Where are we these days?

As a player who contributed more than a fair share of hard cash, I was wondering where "iGp Manager" is these days. Are we more attractive to new players? Are player numbers going up? Is the future looking better than before all te latest updates..? Feels like we're being left in the dark here. All I seem to see, is players leaving. The new rookie class is racing against bots and it's not really  attractive to new players as far as I'm concerned. Looking back to my old leagues: that all dry out. Every single one of them. So dev's: where are we these days?

Thank you Kevin but it’s not an answer to my questions. Where are we on player numbers? Gaining or losing? Is iGP attracting new players these days? Where are we compared to five years ago… That’s what I want to know…

A big marketing push is a great idea and hopefully helps to increase the number of active players, but ill have my doubts to be honest, that it will help in the long run.


Since the level 30 update and the discontinuation of ad videos and some other changes, you will need rookie managers with really a lot of patience or a lot of money. 

Ill buy some tokens now and then, mostly to support IGP, because everybody should be aware, that the whole IGP staff is not working for free.

But you seriously should consider the points which i described above, because if i would be a rookie managers, i wouldnt have the patience and enthusiasm to rush through an almost inactive pro class, just to end up with level 12/15 in the elite class and then to be chanceless at the end of the grid for the next 2 years.

This was totally different when i have started with IGP in 2020, rookie, pro and elite was active and i scored my first points in Elite with level 10 in a quite good casual league.

Today with my substitute account, iam not able to score any points with level 22, if iam participating in a quite good casual league.

And i will not spend real money for my second account. When you get only 1 point for your motor development after each race, you will need 720 races to fully develop your motor (24 tracks x 30 motor points).

So you have to buy tokens for motor points, good drivers with legendary race craft, multiple CD´s and maybe additional TD´s with also special abilities.

This can be quite expensive...from my point of view too expensive for new players, who are not sure, for how long they will play IGP.

Just think about my comments and hopefully you will make the correct conclusions.

Best regards

Marcus

Fully agree with Hell Raiser. My own (and only) team is currently inactive because it really feels like things are going slowly downhill around here. Haven't seen any new players around for a while. Some developments are too "tokens focused" as Hell Raiser also points out. Looking at my "friends" list: most of them seem to be inactive or their account is removed. Not really a good sign there. So I get what Eisenheim wants to know, because honestly: I think player numbers have gone down. 

The addition of level 30 killed the game in my opinion. New players don't have enough patience to wait to compete. Most get into elite too soon.
The additional struggle with parts, increased costs etc is too much for everyone except the most dedicated to the grind at the back of the field.

Hi Great Leader Kim! 


Thats exactly what i have written above... so we all agree, but unfortunately we are not sitting in the driver seat, we are only the passengers in the big IGP bus. 

The IGP management seems to have a different view on the current situation and if their business figures are ok, they will continue this path. 

We either have to accept it or quit playing the game. 

BR

Marcus

Before the last major update, I had fun changing my car livery and colors every season, didn’t cost too many tokens. I’m currently on my 5th season with the same car livery. As simple as a fun livery change that I used to enjoy is now costing me a good 30-60+ tokens. It’s not the same feeling anymore..

Yes, same here...i also regularly spent some tokens for a new car livery and change of the team name, just to be creative and show a new and fresh look.


In some of my previous 1 car leagues, we also had team competitions, where two managers teamed up and had the same team name and the same car livery and every driver had an individual car number in the team name. When teams were changing it was affordable to change the livery and team name again.

Today you have to spent a lot of token for these changes (even the simple change of the country flag costs 5 token), so team competitions are simply not possible any longer.

I also use my current car livery and team name now for many seasons and will use it for even more seasons. Thats bad news for creativity but good news for my token balance.

There are many more players now than before. The problem is that the game requires you to be level 6 to join a league. That restriction didn’t exist before, and every new player could enter leagues and compete right away. I’m sure that if this limitation were removed, we would once again have active leagues like we used to. Just my opinion as a league administrator. Best regards.

Remember the inactive rookies? I think this system is better, giving new players the opportunity to race immediately in sprint race instead of having to wait for league race and lose them (because people don’t have patience anymore).


The level 6 restriction has its cause, it’s trying to grow the players into the game and make them ready for league racing or at least understand the game before diving into leagues. Leagues and everything that comes with it is a lot to digest for newbies

Good afternoon. From my experience as the administrator of my league, I’ve come to realise that numbers speak louder than words. If we look at the facts, it’s true there used to be a lot of inactive players — but believe it or not, that was actually a good thing.


What do I mean by that? If a league had 100 inactive users, but even just 10–15% of them ended up joining the Discord or WhatsApp groups, that was already a win. Many of those eventually became “base players”.

The current issue is that those 100 new managers no longer show up. And even worse, very few managers join leagues at all. These days, you’re lucky if one or two join. What can you do with that? Absolutely nothing.

Personally, I think the current system is fine overall — but I completely disagree with level 6 being a mandatory requirement to join a league.

In my opinion, the maximum requirement should be level 2, so that new players can quickly jump into leagues and start competing.

New managers want to take part in tournaments, in leagues, play against others, and look forward to race time.

I really enjoy Sprint Races myself, but I believe they should be an international competition for everyone — like a global event — not a forced step for newcomers.

They get demotivated and end up quitting. And honestly, I don’t blame them — I’d probably
 do the same.

Even the forum is now gradually dying...

The only active discussion is this one, where we are talking about the agony of the game. Ok, it's summer and it's physiological for players to distance themselves from online games, but it would be hypocritical not to want to realize that the community almost doesn't exist anymore. 
Unfortunately.

Isn’t that the issue though.  They never jumped in and competed.  They joined a league with T 1 drivers, rarely swapped them for better and never trained them or upgraded their HQ and let’s not talk about setting up for races or chassis development.  The few that do set up got through Rookie competing against inactive drivers and the same in Pro.  Then a lvl 9 found themselves in Elite, got lapped, didn’t like that and so quit.  


It’s probably even worse now as no one has any patience and expects instance success without putting any effort in.  Whether the game in its current format can overcome this I not sure since the nature of racing is that not everyone can be winners.

Some of the above is an exaggeration on reality, but the sentiment is an accurate reflection of the game and problems it faces.

Thats exactly the main issue, what you have described. 


But i dont blame the rookies, which arrive at the Elite class. 

Yes, you need patience to develop your account and game skills. 

But since the level 30 upgrade you will not be competitive for at least a minimum of a year, i also wouldnt spend a lot of time and money, if i would be chanceless for such a long time. 

There are a lot of possible solutions:

1.) Reduce the max level to 20 again
2.) Create leagues with level limitations, e.g. level 1 up to 10, 11 to 15, and so on and get rid of the senseless Pro class
3.) Significantly decrease the time to level up and reach level 30

With the current settings it will be tough to keep this game alive... 

I agree having level limited or level banded leagues makes sense, but to work it probably needs to be auto managed by iGP (in the same way some of the golf & ice hockey games do).  Once you work your way through levels you would then be free to join an Elite League.  It would mean that player managed leagues would be Elite only as well.

Yes, these leagues, which are limited for certain levels, need to be provided and managed by IGP, this is working on poker and chess platforms as well. 


The Elite leagues (limited from level 28 up to 30) could be still managed by the players. 

And i would also reduce the total number of leagues and close down inactive zombie leagues. 

Would be nice to discuss these ideas with some IGP officials. 

If my opinion would change anything.

We're playing the game not because of management mechanic (upgrading a team, because... it's really simple and not that deep), but because of
1) leagues and community built because of that.
2) the deepness of race and season management. Only 4 tires, but you can't say races are the same even if there's no tyre rules beside standard 2 type. Research and Design points mechanic are super cool, deep and interesting mechanic.

And that grind for levels, IMO, ruin all of that because we make newbies uncompetitve for TOO LONG. It's more than 2 years to reach level 30. Yes, you can make it faster via Sprint Races, but you (a) needs to be dedicated (b) for at least a year.

I know that this won't be accepted (at least fully), but I think level mechanic should be either speeded up significantly (for newers) or removed entirely. 

I don't believe that there are more (new) players than before. Looking at rookie races, most of them look like bots, all using the same strategy and boosting al at the same time etc. My feeling is not that positive, I guess the whole iGP story is crumbling more and more and no update is going to stop that...