Suggested

Fix Leagues' Pro Tier low activity.

After playing this game for a few months and also managing two leagues, I have another suggestion - Specific to 2-car leagues:

I've noticed a chronic issue of the Pro Tier in MANY leagues having much fewer active managers than Rookie and Elite. 

My suggestion:

• Promotion from Rookie to Pro should be set to a minimum of 3 Managers. (even after season 3) 


• Relegation from Elite to Pro should be set to a minimum of 5 managers.

Pro Tier promotion and relegation should remain unchanged. (2 managers promoted + 2 relegated).

Of course, this will work as space in each Tier allows:

Example (1), if Pro Tier has 13 managers at the end of the season, then 2 managers will be promoted, leaving 11 and then 5 managers relegated from Elite, so the Pro Tier would now have 16 managers.  

Example (2), if the Pro Tier has 15 managers at the end of the season, then 2 will be promoted, leaving 13, and then the bottom 3 of 5 will be relegated from Elite filling the Tier to 16 again. 


Reasoning:

1. Elite managers are very active and in just about every league I've spectated, the Elite Tier has the most managers online during races. However, Pro Tier is a very important and often competitive space, but it can become manager-thin because there's not enough supply of "active managers". Because those promoted are often just passing through to Elite in a season or 2. AND those relegated from the bottom 2 in Elite are often inactive in many leagues. 

2. By setting Elite relegation to 5, there's a greater chance of a manager who's active but not competitive being relegated to Pro.

3. I've noticed that sometimes managers Promote very fast to Elite in many leagues. Then become bored as they are not able to be competitive in Elite at sometimes level 10, 11, 12 or 13. In this case, if a Promoted Pro manager is in the bottom 5 of Elite, they would probably have more competitive racing being relegated to Pro so that they can prepare a better return to Elite. 

Of course, if Pro Tier is full then the max promotion/relegation would still be 2. 

If adding this feature, maybe allow league hosts to adjust as needed to maintain a more active league in all Tiers. However, the minimums should remain 3 promotions from Rookie and 5 relegations from Elite. 

Edit 5 days later: Looking through leagues this morning. This issue is not limited only to 2-car leagues. It seems leagues that are not set to race daily are especially vulnerable to very low Pro player counts.

I second this 2000% I’ve seen it in my Rookie days, the Pro bracket is completely empty, then end of season for just two Rookies to go forward.  Now they are thinking ‘why are we here’ and head over to another league that probably already has a near full Pro league.  

It some what ties somewhat to host management where you interact to keep players intrigued, so when whomever is searching through leagues under whatever criteria they may stumble on yours and see activity in the chat, then scan through the respective tiers and see that players are there and seemingly fighting for points and not just towing the ‘offline-line’ so to speak.

I think the sentiment and aim is good, but if an active manager is in danger of being relegated to a dead Pro tier they are likely to leave before the season ends to join another Elite League or quit if they have been promoted too quickly.  If the Pro isn’t dead it will be full of managers who have likely been promoted too quickly so again a reason for leaving before current season ends.  This will inevitably lead to more managers reaching Elite way too early and most will soon quit since will be outclassed.

The current structure is always going to have these issues with dead pro leagues while anyone can start a new league and any level can be promoted up to Elite.  I’ve no idea what’s planned, but Jack has intimated a new league structure coming early next year.