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Suggestions for the 2013 season

It's early, I know, but with the revival of the old suggestion thread it seems people are full of ideas on how they'd like the game to be "improved" next year!

Obviously, this is all stuff that we'd like to see, wishful thinking really, but road.cc and Dave have always listened to what people think and have implemented good suggestions in the past (regional leagues, premium membership, the removal of the varying player values etc) so if you've got an idea post it below. Think of this as the place to make your request/suggestion so that Dave can see it easily. Also, tell everyone what you think works too rather than just complaining!

Firstly off, I'd like to thank Dave for the game and strides they've made over the last few years to improve it into what is an excellent competition. I think that this years game is the best yet, the 4/5 split is a massive improvement over the old 1 GC, 1 AR ,1 KM, 1 PC and 5 DS split and allows for much more interesting team selections, likewise I think the constant rider values is something that should be kept next year as I haven't missed the old system at all.

My suggestions? Nothing major...

1) Remove the 4/5 split altogether - I'd be happy if the current system was kept but would like to see complete flexibility, the limited budgets will restrict players from having a particularly unbalanced team and it will allow for even more creative team selections, especially where there are lots of cheap stars in a race (like this years classics). For example, pretty much all the top Vuelta teams will still have 3 of Contador, Rodriguez, Froome and Valverde so the 150 credit cap will restrict the makeup of the rest of their team. However, I guess the 4/5 split does give structure and makes the game easier to get your head around when starting out (my dad really struggled when he joined for the TdF but the 4/5 split made things easier).

2) Expand on the premium membership with extra features such as combined purist team on the same account and stuff like that. I will probably pay for premium membership next year but I'd like to see some extra features being included for my money, not just extra races (which have been a bit shambolic this year and are very hard to follow).

3) Teams of teams - another possible premium feature, 9 players band together into one team of players, their scores are combined in some way (straight sum of scores, average of all 9 or maybe lose the highest and lowest and sum/average what's left) and they compete against other teams for a prize (Grand tours only maybe?). Should be fun and unpredictable, also, good for getting people to get involved on the forum.

4) Fantasy jersey competitions - another thing to aim for when playing the grand tours, a selection of jerseys awarded to winners of particular comps:
- a GC jersey awarded for whoever finishes 1st overall along with the bike, a black jersey possibly something road.cc themed.
- a points jersey based on sprint stages or combined sprint points, either whichever teams gets the most intermediate sprint and flat finish line points over a race or maybe whoever scores highest just on flat stages, based on intermediate sprints would keep it interesting throughout though as you have to keep up with breaks in the mountains.
- a mountains jersey like the points but for KoM points/mountain stages

ideally these would be biased to make it very difficult to win them whilst still playing for overall placing, ie base it heavily on breakaway points (the KoM in particular) so that you need to pick the breaks and possibly suffer in the overall as a result, that'd make it something entirely separate to aim for like the riders aim for the KoM comp sacrificing their overall standings. Moreover, these aren't big cost prizes and are just for fun/pride.

5) Reduce the penalty for making additional transfers. I like the fact that there is a penalty but 20 points is very heavy, you basically need to place in the top 4 to overcome that. 10 points might bring in more tactical use of this facility and not be so penal if someone cocks up their team and needs to sort it out.

That's mine, just to be going on with. Also, a booby prize for whoever first mentions the 'reset button'.

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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198 comments

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noddy69 | 11 years ago
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Another suggestion involves a roster of cyclists for a season long purist game. You pick at the start of the season your roster, could possibly be only 9, that you think will score the most points over the season and the game runs season long.
As the game would be run alongside the main game it really makes no odds if riders get injured or are out as you still have the main game to focus on and its tough luck if your team is depleted.

However if you were given say 3 transfers which could be used at any point in the season that may help, although not necessary really.
Not sure of the validity of this one but thought I would suggest it anyway.
If a wild card was implemented I would say it cannot be used in this competition.

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drheaton | 11 years ago
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I think elsewhere someone suggested a game where you pick your 'squad' of 25 riders or so at the start of the season based on a budget (although this wouldn't work if rider values change throughout the year...) and you choose nine riders from your squad for each race.

No transfers, no changes, just your 25 guys for the whole season much like the pro setup and you play each race purist.

I really like the idea and the ways you could extend it (having a 'draft' style system to choose your riders so no team in a mini-league has the same riders, having a keeper league where you keep your riders each year making transfers in the off-season etc) but it's a totally different game really to the main game and would be a big departure. Possibly something to look at outside of the game (like on the forum) but again, it'd be a lot of work.

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drheaton | 11 years ago
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Yeah, the key here would be that it'd run parallel to the normal game on proper events like the Giro, Paris-Roubaix or Tour so you could use the official scores rather than having to score each rider yourself, that'd make a huge difference, especially if the scores had some form of rider id attached to them which you could refer to in excel.

The only minor problems with the riders page as it is are that riders who abandoned don't show up in the list and that you have to pull each stage off individually and then try and sort the riders by name, then pull off their scores into some kind of table.

Having the full set of scores/riders for a whole race come off from one page would be ideal.

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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That makes it ever better if you have to pick "crap" DS's, then you have to pick ones who might finish in the top 20, plenty of them this season. Also riders from teams the winner might come from OR aim for the last place man  19

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dave atkinson | 11 years ago
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really like the star budget/ds budget idea. that could work well, deciding whether to spunk your 100 on two or three big names or spreading it over four riders.

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dave atkinson | 11 years ago
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in fact the best way to get people to pick different teams would be to revise the budget down, not up  39

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Stumps | 11 years ago
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I still like the idea of just picking 9 riders regardless of stars / ds.

There has been some stages where the ds sprinters have faired really well and you could literally have had 9 ds' going for the stage.

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Stumps | 11 years ago
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The 100 / 50 split sounds good. I also like the idea of having a couple of the womens races in, just to make a change.

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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1, The game is not based on salaries. The new values will be based on the last 12 months performances in various races. Ones they have done well in, they might be a bit more expensive. If they haven't competed or didn't do well. They might be less expensive.

2, There is no way of knowing a riders salary unless its released to the public. So getting salary figures for over 1000 riders is NOT going to happen.  3

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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So 20 Star riders? Are you mad, they you would HAVE to scrap the 4/5 spilt as most of the time you'd be lucky to have half of the 20 racing at the same time.

I think there is no further point in discussing the riders points system as its already being worked on for next season  3

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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Then you have the problem of 5/20 being on Team Sky

So leaving 15 other riders. By the time you split them into teams, Its only going to give you a few teams with star riders. So lets just say for arguments sake Froome, Wiggo, EBH, Heano, Uran, Nibali, Contador and Kreuziger were the only star's in the TdF next year.

Thats only 3 teams. Meaning you will be FORCED to pick two from the same team. A bit unfair when you are forced to do it.

The system you are talking about involves changing the rules every race to suit the amount of stars involved. Its just not workable as a season long set up. Fine for a one of race. But not the season.

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dave atkinson | 11 years ago
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Next year a rider's designation (as a star or otherwise) will change depending on his past form. rider values will be set for each race rather than on a yearly basis, based on past form and also the type of race. why is it complicated? you join a competition, you pick your team. You can still pick a nobody that does well in a tour. if someone does well their value will increase, but it's not like one good tour is going to put them up with people that have a solid year of results behind them.

We've been testing the system based on the current data. JTL was 3 credits in the ToB, his win means that for the Tour Down Under next year (if selected), his value would be around 7. he's still cheap because he's only got one tour's worth of points, and the ToB isn't weighted that highly. If he wins TDU too, well it goes up again. you'll need to pick your improvers when they start to improve.

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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Yes thats what I think will be the case. A star for the classic's, may not be a star for the GT's. So it might change the amount of stars in various races.

Just to make it even more complicated for you  3  3

As your example above. Using 45 stars for the Vuelta, I'm unsure of the actual amount there were, but for arguments sake we'll use 45

198 starters, 45 stars and 153 DS

My rough math has worked out the chance's below. It may not be spot on, but near enough to use as an example to show how the game would be dulled down by removing the 4/5 split.

You chance of picking a scorer in the top 20

From stars = 1 in 14
From DS = 1 in 26

Without having the split

The chances of picking a scorer

1 in 9

Chances of picking the winner

1 in 22

Now obviously, that doesn't take into account the type of stage which may rule out certain riders...example an uphill finish that rules out the big sprinters.

The example I have given would be based on EVERY rider having the same ability, say in a Time Trial. So taking into account the type of stage, the odds of picking scoring Stars and DS goes up and without the split would remain around the same. Slightly less for mountains as you could discount quite a number of riders.

Its only based on the first 20, as working in the chances of being in the break and scoring any kind of point would be nearly impossible.

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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It would be 1/198 if you could only pick one rider, But you get to pick 9, So its got to be divided by 9  3

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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I was trying to keep it simple, because to work out multiple combinations would take me months, working out who you can and cannot afford in your team and then only have two from each team.......

You can pick 9 riders from 198, so VERY basic calculations without going into the 2 from each team, transfer budgets and everything like that.

Before you break it down, the chances of picking a straight out winner would be 1 in 22

If you added everything else in, The chances would go up, because you'd limit your choices, giving yourself less of a chance to pick the winner. It could be up in the 1000's.

Without budget for the Olympics lets say, where you could pick ANYONE, lets say there were 198 riders. That makes I THINK, with my calculations, 1541984268762850 different combinations of 9  39

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TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
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Agree with nickobec in some respects regarding the 4 star/5 DS split, perfect example was in the Tour of bejing, had Bos worth 10.7 and no other non-sprinters anywhere near in value, yet couldnt transfer him out for the last stage, ideally id have picked a similar priced DS that may have scored, but ultimately couldnt because of the rule.

I guess its not so much the rule, its more if you have that rule then you shouldnt have an overlap in values, as imo a rider shouldnt be classed as a star if they are valued at less then a DS as it defeats the object of the split in the first place

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JAndrewHill | 11 years ago
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Can we start the 2013 season now??? I am missing it already.

As long as it doesnt become too easy to pick the top nine riders , and few peopled pick similar squads it will be good.

I liked the way this season it helped if you picked the random riders who won a stage or broke away and just picking the top six in the gc was not always best.

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TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
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Regarding the values, I think what Dave is saying regarding the profile of a stage when weighting the values comes more into play for a classic, for example if Cav was riding Amstel then his value would be lower than that of his TDF value, based on the fact it is an uphill finish and thus virtually wont figure in winning, so a value of 40 wouldnt be justified for him in such a race (would you agree cgipryan?). I dont think that is trying to point out the winner but merely being reflective of fair values for the race.

Am I right?

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dave atkinson | 11 years ago
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yes TER, except currently the spring classics are lumped together as a competition so there wouldn't be a specific value for amstel, rather for the whole comp. but you could expect cav to be dearer for the tour of qatar than for the dauphine, for example

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JAndrewHill | 11 years ago
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How soon before a race can I pick a rider. Could I pick cav for the tdf whilst the dauphine is on and he is cheap. Or will there be a date when rider values are fixed for the tdf, say a week before it starts and we have a week to pick our squads from scratch???

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Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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I think Dave said above somewhere. The races will only be open one at a time and only a bit before the races, so that startlists and things can be verified, so you don't have to keep going and changing your team  3

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JAndrewHill | 11 years ago
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Ahgood makes sense. I didnt have all day to read the whole thread...i only managed a weeks worth.  39

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Gkam84 replied to londonplayer | 11 years ago
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londonplayer wrote:

Loving the flexibility of 9 ANY riders in the ToB comp.

As I've mentioned before in previous comments, you've got to stick to a points budget, so can't see any harm in it.

I also like this. But it can't really be classed as a "trial run" because of the lack of stars. If the race had quite alot of stars. I think it would be much harder to pick riders.

Although I like it. Would like to try it in a race with many more stars.

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enrique replied to Stumps | 11 years ago
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stumps wrote:

What happens... when you have to have a sprinter but know that it wont be a sprint finish so you've wasted a slot?

Yeah, I know what you mean... I guess I'd like to see this only for the Grand Tours... Just 'cause I think it mirrors real teams... It's probably too complicated to roll it out just for the Grand Tours, but there's something about the concept that I really like...

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enrique replied to TERatcliffe26 | 11 years ago
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TERatcliffe26 wrote:

... Some of these premium races we have struggled with a good enough choice of star riders as it is, so that rule would make it almost impossible for some races

I see what you mean... What I was thinking was that we do away with the GC, AR, DS, KM and PC designations completely. The riders themselves would not be classified as such, as they are now.

You would have a GC slot, a PC slot, and a KM slot, which you could fill with ANY rider (assuming we do away with all the designations) and ONLY those riders that you slot into the GC, KM, and PC slots, and maybe YR slot, would get points for those competitions. The rest would only get Finish Line points and breakaway points. I know it's complicated.

For example, for the second day of a tour, assuming the first day was a prologue, my ideal team might be:

GC Fabian Cancellara
PC Mark Cavendish
KM Michael Morkov
YR Taylor Phinney

and 5 other riders...

ONLY Cancellara, Sagan, Morkov and Talansky could get points for their standing in the different competitions...

Cancellara would get 10 points for GC, if he had the yellow jersey at the end of Day 2, Mark Cavendish would get 35 Finish Line Points and 5 PC points, assuming he won the 2nd stage, Morkov will get breakaway points and 5 points for the KM jersey, if he nabbed the most KM points that day and Phinney would get 5 points for the YR jersey and having finsished in the bunch.

Your other riders would get just Finish Line Points and Intermediate KM and PC points, not anything else for the classifications .

I know it sounds complicated but I like the requirement that you have to have a designated sprinter, a designated KM guy and a GC guy, and when it exists, a YR rider on your team... It makes me feel like it mirrors a real team... Though I'm aware someone could argue that RadioShack will bring no sprinters to the Tour or Vacansoleil may not have a real GC guy, etc... I just liked having designated sprinters, KM guys and GC riders on last year's teams... I didn't care much for the AR designation, though...

I can't think of any other way to require a sprinter, a GC guy and a KM guy... but I like the idea of requiring one of each...

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drheaton replied to Stumps | 11 years ago
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stumps wrote:

The value of stars has been gone over a few times. Some are way over valued IMHO but its the same for all of us.

I can see Henao being into the late 20's possibly early 30's after the year he has had and the emergence of some of the younger sprinters.

It would be interesting to see how the team work out the rider points system.  39

Yeah, I'm curious to see how next year's prices work. This year, with the prices being fixed at the start of the year, there have been a few prices that have looked odd once we've gotten to the back end of the season. Henao, Bouhanni, Talansky are a few but who would have expected them to come through so well at the start of the year? Not me. So I completely see why everyone was priced as they were and it made sense, it also increased the enjoyment for me having to monitor which cheap riders were coming into form and trying to use them to get the edge over others. Also, don't forget for every rider increasing in value (Henao, Hesjedal, Sagan, Bouhanni, Froome, Valverde) there will be a corresponding drop in value for others (Cobo, Renshaw, Rojas, Siutsou, Taaramae, Rujano... etc) and there will always be riders coming into form who were cheap, it just means that the great deals from this year will be replaced by different ones next year.

I'm not sure that setting prices per event (which I think is what Dave was suggesting) will be as much fun. At the moment prices are set for the year as a whole with riders like Terpstra being relatively cheap because across the year they're not going to score loads of points. Next year though he might be really expensive for the classics and dirt cheap for the grand tours. In theory that better reflects where he's going to be scoring points but I can see it ending up in a situation where you have to pick 4 or 5 riders that you think will do well then just fill the rest of the slots with whoever's cheap because anyone with half a chance of scoring well has been priced too high.

If each rider has a 'base value' worked out in the same way as this year but with a 'race adjustment' of maybe 10-20% of their value (so a 10 credit DS who is ace at classics and crap at week long tours may cost up to 12 or down to 8) then that might work but if you're completely changing rider values per race that could get confusing and annoying.

Anyway, fingers crossed whatever changes that are made work and improve the game, I'm looking forward to next year already.

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drheaton replied to noddy69 | 11 years ago
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noddy69 wrote:

I was thinking of where I have made a complete muck up of a team in a grand tour which left me with no chance from the off. One solution which could be taken from F Football is one complete reshuffle of a team in any one competition per season.
This would obviously come into play in the grand tours, but only one of them. It gives everyone a fair shot if they have screwed up and also if they need a tactical reshuffle, but only once in the season.(if it has already been suggested apologies but alot of posts to go through)

So in essence its a one off wild card to be used at one point whenever you so choose.

Yeah, wildcards, double transfers for stage one, cheaper penalty transfers or any number of other things to help you if you made a mess of your team for stage one have all been raised but sadly they seem to be shouted down by those who don't want the game "dumbing down".

I can see both sides and as I've said previously I'd quite like some system where you can retrieve a complete cock up because picking 2 or 3 wrong DSs at the start of a race can keep coming back to bite you throughout the whole race.

On the other hand it makes your first team even more important to get right and makes the game harder, it also means that those players who get it right have an advantage.

I'd like something implemented but I don't expect anything to change in this regard.

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noddy69 replied to drheaton | 11 years ago
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Thats why I was suggesting a very simple 9 man team, three transfers , season long side game. It could be made complicated but as you said thats a different game, this would just be an added extra that people could use to add to the enjoyment of an already addictive game not a complicated new type of system at all.

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Alan Tullett replied to giff77 | 11 years ago
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giff77 wrote:

Pretty happy with the game as a whole. How about including a couple of the womens' races as well. Or could run parrallel to the mens season?

Would second that. Good way to build interest in their races. Their main races could be in the premium season with a few (world champs) part of the main season.

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drheaton replied to Gkam84 | 11 years ago
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Gkam84 wrote:

That makes it ever better if you have to pick "crap" DS's, then you have to pick ones who might finish in the top 20, plenty of them this season. Also riders from teams the winner might come from OR aim for the last place man  19

The problem with this is that there may be fewer low value DSs who'll be worth picking as the ones in form or 'emerging' mid-season (Bouhanni is a good example, as is Quintana) would increase in price and become unaffordable if you're also having to shell out 35+ credits each for Valverde, Rodriguez, Contador and Froome... I know that you always had the option of not picking those 4 at the Vuelta but with the scores weighted towards the first couple of riders over the line you want riders who you think will finish 1, 2 and 3 (90 points) rather than 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 (also 90 points). It's just human nature to pick the winners and with the scoring as it is there's a clear incentive to pick those riders rather than potential scorers who'll finish outside the top 5 or so on a stage but may top 20.

dave_atkinson wrote:

really like the star budget/ds budget idea. that could work well, deciding whether to spunk your 100 on two or three big names or spreading it over four riders.

Not sure on this, it all depends on what exactly you want the change to acheive. If you want to encourage people to pick different teams with loads of variation and different tactics then this won't do that. By placing more restrictions on what you spend your credits on you're basically stopping people from using tactics like having 5 very expensive DSs and 4 very cheap stars or vica-versa. I think this would actually end up causing most teams to look the same, even more so than they do now.

I've said before that I'd quite like to see fewer restrictions and see the 4/5 split go all-together ( or even have a 3 stars, 2 anything 4 DS split for more flexibility) but I guess it all depends on how you want the game to work. I would say that as you're already making a massive change with the varying rider values I'd consider leaving any other big changes for 2014 just so you can see how the new value system works before changing splits/credit limits or anything else.

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