Suggested

Promotion threshold

There is a kind of 'generation gap' in my league (and many others as far as I know) which is about the lack of experienced players in the Pro tier which makes low level freshmen move to the Elite tier too early. It results in a very unpleasant sutiation that people are losing interest in playing the game as they cannot compete due to the lack of experience and low level which means silly techs. 

That's the reason I have come up with the idea that it sould be possible for league hosts to toggle a level threshold - an option to set the minimum level required for promotion to the Elite tier. Especially since we are about to see the introduction of the long anticipated league rules.

I understand that it might possibly be abused by some unfair hosts but I don’t see any other way to prevent ruining people's gaming experience caused by rookies making their Elite debute too early. 

I love this idea, I actually just started a thread with an idea trying to solve this same problem. Another option that would have a similar effect would be adding the ability for the host to toggle ballast for the Elite tier. If a high level player joined the Pro tier they wouldn’t necessarily dominate it just because of their level, so adding this option to Elite would let hosts try to combat the issue that it seems plenty of leagues are dealing with.

This should be a mandatory feature of the game  ( the minimum requirement not the ballast idea ?) and has been suggested on several occasions.  In fact I’d go further and remove ballast full stop since it makes no sense to penalise higher level players (a lot win will win regardless anyway, but some won’t) and you can’t really have if it you are restricting promotion to a minimum tier.

I'm not sure if I like or dislike the ballast idea as I agree with Mitchel here that having ballast doesn't always affect high level players as mush as it should.

But a little addition to my original idea is that if right now it's not possible to make a level threshold then what about separated promotions?
If disabling only certain promotions and relegations (e.g. Pro < - > Elite not affecting Rookie < - > Pro) was possible, that could also be a solution to the 'Pro tier issue'.
Of course thats a bit more straightforward solution, not a fine tuning option like the level threshold value, but it's still better than watching players of levels below 15 struggle in Elite and then quit as the result. 

Just switch off promotion. 

New players want to get to elite as quick as possible, players that are in elite are generally serious players, most pro and rookie leagues are full of inactives making promotion easy to those that attend etc. Once a player gets to elite then it's about learning, they can't expect to win when they are 5 or 6 levels behind others. If they lose interest then it means they aren't serious players and just play to win and not playing to learn to get better at the game. When I joined elite I found a leagues with 10k rep players to learn the game knowing I wouldn't win but gained experience. Serious players will continue with the game, those just hunting wins will find easy leagues but gain zero knowledge.
Having a level limit will again just make them lose interest if they are stuck in a rookie/pro league with just a couple of active players.

It's not a solution as it completely isolates Pro tier and it's not a good scenario for the whole league in general. The ultimate goal of having a level threshold is to prevent people from making it to Elite too early, not to completely freeze the promotion mechanism, which is essential for proper functioning of the league.
It's not a secret that the Rookies tier is the most reliable source of new players for most leagues and I don't want to cut it off by disabling promotion to Pro. Neither would any host want to miss out on new players as those would obviously leave to other leagues that have active promotions.

And in regards to your 'hard learning path' statement - I actually agree with the idea that competing with those stronger than you makes you progress a lot faster. But only if the conditions are equal and that's not the case here. 
Young athletes don't compete with adults in most sports because they are not yet physically developed enough to guarantee equal chances. The same goes with players of low levels 'competing' with old players in Elite - it’s just not fair and has nothing to do with being a bad player.

As soon as you get 5 or 10 teams in Pro that are at your preferred threshold, you can then put promotions back on.  Either that, or just go with whomever goes up from season to season...

I also think that Pro players at the end of the season should have the choice to move to the elite or not. In strong leagues, it happens that low-level players move to Elite, and then suffer and do not enjoy the game. 

I’d prefer a cap imposed by the game.  


The main reason for this is that in leagues I’ve been in previously the hosts have given Pro managers the option of not being promoted and even when they have been advised that they will struggle they still opt for promotion thinking they can compete.  

Half a season later fed up with being lapped they have quit.  The game has an inbuilt imbalance which is difficult to overcome so reaching an appropriate tier to me seems sensible.  I know some experienced players like to join leagues with newer accounts and look to achieve success against L20 accounts (and some do), but this seems a small price to pay for a functioning game economy.

There’s two sides to this: the guys in pro opting for promotion also gain a massive amount of exp-points racing alongside level 20’s, so it also hastens their progress. So there’s a gain for them as well.


I have restarted my game experience from scratch a while back and while I wouldn’t constantly do this, it is a massive thrill to stun a league and win an elite championship with a lower level account.

How do you think you’re going to get teams in Pro without promotions being on…? Yes teams can join from outside the league but that’s much more rare than having rookies move up to pro

I understand where you come from Kevin and I admire what you do. but not all leagues are strong as yours and certainly not all leagues have a host like you. I’ve experienced that a good manager in a less competitive league can win at level 15 or 16 already.


By imposing a hard cap, you take chances away from these managers. Just my 5 cents.

I agree with both you and Kevin here and that's why I think that level 15 is an optimal minimum required for promotion to Elite. Below that even an experienced player will struggle to win a single race, not even talking about a championship for obvious reasons. 

And it's also especially relevant in light of the upcoming* addition of 10 levels which will only increase the gap between old Elite players and low level newcomers. If even today an ordinary level 14 player has very few opportunities to challenge a level 20, just think of how dramatic the difference in techs would be when ex-Pro players will have to face level 30 veterans in Elite.

Upd. *upcoming - more like 'previously announced' as Giovanni correctly points out below there has been no news on the actual plans of introdutction of new levels since the first announcement. 

There is no news about new levels except that they will come. If they don't change the tier system, the gameplay will be unfair and the only way to enjoy the game for newcomers will be finding a league with equivalent low level players.

I hope they wisely and carefully evaluated about what this would mean and what they should do before announcing it. As of now we don't know what they are working on and what we should expect.

You misunderstand me.


I am assuming that the Pro tier is already full in this scenario and that you may be turning promotion off to get an amount of teams up to a competitive level for Elite.  Once that is done , initially, then you turn promotion back on and the league should manage itself in that manner...

You and Wholly Crap a few posts above are 'hardcore' players who see it as a challenge but believe me that's not the case for most players. 

Most new players who only have 2-3 seasons of gaming experience and are promoted to Elite at level 14 or lower struggle to win and even score points so they lose interest and motivation at the moment of realising that they would only be able to finish at the end of the peloton until they reach at least level 15 (and more realistically 17-18 for leagues not full of inactives). 

I've seen it many times and I want to make sure that people are not quitting only because they have been promoted to Elite too early. And many times I've heard the opinion that they would prefer staying in Pro for a few additional seasons where they can be competitive then going to Elite where they have no chance at all.

Jack mentioned in another thread a likely revamp of Rookie/Pro and will be asking for feedback so waiting for that would seem to be the best approach as none of us know what is planned.  I still believe in a cap at lvl 16/17 for Elite, but depending on what changes are involved in extending levels to 30, it might need to be much higher.  Whatever, the proposals are it seems to be clear that something radical needs to be done to revive Pro.