through my own experiences.
cunego59 wrote:
b) I still feel like the best way to approach this issue is through Free Agent reductions. You said it yourself, it might be too easy to pick these guys up - well, it won't be anymore if you reduce riders out of contract pre free agency. In my opinion, this is still the easiest way for managers to protect their riders. Maybe you can force their hand a bit by slightly increasing wage demands, but I'm not sure that's even necessary.
If you excluded riders from folding teams (which I would, as I've said before), these are the riders who were available in FA who had previously been under contract (if a rider hits multiple 75 stats, he's only included for the higher one):
82
81
80
79
78
77
76
75
Mountain
3
0
9
9
12
7
Hill
3
1
2
9
12
13
TT
1
2
5
3
11
Cobbles
2
0
1
6
1
10
Sprint
3
2
4
18
15
17
-
-
This process might be a bit slower than others, but I think it's the best way to tackle inflation in the tier 3-5 range, while leaving managers the options to protect their riders. And this way, it doesn't even matter if you have one or four top leaders, or if your leaders are 26 or 30. We all have the same money available that we can spend on who we want to keep that way.
Perfectly fine with this arrangement. Adjusting FA's only still widens the gaps at the bottom and makes the markets work better each year. Especially for sprinters, who as you note are way, way worse with inflation than any other terrain. This is also repeatable each year, so we can control how it's shaped over time.
I wasn't trying to demand more dramatic change earlier, though I now see how that would come across. I was merely frustrated that we haven't done anything despite ideas like this having been on the table for 3-4 years. If reducing FA's is the solution we can all agree on, then we should hammer out the details and commit to it as soon as possible, instead of letting discussion fizzle out and kicking the can down the road.
As I said, I'm with the MG, ride or die. While I'd favor slightly more impactful methods, I'm completely happy with that solution if we can actually get it done.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
- Reducing the FA only hurts promoted teams the most as they need to sign 1-2 leaders the most.
Not saying this is not the way to go but just a point to consider.
- Random reduction isn`t fair as in theory one team could go out with 5x -1 while another could be with 5x -3 in extreme cases. Would change too much on a luck only principle.
- Tamijo`s idea is interesting as it opens up a lot of new tactics plus changing the full picture. Yes 76-81 riders might be hit the strongest as better leaders are often protected, but this is actually good for the overall I`d say as this means, some teams might save a 81 sprinter and get rewarded for it while many 78-80 sprinters will go down in stats. The stats become more dynamic this way without much changes that can lead to interesting ways people start to take.
At the same time you can`t protect your leader every season, so also the best will reduce from 29 to 32 already but at the same time it allows you to keep the rider on a higher level up to retirement instead of a late career 74 Cunego with shit backup stats, which still get`s a contract.
Obviously still to be considered if 29 is good age or better 30 and other stuff. But it might help to expand the top level to 2nd tier a bit more, while the 2nd tier riders won`t really lose their order spot really, e.g. the 15th best might still be around 15th best post new decline, but it`s then with a -1 in comparison to the top10. And if protecting such rider, he could still be around 15th best but with a +1 to some others. So it`s small changes but as said, a more dynamic system similar to training, which also mixes the top riders a bit, in especially around that 2nd tier.
In especially for support riders it could be a good way to reduce the amount of basically leaders in PCM eyes which in MG eyes are support only. Which goes for most 77-79 sprinters or lots of 77-78 climbers.
My suggestion would only apply to FA, agree with no random adjustments to contracted riders but don't see the harm in it for FA, especially if it a fix rather than a permanent feature. It just makes creating a spread much easier.
Reducing FA's hurts promoting teams more in a tight FA market but not doing it hurts established team in a big FA market. So there has to be a balance. One of my reasons for starting with sprinters is that limits the impact in the FA market. And since sprinters aren't that different between divisions a promoted team could just keep their sprinter and probably be at least competitive.
I see benefit in both Cunego and Tamijo's idea. Except I don't love the lower limit for CT riders protection in Tamijo's. Yes CT teams have less riders but they have similar numbers of terrain leaders and similar devotion from a role play perspective. And it adds one more whammy on getting demoted from PCT to CT that it could totally mess up your protection plan. Also, with the PT loan rule CT teams I think might tend to have delayed development so then immediately having the rider start decline at 29 would suck. So I would vote 2 protections for all divisions and start the negative at 30.
I think it's entirely fair to get bad rolls. I would be all for game wide random dinking system. starting with potential lowering to already a chance for decline for freshly maxed riders. Anything else I don't care, I vote yes on everything, but I would advocate for more dynamic declining system, would make the only thing anyone cares about (transfers) more fun.
About the sprinters again: of the 49 riders with 80SPR or higher, 26 are 31 years old or older, so there's definitely some decline coming up. On the other hand there's only a few talents actually making it to 80 SPR.
So the declining is going well in my opinion. As I said earlier, natural age decline will make the top more competitive so we should see less randomness. You can add some mauel declining of free agents if you have to, but I don't really see a reason to make riders under contract decline additionaly.
But I also feel like we're not adding enough good talents. Philipsen is the only really good upcoming sprinter, but there needs to be more. I get that we stopped adding great talents a few years ago to fight this exact problem, but now we just moved the problem to the 77-79 category. We need to keep adding riders that will reach 81-82 on their main stats to keep a big enough difference between the best riders and the good riders.
Basicly we should trust the process we started a few years ago to have too many top riders. We have stopped the worst, but moved the problem to the 77-79 category. Now we need to fix that by keeping the new riders very varied. The good riders need to be good and the obscure riders shouldn't reach 77 anymore.
Just out of interest I did a quick check on the average potential for riders for some years, For 21 and 22 year olds in the game it is 4.5 or so but 23 to 25 year olds it is closer to 3.9 even down to 3.7 for 25 year olds.
Seems the inflation issue will only get worse based on that alone? It does seem to go back up to 4 or so as you get up to 28/29
There are so few 1/2 pot. riders maybe we should move to a system with 5 potentials. I know the game has 7 but there's no particular reason to stick to that
Having had a look back over the discussions about stat inflation recently, I thought I’d bring another proposal to the table. As a starting point I referred to Ulrich’s principles, which I think are along the right lines:
1. Incremental - radical changes are just too likely to be controversial or risky
2. Balanced - avoid impacting different teams differently while recognizing no change can be completely fair.
3. Clearly defined - specifics make for a more actionable outcome.
4. Limited in scope - fix one thing at a time.
I also think that with regards to inflation, we’re trying to solve three different problems, all of which require different solutions:
1. Contracted riders – need a balanced reduction, maintaining manager choice and adding a strategic element
2. Free agents – need to be heavily reduced, but equally need not to undermine the chances of promoting teams
3. New additions – need to be handled in a managed and defined way, adding a mixture of both useful talents (in terms of strength and regional focuses) and FA contributors
So with that in mind, I thought I would have a go at proposing a three stage approach to dealing with stat inflation. My proposed approach for contracted riders is below and intended as a starting point for discussion. It would need more detail to be added before being ready to be adopted, but I hope that it provides useful ideas! I’ll add suggestions for free agents and new additions later, once I’ve had chance to write them up in more detail.
Contracted riders
The challenge with reductions for riders already on teams is ensuring that no managers are particularly disadvantaged, and that we don’t simply seek to solve the stat clustering problem by moving it down a few stats (e.g. from 80 SP to 77 SP). That rules out both a mass reduction by the same amount, and random reductions. But doing nothing isn’t a feasible long-term approach, so what should we do instead?
I was slightly bored and started playing about with formulas and think I may have an idea. The approach I’d suggest is as follows:
- Work out the total combined MO, HIL, TT, COB and SP stats of own riders (including loan-outs, excluding loan-ins) for the team
- Subtract 250 * the number of riders on the team from the above figure. This represents the true stat difference from the base stats (all 50) for each team.
- Divide the second figure by 100 to calculate what a 1% reduction (rounded to the nearest whole number) would represent
- Calculate the proportion of stats (from the 5 main stats) between 80-85, 75-79, 70-74 and 50-69 for the team, and multiply by the reduction number to get the initial number of stats to decrease in each band
- Redistribute the 50-69 number (as no point reducing those stats) proportionately between the other three bands, to get the secondary number of stats to decrease
- Add the two figures together to get an overall reduction number in each band
I’m aware that may seem overly complicated to follow, so a worked example using my team:
Therefore for Farfetch, the requirement would be a reduction of 2 stats above 80, 5 stats between 75 and 79, and 11 stats between 70 and 74. That would for example look like:
- Paillot from 80 TT to 79, Meintjes from 80 MO to 79
- Meintjes from 78 HIL to 77, Yates from 76 HIL to 75, Cort Nielsen from 78 MO to 77, Bettiol from 77 HIL to 76, Kamberaj from 79 SP to 78
- Paillot from 71 HIL to 70, and from 70 MO to 69, Meintjes from 71 TT to 70, Yates from 71 TT to 70, Cort Nielsen from 74 HIL to 73, and from 72 TT to 71, Bettiol from 71 SP to 70, and from 71 MO to 70, Guerreiro from 72 SP to 71, Turgis from 70 SP to 69, Salzmann from 71 HIL to 70
Note in my example I’ve only applied decreases to maxed riders, not to unmaxed riders – that would be possible, just not something I’d choose to do based on my team construction! I’ve also presumed a maximum of one decrease in each stat for illustration purposes. That would be up for discussion, as would the example of decreases across bands (e.g Paillot from 80 to 79 then 79 to 78 could be counted as either the 2 for 80-85, or 1 for 80-85 and 1 for 75-79). There’s also the questions of whether the reduction aim of 1% is right, or whether it should be higher or lower, and whether the bands as currently proposed are right.
I would suggest that this process would be taken at the end of the season, after stat gains/decreases but before renewals. That way it would add an interesting strategic dimension, as cutting a rider’s stats could make them more renewable or would be an easy choice for those already marked for release heading into renewals. It may also change the approach to team building a little – riders with multiple stats between 70 and 74 (or indeed talents) are likely to be more attractive than one trick ponies with 75-79 in their main stat and little else as they would focus the declines in that 70-74 band, but at the cost of potentially significant point scoring potential.
Having briefly modelled this for a few other teams the reduction amounts are relatively similar regardless of team strength, therefore not being overly punitive or generous to any team while also getting a consistent level of deflation across the DB. The use of bands also ensures that it takes into account the different stat profiles of teams in different divisions, for example concentrating the declines in 75-79 and 70-74 for CT teams rather than treating them the same as PT teams.
Agree sprints need more but think JPH is trying to address broader stat inflation more along the lines of Tamijo's idea. JPH's part 2 is more radical free agent reductions which could address sprints.
I was putting off doing some work so thought I would test this for McCormick. Created a little spreadsheet which I have posted below. Copy your team stats in the top and the required reductions spit out at the bottom. JPH would have to weigh in if it captures his idea correctly and can't guarantee all the math is right but I think it is.
My first reaction was you have to exclude Stagaires because they kill you by adding lots of stat volume from 50-69. Nobody would ever sign a Stagaire again. So I assumed they were out. Not sure about CT free riders but assumed they were in. Even with the Stagaire fix I am not sure about calculating the penalty on 50+ but applying it to 70+. I think that penalizes weaker teams with high 65-69 volume. Maybe a higher % of 70+
I think you would have to limit the per stat impact otherwise I could fulfill most of mine by reducing my CT Draft rider Tivani from 77 to 70 sprint. 1 per rider would pretty much forces me to hit every rider as I don't have that many with stats over 70 so don't like that. Plus we want to create gaps, so more reductions in less riders makes sense as it spreads the values. I could see a limit of 3 or 4 per rider.
I am assuming this would be an annual event like Tamijo's to keep the DB balanced. I like the fact it tries to reduce stats in proportion to where they are versus something cruder.
McCormick Outcome (Excludes Stagaires)
Spoiler
80+ Have 1, Reduce 0 (rounds just in our favor)
75-79: Have 6 reduce 3
70-74: Have 16 reduce 8
Assuming a limit of 2 per rider
Tivani SP 77 to 76
Tivani SP 76 to 75
Rhiim MT 75 to 74
Revard MT 74 to 73
Rathe SP 74 to 73
Rathe SP 73 to 72
Boswell MT 71 to 70
Seigle MT 70 to 69
Seigle HI 75 to 74
Hoehn MT 73 to 72
Granigan SP 73 to 72
I think my example raises one concern I have which is a lot of reduction is on relatively unimportant stats like Rathe's SP. Which just makes him a little more one dimensional which isn't desirable in the big picture. I wonder about putting the floor at 74 rather than 70.
Well only fair to put it to the test before making comment, so i've also run T3A through UU's Excel of Jph's idea. Assuming reductions have to be made on those same 5 "key" stats, and we can debate later how PRL & RES/FL come into things. I'm also working on UU's same concept to limit reductions to 2 per rider (I figured it all out for 1 per rider, but it was not making enough difference to the DB as you could easily stack irrelevant declines across your team on areas that don't impact the overal distributions or AI. All it did was take ages to make sure i was only doing 1 per rider, and i think some weak teams and the CT would struggle to reach their targets, for example i was declining Stagieres secondary skills and i doubt anyone thinks that is the inflation problem);
I found it useful to look at the three scenarios. I think un-maxed and stagieres can heavily scew the results. The 70-74 variations are rather significant for this case of a low-level talent focused squad.
Initially i feel comparitively punished for putting an emphasis in the previous off-season on finding, statting, and recommending a lower ceiling but wider based of Caribbean talent. In scenario 1 I beleive it's only Cristian Perez that avoids a decline of the riders with eligible stats.
In scenario 2 this is lessened, but only by sacrificing actually decent talents in Welten & Dekker to protect my RP focus.
In scenario 3 my entire core of regional talents come out free and safe by focusing on minor declines to my top riders, in stats that won't make a difference.
Actually i'm reasonably happy with the higher level cuts. Gived sprint AI is busted (out much much bigger need to get fixed btw) perhaps this drop to 82 might make him better. Then i can stack the other declines onto riders i don't care about and would just cut. Especially, as again, sprint AI is busted and i have protected riders to compensate.
And as these 75+ cuts are mostly unaffected by including/excluding Stagieres & Unmaxed riders i'd be interested to see more teams run through this.
However my overall concerns are thus:
1) This just feels like squeezing down on the top, whilst holding the floor in place. Which doesn't fix inflation, just moves the issue down one or two stat points.
2) It encourages a futher push towards one-dimensional riders, taking cuts to secondary main skills to preserve the best possible scoring potentials.
However the rate of stat gains from my unmaxed riders massively outweighs the declines, maintaing overall DB inflation rates, and still very much in the 76-79 range which is where this hits the most.
Possibly T3A isn't the best example to run seeing as my team is massively based on these talents, so would be good to see someone run it through a few years on their own.
PCM 2022's new features just released on the Steam page. Looks like we will now be able to adjust the amplitude of Daily Form to decrease its effects, like crash frequency. Potentially huge for our purposes I think, given the current PCM engine. Reducing it to +/- 2 or +/- 3 could really help get more consistent results. I still think there'd be plenty of variation in results given how close most fields are.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
PCM 2022's new features just released on the Steam page. Looks like we will now be able to adjust the amplitude of Daily Form to decrease its effects, like crash frequency. Potentially huge for our purposes I think, given the current PCM engine. Reducing it to +/- 2 or +/- 3 could really help get more consistent results. I still think there'd be plenty of variation in results given how close most fields are.
My eyes went straight to Resistance being more important, so that’ll be a yes from me and I presume I can also speak on behalf of jph and say from him too?
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