Suggested

Proposal: Remove relegation to achieve balance

READ FIRST:
This thread is now closed and this proposed system will not be implemented due to many active players feeling they might be relegated and kept out of their favorite league. We discussed several alternatives in the pages ahead, with the clear favourite being a 'soft' level-cap. More details on exactly what that system is will follow soon, as I will post another thread for feedback on a fully mapped out version of that idea. We will almost certainly be implementing a soft level-cap, so this thread is just here for reading now, not participation.

A simple solution to the remaining balancing challenges occurred to me today, particularly those relating to relegated teams. Here's the proposal:

If a team finishes in the relegation zone, rather than going down a tier, they are automatically removed from the league and suspended from re-joining it for a season, so they move leagues rather than moving tiers. Promotion could remain as it is, since the "relegated" teams are still removed to free up space.

There would be numerous benefits:

• Uncompetitive teams are moved to another league where they may be competitive
  
• High level teams won't fall to lower tiers and hold an unfair advantage over the competition
  
• As a result of this, HQ, driver and staff levels could be uncapped. It's something a lot of you have been demanding, but which needed balancing, and this would bring that. The removal of the tier level caps would also stop strange scenarios like this.
  
• As a result of uncapping levels, the transition between tiers will be smoother. Teams will naturally promote when they are ready to take on the tier above. E.g. A Rookie team will be able to get well in to typical Pro-tier levels before promoting, making them much better prepared to have an impact in Pro, and not just trail around and get disillusioned.
  
• Once you’ve earned the upgrade to Pro or Elite, you get to keep it
  
• There would be no need to punish anyone for relegating. Under the current system something like that would be necessary to balance a higher-level team relegating to lower tiers.
  
• "Relegated" players would be distributed among other leagues, encouraging growth across the game. Pro and Elite will also be kept more populated while new players keep populating Rookie
  
• Leaving a league while in relegation currently results in automatic relegation. Instead, people could leave and join another league at any time, and it would not make any difference to anybody else.
  
• It could be implemented without any disruption to service, and it would only have a positive impact on those currently in relegation zones
  

In conclusion, I think implementing this simple change would have wide-ranging positive effects on the level balancing of leagues throughout iGP Manager. In some ways, this is also more realistic, as racing teams don’t tend to get to F1 then go back to GP2. They tend to join other top level series.

I would love to hear your thoughts and feedback on this suggestion.

That is one potential pitfall I can foresee in the system. But of course, such a league could disable promotion and relegation, so everyone could stay in the league indefinitely.

Well, currently that's only possible only if you were in the relegation zone. Would you intentionally sabotage a season to go to the pro tier in the other league? sounds a bit odd!


It won't be possible to maintain two systems side by side. However, part of our plan for the future is to have a friendly / casual race system which can be used as an alternative to the current league system. It will allow casual mobile players to login and race whenever they want without the need to join a league, and groups of friends across leagues to get together for fun races.

These casual races will be worth much less XP, but they will address most concerns (even those being expressed in this thread, now I think of it) about race timing and frequency, since people will be able to login and race whenever they want. That system won't be around until the mobile app launch though, most likely (March 2017).

We need to add negative consequences for relegation if it is kept as it is, though. For example, we can't just allow teams to take level 20 drivers to Rookie. Should we remove those drivers and staff from the team? Cap their levels? Such things are never popular, so I thought this change would address the balancing between promotion/relegation without taking away anything people have invested time in to building. Everyone gets to keep what they've built.

The opinions so far are obviously framed in terms of how the change would relate to each individual, which is good and what we need to hear, but I'm trying to think of big picture stuff here and making the game overall as balanced and rewarding for everyone as it can be. If we are going to keep relegation as it is then we need ideas for how we're going to handle a level 20 team that goes to Rookie, for example, and what I've proposed in the OP is the best idea I have so far.

I also thought the point about promotion/relegation was more or less addressed above, it can be disabled after all, if people absolutely must stay in their current league and see no viable alternative. That is something which all the people in these leagues might agree on, and so they could disable promotion/relegation.

It would just take you back to the league selection screen where you could choose a new league, and for most times of day there are quite a few alternatives. I believe the population of leagues would spread out organically and a few more good leagues would emerge, but that's speculation.