Thank you for your response, Jack.
Jack
So, here’s what I propose:
- We implement a daily cap on level XP gains, so the amount of XP a player can gain in a day is fixed. We set the cap at the maximum amount you can gain from a league race. This way XP from leagues can be restored to what it was, and QR can’t give more XP than the most you can get from league racing.
- We restore driver healing for active teams that are not in leagues (this will keep server load reduced vs having it operational on all inactive teams)
- We are introducing daily rewards very soon, and this will issue free parts, engines and more for logins – this should also ease the concerns on whether you need to use parts etc. to do QR, especially as wear is greatly reduced in QR.
- Increase the number of parts given to a 2-car team so that they aren't thinly spread on parts.
Sounds good so far:
1. By reverting league XP to what it was while implementing a daily cap on level XP gains, players now have a choice of whether they'd like to gain XP by league races or QRs. I can see this be especially helpful not just for those who are not active in leagues, but also players whose leagues do not run all 7 days a week but they would still like to gain XP over their league off-days, and they can do so through QRs. The daily XP cap ensures that players who have the time and resources to farm plenty of QRs would not be able to gain too great of an advantage by doing so.
I just have two questions:
a) As we know, how much XP a manager earns in league races is dependent not only on their own level, but the level of the highest manager in their tier. A level 15 that races in a tier with a level 20 may gain 140XP, but if the level 15 is the highest level, I believe they would only gain the base 40XP, am I correct? I would like to know how that factors into the daily cap.
b) Another concern now would be balancing the health, parts, and engine wear costs by running QRs. The only idea I have at the top of my head so far is to have, assuming I didn't kek up my maths and English: Total health drain/parts wear/engine wear of #QRs required for player of level (X) to reach the same XP gains as they would in 1 league race = health drain/parts wear/engine wear of 1 league race.
So for example: a level 17 manager would earn 100XP per league race
if there is a level 20 in their tier. 5 QRs giving 20XP each would be the same as that level 17 manager's highest possible daily XP gains in a league race.
Using this level 17 as an example, in this scenario, I propose that the total health drain, parts wear, and engine wear across those 5 QRs amount to more or less similar health drain, parts wear, and engine wear of one league race. We understand that things like wear are also dependent on the track and factors like push levels, though. Maybe if a level 17 QRs in Singapore the drain & wear could be adjusted to 1/5th that of a league Singapore GP, which would be vastly different to the drain & wear of the Italy GP, and so on.
Should there be concerns on health/parts/wear costs for managers who would like to do more than the #QRs required to reach the highest possible XP gains from one league race, perhaps you could decrease health/parts/wears cost even further for those extra QRs, or even eliminate wear entirely by that point. These are just what I have off the top of my head atm and there could be better suggestions, and this is all assuming the daily XP cap gets implemented.
2. I do believe restoring driver healing for active teams would work with this new gameplay model. As you suggested, there may be players who would prefer to gain XP through QRs, and others through leagues, so I am all for this new model of restoring driver healing for active teams. I'm just curious as to what are the criteria for a team to be considered "active".
3. Daily rewards would indeed ease a lot of concerns when it comes to resource management. It also gives incentives for players to log in daily, which could especially help with getting more new players to stay in the game for longer, while rewarding the loyalty of existing players.
4. I especially like this. 1-car teams as they are now have advantages in terms of:
- lower salary costs due to having to run one less driver (some teams still have multiple drivers, but it's their choice)
- lower parts cost, only having to repair 1 car as opposed to 2
- lower engines costs. Yes, 1-car teams only get 10 engines per engine restock as opposed to a 2-car team's 20, but as it restocks every 20 leagues races, in those 20 races, not counting new season automatic engine & parts refits, 1-car teams could use a maximum of 20 engines, while 2-car teams could use 40.
- up to 4 managers in a 1-car league may be promoted/relegated per season, as opposed to a maximum of 2 for 2-car leagues. Maybe not a benefit for those fighting to escape relegation unless there's less than 32 teams.
Once again I have to be curious on how those extra parts would be distributed to 2-car teams. Would perhaps the daily rewards for parts be multiplied for 2-car teams? Or would their manufacturing facility produce more parts? What if they aren't in any league at the moment?
Once again, thanks for the timely and thoughtful response, Jack and co., and do pardon me for my thick wall of comments, suggestions, and questions.
CEO & CTO
