Level Groupings in Elite Tier

Kevin Bissell Super Mod
2 years 46 days ago (Last edited by Kevin Bissell 2 years 46 days ago)

I realise it would probably be difficult to code and much testing would be required to minimise introducing all manner of bugs, but I think a level grouping in Elite would be great for indicating how competitive the lower-level teams are. The advantage of such an approach is that it could be implemented globally instead of leagues running different rules to others. There would be three championships running concurrently, the main one would be as it is now, but the second and third would give points to level groups (for the sake of this example call them F2 and F3).
F1: L16 - L20
F2: L11 - L15
F3: L1 - L10

For the main championship points would be awarded exactly as now.
For the Formula championship points would be awarded by group (the following is example only, I haven't properly thought this through)
P1 = 10
P2 = 6
P3 = 3
P4 = 2
P5 = 1

Then there would be three tables
1. The main championship (the same as now)
2. F2 Championship
3. F3 Championship

It probably needs a bit more thinking through but it would mean that lower-level teams would be competing for something.

Ultimately something such as this could actually replace the current 3 tier system which would lighten the load on servers as only one race per league would run.

It would completely remove the need for a myriad of Bot accounts, created by the league hosts to pad out the lower tiers in an attempt to make the league attractive and to keep promotion active.

It would overcome the problem experienced by private leagues where they all want to race together and are therefore stuck in Rookie.

There would be no more requests to support to manually promote or relegate teams who find themselves in the wrong tier.

Here's how I envisage it might look:
These are the race results:

These are the tables:

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Skid Solo
2 years 46 days ago

This is great idea and would eradicate so many of the problems caused by the current league structure so seems a no brainier especially as Jack has already said that taking a look at the structure is something they intend to do.

As mentioned in the other thread there a few items that need thinking about and incorporated (max number of teams in league, how would new players be catered for if most leagues fill up etc), but this would be a huge step forward and is inclusive of everyone regardless of level.

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John Doe
2 years 45 days ago

Kevin, this is my suggestion about groups:
my first formulation post #1
some question post #2
my clarification post #3

I never did a thread for this. It was an offtopic indeed.

This is not a complete format but feel free to grab ideas from it.
The concepts are opposites but have their strengths and weaknesses.

You suggest a big single tier mixing different players, I suggested more tiers that can vary dynamically (ultra competitive leagues could have dozens of them).

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Archie Bald
2 years 45 days ago

With a bit more thought and tweaking, this would be solid and make leagues more inclusive. Unfortunately...

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Steven Clift
2 years 45 days ago

Great idea for sure - as Ricky said it would eradicate some bugs caused by the 3 tier system, plus in my view more managers would set up (due to virtue of more people being in the race)

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Frank Thomas Moderator
2 years 45 days ago (Last edited by Frank Thomas 2 years 45 days ago)

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

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Skid Solo
2 years 45 days ago (Last edited by Skid Solo 2 years 45 days ago)

Frank

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

Please could you elaborate on a couple of points you have made so I can understand them better? I don’t understand your points on 2 car leagues particularly your comment on going from 48 to 16

League size is a potential issue and I think has already been highlighted as something that would need to be given some thought.

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Kevin Bissell Super Mod
2 years 45 days ago

I don't see Formula groupings based on team Level being a problem. For example, the league which I host all Elite teams would be F1 so there would be no entries in the F2 or F3 championships. Everyone is high level, we are all fighting for the main title, and we all have the same opportunities and tools at our disposal.

I disagree with aligning formulas on something as random as Reputation because I think most people accept that Rep does not always accurately represent manager ability.

The fact that some high-level managers struggle is because of the way they manage the team and resources, not because they are at a level disadvantage. The more successful managers in most leagues are usually willing to help the strugglers with advice. If managers continue to underperform, they have a choice, they can stick around and learn from the hardcore players or they may join a different league where people take the game less seriously. It's natural selection.

The league I host is currently in season 31, we have a number of players who have been in the league since season 1 and have never won the championship but still they attend most races and enjoy the game. They tend to run an informal formula system where players X, Y & Z realise early in the season that they are unlikely to be champion but strive to beat one another.

IMHO a 16 team 2 car league feels about right, maybe it could be stretched to 20 but I wouldn't like to see any more than 40 cars on the track.

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Frank Thomas Moderator
2 years 45 days ago

Ricky

Frank

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

Please could you elaborate on a couple of points you have made so I can understand them better? I don’t understand your points on 2 car leagues particularly your comment on going from 48 to 16

League size is a potential issue and I think has already been highlighted as something that would need to be given some thought.

Currently a league consists of 3 tiers with 16 teams, so if full 48 teams and if it'd work, which it doesn't hence the need of ideas like this thread, nearly that many. With 30 levels in mind that's room for 1.5 teams per level on average. With a one tier fits all league and sub-championships for lower race categories it'd be only 16 teams, if the number of cars in a race isn't increased to allow more managers, to hold everyone from freshly joined Rookie to fully leveled Elite.

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Skid Solo
2 years 45 days ago

Frank

Ricky

Frank

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

Please could you elaborate on a couple of points you have made so I can understand them better? I don’t understand your points on 2 car leagues particularly your comment on going from 48 to 16

League size is a potential issue and I think has already been highlighted as something that would need to be given some thought.

Currently a league consists of 3 tiers with 16 teams, so if full 48 teams and if it'd work, which it doesn't hence the need of ideas like this thread, nearly that many. With 30 levels in mind that's room for 1.5 teams per level on average. With a one tier fits all league and sub-championships for lower race categories it'd be only 16 teams, if the number of cars in a race isn't increased to allow more managers, to hold everyone from freshly joined Rookie to fully leveled Elite.

Ok I see, but once you remove hosts dummy accounts I’d be surprised if there are many 2 car leagues with each tier full so some juggling or further thought on structure needs to occur. I have some ideas, but will let others comment first as I have already made several comments on this and other threads.

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John Doe
2 years 43 days ago

Maybe let 2 tier of 16 (32) could be better than only one

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Tow Mater
2 years 42 days ago

Frank

Ricky

Frank

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

Please could you elaborate on a couple of points you have made so I can understand them better? I don’t understand your points on 2 car leagues particularly your comment on going from 48 to 16

League size is a potential issue and I think has already been highlighted as something that would need to be given some thought.

Currently a league consists of 3 tiers with 16 teams, so if full 48 teams and if it'd work, which it doesn't hence the need of ideas like this thread, nearly that many. With 30 levels in mind that's room for 1.5 teams per level on average. With a one tier fits all league and sub-championships for lower race categories it'd be only 16 teams, if the number of cars in a race isn't increased to allow more managers, to hold everyone from freshly joined Rookie to fully leveled Elite.

I'm trying to follow along. Are you saying all 3 tiers would race together? Like IMSA?

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Steven Clift
2 years 42 days ago

Tow

Frank

Ricky

Frank

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

Please could you elaborate on a couple of points you have made so I can understand them better? I don’t understand your points on 2 car leagues particularly your comment on going from 48 to 16

League size is a potential issue and I think has already been highlighted as something that would need to be given some thought.

Currently a league consists of 3 tiers with 16 teams, so if full 48 teams and if it'd work, which it doesn't hence the need of ideas like this thread, nearly that many. With 30 levels in mind that's room for 1.5 teams per level on average. With a one tier fits all league and sub-championships for lower race categories it'd be only 16 teams, if the number of cars in a race isn't increased to allow more managers, to hold everyone from freshly joined Rookie to fully leveled Elite.

I'm trying to follow along. Are you saying all 3 tiers would race together? Like IMSA?

Yep, that's what Kevin is suggesting.

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Skid Solo
2 years 42 days ago

Steven

Tow

Frank

Ricky

Frank

The unified tierless league has the problem that the game isn't designed for that. In one car leagues it can work, but in two car going down from 48 to 16 teams I don't think so. Even if the game can cram in 40 cars on a track my concern is that 20 teams minus the managers not online split over the whole level range won't be able to provide really enganging racing. Races would be closer to F1 with many races pretty certain which team, or one out of 2 at best, will win.

Leagues can, and some will, counter that by enforcing level requirements, but then it's back to square one as most or even all race in the same category and thus the lower half often not racing for anything more than seeing a slightly lower number in the bottom half of the grid without any impact in championship. The system could be adapted to take something else to group, like reputation, but don't know how people would feel if the game basically tells them bluntly 'This managing is iGP2. iGP2!' even if they know as others the same level are in points and they are fighting to reach a position in the upper half occasionally. This doesn't even means it's a bad manager, if you put 32 out of the top 1% of managers into a league most will finish out of points more than 2/3rds of the races.

Please could you elaborate on a couple of points you have made so I can understand them better? I don’t understand your points on 2 car leagues particularly your comment on going from 48 to 16

League size is a potential issue and I think has already been highlighted as something that would need to be given some thought.

Currently a league consists of 3 tiers with 16 teams, so if full 48 teams and if it'd work, which it doesn't hence the need of ideas like this thread, nearly that many. With 30 levels in mind that's room for 1.5 teams per level on average. With a one tier fits all league and sub-championships for lower race categories it'd be only 16 teams, if the number of cars in a race isn't increased to allow more managers, to hold everyone from freshly joined Rookie to fully leveled Elite.

I'm trying to follow along. Are you saying all 3 tiers would race together? Like IMSA?

Yep, that's what Kevin is suggesting.

Same as Endurance Racing such as FIA World Endurance Championship

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Frank Thomas Moderator
2 years 41 days ago

Tow

I'm trying to follow along. Are you saying all 3 tiers would race together? Like IMSA?

That's the full version of what Kevin suggest, which would replace the tier system and offers a solution to its problems. There's also the light version keeping the tiers and applying a band aid for the too early Elite promotion problem by giving Elite sub-tiers enabling lower level teams to compete in their own championship.

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Lightning McQueen
2 years 41 days ago

Frank

Tow

I'm trying to follow along. Are you saying all 3 tiers would race together? Like IMSA?

That's the full version of what Kevin suggest, which would replace the tier system and offers a solution to its problems. There's also the light version keeping the tiers and applying a band aid for the too early Elite promotion problem by giving Elite sub-tiers enabling lower level teams to compete in their own championship.

I love it.

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SA LAZ
2 years 39 days ago

Kevin

I realise it would probably be difficult to code and much testing would be required to minimise introducing all manner of bugs, but I think a level grouping in Elite would be great for indicating how competitive the lower-level teams are. The advantage of such an approach is that it could be implemented globally instead of leagues running different rules to others. There would be three championships running concurrently, the main one would be as it is now, but the second and third would give points to level groups (for the sake of this example call them F2 and F3).
F1: L16 - L20
F2: L11 - L15
F3: L1 - L10

For the main championship points would be awarded exactly as now.
For the Formula championship points would be awarded by group (the following is example only, I haven't properly thought this through)
P1 = 10
P2 = 6
P3 = 3
P4 = 2
P5 = 1

Then there would be three tables
1. The main championship (the same as now)
2. F2 Championship
3. F3 Championship

It probably needs a bit more thinking through but it would mean that lower-level teams would be competing for something.

Ultimately something such as this could actually replace the current 3 tier system which would lighten the load on servers as only one race per league would run.

It would completely remove the need for a myriad of Bot accounts, created by the league hosts to pad out the lower tiers in an attempt to make the league attractive and to keep promotion active.

It would overcome the problem experienced by private leagues where they all want to race together and are therefore stuck in Rookie.

There would be no more requests to support to manually promote or relegate teams who find themselves in the wrong tier.

Here's how I envisage it might look:
These are the race results:

These are the tables:

It doesn't make much sense to combine the 3 categories. In the race even if the points are then divided by category:
1- it would be bad to see so many teams all together and if the maximum number of cars in a category is 40 then there must be around 13.3 cars in each category.
2- Suppose there is a user in Elite and all the others are in Rookie for example... what's the point? such a thing is just unthinkable.

3) At the limit, the 3 categories could be left, and 12 managers can be registered in each category in the 2-car championships and 24 managers in the 1-car championships. Well simply making sure that from now on the new leagues will work like this without changing the old ones. This would help with league repopulation but there is no point in lumping everything into one category.

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Dick Dastardly
2 years 39 days ago

SA

Kevin

I realise it would probably be difficult to code and much testing would be required to minimise introducing all manner of bugs, but I think a level grouping in Elite would be great for indicating how competitive the lower-level teams are. The advantage of such an approach is that it could be implemented globally instead of leagues running different rules to others. There would be three championships running concurrently, the main one would be as it is now, but the second and third would give points to level groups (for the sake of this example call them F2 and F3).
F1: L16 - L20
F2: L11 - L15
F3: L1 - L10

For the main championship points would be awarded exactly as now.
For the Formula championship points would be awarded by group (the following is example only, I haven't properly thought this through)
P1 = 10
P2 = 6
P3 = 3
P4 = 2
P5 = 1

Then there would be three tables
1. The main championship (the same as now)
2. F2 Championship
3. F3 Championship

It probably needs a bit more thinking through but it would mean that lower-level teams would be competing for something.

Ultimately something such as this could actually replace the current 3 tier system which would lighten the load on servers as only one race per league would run.

It would completely remove the need for a myriad of Bot accounts, created by the league hosts to pad out the lower tiers in an attempt to make the league attractive and to keep promotion active.

It would overcome the problem experienced by private leagues where they all want to race together and are therefore stuck in Rookie.

There would be no more requests to support to manually promote or relegate teams who find themselves in the wrong tier.

Here's how I envisage it might look:
These are the race results:

These are the tables:

It doesn't make much sense to combine the 3 categories. In the race even if the points are then divided by category:
1- it would be bad to see so many teams all together and if the maximum number of cars in a category is 40 then there must be around 13.3 cars in each category.
2- Suppose there is a user in Elite and all the others are in Rookie for example... what's the point? such a thing is just unthinkable.

3) At the limit, the 3 categories could be left, and 12 managers can be registered in each category in the 2-car championships and 24 managers in the 1-car championships. Well simply making sure that from now on the new leagues will work like this without changing the old ones. This would help with league repopulation but there is no point in lumping everything into one category.

Yeah right there are so many leagues full of rookies and just one in Elite. If you going to make constructive criticism make it realistic and relatable to typical game conditions.

The point you make about 40 cars in one race has been mentioned before in the thread. Personally not sure it would make much difference to 32, but Kevin’s suggestion is an initial one and no doubt some tweaks are required. Simone has already suggested splitting 2 car leagues into 2 divisions which might work. The point of the initial suggestion is to address the concerns of those in Elite who can’t score pts some as a result of being promoted 2 quickly, others being in leagues where the standard is too strong for them.

Having all league members in one race with differing pts categories works in some rl racing so don’t see why it wouldn’t work here. As Kevin mentioned an added bonus would be no longer needing bot accounts to keep rookie and pro leagues actively open; less demand on server resources and would instantly resolve the issue that private leagues made up of friends and family have by keeping everyone in the same league. Once the bots are removed the number of managers remaining in a lot of leagues would also likely to be well below the 40 limit for a lot of leagues.

It’s interesting that iGP have not rejected this yet so maybe this is something they are considering or were already considering something similar before this post (Jack said a few months ago that they we’re going to overhaul the league system.). Whatever happens this thread is just a suggestion and even if it gets implemented it will probably have differences to the initial suggestion.

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John Doe
2 years 39 days ago

To be honest in 18 months (since when I started to play this game), I have seen only 2 or 3 suggestions accepted and only when the suggestion is near to be released.

Usually there are only few rejected suggestions when something will never be implemented.

I hope iGP starts to tell us what are their plans about leagues. I fear we will only see new levels and engine supplier, no more, no less and this would kill the game when new players reach elite tiers. I really hope I am wrong.

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José Trujillo

Community Manager
2 years 39 days ago

Hello managers,

We don’t have plans to include a revamp of the league system in the following update. We’re reading this thread actively but it isn’t the moment to engage in the discussion, we’re 100% focused in our current target.

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