Daniel Schupp medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
It's a dilemma. Without caps relegated teams makes it hard for teams that really are on a level for that tier to compete and make the Tier system useless since in competetive leagues Pro teams in the middle of the field could win Elite in way more casual leagues. With that new idea league communities will be ripped apart and in the end it means teams promoted from Pro most likely have a hard first season in Elite to get kicked out of the league in the end.
Of those two I think it's still better to just remove the caps because struggling is still better than no promotion/relegation at all and the latter would be the only choice if else it would mean loosing league friends or community. Perhaps give leagues the possibility of a 4th tier inbetween Pro and Elite, though.
Hannu Vallin medal 5418 8 years 35 days ago
Jack
And if people can't afford the contracts they will say it's a scheme to extract tokens via investments, and not appreciate that we're just trying to balance the game. These are all the little consequences I always have to consider, and this is why the obvious answer isn't always the right one from the big picture perspective.
That's why I added the (they won't get paid) clause. The level where they would get iced would be the level cap of whatever level the team gets demoted to plus one level (so if the cap is 12, and driver is level 13 or above, to the ice they go).
Jack
I can see from the replies that there is some resistance. Personally, I didn't realise so many active, enthusiastic players were sitting in relegation zones, so that has been an eye-opener. The feedback in this thread goes against the perception some people have that leagues aren't full of active players, clearly many are.
The thing is, if someone is just going to get promoted to pro/elite for the first time, it's quite likely they will be fighting against relegation for the whole season and then if they get relegated and kicked out of the league, that would most likely lead to prompt quitting of the game.
Jack Basford medal 5549 
CEO & CTO 8 years 35 days ago (edited 8 years 35 days ago)
Hannu
That's why I added the (they won't get paid) clause. The level where they would get iced would be the level cap of whatever level the team gets demoted to plus one level (so if the cap is 12, and driver is level 13 or above, to the ice they go).
That's also a good idea. I missed that bit catching up on the thread! There is more than just drivers and staff to deal with though, the HQ and technology levels also need to come down for things to be fair. We also have strange situations
like this one happening with relegation, which could result in quirky fixes like stopping construction to avert.
Generally, I prefer to implement whatever is the simpler and easier concept to understand. That's one big motivation for the proposal I put up. It's something everyone can understand in a sentence or two. A web of rules regarding levels and caps on progress that need pages of documentation may alienate more people than they keep in the game, even if it does keep people with concerns in this thread happy.
Personally, I still lean toward something like the OP, but with compromises worked in to put the minds of people in this thread at ease, so they know they can keep racing with their friends and in their current league. In many cases, it might even be good for me to talk to the league hosts about how we can best address their situation, and work that in to a revision of this proposal.
The research system started out a bit like this, with the first iteration being a bit rough around the edges, and gradually getting more refined. I'm optimistic that this proposal could be reworked in some way to keep most people happy, but no matter which direction we go in there will always be some comrpomises.
Jack Basford medal 5549 CEO & CTO 8 years 35 days ago
Shaun
plus under the new proposals you would end up with a game that consists of 80% elite teams
I meant to reply to this earlier, but hundreds of people are joining iGP Manager every day, and this may spike to thousands once we're in the app store. There is no risk of the game becoming full of Elite teams, as it stands the reality is it's full of Rookie teams, and the Rookie tier is still growing the fastest. Under the proposed system Rookie would probably still be growing faster than the Pro and Elite tiers are being populated. I think it would actually have a positive effect in ensuring all tiers are well populated, and I can say it with confidence because the data says that.
That was another reason I liked this idea, but that is an invisible factor that people probably can't see and don't really care about. :P
Carlos Lopes medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago (edited 8 years 35 days ago)
Jack
Generally, I prefer to implement whatever is the simpler and easier concept to understand. That's one big motivation for the proposal I put up. It's something everyone can understand in a sentence or two. A web of rules regarding levels and caps on progress that need pages of documentation may alienate more people than they keep in the game, even if it does keep people with concerns in this thread happy.
Can you please run for F1 Strategy Group and FIA's replacement?...
Kevin Taylor medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago (edited 8 years 35 days ago)
In old iGP when teams were relegated they almost always managed to get promoted the following season. The top two in one tier and the bottom two in the tier above often used to regularly swap places until one of the teams reached a level of experience/maturity that kept them out of the relegation zone. I don't recall this being an issue with the majority of players.
IMO, the main problem with this version is the level cap which prevents players from developing their teams beyond their manager/tier level. I presume the caps are in place to prevent the game from becoming "Pay to Win" because under the current token arrangement removal of the caps would result in a few "well off" players buying success.
So the real question is how would it be possible to remove the caps (thus allowing managers to "manage" the development of their team) and at the same time prevent anyone from buying their way to the top?
Would it be possible to limit the number of tokens a manager can spend in a season or is this a stupid idea?
Would a limit of say £2.00 worth of tokens per season seem reasonable? Everyday leagues with a three day gap last three weeks so maximum real money spend would only be a little higher than the subscription cost of old iGP at £1.99 per month.
Clearly if this were possible Jack would have to remove the 3 for 1 offer on old iGP subscriptions so everyone is treated fairly.
In this way everyone would have the oppportunity to develop their teams as they want, if they don't want to spend real money that would be okay, it's just going to take a lot longer to reach elite but the cap on spending stops it from becoming stupid (and unfortunately puts Jack's retirement plans on hold for a few years LOL).
Edit.... BTW, I vote no to the proposal to eject bottom two from the league.
Sam Leo medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
suggestion
As for kicked out or not i think we should have yes / no answer.
a) "yes" can be by default for inactive teams.
b) as for "no" means relegation but..
HQ can be limited easy with out capped no? i mean kers / drs no matter HQ level can have capped performance? like 8 max for rookie 12 for pro? also design facility can give 8 and 12 points max no matter the facility level ? If so training if needed and others can be limited.
As for the drivers is more complicated. i mean if my driver has 20 on speed attributes and 5 on mental if capped on 12 won't be lowered equal to all.
i thought about it and maybe its easier to have a copy of our drivers and our normal drivers iced as they said on other posts. Copy like i have 16 level driver at pro cap is 12 lets say (12 / 16) = 0.75 = 75%. so the copy of my driver can have 75% of all attributes and wages also. the copy could be trained but as red (maxed) with low %.
I know you (Jack) wanted a simple idea but i can't help it;)
Thanks in advance.
c saur medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
I enjoy playing the game but often do not understand what all the menu items do. The prompts Poor...Great prepared for next race help. It would help to get more coaching prompts about the value of buying tokens or see which players are spending actual cash to buy tokens. It could be like another sponsor logo on the car and possible advertising to encourage buying tokens.
Alan Bean medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
Personally I think if implemented this would be a great improvement and a further step forward, it would of course be possibly to "tweak" or change at some time in the future if needs be, so I am all for it.
James Greer medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
Jack
James
Leave it as it is, staff and drivers leave the team when you get relegated, as they see themselves too good for a lower division. It's not to unlike Football some players demand it in their contracts.
But as you said later in your post, people invest energy and resources in to their drivers. Removing them doesn't go down well. I thought people would feel the same way about their progress through the tiers, but clearly many don't value that as much.
The suggestion to put drivers/staff "on ice" after relegation is an interesting one, but doesn't work as well in practice as in theory. At what level do they get locked out? And if people can't afford the contracts they will say it's a scheme to extract tokens via investments, and not appreciate that we're just trying to balance the game. These are all the little consequences I always have to consider, and this is why the obvious answer isn't always the right one from the big picture perspective.
No matter what you do, some will love and others will hate it. As you are for lifting the caps on the tiers does it really matter if a level 20 lands in rookie?
Drivers and staff could take a Morale hit due to being relegated, I don't know what the value of morale is but minus 10 points on it would likely do something to slow the driver.
It would mean changing how a lot of things work, like the offices and hospitality, the level of it determines the morale rating of drivers & staff available on the market, rather than doing anything to the people in your team.
Morale of drivers and staff could be determined by race objectives, +1 for getting it, -1 for missing it.
Jack Basford medal 5549 CEO & CTO 8 years 35 days ago (edited 8 years 35 days ago)
Well, as you can see, you need to be paying full attention to understand alternatives to this proposal or you might get lost in the amount of rules. This level in this tier, that level in that tier, put this on ice, lock that, restrict this and so on. It's confusing.
The only real concern with my proposal that I've seen is that people don't want to leave their chosen league. Enough people are concerned that it's certainly worth considering their perspective. What I've said in reply hasn't really been acknowleged though - a league can disable relegation; it's an option.
So, is the concern really that the host would refuse to disable promotion/relegation? I'm sure if they heard the concerns of people they would be willing to do so. Perhaps we could even implement a democratic voting system within leagues for rule changes like this, and maybe after the change in the system every league gets to vote on this setting. Then, if enough people feel it should be disabled in their league the vote will go that way, and we don't need to rely on the host (who apparently nobody puts faith in to change it :P).
Sure, it would take me a while to code a voting system, but I think it would be another worthwhile feature that could be used to ensure the smoothest transition with changes like this. Then we could move ahead with this proposal and people on a case-by-case basis could alleviate their concerns through a democratic vote on whether it's actually utilised on their league or not.
Yunus Unia Blunion medal 5404 8 years 35 days ago
If a league disables relegation, my next question is; what happens when you need folks to get promoted to fill up the Pro tier (thus making room for new players in Rookie) without losing folks in the Elite tier?
diego rodriguez medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
no me gusta mucho la idea de que me cambien de liga
James Greer medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
Disabling promotion/relegation cant be a good thing means your stuck with the same people over and over.
What I see with promotion/relegation people find they are not good enough for pro/elite but they are too good for rookie/pro so they change to another league to try their luck there.
Same sort of things go on in elite, people are finding they are winning too easily and get bored of running away the win all the time as there is no competition and join another league or it results in game turning into a soft compound slug fest (Faster/Lighter Cars) everyone starts copying each other trying to win :P
Your the boss so what ever you stick in we have to live with, we can rant a rave at you to change this and that till we blue in the face. but what you say goes. :)
Alex Alms medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
Here's my idea:
There's 2 relegation stages. One is the drop from league, the other is dropped a tier. Maybe like 2 people drop the league, 2 drop the tier. But if they're Rookie, then 4 get dropped from the league. so basically, 12 move on.
I don't really like the idea of dropping people from the league. Especially if the dropped people can't find a competitive league.
M Hauck medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
Well, i waited to anser at this thread, to get a solid oppinion and maybe think about an alternative suggestion. But im already not so sure, what to write.
But a few things:
capping the level of players is very frustrating. Espacially capping the the headquarters etc. This may result, that people lose their progressen, they payed for (with tokens). So they lost actual real money. This demotivate my really, also the players will be even more punished, if they then get back promoted to elite.
level capping of drivers or staff, will result in the same bad situation. Its hard to find a good driver and you want to hold them. Espacially if i think at my 4 drivers: Frenten, Heidfeld, Schneider and Danner. All of them have a level 20 talent, so they are very rare. Also i trained them already 3 levels up! So i really dont want them to be cut.
What's even worse, if i would get kicked out of league. okay, for me with two accounts not so dramatic, i could switch them each other. But a relagation for me just means, that your to weak for this tier. But lots of players, play with friends or have a strong refer to their league. There were always some nice chats in mjl or everyday50, so i would miss the players. I would really prefer to stay one season in Pro, that to be kicked out of the league. Also in a really active and strong league, i could happen, that there are more good players, than there are spots at the elite tier. This will result, that lots of player may are already in Pro.
But as longer i think about it, this static tier system, is not very useful at all. It just splits the community into beginners and advanced players and in pro tier there meet the (more or less) lucky champions of rookie to the (more or less) unlucky players from elite. Also you find some inactive players everywhere. Also the leagues cant compare to each other. staying at mjl in elite tier is much harder than in everyday50 for example. Also pro tier in mjl was pretty hard. (my luck to get promoted last season, was that the main rivals just weren't that much active, so i could achieve some advantages for live managing etc).
okay, was already lot of text, but in fact i said nothing, that would really help.
i also dont see a such a big problem, if you will get relegated from elite to pro. In a league system, there are always people who get promotied/relegated. Thats the point of a league system.
---
So my suggestion: Remove the hard level cap and replace it with a soft level cap. By soft level cap i mean, that the attributes of your building/staff stay the same, but should be calculated with the level cap. So for example, if a level20 manager will get demoted to Pro. His headquarter and staff, will already be level 20. But they would react like a level12 building/driver. So the Designfacility should have a level 20 (12). The number in bracket would be the level cap of the league. So this Design facility would produce 12 Design Points in Pro, and after he got promoted back to elite, it will again produce 20 design points.
With this drivers it should work a similiar way, but there its much more complicated, as a driver has lots of attributes, which are not equally balanced to each other.
You also could give the league host a choice, how many teams could be relagated per season (i guess minimum from 1 team and maximum 25% of players). I guess this option should be only editable at the start of a new season.
Jason Brinkley medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
Jack
Sam
what if i want to change league and i am on elite but the league i want to go elite is full but pro has many free spaces as it is now i could drop to pro and move there ?
Well, currently that's only possible only if you were in the relegation zone. Would you intentionally sabotage a season to go to the pro tier in the other league? sounds a bit odd!
Daniel
If its not too much trouble, what about having the option of old and new, or a toggling system so you can turn certain things on or off in a league, disabling relegation features but keeping promotion for example
It won't be possible to maintain two systems side by side. However, part of our plan for the future is to have a friendly / casual race system which can be used as an alternative to the current league system. It will allow casual mobile players to login and race whenever they want without the need to join a league, and groups of friends across leagues to get together for fun races.
These casual races will be worth much less XP, but they will address most concerns (even those being expressed in this thread, now I think of it) about race timing and frequency, since people will be able to login and race whenever they want. That system won't be around until the mobile app launch though, most likely (March 2017).
I just did something similar, although relegation wasn't planned. I brought two subscribed teams thru the transition, i had previously moved my 2nd team into my original league to condense my iGPManager schedule during the transition. I was looking for an opening in a top Elite league to move to. Last Monday after our race I found a hole in the 'International F1 league' Elite division, the was the good news. The bad news is they were 3 races from the end of their season. I went anyway, and first shock was the penalty. Reset the car to zero and here is 168 design points to put on your car. It became immediately obvious that relegation was likely, especially when you consider the top teams started the season close to 300 dp.
So here is my thoughts: the new idea would have ruined my purpose, I wanted to race the best (a good chunk of them anyway). I could not wait, Elite would have been full again and I would not be able to join. At some point you have to race in a stacked league to climb the ladder in the hall. Now I am going to race in Pro for the first time since 2013, with a manager that is #45 in the Hall (Jamie R, also relegated) in an attempt to race the big guns. Honestly I can't wait, but under the proposed system I would be floating lookng for a league again...
I love my other league, I left my main team there. It is not the Premier League it once was, we lost a lot of really good Managers over the last 3 years for various reasons. It is re-building, but it needs 5 or 6 more top teams to compete at a level that we can climb back into the top 100 managers (although Teo bailed out while there so he remains).
Rodney Carringer medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
Love the idea sir! Put it to work!
Christopher Weil medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
I thought for a while about it, and these were my thoughts.
The biggest (and really only) reason why I would be against it would be because if I were to be relegated out of the league I'm in, I would lose all of the friends I have made and be with people I don't know.
After mulling over it, I realized that this is actually good. As I'm in Elite now, it's the same people race after race. It would be nice to see a new person from time to time, or to be forced into a group of fully new people. At the same time, it's always the same batch of people winning race after race, and the same people being backmarkers race after race. This new idea would remove the backmarkers from the league, who probably aren't having fun anymore anyway, and replace them with people from other leagues who might mesh perfectly with this one. At the end of the day, it should make the leagues a lot more competitive as a whole, because you would filter out the slower teams from a league over time, and the slower teams would find their home in a league with other slower teams, and they would be happy actually fighting for wins and podiums.
It also gives the incentive to work harder to not be relegated out of your league if you are so strongly attached to it. I know in the league I am in, the Elite group is currently full, but they two teams in the zone for relegation down to Pro have finished in the bottom spots in just about every race. They clearly are not fit to compete in this league, and are taking up spots that other teams could transfer in to and be more competitive.
At the end of the day, I am all for this idea. It should create more competition in leagues, and help managers meet new managers. It also encourages teams to fight harder to not be relegated out, and might create more interesting strategy choices. Thank you for including us in this decision and all I have to say is bring on the change!
Peter Britton medal 5000 8 years 35 days ago
i am new to this i dont it will be fair to other teams in the league
