A Balancing Act

Based on all of your feedback and the data we’ve gathered since launch, I’ve applied several meaningful changes to the way design works to better balance leagues. There have been several small incremental changes since launch, but this is intended to essentially be the solution to imbalances in leagues.

League and Design balancing

• The level cap is now a fixed number for each tier (Rookie = 50, Pro = 80, Elite =100), equalising leagues and neutralising the level advantage of top teams
• After each race, the Technical Director will research and report on the best rival teams and discover bonus Design Points to help catch up. The number of Design Points that can be unlocked will be based on a combination of the Technical Director and Chief Designer star ratings, granting all teams the same opportunity to make design progress and become competitive, regardless of level.
• The calculation for next season designs also now operates based on the star rating of the Chief Designer, again enabling the same opportunity for all teams to create a competitive design regardless of level, putting more emphasis on skilful team management.

Even leagues which are presently unbalanced will be neutralised in the next few races, courtesy of the new Technical Director’s report which will close the gap between teams. In any league, you can expect to see things levelled within the next 5 races regardless of current circumstances.

In all future scenarios of changing leagues, the same rule applies. Within five races anybody should be able to become competitive within a league, regardless of what circumstances they join under.

I had planned to show next season design progress somewhere with this update, but concluded it was not necessary. Why? Because many scenarios like promotion, relegation and moving leagues change these values completely as they are re-balanced. I believe it would cause confusion to display consistent values all season that then change during promotion/relegation or moving leagues, and so have opted not to add this.

Finance balancing

For those who missed it, earlier in the week we also increased sponsor income to increase the chances of turning a profit. Read more on the forum: http://igpmanager.com/?url=forum-thread/5827