Rjc provides some really good examples of the practical side of this. A small, but useful tool to give teams options in trying to grow their riders. From a PT point of view filling out one of Paris-Nice, Tirreno, or Catalunya would be the most obvious use
Slow response to this particular point by me, but I think that we do need quite a lot of top GC riders. With the nature of the game, we need options for promoting teams to go for a possible race winner - what would lead to inflation is if we have too few - and that would also lead to less changeable rankings, because if you have a top rider, youre hardly inclined to get rid of that top rider.
I agree with SN on this one. It is more fun if more than just a few riders have a change in the big tours(or classics) so not only the same riders always win. Also, the key is to have a good mix of different types of races, so different types of teams can score points.
I think rjc coming in with the non maxed out rider situations really describes the situation a bit better.
A lot of CTour teams will have riders on lvl 3 and low lvl 4's who will be unlikely to get to loan their riders out. No absolute Gaurentee of wild cards either means that there is a new source of EXP open to them.
It may well be possible for this to work the other way round too. Though I cannot envisage too many scenerios where by a CTour team could take a lvl one rider in and get much use out of him. Then again a number of teams paid to train some riders this transfer season so anything is possible!
I am interested in how Protour teams can compete at the CTour level something which I think would be a fantastic addition to the Man Game.
I am interested in how Protour teams can compete at the CTour level something which I think would be a fantastic addition to the Man Game.
I think the idea would need to be based around "home" races. Just as SN said Vesuvio at Luxembourg, I would like seeing some of my guys in Missouri and Philly. Heck the Tour of America would be great, maybe even in the PT. Back to my point though, part of the home race idea would be that you dont just bring in foreign riders to dominate the race. I wouldnt bring Burghardt to Philly for example, and Uran would not be showing up in Luxembourg.
But I just don't see why we need it, when it is only a bonus for 6 riders or so. Doesn't that show that we don't need it?
I'm still not seeing the potential. It seems to be only for PT teams making 8 riders go to all 3 races clashing. I think it's all about planning. If you have spent too much money to have 24 riders in your team, you must take the consequence by not being able to have max riders pr. race... Why should those be helped? It was a deliberate choice to spend more wages on better riders, rather than more.
If you really believe that we should give the opportunity for full squads, why not use the stagiares more? Those are of no use, as it stands now. I would much rather tweak our existing rules into perfection than implement new ideas every year, but I don't know how you guys feel?
I agree with SN on this one. It is more fun if more than just a few riders have a change in the big tours(or classics) so not only the same riders always win. Also, the key is to have a good mix of different types of races, so different types of teams can score points.
It would make riders of the likes of Pedraza and Marzano useless I think... Those types of riders would be luxury helpers, whereas they are very likely to score decent as it is now. It won't change anything to have more great riders, it will just push the skilllimits up, and make the gap between superrider and subtop rider bigger. But for what?
I still don't agree on the inflation part though. We just have to make the wages so high for super riders, so they will change every other or so year. Something like Phinney and Spilak. If those riders are waged below 800k then the team will keep them forever, and ofcourse that will make hyperinflation on the leftovers, but if the best riders are the ones battled for, then subtop riders will be bought before the true inflation begins. We can't entirely get inflation out of the game, but we can minimize it I think.
The problem SotD mentions there can be "easily" fixed by haveing the formula that decides wage react to what other riders at the same avg earns (Earning less than avg gives a higher demand, and vicea verca). But then again, I think the fact that results influence wage should make up for it
It would make riders of the likes of Pedraza and Marzano useless I think... Those types of riders would be luxury helpers, whereas they are very likely to score decent as it is now. It won't change anything to have more great riders, it will just push the skilllimits up, and make the gap between superrider and subtop rider bigger. But for what?
Well, definately not useless but of course they would become less useful. But isn't that the point? Younger riders coming from below and replacing the old ones. And if more young riders become good than older riders become bad, hence increasing the number of good riders, then we get a more exiting field with more teams in the mix of winning races.
At the same time, young riders will also become subtop riders so the gap should be decreased, not increased.
Younger riders coming from below and replacing the old ones. And if more young riders become good than older riders become bad, hence increasing the number of good riders, then we get a more exiting field with more teams in the mix of winning races.
I can easily follow you, but I think it will make the subtop riders useful to some extend, whereas the "cheap" helpers can be very very useful atm. Which young riders become subtop btw? That's the main problem imo. There's too many "great" talents and too little subtop riders like Madrazo coming up. Or perhaps I'm just not good enough to find them. There are some very good subtop hilly riders, and probably also cobblers, but especially the GT riders seem to be extremely competent, making the decent current riders worth less with every season that passes. A rider on the level of EG. Castaño should be consistent over 3 seasons, but I think they might become "worse" due to the competition being better. And that might cause inflation on those top riders, leaving the gap to the next riders HUGE in terms of stats, but also wage...
Well Valls is going to be an excellent sub top rider in the style of Castano. I feel that as far as young talents go, SN is doing a good job, only adding a couple of serious GT contenders a year, replacing those whom are falling away.
That said, if every pro tour team has a gt leader who is 82 mo, 80 tt, then the game looses it's fun, as then the races become more luck than picking the best rider, sure Cunego has been amazing in the giro, but hes had plenty of luck, and is changing teams this year anyway. Fothen, Spilak, Valverde, have all swapped teams recently, so I don't think riders stagnate that much.
[url=www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=33182]Team Santander Media Thread[/url]
True but most have been according to managers dropping the game. Otherwise we would never see riders such as Bennati, Cunego or Rogers in another team I reckon... Well not in their prime that is.
I agree that Valls is a good subtop rider. There are a couple, but if I look through the DB I see way more top riders evolving than suptob. Perhaps I remember wrong but riders such as:
Emanuelle Sella
Jose Alarcon
Simon Spilak
Thomas Dekker
Markus Fothen
Alexander Pluchkin
Rigoberto Uran
Sergio Luis Henao Montoya
Beñat Intxausti
Vincenzo Nibali
Domenico Pozzovivo
Taylor Phinney
Robert Gesink
Rein Taaramae
Andrei Amador
Justo Tenorio
Angel Madrazo
Yuri Trofimov
Timofey Kritskiy
Romain Sicard
Those have all developped or will develop into star riders (I may have some wrong, but the big picture remains).
While I would have liked to see 2 or even 3x as many subtop riders, whom with very clever season planning could go and become VERY valuable... I may again be forgetting some, but I remember:
Marco Marzano
Vadim Ratiy (Eventhough he needs training)
Florentino Marquez
Robert Kiserlovski
Petar Panayotov
Jurgen van den Broeck
Frederik Kessiakoff
John-Lee Augustyn
Amets Txurruka
Ruben van der Hugenhaben
Aleksej Kunshin
Stefan Denifl
Rafael Valls
Like I said I may be remembering way off! And I definately agree that SN have done wonders to make the DB really cool in all aspects, but a lot of subtop riders, is FA's tweaked, while the top GC riders are talents, whom you give XP points, developping them through being helpers -> Subtop -> stars!
I see a missing link in talents going from helper to Subtop, and no further, and perhaps a bit downtweaking of the FA's like Cunego would be good, as he is truly and wellspend overrated in this game :-)
Well, the number of people with mountain stats is as follows:
84-1
83-4
82-10
81-9
80-19
79-13
78-15
77-26
This seems fairly well spread out, gradually increasing, bar 82 and 80, which a lot of riders seem to be trained up to.
I do agree that there are not many riders in the database who are yet to max, and will hit 78-79 mountain, Valls and Denfil seem to be the only 2. However, as SN has added 600 young free agents, I somehow doubt that will remain the case.
[url=www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=33182]Team Santander Media Thread[/url]
I think SotD does have a fair point about managers getting a great rider and then keeping hold of them forever. I do think the rather static nature of the stats of maxed out riders (barring the rightly expensive team training option) does tend to encourage a sort of hoarding of riders at the lowest wage possible mentality.
We explored the problem of players coming in with steals - I agree with rjc it would create a layer of bad feeling.
Perhaps some sort of low level 'random stat degradation' for some riders is the answer. This could perhaps be linked to previous seasons results whereby an underperforming rider loses a point or so in his highest stat.
Random is bad, if you have the bad fortune that your rider underperforms, you shouldn't have that compounded by them losing a stat as well.
All the current GT holders either tranfered last season or are going to this one, and I feel the salary cap deals with this problem quite nicely, La Gazzetta had to decimate their team in order to keep Cunego and Bennati, I imagine SOny will have to do the same this year, while Spilak's salary will also skyrocket.
I honestly think there isn't a problem with things being static for the very top riders.
[url=www.pcmdaily.com/forum/viewthread.php?thread_id=33182]Team Santander Media Thread[/url]
I agree that we don't want statdecreases. It would undermind the entire purpose of training a rider. EG Contador crashed in the Vuelta, thus making him have a shitty season. If he was to decrease a stat, that I had spent 3mio on training the previous season I would be rather piffed. Obviously I would sell him if that was the case, so it wouldn't be a monster-problem, but it could lead towards the poor teams, getting poorer. I estimate a team like Philips, whom I would believe have a capacity of somewhere in the top 10, could lose a severe amount of points from their best, but underperforming, starriders - An issue, that could eventually lead them into another relegation battle next season...
I think you've hit on your own problem there SotD.
The first season when training was introduced, what were the three stats most heavily trained in? Mountain. Hill. Sprint. With a splash of TT here and there.
The current training system is much better, as it's far more expensive to train an already brilliant rider (like Cunego for example) or a good grand tour rider (like Contador). Every manager jumped on the training band-wagon if you like, to take full advantage of it. That's how so many "top riders" were produced, in my opinion.
Then, take into account that a lot of the current flock of Top GC riders are all going to begin aging in the next few seasons, and the need to replace these riders is necessary. If there weren't enough Top GC riders, then there would be absolutely no movement in GC riders. Once you got one, you'd never let him go.
As much as you wanted to portray a picture of there being too many Top GC riders, and not enough "sub top" riders, I think you've just ignored the obvious riders.
There are currently (for next season I should mention) 32 riders with 80+ mountain. Of those, 9 will decrease stats the following season (Valverde, Popovych, F.Schleck to mention 3), and another 4 the following season (Cunego, Sella, Fothen).
If we don't replace those riders, who will you buy to replace Contador, Sanchez, Castano, Ardila? I can see you getting far more pissed off if you didn't have enough free agent GT riders to bid for than too many.
Regardless of all my waffling, which I kinda lost what point I was trying to make, the game is, as the game is. You often see riders staying with a team their entire career, or only changing the once. With the salary cap introduced, the wages differing due to different season results, and new riders being introduced, the change in team riders are fine in my opinion.
Plus, no one forces anyone to base their entire team around a GT rider. In fact, sprinters are often cheaper, and being a considerable lack of them in the PT, you could make an absolute killing in points if you plan correctly. Or indeed if you use Time Trialists instead, as I showcased this season.
Random is bad, if you have the bad fortune that your rider underperforms, you shouldn't have that compounded by them losing a stat as well.
I honestly think there isn't a problem with things being static for the very top riders.
Given that I have had no experience of the contract system - that seems like a really good system which certainly seems to be dealing with winners at the high level. Who knows how much Trofimov, Spilak, Valverde will need to be kept in their teams next year!
I think I was wrong about the underachievement thing, but I was thinking about how to make the stat of the riders a bit more dynamic. I always get uncomfortable when someone starts reeling off what the exact stats of a rider will be in a couple of years time. Should it really be set in stone that a rider trained in a certain way remains static forever more? (well until they turn 32?)
If we don't replace those riders, who will you buy to replace Contador, Sanchez, Castano, Ardila? I can see you getting far more pissed off if you didn't have enough free agent GT riders to bid for than too many.
Nah, I used a lot of time last season figuring out what to do with my team. I came to the conclusion that I couldn't be bothered with talents, as most of the talents would probably be on the FA's market the season after, so I would much rather get a good result this season, and then go for talents more evolved next season. I do what I have to do, in order to have my team in the top 3 of the PT... So far I haven't found a reason to go for talents, how much I would love it. When they are finally ready for action, I don't know for certain how good they are, and they are also to expensive in wages...
Plus, no one forces anyone to base their entire team around a GT rider. In fact, sprinters are often cheaper, and being a considerable lack of them in the PT, you could make an absolute killing in points if you plan correctly. Or indeed if you use Time Trialists instead, as I showcased this season.
The main problem is, that it seems impossible to figure out which sprinters are good enough to win anything. I for one can't seem to figure it out. I have had almost all kind and non of them performs on a regular basis. And for the TT'ers you really need a TT'er who can also climb decently or do a decent amount of hillying, and those a very expensive. I believe that both Ardila and Castaño are cheaper wagewise, than most of the TT-riders capable of competing on a pointscoring level.
But it was merely a suggestion, as to get more subtop riders. Then people could train those, like I did with both Castaño and Ardila a couple of seasons ago. Instead of getting one brilliant rider and training him. As it stands now you will need that too make your captain stand out from the crowd. Even a rider like Andy Schleck isn't very good this season, because of the competition, but I reckon his wage is much higher than the riders at ½ a level below him. That is why I think we have already seen that the absolute top level have been reached. Otherwise we will begin to see 84-85 climbers next year, and there really isn't any reason to max out the riders like that, when we can stay in a position where 82 climbers are very good
To be fair, part of the reason why Andy Schleck's wage is what it currently is, is because he dominated the Vuelta last season. It will reduce this year, I expect
