Too many leagues!!!

When I check out the leagues, there are just too many different leagues racing with the same conditions (starting time, distance and race days). I think we should try to have less leagues, but make them more competitive by filling the remaining ones. There is just no sense to race against 2 or 3 guys, like I will probably have to (there are about 5 leagues with the time, distance and days I prefer, but none has more than 5 teams!). Not everyone has to host his/her own league and I think winning a title with only 2 opponents to beat is not worth a lot. Plus there is no chance of promotion!

Feel free to comment and tell me, why I am wrong.
This might sound a little harsh, but I'm just a little frustrated right now.

Ron

This has been discussed quite a few times before and I agree with you.
I get the feeling something might be done in the future but it needs changing sooner rather than later.

Thanks for keeping the discussion topical

Totally agree with you.

I agree. There are too many leagues and one of the biggest problems is inactivity.

The league i am hosting, Active Managers League, was created simply because when i joined i soon realised this problem.
Now Season 1 is coming to an end and promotion is enabled, i would like to fill up the Pro Tier. However there are just too many leagues that just have 2-3 teams per tier.

If that's what they want then fair enough but if you want to really challenge yourself and feel the sense of achivement when you win then join a league that has 20+ cars on track per race.

I think one of the problems is that quite new players can start a league without actually knowing anything about the game.
It would be far better if hosting a league was only something you could do at a certain level - say level 4 or 5.  That way a lot of managers would be quite settled where they were and want to stay.  It would be quite easy (I think) to put a stop on all new leagues from now on so that the situation doesn't get worse.

If a few friends start together and want to play in their own, password protected, league then that should be allowed but it needs to be monitored.
I find it all a bit of a mess at the moment and i am sure there are a lot of players a bit unhappy with the racing experience due to the lack of drivers in their tiers.
I think it is sad too as the fun you get in a full tier is so much better than if there are only 2 or 3 managers, and would hate to think that people thought that was the best it can be!

Manager level 4 requirement before making a League is a great idea.

I disagree about there being too many leagues, people have different times they can race, therefore it's fitting to have a variety. As such, it's fine the now.

Except if you suddenly get a rapid influx of users. Reddit brought about 60 users, filling up two leagues. Nobody had level 4 status. So, if you put a cap you might be restricting yourselves on having a rapid increase in active members.

A compromise would be so that a sub level 4 manager can make a league but it only becomes active once X% spots are filled up?

Maybe there could be a minimum on the amount participants in the league? It does seem like there are a lot of leagues with 2-3 people in them that are private and maybe non-active.

I say we take away the ability to make leagues from people that don't pay for the game.
Less leagues and more of a reason to pay for the game.

I agree with David, everyone prefers a different time to race; but I think you should be a bit more flexible... I just checked it out, there are 4 leagues fitting my preferences (50%, 20:00 start time, 2 cars, every day), when you are bit flexible (starting 19:30 to 20:30), but none of it has more than 3 or 4 teams.
In my opinion, some leagues should be closed, so you have fewer but full leagues. If you still want to race in your own little league with friends, fine with me. But my point should be the main premise for creating leagues.
If you race in a barely filled league, you aren't improving as a manager, you can't get promoted, you don't earn enough money. We should point these facts out to the new managers, who don't know yet what the game is about. After that, they can still decide to join a small league to get some good numbers in their statistics sheet.

Yep - the forum my league comes from bought 32 people in the first season - has now died down to around about 20. We couldn't have done that with a level 4 limitation.

I think nobody wants that. What most people here agree on is the problem, that there are just way to many small "meaningless" leagues to make a strong iGP manager.
It is a bit like the democratic system in my country: everybody can vote for a party, but only parties with at least 5% of all the votes go to the parliament. Otherwise, you can't decide anything because there is always somebody who begs to differ.
I fear that gamers will lose interest sooner than later, when they can't find a proper league. You can have 4 leagues with 4 teams each or 1 league with 16 teams.

If you beat three guys: "Great, I'm a good manager"

If you beat 15 guys: "Yippiekayeah motherfucker!!"

Yeah, and a lack of patience is part of it too. I joined a league that was starting its fourth season. It's a pretty good league, 15/16 spots of the rookie tier are filled, almost everyone makes it to the grid every race (maybe one manager forgets to refit their car or something). But since a lot of them have had multiple seasons of head start on me, I'm still getting my butt kicked. I've snuck into the points a couple times on wet races, but I'm usually in the 15-20 range still because a lot of teams have KERS and I'm not to that level yet. I at least have DRS, it was really bad before then, since almost everyone has DRS in the league.

Strangely, we have more folks in the elite tier (13) than the pro tier (8).

That's because once people get to Elite, they don't want to go back to Pro and rather leave the league than face the relegation.

My League AML is coming upto it's second season. And i think i am going to struggle to fill the gaps =/

Sounds good, though if participants of leagues become inactive this won't help really. It will only help lower the rate of uninhabitated or left deserted leagues. Would be cool to hear further ideas from you.

How about this:
When the league host creates the league>he chooses an inactivity duration.

Kick teams inactive for: 
1 Race (extremly strict)
2 Races (Strict)
3 Races (Average)
4 Races (Lenient)
5 Races (Very Lenient)

- If teams do not meet these they are automatically kicked from the League.
I understand that would mean the iGP Designer would have to add the mechanics to the league managing side of things and apologise for creating more work for him. But i think this system would massivly improve all leagues. Therefore making the game more enjoyable.
I currently do this myself thanks to the current activity checking system. But there are too many leagues with hosts that are un-organised or inactive themselves.

Many people will claim this to be unfair. However, what is the point commiting to a league when you don't have the time to setup your car attend each race. This system would encourage bigger season breaks and less daily racing for those who come to realise that they can't commit to daily racing.

Please discuss

Maybe if you make it so a league cannot become active or start a season without a minimum number of drivers?

Hey Mike, just keep at it - trust me, I made the stupid decision to reset my team after I bankrupted myself buying the commerce facility, and that put me behind the 8 ball the last couple of seasons. But last season I started beating teams that had KERS after a while, so it CAN be done! :)