As TMM noted in the new rider suggestions thread, as part of the process of updating the DB for 2022 we've been looking at what we can do to tackle stat inflation.
Our efforts in previous seasons have made things more manageable, but there remains a question as to if there is more we can do to improve the balance of the DB (and hopefully the AI by extension).
For context, here are the stat distributions above 75 in main stats (using best guesses for rider development) as of now (shown as 2022), as projected for 2025 (with current FAs removed), and in the Daily DB. The latter is used to illustrate a "regular" stat distribution for a PCM DB.
While we have done well to tackle inflation at the higher reaches of the DB, there still remains a significant challenge in the 75-80 range, particularly for sprinters. Previous discussions have revolved around three potential approaches to solve this.
1. Full reset
The most extreme option would be to effectively start afresh with a brand new Man-Game DB, with all teams being reset. This would be the most effective method to get a balanced DB, but would likely be the least popular - the entire history of the Man-Game would be wiped away, and some managers would suffer more than others from such a drastic rebalancing.
2. Equal declines
An alternative could come in the form of mass declines targeted at certain stats, for example -3 SP to all riders, or even -2 in all stats for all riders. This would have the benefit of having an equal impact on every team, but would simply shift the distribution of the inflation further down the stat matrix. As a result, it is questionable whether it would have the desired AI effect - and it presumes that PCM is based on equal gaps between stats (e.g. 85 to 83 is an equal effect in performance terms as 77 to 75).
3. Contextualised declines
This method would seek to bring about declines based on different factors - previous discussions on this have been based on stat distributions on teams, which is likely to be the most balanced and practical method. However, there remains a challenge in how such a system would be designed, as well as a discussion about the complexity it may entail and which riders it should apply to (e.g. just maxed, or unmaxed as well).
Based on discussions so far option 3 is the preferred method of TMM and I to develop further. The original methodology is shared in the spoiler, and can be worked through by any manager - though I will try to create a master sheet when I get chance. We welcome feedback on what does and doesn't work and the unintended consequences (e.g. for teams with lots of talents, or those unable to make choices about who to decline due to their stat distributions). Equally, do tell us if you think this wouldn't be worth doing at all, or if another approach is better!
Spoiler
- 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
In addition to this proposed approach for declines for non-FAs, we have a proposal for FAs:
FA pool reset
This would be a big step, but one that would immediately improve the balance of the DB noticeably. The FA pool would be completely refreshed, with the riders added or edited being mainly talents and domestiques (riders with 70-74 in at least two main stats). We would of course still have some riders ready to contribute so as not to make new teams completely reliant on riders released in renewals, but a much decreased number, likely to be more well rounded riders than the current FAs.
In practical terms, this would mean a significant reduction in the number of FAs - and a significant amount of work for me - which would hopefully tackle the oversupply of 75+ main stat riders, particularly sprinters. It may also be worth considering the removal/editing of post-disbandment/renewals FAs on an annual basis, be it before or after transfers.
That's the end of inflation discussion opening post, do share thoughts - it's important we find a solution that works for everyone, so tell me I'm wrong if you think it's needed!
This was the original discussion of JPHs tailored declines idea, commented upon by Ulrich and myself - including run throughts and opinions. Suggest to give it a quick read, rather than having copy/paste it all back into here.
It's not perfect, but with some further input from other managers and some adjustment it seems like out best and fairest bet at a serious way to tackle inflation.
Being unique for each team goes a long way to easing my concerns about fairness, and if set at the right level can make an notable impact on stat distributions immediately - or set at a lower level to run over two/three seasons to allow us to get it best balanced with other game changes
_________
Some level of an FA Pool adjusment will happen naturally anyway, with some older riders going out and new ones coming in. This is about a deeper look to try and get to the core of our inflation issues - but also to create a DB we can far more easily manage and adjust in future seasons.
I think it's probably also worth saying that certainly this season a good portion of riders from disbanded teams & those not renewed would go untouched - to ensure there is some room for promoting teams to gain reasonable talent, and allow teams to change up their focuses/replace aging leaders.
To go along with this change to the FA Pool it could/should be thought about how well wages are working and if we need to think about some other structural changes to ensure the MG's long term stability.
Inflation is, unfortunately, rather woven into various aspects of the game so we kind of need to keep making other scale changes as well.
_______
Anway, very much want input on these so JPH (and myself, if jph trusts me enough ) can have as much time as possible to do the relevant DB work.
TMM's link above includes a worksheet for those who want to play with their team using JPH's math.
I generally like the approach a lot but have some suggested tweaks:
1. I am not sure about calculating the reduction needed on all stats over 50 but apply it to over 70. This effectively punishes teams with more weaker riders as it generates reductions that have to be applied to their smaller supply of stronger riders. I think you could round all stats up to 70 and then subtract 350 and do 2% or 3%. Then distribute that across 70 over, rather than reallocating 50-69 reductions. Or even limit it to 75 above since that is where the problem really is. I think this also removes the need to exclude certain riders, except maybe Stagiaires.
2. There is some concern the reductions would be sucked up by stats secondary to the rider type, like SP for Cobblers which would make riders more one-dimensional but not fix inflation.
3. I think a solution to #2 and an improvement generally might be to require reductions be applied to a min of say 2 riders and a max of 4 riders (or something like that). The goal would be to more significantly reduce a smaller number of riders rather than spread the reductions over many which could turn out to look just like a -1 one everyone.
I think the key on the FA pool is figuring out how to calibrate it to the number of teams. While it isn't fair to new and promoting teams to have no decent FAs, having too many punishes established teams particularly at the PCT and CT level. I think the consensus was the FA market was too rich this year, so maybe calibrating to the 2020 DB when there were more teams would make sense. So figure out:
Number of riders 72+ OVL in 2020/2020 number of rider slots
And then take current year teams, turn it into rider slots (assuming 15/20/20 or something like that) and that tells you what you need to do to the FA market.
I know a lot of thinking has gone into the things discussed above and with all due respect to everyone involved, I cannot support this random decrease planned to certain types of riders which disproportionately affects different managers differently.
For example, I have spent 4 long seasons maxing Minali, loaning him out, spending time finding teams to take him and it wasn't easy at all. Why? Because he's not the best rider and will never be but I'm looking forward to finding his niche and putting him in those positions possibly. He might fail miserably but I want to try. I did it with Boev and can do it again. If suddenly he becomes 76 sprint, that's a whole lot of wasted time and energy over a suddenly useless rider. Ans if something like that happens to Inkelaar or Eenkhoorn, might as well pack up the program. That is perhaps a bigger reason to quit than this overbearing whining about bad AI! You know how the game works by now, embrace it, adapt to it and deal with it. Imagine if I started to whine about bad AI with Kelderman, because it happens EVERY DAMN TIME! I have called out my own mistake in how made a mess of it again. It's a sport and if everything was so predictable might as well only do transfer windows!
Also here's a thought, stop adding 500 new riders every season. There's 4000 riders in the DB already. Limit the training possibilities for teams further. Maybe then the best riders will be sold less and find themselves in the lower divisions. Because all I see recently is higher division managers taking up pet projects on huge wages and selling riders who have no business being in PCT and/or CT. That's two straight up good ways to stop the inflation. Yes I know you'll say that's micromanaging how managers want to operate but changing stats of riders suddenly is too.
Just a short reminder why this comparison of stats doesn't help us really:
1. MG uses a matrix until 85, while daily deliberately does not use it (mostly to ensure that riders can develop further individually in career mode). So if you want to compare both, you have to go with 85 in MG compared to 83 on daily and downwards.
2. Irl we currently have 19 PT teams and 15 (running) PCT teams while the others are CT. However, with our current wage caps, CT teams would be at least PCT teams url even after stay adjustment (-2). We thus have sth like 60 teams competing for a pool of riders that usually 35 teams are competing for. PT team sizes are larger irl of course, but irl teams also sign a lot more "useless" riders than a MG team would do.
So if we'd want a competition and db distribution like irl, by adjusting stats we'd need to (at least) double the wage cap difference between PT and CT.
As a first short conclusion I'd say that adjusting stats to model by the daily db only makes sense if we want to commit to a "rl" distribution of riders and stats throughout the divisions. I do not think that this is the path most of the managers would prefer to walk, but I'm happy to be surprised.
Instead, your analysis actually further strengthened the position that we're on the right track with what we did with rider additions in the past. Also the additions of MAL and Herklotz kinda commited us to having to sustain an influx of top end competitive talent, as both are dominant already at the beginnings of their career with no challengers in sight. Thinning out the mid-level stats especially in the sprint department is the most important (if any) challenge to the stat model, and looking at projected declines I think we're adjusting well.
Given the number of teams getting lower and lower, I think the roster pool needs to be trickled down to be in line with the number of available roster spots. I'd personally remove the free rider CT draft in this case, which IMO contributes to the inflation.
Have it ever been tested whether suggestion 2 actually makes a difference? I mean we have talked about these things for 5 years or so - but it all seems like 50 different people guessing as to what is the better solution.
I know it's a big ask to put some manager into controlling what would actually happen in 10 different races if all riders had -2, but isn't it the only viable option to actually make the decision needed?
Also I think the democratic anarchy of the game is becoming it's downfall. Make some taskforces and trust them to come up with the best possible solution for the game, so we don't have to agree and vote on everything. It always ends up with disagreements and in the end nothing happens. Sometimes we just need for someone to make a decision, and then live with the result. If it was a bad call, well so be it. It was made in the best intention. And it's not like the democratic anarchist model has come up with a perfect way of handling the game.
We are taking a PC game out of it's water, and tweaking it to behave like we want to. That cannot be done. It requires coding and testing - so we have to accept that it isn't going to be perfect. Ever. If a task force have come up with 5 different solutions to a problem, they can either test them, test the easiest ones or simply going for the solution they think offer the best outcome. There's not point in all of us discussing it over and over and over again.
I fully trust everyone of you to want the best for the game, and if someone is willing to offer their time to enhance the game and make for some difficult decisionmaking, then I'm all behind you all the way. Even if it should come with some flaws and topics for discussion/change. The amount of all talk, no walk is a primary reason for my decrease of motivation within the game, and I know I'm no better - but I think the solution for the game, isn't as much about specific elements that need discussed and maybe altered, but for a few to actually be responsible for making the changes they think are needed.
Thanks a lot for your efforts this far - Please do carry it through, and don't ask for everyones oppinion before making a decision.
Sometimes we just need for someone to make a decision, and then live with the result. If it was a bad call, well so be it. It was made in the best intention. And it's not like the democratic anarchist model has come up with a perfect way of handling the game.
Like when we switched to pcm20 and people complained and are still complaining? Like when a stagemaker spent time and effort to make a stage and it had a minor flaw and people complained? Like when a reporter failed to notice one narrow road and people complained? Like when the favourite doesn't win evey single time and people complain?
This is exactly what I was talking about, deal with it. It's a game.
Sorry to single out your comment, but it was relevant and that's exactly what I have been calling for.
And just to understand the suggestion (It sounds, find to me - In the task force you might want to consider the different approaches some managers would go for to tweak/cheat the system. I can come up with a couple from the top of my head. eg. tweaking riders you already consider selling, riders almost at decline age etc.), I have tried to do it with the team I could have next season if I had decided it should stay in the game.
#1 Douchebag method (intent to sell):
Bryan Coquard -3SPR (3 80-85)
David de La Cruz -2 MO (2 74-79)
Gyung Gu Jang -2MO, -2HI (4 74-79)
Gyung Gu Jang -4MO, -3HI (7 70-74)
#2 Oldies method:
Panagiotis Vlatos -1TT (1 80-85)
Clement Koretzky -1HI (1 80-85)
Bryan Coquard -1SPR (1 80-85)
David de la Cruz -2 MO (2 75-79)
Georgios Karatzios -2COB (2 75-79)
Charalampas Kastrantas -1HI (1 75-79)
Gyung Gu Jang -1MO (1 75-79)
Charalampas Kastrantas -3MO, -4HI (7 69-74)
I can see a couple of other methods that could potentially take advantage of the system. But like said - I hope you follow through and make a small group where the decisions are made, and then don't listen to too much fuzz from everyone once the decision is made.
Sometimes we just need for someone to make a decision, and then live with the result. If it was a bad call, well so be it. It was made in the best intention. And it's not like the democratic anarchist model has come up with a perfect way of handling the game.
Like when we switched to pcm20 and people complained and are still complaining? Like when a stagemaker spent time and effort to make a stage and it had a minor flaw and people complained? Like when a reporter failed to notice one narrow road and people complained? Like when the favourite doesn't win evey single time and people complain?
This is exactly what I was talking about, deal with it. It's a game.
Sorry to single out your comment, but it was relevant and that's exactly what I have been calling for.
Exactly yes. If someone would have made the call, the discussion about which version we were to use hadn't been a recurring discussion. The main issue is that we had to make the decision in plenum, and thus makes it very easy for those opposing the decision to come back with "I told you"...
Like I said in my post, I have not been an angel by any means, but I do believe the way to go is to have a few making the calls rather than trying to agree, which we obviously won't be able to.
We can never get rid of people commenting or moaning, it's human nature. And even if we should try to become better, we also have to accept that people react out on their emotions.
It's absolutely fair to want some changes, but those suggestions should be handled by a small group of people and not in plenum.
Edited by SotD on 29-04-2022 08:51
redordead wrote:
FA pool can and should be reworked. Also how about stop adding way too many new riders each season. Doing that alone will help the inflation problem.
AbhishekLFC wrote:
Also here's a thought, stop adding 500 new riders every season. There's 4000 riders in the DB already.
ivaneurope wrote:
Given the number of teams getting lower and lower, I think the roster pool needs to be trickled down to be in line with the number of available roster spots. I'd personally remove the free rider CT draft in this case, which IMO contributes to the inflation.
This is why we want to re-set the FA Pool. Cut it down to better suit the MG, which will help give us a far more managable DB for future seasons whilst tackling some of the lower end stat inflation.
We need about 1500 riders to fill the current teams - it can be debated how large the FA pool needs to be - but we can definitely shrink from ~4000/4500 down to 2500/3000. Doing a re-set allows us room to do this, and ensure it suits the game we want in terms of Nationalities and Skills.
1. MG uses a matrix until 85, while daily deliberately does not use it (mostly to ensure that riders can develop further individually in career mode). So if you want to compare both, you have to go with 85 in MG compared to 83 on daily and downwards.
Except with additions, the general MG philosophy is to only add riders upto about 82/83 - same as the Daily DB - and this has become stricter to 80-82 in the last couple of years. Growth beyond this is from Training. So when looking at the comparision of 22-25-Daily riders, certainly for 2025 riders above this are already trainied as we have no single talent in the Game who will Max at 84/85.
2. Irl we currently have 19 PT teams and 15 (running) PCT teams while the others are CT. However, with our current wage caps, CT teams would be at least PCT teams url even after stay adjustment (-2). We thus have sth like 60 teams competing for a pool of riders that usually 35 teams are competing for. PT team sizes are larger irl of course, but irl teams also sign a lot more "useless" riders than a MG team would do.
We are aware of this factor. A rough calculation is that we need 1500 riders to be able to fill the teams.
For 2022 we have 1332 riders at 75+, which for a competitive balance you could view as correct. However if you break it down - all 60 teams can have a 79MO, 78HL, 78TT, 77CB, 79SP or above rider. Which is where the AI goes a bit screwey as so many similar riders are turning up to so many similar races, and PCM likes bigger stratification.
It's actually very easy for us to create a competitive balance with less riders and less good riders. It would work 100% to help prevent the MAL's and Herklotz's becoming overpowered.
Race Days & Wages!
A more logarithmic calculation on these to create bigger gaps at higher stat levels. You want a wrecking ball rider like MAL/Herklotz/Evenpoel/Pogacar/Whoever thats fine, it should just cost you a sh*t ton and they cannot race a lot. Some tweaking over a few years and we can get a great balance between superstar led teams and depth led teams where both can win the relevant titles.
Finally you are correct and we have made some very good and clear progress on getting a handle on inflation at the top end. By getting those 80+'s down in quantity we can stay ontop of things to maintain a working balance. But once you drop below there it's still quite high, and we know these riders can participate in most races so the inflation related AI issues carry forwards.
SotD wrote:
Have it ever been tested whether suggestion 2 actually makes a difference? I mean we have talked about these things for 5 years or so - but it all seems like 50 different people guessing as to what is the better solution.
I know it's a big ask to put some manager into controlling what would actually happen in 10 different races if all riders had -2, but isn't it the only viable option to actually make the decision needed?
I'm against Flat/Level Stat reductions, like a generic -2
This doesn't do anything against inflation, you're just changing the cap from 85 to 83. Same problems, two floors down.
This is why I sort of support JPH's more tailored concept as this gives some variation in declines so we still have some full strenght riders, some slightly worse, and some worse riders - to try and get us to a better overall distribution that is more suited to PCM AI.
Sometimes we just need for someone to make a decision, and then live with the result. If it was a bad call, well so be it. It was made in the best intention. And it's not like the democratic anarchist model has come up with a perfect way of handling the game.
Like when we switched to pcm20 and people complained and are still complaining? Like when a stagemaker spent time and effort to make a stage and it had a minor flaw and people complained? Like when a reporter failed to notice one narrow road and people complained? Like when the favourite doesn't win evey single time and people complain?
This is exactly what I was talking about, deal with it. It's a game.
Sorry to single out your comment, but it was relevant and that's exactly what I have been calling for.
FA Pool changes, like most additionas and changes, will happen - just this year they'll be bigger. That's going to happen, unless someone makes a point jph or I have not considered. We have thought about Nationality focuses and how to best balance those, and to try and avoid tampering with disbanding riders and non-renewed riders this season to ensure there is some room for teams to make transfers and impactful signings.
Wider inflation changes - as these would be the biggest changes to the MG since the CT was added, they had to be opened up on comment. It's why jph and I came to this thread with a distribution graph and some very specific ideas. This way we can know in a couple of weeks where we stand, then with Roturn and the other major MGUCI people make a clear decision with plenty of time to put it in place.
SotD wrote:
And just to understand the suggestion (It sounds, find to me - In the task force you might want to consider the different approaches some managers would go for to tweak/cheat the system. I can come up with a couple from the top of my head. eg. tweaking riders you already consider selling, riders almost at decline age etc.), I have tried to do it with the team I could have next season if I had decided it should stay in the game.
Thank you! It's very helpful to see other managers run through and what numbers come out in the end.
And yes you're correct, it's not perfect. Your approaches are similar to mine, stack the declines to riders i know that i won't keep and/or are older to protect training and growth potentials.
This is where we need to look at maybe excluding certain riders from the method, Limiting how many times you can lower a rider, Forcing the decline to the highest stat etc - lots still being thought about so it would work as intended.
Am I missing something? The table you posted shows that already 2025 the issue of stat inflation will be reduced by a lot, even in the 75-80 range, just by the change of mind regarding database editing. I don't really see why drastic changes are needed on top of that.
Anyways if stats should be reduced in my opinion a solution can only be one that keeps the relative strength of riders between each other in tact. The presented solution clearly does not do that. Any contracted rider was signed with the current stat distribution in mind and how they fit in there. An uneven reduction will make riders useless from one moment to the next. As teams are not built the same way there are huge differences possible regarding how hard a team is hit. As SotD showed it is possible to shift the reductions to riders that are essentially worthless to the manager in some cases, but not any team can do that in the same way and some managers might be forced to reduce the stats of riders they are planning their future on, which will hit them disproportionate compared to other teams.
If stats should be reduced, maybe a better idea could be to find a desirable distribution and map the current stat distribution to that. Some riders then in a stat might be reduced more then others, but I'm sure when also considering secondary stats a solution can be found to keep the relative strength between different riders.
As I said before, inflation is no longer the problem for me. It's too many similar riders that's the problem. Therefore I don't see reducing contracted riders as an option, because you need guys at 84-85 to have enough diversity. You also need top talents to keep it that way.
What we need to do imo is:
- Add less good FA's, especially from obscure nations just to make their manager happy. These riders should be domestiques at best. If every represented nation gets a 75+ rider, the problem of too many similar riders will stay.
- Lower some free agent without a contract so there's fewer top riders. Combined with the natural declining, this should be enough to solve the problem. As posted in a previous topic: 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.
- Leave contracted riders alone. As SotD explained, the system can be exploited too much. Being forced to reduce an old rider you want to get rid off anyway is not the same as reducing a younger rider you probably want to keep for years. Coquard vs. Gaviria would be a good example there.
- Try out PCM22, which claims to have RES and STA have a bigger impact on the races. Of course it won't solve all our problems, but it could mean stronger riders with have better results in general.
So about the proposed solutions, I think they go too far and will upset some people (definitely including myself) at a point where MG activity is already at an all time low. Touching contracted riders is really a dealbreaker for me at this point, because a big change in the FA pool has not been tried yet (I suggested this in the past, but people were against this for "historic reasons", they didn't think former MG stars should be declined that heavily).
But I do think we should try this first before we're going to change contracted riders. If this isn't enough, I'd be willing to change my stance on this for the 2023 season.
Here's something I'd do to remove excess riders from the DB - if a rider wasn't picked up (this includes the free rider draft) for the past 3 transfer seasons, I'd remove him entirely from the DB. Because there far too many riders that stay for the past 3+ seasons never to be picked up. If we decrease the number of riders, removing riders that clog up the DB is a great start
SotD wrote:
And just to understand the suggestion (It sounds, find to me - In the task force you might want to consider the different approaches some managers would go for to tweak/cheat the system. I can come up with a couple from the top of my head. eg. tweaking riders you already consider selling, riders almost at decline age etc.), I have tried to do it with the team I could have next season if I had decided it should stay in the game.
Thank you! It's very helpful to see other managers run through and what numbers come out in the end.
And yes you're correct, it's not perfect. Your approaches are similar to mine, stack the declines to riders i know that i won't keep and/or are older to protect training and growth potentials.
This is where we need to look at maybe excluding certain riders from the method, Limiting how many times you can lower a rider, Forcing the decline to the highest stat etc - lots still being thought about so it would work as intended.
Sounds good. There's a lot that could be a discussing point I think. Is all 80-85 riders worth the same f.e.? I mean, Lecuisiniers 85MO is obviously worth more than Farantakis' 80SPR. Some will probably argue that everyone should be hit equally, and that cannot be done as the versatility of stats differ a lot. So IMO you need to run with the best solution you can find, and then some must be hit harder than others if you think it's needed. As long as it isn't devastating.
One thing that could be considered is to remove riders at the age of 33+ from the calculation, as they are already part of a devaluation struction, and you might risk that people are just forcing them into a swift retirement, only to then sell them, sign a better rider for the same wage and train him.
I mean. If I had a rider like Pluchkin (This season figures) and needed to offload 4 80-85 stats, I could just take them all from him, and sell him. At 79MO he would still be a solid rider, and his 675K wage wouldn't be completely bollocks. His worth wouldn't be high, but could probably still land 500K or so. Then the manager could sign a different rider at 675K wage, which would be the likes of Olivier, Oomen, Hirt, Choi and then give the rider +1/2MO, and then you are practically unharmed through the proces.
Could also be, that you had to remove atleast 1 stat from the 2 highest OVL riders within your team to ensure that everyone tackles the decrease somewhat identical, so we don't see a couple of top riders unharmed, with others hurt a lot. I mean a rider like Phinney would hurt Isostar +4 80-85 compared to Lecuisinier due to the MO/TT. All those that are more versatile will hit the team harder than others, due to the complexity, while they can't really combine the stats for maximum benefit due to already existing RD issues. This goes for Phinney, Herklotz, Tenorio, Keizer, Demare and Bewley, but not MAL, Taaramäe, van Stayen, Mads P., Beltran, Formolo etc. who are keeping stats below the magic boundary.
Like said - it can never be done perfect. So you have to roll with the structure you think is the one needed. Testing whether a more spread DB (one that can actually be created) actually changes anything might need to be done though. It's a rather big effort to do, so to come out with zero actual benefit would be a waste of your time.
Btw I think it's totally fine to run a chainsaw over the current FA list. Nobody wanted them, and they have figured out how to live on with their lives without cycling. They can't stay active and in shape below CT level for 10 years. There's a few "buffer riders" from the FA that I have an outside interest in, but that shouldn't keep you guys from making whatever cleanup you need.
Way too many "great" talents were added last year. Literally everyone who wanted a 78+ stat rider got him and got him dirt cheap. We can't blow everything up this year because last year's FA pool was too big, but we do need to adjust it for sure.
Like I said I'm not in favour of reducing riders under contract. But let's say we do it and the distribution is somewhat fair. Won't the best riders on all the teams that lose stats just lower in OVL, thus getting more RDs and appearing in more races? So bloated startlists will be even more common.
redordead wrote:
Like I said I'm not in favour of reducing riders under contract. But let's say we do it and the distribution is somewhat fair. Won't the best riders on all the teams that lose stats just lower in OVL, thus getting more RDs and appearing in more races? So bloated startlists will be even more common.
Not if we also changed the RD calculation to compensate this change to OVL. It's a fairly simple way to fix that hurdle. Or we can change the OVL calculation with a larger modifier so that it stays high despite lower individual stats.
ivaneurope wrote:
Here's something I'd do to remove excess riders from the DB - if a rider wasn't picked up (this includes the free rider draft) for the past 3 transfer seasons, I'd remove him entirely from the DB. Because there far too many riders that stay for the past 3+ seasons never to be picked up. If we decrease the number of riders, removing riders that clog up the DB is a great start
After my research, I've found 1719 riders in the DB that hadn't been picked up by any team for the past 3 off-seasons. That's about 45% of all riders present in the DB. That's more than the number of riders under contract - 1309 riders (or 34%). To have more riders that weren't picked up for so long than under contract is really alarming and this should be looked up
- which would hopefully tackle the oversupply of 75+ main stat riders, particularly sprinters. It may also be worth considering the removal/editing of post-disbandment/renewals FAs on an annual basis, be it before or after transfers.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
