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
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
Too many new ones get added every season.
This is a big part of the FA pool changes, and it goes along with a change to the way we will need to add riders in the future. Once we've made cuts and a bit of a re-set to the FA's this year it will be far easier to operate a more 1 In, 1 Out policy in the future so we can hold the DB at the right level.
Not gonna comment on any suggestions again for now but i'd like to remind again that you should mention which problem you want to fight with any suggestions. Nobody is gonna deny that there is inflation but there are different types of inflation present in the DB and different people will disagree on which ones are problems:
#1 the higher end of the stat matrix
#2 the number of riders at or near the top stat
#3 the number of riders that are somewhat usable for a team
(#4 the quality of riders in lower divisions)
(#5 the quality of new talents compared to previously existing talents)
(#6 the number of teams with good leaders in each race)
For me #2 always looked like the big issue that needs to be solved.
Thanks a lot for the table, really cool to see the numbers like that. Since the MG DB uses a slightly different stat matrix it might be interesting normalizing the tables to the highest stats:
MO
2022
Daily DB
HI
2022
Daily DB
Highest Stat
2
1
Highest Stat
2
3
Highest Stat -1
8
5
Highest Stat -1
9
10
Highest Stat -2
11
12
Highest Stat -2
11
17
Highest Stat -3
17
21
Highest Stat -3
12
28
Highest Stat -4
35
34
Highest Stat -4
29
50
Highest Stat -5
52
50
Highest Stat -5
48
88
Highest Stat -6
69
79
Highest Stat -6
70
145
Highest Stat -7
112
123
Highest Stat -7
133
215
Highest Stat -8
172
168
TT
2022
Daily DB
CB
2022
Daily DB
Highest Stat
1
2
Highest Stat
3
1
Highest Stat -1
3
6
Highest Stat -1
8
4
Highest Stat -2
5
8
Highest Stat -2
15
7
Highest Stat -3
19
10
Highest Stat -3
21
12
Highest Stat -4
36
16
Highest Stat -4
28
23
Highest Stat -5
67
29
Highest Stat -5
48
39
Highest Stat -6
112
48
Highest Stat -6
71
51
Highest Stat -7
156
81
Highest Stat -7
90
66
SP
2022
Daily DB
Highest Stat
2
2
Highest Stat -1
8
5
Highest Stat -2
16
7
Highest Stat -3
28
14
Highest Stat -4
49
20
Highest Stat -5
95
35
Highest Stat -6
140
48
Highest Stat -7
192
70
Highest Stat -8
250
99
Inflation (which i loosely define here as riders at the same stat values near the top) by main stat:
MO: very similar to the Daily DB
HI: less inflation than the Daily DB (likely due to higher HI of good climbers (?))
TT: similar near the top, MG DB is a bit inflated in the lower ranks
CB: looks rather similar, especially if we'd group that sole 82 guy in the daily DB to the 81s.
Basically, within our stat matrix we dont really have that much more inflation than the Daily DB anymore even if it might appear so. The only stat where the inflation is out of control is SP and to some extent the second/third tier of TTists.
Top post knockout. Your post clearly shows the biggest problem that the MGDB currently has - the insane amount of sprinters. Just from my own experience: I am able to sign multiple 79+ sprinters year after year for just 50k wages in the free agency. Then these riders want 100k+ during renewals. These riders are never worth it to resign really. If we want to make contextualised declines, they should really primarily tackle this problem.
Time trial is not really problematic as I believe the higher amount of good riders works better for us with the higher amount of time trials and TTTs that we have in MG than in RL.
The second problem that I think is present - but have no time to present the data to show it - is the amount of depth of similar types of domestiques. There are just no real differences between 50k riders nowadays. I believe some sort of a mass decline system is needed for these types of riders.
I think it could work in a way where we need to decide which of your riders are declining in the end of the year. I think a system that could work would be that for every 3 downgraded maxed out riders younger than 32 you could upgrade 1 rider, but that rider cannot have a bigger wage than the 2nd best downgraded rider.
It could work in a way where those riders would get either -1 or +1 in all their attributes. Over the time a system like this would help to tackle the insane amounts of similar type of domestique riders, it would make worth it to actually pay decent wages to decent riders who are not leader quality and it would also help us to improve a rider you really like without the training system and to have more of riders types that are impossible to have in the DB currently due to how stat gains system works. It would help to keep us the current system of adding in lots of new riders every year as there would be a bigger need for it.
Just an example:
As a 1st choice would need to downgrade Hnik to COB 75 with even poorer backup stats.
2nd choice would probably have to be Bertilsson with his new best attribute being SP 78 I would still have no interest to resign him but he would become way less attractive after this.
3rd choice would probably be Michael Kolar - a downgrade to 76 MO 74 HIL with poor backup stats is not really making him a good PT level rider.
I would probably drop all of those riders into the FA pool after having to do this.
A choice for an improvement would have to be a 50k rider - I would probably go for Daniel Turek making him TT 78 PRL 77 with decent support stats. Nothing major, but it would help him to shape him into somehow better TT rider, but he also would highly likely enjoy having higher wage demands.
If all teams would have to do this every year, huge amounts of depth riders would slowly get worse and worse per year, while possibilities would be there to potentially shape up an interesting rider - if you also decide to downgrade at least two other interesting riders in the process.
There is no huge need for a FA pool revamp as in my opinion that will not really improve the things much - these riders were not signed by any team for a reason - BEFORE - we tackle the riders that were signed by teams. That will make a much bigger difference. The revamp of current FA pool will only help after that - I think that clear rules when an unsigned FA ends his MG career should be put in place - like unsigned 33+ years old riders or 26+ years old riders that were not signed for 3 straight seasons. Sounds good to me.
The third thing I think we should aim to improve is to have some sort of a "draft class" system for riders added in. We currently add in riders in a way where a rider is suggested for an add with his stats. What I think we need to better control the amounts of riders in the DB is to ideally have a pre-prepared list of attributes with ages where we then only fill in rider names and nationalities. Honestly - would it be really such a big problem to add in real riders with a little bit different ages than they have in real world? It is not like that day/month of their birth for the riders really matter anymore. I believe that we should make riders somehow younger or older if it suits the game.
The last thing: I really don't like the idea of contextualised declines in the way the opening post suggest them. I think the declines should always be equal for all or equal for the choice of all the managers. Equal declines may work - a mass decline of all the attributes may improve the AI behaviour - but it needs to be tested first.
EDIT: Btw an even better comparison may be the official database from Cyanide. Their DB may be better balance to how AI should work with it than the Daily DB which probably reflects the real life more.
Edited by Roman on 29-04-2022 13:56
We've had this discussion so many times at this point. I'll just repeat that I'm here for the long haul no matter what (except a complete reset which won't happen anyway). If we do nothing, fine. If we have some sort of reduction/variation matrix, I'll still be here.
The biggest thing that needs to happen to me is reducing the FA pool, not because it's the most impactful solution, but because it's the least controversial and so, so easy. I can't believe we've been talking about it this long without doing it. It doesn't affect anyone and is a small step towards reducing the crazy amount of superdomestique options in the game.
I say small step because what are we actually trying to accomplish here? We're talking about the amount of riders in the DB and the amount of riders who have been unsigned for years. To me, these numbers aren't super relevant to the issue at hand. We could add 10,000 more riders to the DB tomorrow. If none of them are competitive for roster spots (meaning 75+), it wouldn't matter. A lot of them have been unsigned for years for a reason. They're exactly the riders not affecting our inflation issues. We're not talking about fixing MG at that point, we're talking about making the excel sheet load a little fast.
With FA's, it's about strength, not just total amount. Of course, removing some of the top unsigned FA's helps, but you could just as easily do a mass reduction of the FA's instead and maybe even do a better job of widening the stat matrix at the bottom. The problem is that right now, anybody who wants a 75+ rider on any terrain, and 77+ on some, can grab one for minimum from FA because there are too many to go around. Remove/reduce all of those guys and we have at least a little scarcity again going forward, assuming the game doesn't contract a bunch this year (not a given!).
Ultimately it comes down to easy stuff we've discussed for years imo.
- Remove/reduce a bunch of the currently unsigned FA's
- Reduce a bunch of the FA's coming from renewals releases or disbanding teams this year
- Don't give stat gains to disbanding teams' riders unless the manager stays active through the end of their last season
- STOP ADDING SO MANY TALENTS, particularly in the 75-78 range. This was discussed heavily last year and then didn't really happen. A lot of the mid-tier problems shake out over time if we actually expand the matrix to the 70-74 range by adding talents that max there AND NOT adding enough talents for every team t be full above that range.
I think making those common sense moves puts us in an improved position long term without disadvantaging anyone (well, some will be unhappy with a worse FA market, but it's not a direct harm). But like I said, if we go for a more drastic solution, that's fine with me too.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Those are some quality dataworks (both jph and knockout). What I wonder when I look at the future dataset though is, how well development has been taken into account from already contracted riders? It's pretty easy to see which riders are becoming worse due to age, but what about those developping the other way? Are they taken into account?
Just as an example:
Giannoutsos 76 > 78MO
Rochas 75 > 77MO
Miltiadis 73 > 75/75MO/HI
Kiriakidis 74 > 76TT
Vila 74 > 76HI
Stavrakakis 72 > 75COB
Farantakis 78 > 80SPR
In 2023 these riders will jump into the categories of the above:
Lafay 73/75 > 75/77 HI/MO
Christakos 73 > 76MO
Vila 76 > 78HI
Stavrakakis 75 > 77COB
Christapopoulos 74 > 76TT
And then there's the training - last season we saw 56 statgains from training. Are these taken into account when trying to look further into the future? A quick dataset for training from this season.
Usually the tendency is that we move a decent amount of riders within the scale of 78-83 up a notch, and only a very limited amount of training happens in the overrun categories of 75-78.
For TT'ers the inflation is within the 75-76TT riders in which 12 riders are not even on contract. So evidently the 75-76TT riders on contract are probably used as TTT domestiques.
By cleaning up the FA pool the SPR will be somewhat cleaned up:
79SPR 95 > 92
78SPR 140 > 121
77SPR 192 > 173
76SPR 250 > 220
* I haven't checked the ages of these though, just so they aren't calculated twice.
It's still the heaviest category but many teams also have a decent amount of riders to lead a train regardless of whether or not they need it. Maybe the issue comes from people all doing the same. Obviously because the market allows for it, but still. Take a look at this:
CT:
5 teams have 5+ SPR riders between 76-80
2 teams have 4 SPR riders between 76-80
7 teams have 3 SPR riders between 76-80
3 teams have 2 SPR riders between 76-80
There's also some 81 SPR riders in this division, but those must be considered top riders, and not so much of an issue. Not a single team have opted for 1 or less 76-80SPR riders in the entire division. Most have in the array of 3-6 of those, while only 3 teams have "just" 2. It's a pretty heavy tendency and obviously doesn't work when there are that many similar riders attending the same races. In the CT there is a total of 62 sprinters with 76-80SPR.
PCT:
3 teams have 5+ SPR riders between 76-80 (Carrefour have 8!)
2 teams have 4 SPR riders between 76-80
7 teams have 3 SPR riders between 76-80
6 teams have 2 SPR riders between 76-80
6 teams have 1 SPR riders between 76-80
2 teams have 0 SPR riders between 76-80
So at PCT level it's much less extreme, and the tactical options seems to vary quite a lot. Most of the teams that have 4+ sprinters in this region have a high quality sprinter for the division, while a lot of the others have a 80-81 lead sprinter. So while there's still a big number, the sprinters seems to be spread out more realistically, and some are obviously being picked up late in the window because they can be aquired for 50K wages due to the excessive amount in the FA pool, which makes internal swaps of sprinters below 80 virtually impossble. There is a total of 10 81+ SPR riders in the PCT. There's a total of 65 sprinters with 76-80SPR.
PT:
3 teams have 4 SPR riders between 76-80
5 teams have 3 SPR riders between 76-80
5 teams have 2 SPR riders between 76-80
5 teams have 1 SPR riders between 76-80
2 teams have 0 SPR riders between 76-80
A similar spread at the PT, where 15 sprinters have 81+ stats, and most of those have decent backup. The difference is that at the PT there seems to be a much larger focus surrounding the early part of the train with high FL riders with decent backup stats (72-74SPR) and decent acceleration. So there's a clear indication that the different divisions operate on different tactical approaches. There's a total of 42 sprinters with 76-80SPR.
I'm not sure if anything interesting per see can be taken out of these numbers, but I wouldn't say that those teams with a low amount of 76-80 SPR works worse than those that seems to want them a lot. And maybe there's a learning curve there aswell.
Maybe I'm missing something with the FA thing, but what good does it do to remove riders who, for example, haven't been picked up for the last three seasons? What's the likelihood that they'd be picked up next year and are good enough to contribute to the inflation problem? Does it matter that we have 4000 riders in the DB when the bottom 1500 aren't in consideration for anyone anyway? Other than convenience with a less cluttered spreadsheet?
I'm not 100% sure yet where I come down on the devaluation of contracted riders but I would throw in two things to consider. First, with regards to the thought of "if I have to decrease this rider from 79 to 77, he becomes completely useless": The point of this thing is to, at least in part, make 77 riders more valuable than they've been before. So yes, the rider would become less useful in the sense that not all 79 riders get devalued, but he would still be much more useful than a 77 rider is now.
Secondly, from what I can tell, the proposed method would always allow you to protect certain riders. In the example, the 12 stats between 75 and 79 for Farfetch are spread over 9 riders. Even if you limit the amount of reductions a single rider can receive to 2, which I think could be one way to limit "exploiting" the system too much, jph could protect up to 6 of those riders entirely and even if he spread it out equally, 4 riders would remain untouched. I doubt any team would get a stat reduction of 80-85 stats of more than 3, and even if it was 4, that would still affect at most 2 riders and such a team would probably have at least three riders at that level -> at least one of them can be protected. So I don't think that core pieces would be affected (I suppose everyone can calculate that for their own team).
Lastly, to echo what Abhi said: If we know this is coming, everyone can adapt. Something like the game change to 18 had, from what I can tell, a massive impact with regards to how certain stat combinations worked. Not everyone was affected equally there. But after a year, we knew how it worked and it was possible to adapt. And this would arguably be much more predictable. It might take some efforts to go through different calculations, come up with transfer plans to accomodate etc., but effort will be always rewarded anyway, I suppose.
Oh, sorry, another lastly: I agree with Croatia that comparisons to the Daily DB are only useful in limited capacity, specifically due to our division structure. In the Daily DB, the vast majority of CT teams don't have riders with a main stat above say 74. I don't think we want that for our CT teams.
baseballlover312 wrote:
We've had this discussion so many times at this point. I'll just repeat that I'm here for the long haul no matter what (except a complete reset which won't happen anyway). If we do nothing, fine. If we have some sort of reduction/variation matrix, I'll still be here.
Lastly lastly lastly, I will add that this applies to me too
Just a suggestion for talent adding. How about adding a nummer (15-25%) og talents with a fixed/locked path? You’ll get the rider developping, but you can’t change the path. Eg fix 1 fighter. It’s known in the DB that this rider will end up looking like this. That way we can control some rider variants that otherwise will only exist if added at level 4.
Excess free agents is obviously an issue, with supply so greatly outstripping demand there is no competition for low tier riders. There is little to no point in resigning most domestiques who demand more than minimum wage in renewals, because you can resign them for minimum wage during free agency. The suggestion that we only remove riders who are unsigned for three years is far too little. Instead we should remove all riders who did not have a contract this season.
Given the pattern of the previous few years nobody should be expecting then number of teams to increase for the upcoming season. The number of riders contracted this season was sufficient for the number of teams we had this season, so it will almost certainly be sufficient for the number of teams next season. Obviously some excess is necessary so as to avoid overinflating the free agent market, and that excess will come in the form of the talents added into the database.
By eliminating riders currently considered excess, we should marginally increase competition for the remaining riders, as there will be less alternatives should you fail to sign your initial target. This will make currently existing domestiques more valuable, and make their renewals demands a more realistic reflection of their probable free agency cost.
PROBLEM TWO: Excess Sprinters
When you play PCM normally, most sprints will be contested by 3-5 riders within 3 SPR of each other and another 3-5 just below that. Our sprints are usually contested between 20-odd riders with 3 SPR of each other, with another 30-odd just beneath that. The issue noted above (of renewal demands not at all reflecting market value) is especially true of sprinters. Both these issues can be tackled at once.
Before transfers, sprinters who were not renewed (due to disband or otherwise) ought to decline. So as to not completely disappoint those looking to free agency for a sprinter, not all of them should decline, and not all those that decline should do so equally. Instead a random selection of sprinters at each SPR-level should occur. So if 10 riders at 80SPR enter free agency, 1 might stay at 80, 1 might decline to 79, 2 to 78, 3 to 77, and 3 to 76. (10%/10%/20%/30%/30%).
The numbers might need to be tweaked depending on the desired distribution, but it should work in principle. For those who might complain that this makes it too difficult for new/promoting teams, for several years it has made more sense to not renew mid/low-tier sprinters. If the pendulum swinging the other way for a year is necessary to fix the persistent issues with sprints then we might just have to suck it up.
Roman wrote:
There is no huge need for a FA pool revamp as in my opinion that will not really improve the things much - these riders were not signed by any team for a reason - BEFORE - we tackle the riders that were signed by teams.
And the reason is because too many better riders were added year after year. Part of the FA pool revamp is to better control new additions as well as remove and/or decline riders.
baseballlover312 wrote:
I can't believe we've been talking about it this long without doing it.
Then do something! Or you plan to just continue talking about it?
cunego59 wrote:
I'm not 100% sure yet where I come down on the devaluation of contracted riders but I would throw in two things to consider. First, with regards to the thought of "if I have to decrease this rider from 79 to 77, he becomes completely useless": The point of this thing is to, at least in part, make 77 riders more valuable than they've been before. So yes, the rider would become less useful in the sense that not all 79 riders get devalued, but he would still be much more useful than a 77 rider is now.
Any rider will become more useful if he can't be easily replaced by a cheap FA and actually has to be paid what he's worth.
cunego59 wrote:
Lastly, to echo what Abhi said: If we know this is coming, everyone can adapt. Something like the game change to 18 had, from what I can tell, a massive impact with regards to how certain stat combinations worked. Not everyone was affected equally there. But after a year, we knew how it worked and it was possible to adapt. And this would arguably be much more predictable. It might take some efforts to go through different calculations, come up with transfer plans to accomodate etc., but effort will be always rewarded anyway, I suppose.
We've had 2 seasons on PCM18 and I sometimes think that people still do a bunch strange and stupid things. Of course at end it's always the game's fault and not their own.
Deleting all 75-79 SPR riders from the current FA will have a psycological effect. People (Romans example) would re-consider whether 100-120K was a fair value as the low amount of accesible sprinters would be lower. This would lead to more trades/sales and a higher market value if picked from the FA. It may need only one FA delete or two, but it will work to some extend.
baseballlover312 wrote:
- STOP ADDING SO MANY TALENTS, particularly in the 75-78 range. This was discussed heavily last year and then didn't really happen. A lot of the mid-tier problems shake out over time if we actually expand the matrix to the 70-74 range by adding talents that max there AND NOT adding enough talents for every team t be full above that range.
I hope this is something we are improving on and more managers are getting behind. This goes along with my hope we can get more variation in Potentials and Starting XP even for younger riders. So more lower stat riders, but a dedicated manager can train to be useful, but will then also decline faster. Various combinations to be used.
I feel the block on this has been a desire to give as many managers as possible ways to be competitive. Which, having done the MG Survey, i think can now be an older viewpoint. With most managers being clear in their desire to role play instead of power play, now perhaps we can shift away from this philosophy. Might mean some managers teams suck, or it becomes harder to work upwards through divisions. This is just something that might take a couple of years to balance fully.
Jph and I have discussed how we focus talent additions more towards managers that have been active, consistently active for years, and are engaged in running the game. So then the better talents should drift towards those regions and teams, and itself provide more incentive to stay engaged and commited. Slightly off the original point, just to say a lot of ideas and concepts are being considered around these issues
Roman wrote:
The third thing I think we should aim to improve is to have some sort of a "draft class" system for riders added in. We currently add in riders in a way where a rider is suggested for an add with his stats. What I think we need to better control the amounts of riders in the DB is to ideally have a pre-prepared list of attributes with ages where we then only fill in rider names and nationalities. Honestly - would it be really such a big problem to add in real riders with a little bit different ages than they have in real world? It is not like that day/month of their birth for the riders really matter anymore. I believe that we should make riders somehow younger or older if it suits the game.
I tried to pick up on this point previously in another post. And it ties into re-working the FA Pool.
We can all agree that in the past we went a little over the top with some regional additions. (As the new Caribbean proponent i'm well aware of the irony of this) With a re-work we can clear out a range of these, and with a smaller overall DB it will be easier in future to keep a proper 1 In, 1 Out system. Then we can still meet those managers with real regional desires, and keep up a flow of more real riders to rotate through the DB in a similar way to now (just with less riders flowing).
This would be very similar to your point of a pre-set list of attributes and ages. By using the Daily DB as a base for a re-work now, we can then just keep to that with regular checks of the total stat numbers, potentials, ages etc. All of which is easier to do with a DB of 2000 not 4500, and one we mostly agree is well designed from the start.
With the changing ages, honestly it's easy enough to just find a different rider with the right age we want. Many times we go away from reality with a rider's specialization to suit what we need, and i'd rather stick to that than change ages. But the point is very much correct, we should be tailoring riders to the game and not just following what the real world gives.
(Therefore Evenepoel will be a Pot 1 rider with a specialization only in Recovery)
EDIT: Btw an even better comparison may be the official database from Cyanide. Their DB may be better balance to how AI should work with it than the Daily DB which probably reflects the real life more.
This was actually how jph and I started looking at this comparision in more detail. We were exchanging some PM's about total numbers of riders and their stats, when Daily showed me a screenshot of the 2012 Cyanide DB. So i started running some very basic comparisions and the differences were something like 2-3x bigger than vs the Daily DB.
Jph pulled together the chart in Post 1 here which is a far better representation of things, as the Daily DB has a more comparable set of team/rider numbers.
And as others have said, the MG is not the Daily DB. We do want more teams to be competitive, which requires more riders with higher stats. This is just a far deeper question about your philosophy with the MG - should all managers be able to win?
That spins off into much wider questions about structure and game purpose, not for this thread.
And again just to pick up on what others have said, yes cutting the raw numbers of FA's (as i said in one of my other posts) is unrelated to inflation directly. It's just about helping us get a more managable DB so we can make better changes in future - in terms of adding new riders, meeting regional needs, and so on.
This cut will tackle an amount of the Sprinter problem (you can easily filter Free Agents in the DB, sort by OVL, to see how many are still left unsigned), and an amount of other FA's in those 75-77 stat ranges. When we can then look at riders from disbanded teams, or those not renrewed we can make futher cuts.
If being able to re-set the FA pool is supported we can take out a good chunk of the SP inflation, and a bit of the other 75-78 inflation, whilst still allowing some options left for transfers.
It just might mean we have a rough year for promoting teams who face a lean year in signable FA talent. Although, if Wages were upped a few % we might be able to force a few other riders into Free Agency for transfers. Plus Transfers would still be an option, combined with a change to Traning costs, to allow improving teams without blowing traning inflation open.
The quad-post! Feel my power! Mwahahaha!
It was just easier to break down each reply, even if there is some overlapping in my answers.
Very happy for people to disagree with my views, because it's always an interesting converstation.
It's also nice to see agreement and patterns in where the major issues lie for various managers. Which does definitely help ahead of making any DB changes.
And even by contributing to the discussion you are taking action to help the game! Even if you can't do other tasks, every voice and idea does help - at least it helps me.
We've had 2 seasons on PCM18 and I sometimes think that people still do a bunch strange and stupid things. Of course at end it's always the game's fault and not their own.
PepeLaugh time to quit the game
On topic. I don't care one bit. I am fine with both mass reduction and then applying selective reductions. (mass reduction is fine to allow for higher differences between riders with training)
I can definitely second what lief wrote: For many riders, it's currently far more efficient to not renew them and then get them back from FA if you still think they're useful. That reflects the inflation problem quite well - offer by far exceeds demand.
If you don't give a s**t on regional focus, that's the perfect situation, as the choice in FA is huge (at least it was during last transfers). If you do care, however - especially if there's at least a little bit of competition (like 3 teams competing for Swiss riders), that's not so funny. Imho, renewing a rider should be at least as worthwile as getting him from FA - in general. There will obviously be exceptions - it's perfectly fine that overperforming riders get a higher price tag. Maybe not as much as Reinhardt, whose case was excessive (~1 point higher in OVL after a great season -> massively overpriced), but when you know that you've got a good rider at hand, you can definitely take the risk of paying him more - especially given that the others know about their performances as well.
So, I'm absolutely for massively pruning the non-contracted FAs, especially the sprinters. Getting a 78+ sprinter for 50k is really crazy - especially given that even crappy 78 sprinters can win races...
knockout wrote:
Thanks a lot for the table, really cool to see the numbers like that. Since the MG DB uses a slightly different stat matrix it might be interesting normalizing the tables to the highest stats:
I figured another idea could be to compare it not to the Daily DB but to an earlier version of the MG DB. Here's a comparison to 2015:
MO
2022
2015
Daily DB
HI*
2022
2015
Daily DB
Highest Stat
2
4
1
Highest Stat
2
1
3
Highest Stat -1
8
5
5
Highest Stat -1
9
1
10
Highest Stat -2
11
2
12
Highest Stat -2
11
3
17
Highest Stat -3
17
14
21
Highest Stat -3
12
7
28
Highest Stat -4
35
8
34
Highest Stat -4
29
6
50
Highest Stat -5
52
16
50
Highest Stat -5
48
12
88
Highest Stat -6
69
15
79
Highest Stat -6
70
10
145
Highest Stat -7
112
21
123
Highest Stat -7
133
20
215
Highest Stat -8
172
39
168
TT
2022
2015
Daily DB
CB*
2022
2015
Daily DB
Highest Stat
1
3
2
Highest Stat
3
1
1
Highest Stat -1
3
0
6
Highest Stat -1
8
1
4
Highest Stat -2
5
6
8
Highest Stat -2
15
4
7
Highest Stat -3
19
11
10
Highest Stat -3
21
3
12
Highest Stat -4
36
17
16
Highest Stat -4
28
5
23
Highest Stat -5
67
25
29
Highest Stat -5
48
8
39
Highest Stat -6
112
36
48
Highest Stat -6
71
8
51
Highest Stat -7
156
36
81
Highest Stat -7
90
16
66
SP*
2022
2015
Daily DB
Highest Stat
2
2
2
Highest Stat -1
8
6
5
Highest Stat -2
16
10
7
Highest Stat -3
28
11
14
Highest Stat -4
49
24
20
Highest Stat -5
95
33
35
Highest Stat -6
140
41
48
Highest Stat -7
192
49
70
Highest Stat -8
250
68
99
* In 2015, the highest HI stat was 85, while it is currently 84, and the highest CO stat was 84 compared to 83 now. But even if you move everything one stat up, it's still basically the same picture. I have also removed Theo Bos from the equation (he was a 85 sprinter but with ridiculous other stats, 55 FL and such)
The differences are ... glaring, to say the least. Especially if you look at Hills and Cobbles, where back then you had 43 and 34 riders within six points of the top stat compared to 181 and 194 nowadays. And there were a bunch more teams then as well.
I can't speak to how much better, if at all, AI behavior was back then. This is just to point out where and how much inflation did happen. I think it's worth noting that TT and Sprint were already by far the densenst back then, so maybe we don't have to try and equalize them with the other ones.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
