1 + 3
Cool, i've mentioned division re-balancing for a few years now!
Bad side, "forcing" a CT into existence made of secondary teams - potentially. I like the clear target, however it's hardly reassuring as a CT manager. CT so often feels like an after thought, my fear is this only exacerbates the issue and continues to put emphasis onto higher divisions.
I know it's not set in stone, so i'd just say please be open to keeping a larger PCT and scrapping the CT! It's far more radical but would come with some real benefits if done correctly. The MG does not need a CT to function, and if we cannot sustain an active CT of unique teams then it should be considered for cutting - rather than filling with junk (no offense to dev teams that i do know would be genuinely managed and engaged with)
If part of a re-balance is one single 2026 season with secondary teams, then a cut to two divisions, i could support that.
2
Not really in favour. The ToA cut from 21days already kinda sucked, and whilst not a key race to CT teams the ability to go to a "big" race was really cool. To have that ability reduced to 2 teams via wildcard i don't like so much. A couple of long stage races on the calendar make for fun planning challenges in a real risk vs reward way that doesn't happen much in the CT or PCT compared to the PT.
Sliding a 14-day race into one of the bands would be interesting, or another varied 14-day race into the calendar that suits a different style of rider (i.e. ToA is more mountainous, another race is more hill/mm).
4
Not against C2HC. Not really in favour either. A big part of the fun of CT at the moment is the increased freedom you have, and ability to make all your races matter whilst being on a reduced roster and budget vs higher divisions. Having to compromise the team further to go to races you can't compete in isn't as fun.
So could this come with a 300k wage cap boost? So the wage cap gaps between each division is the same.
And some of it depends how many days are for C2HC vs other options.
5 + 6
Sounds pretty good, with or without mandatory 14day ToA. I think that's a benefit to PT teams getting some greater freedom outside the fixed PT calendar, and freedom for lower-end PCT teams to focus around their weaknesses and have more fun.
7 + 8
No comment as these feel obvious adjustments that'd take place regardless of other changes.
If there are radical concepts like PCT GT & Division size changes, why not look at just overall cuts to RD across the whole game. Chop a few PT races, cut out some HC/C1/C2. Make life a bit easier on reporters. Take the Vuelta out of the PT, use that as a PTHC GT, slice up some other stuff (iidk i havn't looked at the calendar in detail) and take 21-25 RD out of each division saving a ton of reporting and would also help prevent under subscription in C1/C2 races (could be a way to avoid C2HC but just having a smaller calendar meaning CT teams are more likely to attend more C2 races, as even if it's not preferred could offer better chances than going to C1).
9
No comment, this should always be under review each season anyway. Shame we can't make that call post-transfers, but I do understand why that is not possible. Although again some of this comes back to CT budgets and lack of real training ability in CT i've talked about plenty before.
Scalable training by division, by stat, by stat level and you could help out a lot making every CT terrain competitive in and of itself (if i keep mentinoing it maybe it'll happen in a few years, like division re-balancing)
7 + 8
If there are radical concepts like PCT GT & Division size changes, why not look at just overall cuts to RD across the whole game. Chop a few PT races, cut out some HC/C1/C2. Make life a bit easier on reporters. Take the Vuelta out of the PT, use that as a PTHC GT, slice up some other stuff (iidk i havn't looked at the calendar in detail) and take 21-25 RD out of each division saving a ton of reporting and would also help prevent under subscription in C1/C2 races
Just popping in to say I really like this idea.
If we're to continue with three divisions, my dream would be to see a mandatory GT in all of the divisions. As others already have mentioned, it's something about those really long stage races that, at least for me, was what got me interrested in watching this sport in the first place. Would love to see a 21 day GT both in the PCT and in the CT-division as well. And I would much rather cut the double amount of race days out of some of the smaller stage races to make the work load on reporters easier.
7 + 8
If there are radical concepts like PCT GT & Division size changes, why not look at just overall cuts to RD across the whole game. Chop a few PT races, cut out some HC/C1/C2. Make life a bit easier on reporters. Take the Vuelta out of the PT, use that as a PTHC GT, slice up some other stuff (iidk i havn't looked at the calendar in detail) and take 21-25 RD out of each division saving a ton of reporting and would also help prevent under subscription in C1/C2 races
Just popping in to say I really like this idea.
If we're to continue with three divisions, my dream would be to see a mandatory GT in all of the divisions. As others already have mentioned, it's something about those really long stage races that, at least for me, was what got me interrested in watching this sport in the first place. Would love to see a 21 day GT both in the PCT and in the CT-division as well. And I would much rather cut the double amount of race days out of some of the smaller stage races to make the work load on reporters easier.
It's kinda out there, but this is a fantasy game - so why not two PT GT's, an 18-day PCT GT and a 14-day CT GT?
Expand Tachira into a South American CT GT, move Vuelta (or Giro) to 18-days in the PCT. AND keep 14-day Tour of America. Cut 3 MT stage races from the PCT Calendar (such as Colombia, East Java & California), cut a couple from CT calendar (such as Middle East & San Luis).
We'd have an overall cut in RD, and with the right calendar make-up have some really challenging manager choices to consider (do you go for points boosted GT's or spread yourself over a few races in case of a poor performance?). Give them XP boost as well and really challenge managers to consider points vs development.
I wouldn't necessarily have a PCT or CT GT be 21-days, to keep the PT GT's that extra bit more special. But i loved racing the ToA in the past as an RP event and having this cool unique GT to aim for even as a CT team.
Plus with scheduling you could give each division a real focus week. The GT's tend to dominate the racing schedule for a week or two when they happen, cool for PT managers. A PCT/CT GT could give those divisions their own week in the spotlight too and feel more respected.
Some loose thoughts from me regarding the suggestions from Abhi.
Mandatory GT for PCT sounds great. Like others have said, there could also be a mandatory GT for CT (or 14 days race).
CT division shouldn't be just 16 teams. No division should be under 20 teams IMO. We already lack activity in race threads for CT. This would only increase the risk of making CT boring.
Development teams sound cool, however. Especially cool if two (or more) managers need to work together.
Stagiaires in general feel like an outdated concept to me now, and not really in line with where modern cycling is going so to me especially if we go with the concept above of adding more riders who max at 73-75 in their main stats, changing the formula to development riders makes more sense to me.
I was thinking of a way of combining how Isreal Academy and Lotto have riders joining there main team throughout the season and came up with this
This would only be an available contract to U25 riders (Avenir-eligible riders basically):
- 25k wage minimum
- 4 youth rider cap, youth riders count towards your salary cap as normal
- expanding the 15 racedays to 25 racedays at any point in the season
- Riders on this contract receive 75xp for riding L'avenir as opposed to 20xp
- Removing these riders from your minimum team cap / but also removing them from the maximum team cap (i.e CT team cannot have 14 riders and 2 youth riders, but now can have 20 riders + 4 youth riders if in cap)
- Riders on this contract can hit a max XP of 2.0 or whatever the level above their current level would be (e.g. 3.0, 4.0)
- To continue, the rider must receive a 50k (or more) contract in the renewals
Reasoning:
1. Stagieres currently feels like a wasted season for riders receiving this type of contract.
We currently have 114 riders in the DB who received one, but because they didn't level up and are now no longer eligible for one, they are just stuck on 1.xx lvl.
2. The new way of them receiving XP makes them upgradeable for any level PT,PCT and CT, but still requires planning and signing them up for L'avenir, rewarding players who are around all season.
3. These riders typically weren't good enough to receive a 50k contract, so are unlikely to receive one when they are a year older in DB, giving them a 1 level up if planned correctly should make them more attractive then they were
4. Stops the (IMO) pointless rule of allowing stagieres to count against the minimum cap, while also opening up a chance for those with cheaper squads to take on more riders to develop, would be useful for regional teams, especially.
Anyway we can get an update on switching from Stags to Development Riders Abhi, i know we've spoke about this previously and there are some tweaks needed, but just an overall view
On stagiares: Agree that there needs a change, some way for them to go up one level (tbh, them automatically going up one level would be enough of a solution to me), they are after all riders who noone was willing to pay 50k for, so it would be a nice way to just develop some more domestiques over time
