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'.
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198 comments
Wow... I hadn't thought of that, but it does bring up the question of how you handle them, if they have no results for the year, that's an interesting case...
I am! very! intrigued by the formula(s)! Can we see it (them?)? .... I'm in awe of someone who comes up these things!
You REALLY need to get out more
I do! Cool icon, by the way...
Cheers ! its a large tattoo on my arm as well, hurt like bugger but worth it.
nope. top secret. plus, i've lost the fag packet
Not to worry, help is at hand. I kept it for leverage
Obviously I had to black out bits not to give it all away
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(Sigh!) Ok!... How about some thoughts on transfers for next year then?...
I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I read your post...
Dave, what are your thoughts on the transfer rules? Are you considering making changes or are you inclined to leave them as they are?...
Dave, does that mean that a riders value will change, or can change, for every competition? I think you may have addressed this before, but, for the Classics competition, for example, can rider values change between races, or will they stay the same throughout the whole Classics competition?
Is it something that the CQ Ranking can help with ?
http://www.cqranking.com/men/asp/gen/cqRankingRider.asp?current=1
that can give us an idea to be planning out 2013 teams.
These long winter days... They make me wonder what the transfer rules will be next year... Any news, Dave?....
A very interesting read if I've missed it. I apologise, but remove the right to pick a greyed out rider for any reason tactical or otherwise.
I lost the plot and the ability to win when the need to guess the breakaway became more important than the stage winner, I think a ,modicum of this should be retained, but the game should be refocussed to reflect the stage win. This would mean less strict following of the real race rules.
But.. I probably won't play next year, at least the season long at any rate, so I guess no say in this really.
Merry seasonal greetings all.
Oh and anybody who admits to or is found to have taken advantage of a programming blip, closing time error or any other shady move should be eliminated forthwith.
Agree although from memory I think htat is coming in anyway as you'll only be able to pick riders who are competing in that actual race (as part of the change in the pricing system).
I agree that the focus has moved away from stage winners to breakaways although it has to be said that the really really high scorers in the Tour were the people who won from a breakaway and actually, the riders who were in failed breaks didn't score as highly as you might expect. The names that come to mind as massive scorers were Voeckler and Rabottini in the Tour/Giro but actually, both of those won their respective stages and that pushed their scorers up into the 80s/90s.
I disagree, if the transfer window is set at a certain time beforehand then that's the deadline. If it then turns out that this is after the stage start then it's an error on road.cc's part and not on the players and it'd be unfair to penalise someone for making transfers before the deadline. There were occassions (last stage of the Tour of California) when the time was way way way out but others stages were few and far between. Other than punishing players Dave et al just need to keep a closer eye on changes to start times next year.
I agree. Though it's thrilling when you have a rider on your team that scores so many points, it feels more like guessing and luck rather than skill...
I think the reason this seems out of focus is that KM points along the way are tallied for the breakaway but Finish Line KM points on a hilltop or mountaintop finish are not. I think it would be more consistent, and seem fairer, to either lower the points on offer for KM along the route that are available toa breakaway, or, to count the KM points at the end of a stage race. Either would suit me.
At the same time, regardless, I'd be ok with max points for winning a stage to go back to the old standard of 25 points, etc... It just seems a cooler number to me and would make for more exciting competitions and smaller margins of victory...
Transfers anyone?...
I disagree. If you include finish line KoM points then the really high scorers (the breakaway winners) will score EVEN MORE POINTS and it'll skew the race towards the mountains as more points will be on offer for these stages. If you want to reign in breakaway points then adding on finish line points won't help as it'll punish you even more when you fail to pick a rider like Voeckler who goes on an all day break and racks up 100+ points.
You could offset adding in KoM finish line points by also awarding Sprint/Points competition points for the finish line as well but then you're skewing the race towards finishing places and away from breaks. There is a balance to be found and I think we're fairly close right now, massive changes would be too much.
What I will say though is that technically, the finish line points already reflect the points awarded in the KoM or Points Competitions. No points are given to riders for finishing positions except these so you could argue the 35-1 points on offer for a stage win already include these.
I say, leave it broadly unchanged.
Just give up. Rules on transfers will be announced eventually, probably at the start of January in the run up to the TDU so leave it. At this point I expect Dave has the rules laid out how he wants and they won't be changed. We've all had our say, let's just see what happens.
50+ days till the TDU... what a pain... I miss this game... I wonder if we'll get more races next year, like the Jayco Cycling Classic, the Cancer Council Classic, the Tour de San Luis, the Vuelta a Mallorca series, the Volta Algarve, the Vuelta a Andalucia, the Vuelta a Murcia, etc... I'd rather have some of the smaller Spanish stage races than the flat Tour of Oman and Tour of Qatar...
I'm not sure if anyone else picked this up, but I'd definitely second the notion of Premium members being able to run a purist team AND a day-by-day team in the stage races. This last year I've often wished that I could do both.
It would certainly encourage me to go Premium.
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