Hi everyone.
This is a revised and up-to-date thread about how we can ensure, in my view, the long-term sustainability and balance of the leagues.
You can find the original thread here: https://igpmanager.com/forum-thread/64164
The majority of leagues are facing a serious issue with players remaining in them without setting up their cars, which weakens the competition.
Correct me if I am wrong, but right now, there isn't an auto-kick feature in every non-boosted league.
With a bronze boost, the host is able to select after how many days inactive players are going to be kicked from the championship.
As a result, the majority of leagues are filled with inactive players who sometimes haven't even opened the game in over a year (!)
This subsequently prevents active players from joining the leagues of their choice and in general makes the races more boring for the current members of the leagues, since they are racing against the same people all the time.
It's a pattern: leagues full of inactive players offering zero value to the game.
I think the solution is pretty simple:
You can implement a rule where if a player remains inactive for more than 14 days at any point during the season in any type of non-boosted league, they are automatically removed from the league.
For boosted leagues it could be left to the host's preference to select the desired period of time.
I would argue here that the "never" option should be removed.
A cap at two months would be okay, but again this isn't as important.
Let's be honest, it wouldn't be hard for an inactive player returning from a hiatus to rejoin to their old league, so I cannot see a valid counter-argument against taking this approach.
You could argue that some active hosts might find something like this a bit restrictive, but it is important to understand that not all hosts have the same energy to monitor their leagues and kick inactive players all the time.
I say all the time because there is a common trend: plenty of low-level inactive accounts (I would argue some of them are bot acccounts used for auction farming) join leagues and just park their accounts there.
A suggestion about this:
In order for a player to join a league they should spend some time beforehand signing competitive drivers and staff.
I think it would be a cool idea if the game set certain criteria before players could join leagues uncontrolably.
Something like this: if you have signed 3+ stars drivers and staff, then you are good to go.
Another critical issue is that there are still many inactive leagues in the game, even after the most recent update regarding the closure risk.
This needs a bit of revision.
It should be stricter, since it is evident that many inactive-farming leagues are operating right now.
Especially in low-populated leagues, it should be more punishing because the current system favours this type of league by making them appear way more active than they really are.
In addition to this, for similar reasons, the creation of a league should cost significantly more tokens than today.
I have seen many created low-populated leagues by players only to be left inactive after a few seasons.
Moreover, I firmly believe that auto-generated IGP leagues are doing more harm than good to the league system.
They lack a host and, more importantly, they are too 'impersonal' to form strong communities.
If I were you, I would give a set amount of time to the players of these types of leagues to take over host duties and then I would close them down.
As I mentioned before, we need fewer, but more active leagues.
Also, I believe that non-boosted leagues should not have the option to be private.
I remember an old post from you, Jack, saying that the silver boost feels kinda empty; you could add this feature to it, I think.
The fact is that many players hide behind these leagues to farm and consequently violate the game rules.
And yes, I’m not buying the argument that hosts do this to protect their leagues from trolls or low-level accounts.
Actually, since the statistics of every team are interactive, we can easily see if these locked leagues are used for farming or not.
So, I don't necessarily understand their existence without a boost.
Moreover, on a more controversial note, I believe that players who fail to set up their cars should receive a DNS (Did Not Start).
In almost every race, backmarkers dictate the final results because of the DRS they provide to trailing cars.
A fairer approach, if technically possible, would be for backmarkers not to grant DRS to the faster cars overtaking them.
I would like to see a poll regarding this in the future; I believe the majority of players would agree with me on this.
Turning to a separate issue, the hall of fame is such a mess, simple as that.
Some leagues reached a very high rank quickly- I will not analyse how here- and every team that joins them immedaitely finds itself at the top of the leaderboard.
In my opinion, unless the hall of fame gets a complete revamp, I don't see any reason to have a ranking where many excellent players are overshadowed by leagues with abnormaly high scores.
Finally, please consider implementing a minimum level requirement (e.g., Level 2) for players to post in the forum.
We have seen many strange posts from bots containing suspicious links.
This is an issue that needs to be addressed, especially considering there are many younger players in the community.
What do we gain from all of this?
1) Eliminating ghost and very low-population leagues will stop the waste of server resources on running inactive competitions.
2) Healthier competition, as active players will be concentrated in more populated leagues.
3) The integrity of the Hall of Fame and most importantly the game's in general will be restored to some extent.
4) Increased chances of forming stronger, active communities.
This, in turn, increases the likelihood of leagues being boosted, leading to more income for the game.
Jack, I hope you will have a look at this when you have time.
I believe it addresses some important issues by offering specific solutions to some extent.
At the end of the day, this is just my opinion as a player. I'm not trying to force anything; I'm simply sharing my views in order to help the game move forward.
Thanks everyone for your time.