I see the point with less work, but also less enjoyable then. I wouldn't exactly like our non-climber squad to do only Tachira, Trentino etc. What would even be the point of signing road captains if you can't pick races for them?
Sure, dev teams are just for fun (well, mostly). But not in favor of randomly assigning RDs. And in this case, ember - a manager who isn't really involved in admin tasks otherwise - is doing the work, so it's not that much more work for Admins. I'd also happily do it if that's the way around randomness. And yeah, I hate AI.
You are totally right, just something I thought about when me and kb talked about days, it's not like our guys will win a lot anyway, so dosen't really mater, we just went stage races to see the team as much as possible
I am going to say this once. Trust me you do not want the Wirtgens of the world to have their current PT race days in CT.
Luckily Wirtgen won't ride in CT while maxed.
However, I wouldn't mind someone like Cras having 55 race days if CT had the same amount of race days as PT (or 45 if it was aligned with PCT).
Is there anyway of creating something we can check how many RD's our signed riders have compared to how many are needed to complete full lineups at all the races we have selected?
I am going to say this once. Trust me you do not want the Wirtgens of the world to have their current PT race days in CT.
Luckily Wirtgen won't ride in CT while maxed.
However, I wouldn't mind someone like Cras having 55 race days if CT had the same amount of race days as PT (or 45 if it was aligned with PCT).
Never say never with increased budgets, lower base wage and more there's feasible math that makes it happen.
I am going to say this once. Trust me you do not want the Wirtgens of the world to have their current PT race days in CT.
Luckily Wirtgen won't ride in CT while maxed.
However, I wouldn't mind someone like Cras having 55 race days if CT had the same amount of race days as PT (or 45 if it was aligned with PCT).
Never say never with increased budgets, lower base wage and more there's feasible math that makes it happen.
Seeing is believing.
Just to be clear, I’m asking for either a higher CT budget or a lower minimum wage.
I am going to say this once. Trust me you do not want the Wirtgens of the world to have their current PT race days in CT.
Luckily Wirtgen won't ride in CT while maxed.
However, I wouldn't mind someone like Cras having 55 race days if CT had the same amount of race days as PT (or 45 if it was aligned with PCT).
Never say never with increased budgets, lower base wage and more there's feasible math that makes it happen.
Seeing is believing.
Just to be clear, I’m asking for either a higher CT budget or a lower minimum wage.
I think there are extreme worlds where either of those things make it possible for a first decline Wirtgen to fit under CT cap.
I am going to say this once. Trust me you do not want the Wirtgens of the world to have their current PT race days in CT.
Luckily Wirtgen won't ride in CT while maxed.
However, I wouldn't mind someone like Cras having 55 race days if CT had the same amount of race days as PT (or 45 if it was aligned with PCT).
Never say never with increased budgets, lower base wage and more there's feasible math that makes it happen.
Seeing is believing.
Just to be clear, I’m asking for either a higher CT budget or a lower minimum wage.
I think there are extreme worlds where either of those things make it possible for a first decline Wirtgen to fit under CT cap.
Agree — and I’d love to see it. If the numbers ever line up for a CT team to sign a first decline Wirtgen, that would be an unexpected and fun twist
Quite often we see a few different managers, myself included, being upset at the amount/variety/level of regional additions to the game. Some managers also have a stronger inclination in terms of building teams built for performance moreso than regional RP. Therefore I think it could be poignant to reconsider how we approach the situation.
Allow Managers to assign importance to additions:
This could be a bit controversial but we have managers where which region or country the rider origins from being a centrepiece and then there are managers where the country is more important than the regional and then managers where the region doesn't matter at all.
As an additional pre season check a survey could go out to the teams where they get to assign importance to either a regional or a nation from a "points budget". The thought process behind this is that some managers have different priorities. Let's say that a manager wants to see more regional riders added in they could lose prio in either C1 selection/bands etc. allowing the managers that want to minmax those things within reason to also get that advantage while other managers get their advantage elsewhere.
It's not a fully fledged concept and there are quite a few holes to be filled but I think that a team having a specific nationality doesn't necessarily mean that they want to prioritise riders from said nationality. An example of regional consumption could also be a teams such as Zwift and McCormick being American but still signing Canadian riders since North America is a focus region etc.
It's a bit rambly and a shoddy introduction to the concept but if we allowed teams to have focus regions instead of focus nationality some of the bad experiences from managers who really wants to lean into that part of the identity might be lessened.
Wait, Can I buy more Sammarinese "talents" like could I spend budget in transfers to guarantee more riders than normal are added the following season even if they are only ever going to be domestique level riders?
I'd even pay more to pick the names if that was an option.
I also thought about something like that, being really disappointed by Swiss additions (except for Christen, but one rider can't make a team) this year.
I was thinking something like ICL's scouting concept, which was completely optional. So if the RP/regional aspect of the game is important to a manager, he can save money for scouting. It would obviously be different in MG; in ICL, you could sign scouted talents pre-transfers (even in an auction against other managers if they discovered the same talents) - that's not something that would fit well into the MG world. But it could just increase the chances of having higher Pot talents in a country/region. In ICL, iirc you could also buy Pot upgrades - another concept that doesn't fit with MG's predictable dev paths though.
But a concept like this would still need to be well-developed - as much as I'd love to get more useful Swiss guys (we're 2.5 teams chasing after them, after all), it must not come at the expense of DB balance! To me, it's also a more general question about new rider additions - will post something on this probably next week...
Wait, Can I buy more Sammarinese "talents" like could I spend budget in transfers to guarantee more riders than normal are added the following season even if they are only ever going to be domestique level riders?
I'd even pay more to pick the names if that was an option.
Maybe add 5-10 bad talents (e.g. 72 main stat) that dont have a name and nationality yet and are placeholders. Then whoever signs them from FA / draft can pick a nationality and the MG UCI picks a name from that nationality (possibly in discussion with the winning manager).
Would give a team from San Marino / Curacao / Sri Lanka / X the option to get more locals into the team when they dont care about rider quality? And doesnt require to look at the DB balance
They're already adding bad talents for Dev teams. There shouldn't be any 'buying talents' nonsense. It's been said before, let people buy stat gain changes instead and there won't be a need for any other talent thing
They're already adding bad talents for Dev teams. There shouldn't be any 'buying talents' nonsense. It's been said before, let people buy stat gain changes instead and there won't be a need for any other talent thing
Agree. I’d rather not have to spend additional money on most likely terrible talents just to make up numbers. Also penalises teams further that have a nationality focus that would now have to spend money for the sake of having riders added. Would also be unfair as a CT team with a more limited budget.
Additionally, I think rider additions should take into account the new rider’s nationality and how it is portrayed in the MG - For example, there’s been a Greek team dominating the MG for 15-20 years, winning division titles and having multiple leaders of Greek origin. In my opinion, this should qualify a country like Greece to have at least an average/higher than average talent added every couple of years or so to reflect this that doesn’t require $millions of investment to be made into a low level leader which is currently the case. I understand that is one of the caveats of having a regionally focused team, but I feel like additions should also reflect the current state of the MG to an extent which I don’t think it currently does much at all.
1. Change the name of Downhill in the MG DB to Bike Handling (just because Cyandie hasn't bothered doesn't mean we shouldn't)
2. Adding a 4th colour in the conditional formatting for the stat have 78-79-80 in an Orange or slightly different shade of red. 78+ tends to be the tipping point for many stats so having this highlighted makes sense to me
Quick Fire Headlines!
1) The Low Stat Exemption goes away.
2) Stats will be split into 3 Tiers, with Tier 1 being 100% cost, then Tier 2 & 3 being discounted.
3) These discounts would only apply to riders under a certain OVL
4) Under this OVL, training cost will always be that of the new stat!
5) Above this OVL, training is as usual, cost of stat or OVL whichever is higher.
6) There is a minimum training cost of 100k introduced, you'll see why
7) Discounts cap at 76
Please don't get hung up on the specific OVL's or Costs. These are always adjustable, i'm more interested in the underlying ideas and we can tweak the numbers later on.
What are the 3 Tiers?
Tier 1 - FL, MO, MM, HL, TT, ST, CB, SP, PR
Tier 2 - RS, RC, ACC
Tier 3 - FTR, DH
Tier 1 is most of the stats. But it has to be, otherwise it just gets too easy to abuse the discounts. These are the "impact" stats and should always be expensive to level up.
Tier 2 stats definitely can make an impact but less significantly. ACC is the one i'm least sure on, it could easily be Tier 1.
Tier 3 stats do basically nothing.
What are the Discounts?
Tier 3 discounts 100,000 - Which would make <65 training free, hence the new Minimum Training Cost of 100,000. For Tier 3 this makes <69 100k. Feels crazy, but remember this only applies to riders under a certain OVL.
Tier 2 discounts 50,000, still with the Minimum 100k cost. For Tier 2 this makes <67 100k.
Why flat rate discount? Because a %-rate discount gives bigger benefit to high stats, which is the opposite of what I want to achieve. Plus Flat Rate is really easy for everyone to understand and the MG Admin to check in Transfer Sheets.
What's the OVL line for Discounts?
In my mind, the C2 boundary makes some sense, so 74.49. And we need to not make it easy to turn already good riders into better riders.
A Stat Cap?
Above 76 you just revert to normal cost. Simple way to again stop exploitation of the system and keep the discounting to more RP areas and not cause stat inflation in the CT leader zone.
74 or 75 i also though about and could easily argue for. I might prefer them... idk... this is the hardest part for me
Simply, Why?
At the moment in CT you just can't train up regional riders into viable CT level scorers, and I wanted to try and open up a way for CT to get to do more meaningful training.
I toyed with "CT Only" training rules, but too risky for new managers to get taken advantage of. Plus I want teams with a Regional focus that get up to PCT to be able to keep going.
Hence the OVL limits coming in, where we shouldn't end up with cheap training on PCT and PT level regular scorers. So they can work on riders but in a way that doesn't, i think, break the game.
Hopefully we can make CT training more viable. Spread out training to more varied stats and riders. Spread out training across the divisions. And if it works, lead to the removal of the disliked (but necessary) Transfer Tax.
Anyway, please discuss. I did try and run some maths on the numbers, but i'm not a data analyst like some of you are. If the numbers are off, please suggest new ones and don't just dismiss the core concepts.
Ideally we'd pair this with a bit more change to Stat Gains to keep encouraging choice and rider variation, but that's way beyond what I can work out, and this was designed to function with Stat Gains as is.
Cool.
First of all, I think it's good to think about improving training. It has been more or less the same since I joined the game, with just the low-stat exemption rules changing a little bit.
I'm in favor of splitting training costs into different tiers. They just don't all have equal weight (which is logical). I would try to make it a bit easier though, having just two tiers - main stats and support stats. With main stats being Mo, Hi, TT, Cob, Spr. Depending on test findings, MM might have to be added, but I guess as long as it's directly correlated to Mo/Hi that's hard to say. PRL could be discussed as well, but there might just be too little opportunities to treat it as a main stat. However, coupling TT/PRL could be an idea - you pay 1.5x for TT training and get +1 PRL as well. I'd have loved that for Bissegger for example (whereas training PRL alone just isn't worth it).
Why am I not in favor of e.g. adding Sta to the main stats, knowing that it matters in the current game version? Sure, you could accuse me of seeking my personal advantage. It is true, I intend to train Schmid in Stamina, just because he needs it. So it would be great for me if Sta is not in the highest tier.
But that's not the point. The point is that yes, Stamina does matter. It does matter in PCM24 (and probably in the future, even if it may matter less if there's indeed a modifier). And it does matter for certain rider types. And I guess that's the point. Training TT makes your rider faster against the clock. Training Mo makes him faster uphill. Training Spr makes him faster in sprints. Training Stamina? Can help under certain circumstances - to me, that's the perfect definition of a support stat. Like Acc, Res, Rec, which are useful for certain riders in certain situations.
And yes, I do agree that it makes sense to cap off the "tier discount" at a given stat level. jt keeps repeating that Stamina really gives you a boost starting with 77 iirc, so capping at 76 like you suggested would be fine. Otherwise you could create monsters relatively cheap, which shouldn't be the goal of the tier list. The goal should be to create more well-rounded riders.
Or, in my case, just to fix a broken rider - broken because he was designed to work well in another game version (which he did).
Another point I was thinking about is OVL calculation. What hits me in every year's Free Agency is the plethora of 75-77 puncheurs that weren't renewed. The obvious reason is that puncheurs are just rated very highly by OVL and hence are often more expensive to renew than to sign from FA - which misses the goal of renewals imho. The renewals wage should more or less be the "market value" of a rider, and with puncheurs that's rarely the case.
I do think the obvious reason for the high valuation is the amount of hilly classics available. Puncheurs must be the riders who score best when doing well in classics, whereas that isn't really a thing for climbers. So yes, good puncheurs can have a higher OVL than comparable climbers. However, the current OVL probably considers every puncheur to be a classics specialist, which as we know is simply not true. Below 75-77 Stamina, classics are a gamble. So, would we need two different "puncheur" specialisations, classics and stage races, with one of them taking Stamina into considerations?
It has already brought up iirc - let's not overcomplicate OVL. I'd be in favour of taking into account mainly the Hill stat, then maybe a little bit of Sprint (as that seems to be important) and maybe (or maybe not even) Stamina, and that's it. Then add a secondary specialisation on top (as I believe it's currently done). So mainly rate riders based on main stats, not support stats. The resulting OVL may be lower for some and higher for others - the market will do the rest. As it is now, Schmid is penalised by a formula that doesn't reflect the current game engine well, so he actually has too little RDs and too high of a wage (pre-training obviously). Just remove most of the support stat impact from the formula, and we might get an OVL formula that can stand for many years - which is way better for long-term planning than changing it every time we change the game engine.
Just playing around with Schmid: Before training, he had 76/78/79 Mo/MM/Hi. OVL=78.34. If he had acceleration 75 instead of 79, that goes down to 78.00. A difference of -0.34. For probably not much effect in-game. Training Sta by 4, going from 73->77, gives me 78.46. +0.12, for a huge effect! Thanks to his allround skillset, he'd be a Top 5 contender in most classics like that, despite "just" 79 Hi. So imho the current OVL just values the wrong secondaries highly.
And more fun: If instead of 77/79/80 after training he was a comparable climber, i.e. 80/79/77, his OVL would be 78.27 -> 0.07 lower than as a 76/78/79 puncheur, and a massive 0.69 lower than as the 77/79/80 puncheur he is now... I do however think that this difference Mo/Hi is reasonable because of the calendar, as said before - it's really the support stat importance I struggle with.
Is there actually any plan of getting a revamped OVL? I've heard lots of things, like the aim of getting a simpler formula, a formula including MM, no change at all... Has there been an official statement of what to expect from OVL for next year and the more distant future already? Would be great in terms of planning - and I know it's not just me but other managers as well who would like to know
