Suggested

Points hoarding

Personally I don't have a problem with the managers who strategically hold a few points back as a means to improve research. The issue in my opinion are the few managers who don't really play the game, rarely attend races and hoard all their design for many races. The points are all dumped part way through the season which almost inevitably results in a win. Then having avoided relegation and potentially interfered with a title battle between managers who do attend every day, they don't participate again for the remainder of the season.

Unfortunately it is almost impossible to police a league rule that disallows points hoarding. IMHO, if league hosts were given the option to set the maximum number of unassigned dp a team could have this would be a great improvement.

You're correct, you don't know about me.

I've witnessed this strategy and it is not user error to lose against a team that is maxed out in the important attributes when the remainder of the league only have maybe 75% in the same attributes.

The people who do this often do have the strategic skills, they just choose to only show up a couple of times in the season or they're a lower level and exploit this strategy to bag the odd win. Just because you haven't witnessed it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

A limit which could be selected by the host to prevent literally hundreds of points being hoarded would IMO be a great addition to the game. Those that see it as a legitimate strategy could just set the limit to a very high number.

You can't kick people for not attending races. Providing they repair their cars and set a strategy that is enough. That's the reason we have AI to allow managers to take days out. In fact some leagues operate off-line where it's against the rules to manage the race. We're not discussing off-line managers, we're talking about points hoarding.

You can set a local league rule to outlaw points hoarding and threaten to kick people for breaking the rule but it is impossible to enforce as only the developers have the privileges to check people's accounts/design.

Why are you so against a setting that allows the host to limit the amount of design points a team can store? This is a simple way of enforcing a local rule without giving anyone the ability to spy on another manager's design. It also allows leagues that don't have a problem with points hoarding to continue to allow it.

Hi Jack

Yes your solution works similar to limiting the number of points that can be stored. By limiting the points you can store you are also effectively limiting the points that can be assigned because you can't assign more points than you have.

With your solution, yes it stops the final race super dumpers but it is easier to exploit. For example, let's assume I limit the points that can be assigned to 40... This doesn't stop a manager from hoarding points for ten races (200dp) and then dropping 40 points every race for the next ten races, 20 from the previous race Design HQ + 20 from the 200dp savings account. 

This manager will still end up with a much stronger car towards the end of the season because he sacrificed the first ten races and harvested a lot of research points.

If you limit the points that can be banked to 40, he can only drop 40 points once then he's used them all.

Boris, I'll say this once more... We are not discussing whether or not managers should be kicked for not attending races, we're discussing whether or not to allow points hoarding, two entirely separate subjects. 

I don't have the problem in my league but I have witnessed it in a league I competed in some months ago and I also speak with other experienced managers who have had problems with this design strategy and are powerless to do anything to prevent it.


Any league can have a rule outlawing points hoarding and threaten to kick people for breaking the rule but it's impossible to enforce the rule because there is no way of checking whether someone is doing it.

I agree with you, the devs currently have more important things to focus on but this is a suggestion thread so we can leave it to the iGP team to decide whether or not it is a good use of their time. If they don't think it is they will reject it.

IMHO this would be a welcome improvement to the game. Looking at the voting it is about a 50/50 split between those that would like to disallow hoarding and those that, like you, see it as a legitimate strategy. Coding this as a rule that could be applied by a host would satisfy both sides of the argument.