Leslie Oldham medal 5000 7 years 176 days ago
From the 'Curse of the Best Car" thread.
"Dan, the system you propose just shifts the curse from the best car to the worst cars. The lower level cars will be forced to develop all of their areas evenly and will suffer the same fate as the best cars do now."
I really try to keep an even temper but now I just can't since, of course, I am the little guy in two leagues.
Why can't anyone listen to rational advice?
As others have noticed in my leagues, the further we go into the season the worse we do in qualifying and the race.
The new Research plan forces the lower level teams to try to keep up with teams that have more Design points to put into the important areas of design. Thus all the performance affecting areas of design continually out pace the the ability of the little guy to keep up because every team that is ahead of them can put more points into those areas than the little guy can.
The new Research system is nothing more than SMOKE AND MIRRORS making it more difficult to detect exactly what is going on.
After I cool off I will repeat advice that myself, Kevin Bissell and James Greer have suggested before. But right now I am so angry I can't think srtaight.
Jason Prudhoe medal 5000 7 years 176 days ago
the way i see it and have done since the new system has come in, the lower end teams can catch up but will forever be in catch up mode with the new system, so they are forced to find the best TD and CD with the best stats they can in order to try and keep up, but will always remain behind once the system applies the points the other team can then dump their points where they like and keep the advantage by a few points.
I like the new system, but if a lower end team is dominating in elite (for example level 13) and a much higher level team comes in (level 20), that higher level team has everything at level 20, it would take only a few races to catch up and them bypass the team that was dominating and that team will be stuck trying to keep up where possible.
so yeah, this is what i see.
Leslie Oldham medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
First of all ANY kind of automated design "research" point allocation is just an insult to the players. It takes management out of the hands of the player.
Second, As long as there are attributes in the design system that do not affect track performance (ie reliability or cooling) the system is fatally flawed and CANNOT be fixed by any means, either automated or not.
Of course those who are running at the front are saying this design/research system is better. But it definitely is accomplishing the opposite of what it was meant to accomplish.
Jay Andrews medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
The star rating for my cars suitability is falling at each successive track. That is how unfair this Research system is.
M Hauck medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
The new system is much better than the old one. At the old system a manager could assign more design points at a certain area, than the maximum of design points in that certain area. So this is way more balanced. with the old system, the player with the lowest design points got a huge advantage after about 3 races, as he could assign his design points at better areas than the car he has spied. So no car can get better than the best car alone through spying.
Yeah some more active management would do the game good, like a decision which areas you want to spy or which team you want to spy, this would also result that inactive wouldnt get extra design points. But all in all it was a big step in the right direction.
also now a good DC is always good (not like the old system, were you could sabotage yourself, to get more extra design points from spying)
Jay Andrews medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
Not more balanced just not affecting you.
Hannu Vallin medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
Would better system be such, that at the beginning of season you get some amount of points depending on the level and stars of your CD/TD and get to distribute them freely, and then give some extra points per race for worse teams and everyone can distribute the points freely? Freedom of points?
Jay Andrews medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
Hannu, we had almost that system before but it gave an advantage to lower level teams because they got more points to distribute to the important areas of design and soon surpassed the more developed teams.
The system you suggest would probably work if every area of design affected on track performance in some way but right now that is not the case.
Hannu Vallin medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
Jay, the old system forced a certain "balanced" setup for the best teams and then the worse teams would catch up and go ahead by only focusing their points to the best categories. If the best teams would be able to distribute their "season starting" points freely, then they could also just push all the points to best categories if they wish.
Kevin Bissell medal 5002 Super Mod 7 years 175 days ago
The current system is better than the previous one but still not perfect. So, my opinion which will hopefully prompt some debate...
It woud be an improvement if all attrinbutes were similarly powerful in affecting car performance but each track had a different "ideal" balance and this ideal balance would be subtly modified by weather conditions on the day of the race. As an example, Cooling which currently appears to have little or no effect in "on track" performance should play a more important part when ambient temperature is very high allowing teams to run higher power engine mapping and make brakes more effective.
If all of the attribues are similarly powerful you can then hand over the "management" of design to the manager.
For next season's car the manager may choose to instruct the CD to focus on certain attributes at the expense of others. The default for a 5 star CD would be 50% in each attribute (4 star 40%, 3 star 30% etc.). But as an example, a manager with a 5 star CD may choose to focus on handling to achieve 80% at the beginning of next season but as a result would have to reduce development on other attributes so may choose to reduce braking and downforce by 15% each. Clearly there would be an ideal balance for Australia but this balance would not always be the same because weather conditions on the day of the race would subtly change things, summer races may require better cooling, wet races better handling, windy better aero (downforce) etc.
Then the manager should be allowed to manually distribute all DP received after a race (espionage and facility) with the proviso that the maximum dp a manager can assign to any individual attribute would be limited to prevent him/her exceeding the design of the strongest car in that attribute at the end of the previous race. Obviously, the manager of the car with the strongest atribute would be permitted to assign more points to this attribute otherwise the system wouldn't work.
Probably stuff I haven't thought through properly but it's a starting point for cleverer people than me to discuss.
John Bradshaw medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
Could anyone tell me why my drivers didn't take part in the Malaysian gp I was all set up for it. I'm new to this so not use to it yet
Kevin Bissell medal 5002 Super Mod 7 years 175 days ago
John. This is the wrong thread for your question but... At what time did you join the league yesterday? I don't think you are eligible to race within the first 24 hours of joining a league and this may be why your drivers didn't compete today. Hopefully all will be good tomorrow.
Leslie Oldham medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago (edited 7 years 175 days ago)
Of course I agree with those ideas Kevin. The programming to implement those things might not be an easy thing but the benefits to the game would be worth it. And a simpler "balancing" system would probably work well with all design attributes affecting the race performance. In fact only a few research points per race might be needed if every design attribute affected race performance.
I actually thought the old Balancing system would work well with only minor adjustments such as allowing some assignment of design points by the player at the beginning of the season and limiting the total amount of points given by research per race to a smaller number less than 80 so that weaker design cars could not catch up before mid season.
Players are still be restricted to their level capacity by the Kers/Drs capabilities so level 11 players would rarely beat a level 15 player even if they had cars of equal design.
Jack Basford medal 5145 
CEO & CTO 7 years 175 days ago (edited 7 years 175 days ago)
In the announcement of this feature I said it opened the door for improvements and new ways to manage it, and was not the end of the line for development. The current measures were implemented to address major imbalances quickly, now we're fine-tuning the system. The first solution balanced design points but allowed teams to get too many points in one area, the new one prevents this, now it's more a case of tuning and tweaking.
One very simple idea that would achieve equilibrium: The lower your level, the more effective research is. So a level 1 manager would get the largest possible boost if they manage things correctly, whereas a level 20 manager would receive very little gains. Level 10 would be between the two extremes and so on. Given the advantages top level managers maintain on the HQ and staff fronts, they are not being handicapped by this, but it allows others a fighting chance. This is something I could implement within hours. This could also help to balance promotion and relegation scenarios without the need to tear drivers and staff away from a team. To an extent this is realistic as well. Look at F1, and the smaller teams make gains of up to a second a lap with major upgrades based on researching their rivals, whereas the top teams make more incremental changes of a tenth or hundredths.
There are some other more complex ideas I have to engage managers in the system and allow them to make choices, but these will take longer to develop. If people want this to change in their current season(s) then it will have to be something more direct like the suggestion above.
Jack Basford medal 5145 CEO & CTO 7 years 175 days ago
John
Could anyone tell me why my drivers didn't take part in the Malaysian gp I was all set up for it. I'm new to this so not use to it yet
What Kevin said, in post #12. I will be adding notifications and locking to the interfaces soon to make this clearer. You are not allowed to race more than once per day, which would have been the case.
James Greer medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
Sorry, but It's far too soon to be making decisions about it, Only done 4 races in the new season since it was added.
I get 14 DP a race, as I started in Pro the only helping hand I got was up to level8, yes I legging behind, but it's through testing as I got rid of the drivers that where leaving everyone behind before.
I can see the people that are doing most of the winning are refusing to train drivers in areas, and it sort of gets you thinking, was I right and there is a flaw in drivers attributes or was Jack right that any myth that might of been in the old version of game has gone.
Jack Basford medal 5145 CEO & CTO 7 years 175 days ago
Well, the more I think about it the more sense it makes to increase the effectiveness of research the lower the level of the team. Another reason to do so would be that it would prevent the league from generally reaching maximum levels in all areas. Because under the current system, the top teams catch up on research in areas they lack, and get a bunch of design points on top, they are able to max-out attributes all over the car by the end of a season
A research system that brings greater rewards for lower level teams would not only allow them to get closer to the top level teams, but it would also stop the league as a whole maxing out attributes all over the place so quickly, since it's the top level managers who max out those stats.
Other than a few high level managers feeling they are being handicapped (they aren't, since they can have higher level HQ and drivers) I can't see any reason not to implement this tweak on research. It can be implemented such that we avoid the pitfalls of the first and second iteration of the system, where lower level teams can't leapfrog higher level teams because of their research but also they are not left behind due to inadequate research gains.
Leslie Oldham medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago (edited 7 years 175 days ago)
Jack, l agree with what you propose above but while I am still skeptical that it will work I cannot see that it will do any harm.
Here is why I think it will not work. The current research system is effectively a form of the "even" development system I mentioned in the quote of the OP. The apparent added effectiveness for lower developed cars is already in place because they get more research points than anyone else. But the gap to another player that is say, two levels, ahead of them is always growing because extra design points are continuously being added to the Big 4 design areas. The lower level player is forced to follow suit in the Big 4 areas but is always losing ground. In the meantime the non Big 4 areas are making adequate progress without any intervention from the lower level player. Thus it is forced even development and will retain the problems of that system even if lower level players get greater research points than higher level players.
That is why me and Kevin (and James Greer in beta) are convinced that all the attributes in design MUST have an important effect on in race performance. That alone will allow the player to determine their own fate and probably greatly simplify any balancing of the teams in the leagues.
Jack Basford medal 5145 CEO & CTO 7 years 175 days ago
Leslie
That is why me and Kevin (and James Greer in beta) are convinced that all the attributes in design MUST have an important effect on in race performance.
That is and has always been the aim here. It's just very difficult to get such fine-tuning right off the bat, even after months of beta testing. Nothing ever quite prepares you for a live environment and how many varied and nuanced situations it creates. The top players always find an edge exists in this attribute or that attribute or this tyre or that tyre and then everyone follows suit, even if it's marginal. We've got to try to make these things work in such a way that over 70 laps / 2 hours they all finish in roughly the same place, within tenths of a second preferably. That's about as difficult of a balancing act as any developer could set themselves, when there are also complex relationships between everything we touch. It never just affects the one thing we tweak.
We will continue to tune the impact of attributes alongside all developments, rest assured of that. Our aim is to make all areas have a roughly equally important impact on performance.
I welcome any more feedback on my suggestion in post #14, because I feel confident about implementing it early next week. I can only see balancing benefits at this stage.
James Greer medal 5000 7 years 175 days ago
The little guy gets big gains and the big guy gets small gains.
How might that work when the little guy has the best car from the start of season and the big guy has worst car?
