some ideas I mentioned earlier - maximum skill bar

[robdop]

Here some ideas i posted earlier in the under 1000 thread:


training camps:
can be bought 1 times per season. For a certain amount of money you can buy a training camp in a certain country in europe (austria for mountain, germany for hill and mountain , holland flat etc.)which wil spread 5-10 skill points randomly over your riders (2+ max per rider) will cost 30 fitness or something. so it's a tactic for the long run. (but the teams in the highest division can't have this so the gap wil be smaller)

fan status for riders:
certain riders in the game will have good looks or something, like there is in real life. they have more sympathy from the fans, maybe ip can add a new skill thats: fan status or something.
you can buy riders who have lots of it, so you know in the end you will sell more merchandise. the fan status can rise with wins or when a rider fell 3 times in one race, the people will also love him more. because it is sad.

maximum skill value:
at this time a rider with all skills up to 20 he has all counted: 200 skill. maybe we should see how talented a rider is. just a small example: a riders current transfervalue is: $112,175
beneath that stands: maximum value is: 300,000
but with a rider thats 30 years old it will be: $112,175
and then the maximum is something like 130,000
so you can see who's your rough diamond and who's not.

richer teams can buy a youth trainer who will tell them more specific how much the player can grow( but not how fast).

I explained it with transfervalue, but you can also make a maximum skill bar. or maximum skill value.


that last part also helps me with my next idea, after each race you'll get a message from your assistant, with data about the race. with things like, a raised fan status (and why), a rider who's growing in his ability to steer. etc. etc. fun facts about the race (shouldn't be so hard to come up with some "facts", these are things that make the game fun for beginners)

and also last but not least, to make the gap between higher league teams smaller, you'll need to get more money when transfer to a higher league and let lowlevel teams have an assistant who can scout. (this so they can't buy a scout till they're higher) and give this scout one rider per 3 weeks, so you'll want to play three weeks when you start the game.
And maybe youthscouts who are not active at teams in the higher league let them have a higher luck factor, so some teams will strike lucky and have a rider who's stats are not bad at the beginning and will grow fast, in normal sports this is also something normal. sometimes you strike lucky and you'll have a rough diamond. (with a high maximum skill value)


just thinking out loudly, hope you like some of these idea's.


p.s. Use the poll for the maximum skill idea only please.

[Schizm]

I hope you don't mind that I am gonna be frank and give you a reasoning behind my negative vote. I think your suggestions all lack in the same area , the complexity. IP's main objective is to keep the game as simple as possible, and these things would only (unnecesseary) complicate things. Which is what you want to avoid if you want to attract people to the game.
(No offense, in fact a lot of the things I suggested earllier suffered from the "same disease").

[robdop]

No problem, it's just that its sad that there's is almost no way to get to the real top as a new one in the game. I think this is one of the main reasons there are not much players who stay in the game.

simplicity is a good thing though, but something as a potential for every rider is not something that makes it complex. because it is normal to know the potential of a rider( not perfectly ofcourse). now we need to do complex things after each training about his transfervalue before and after the sunday update. which is something newbies don't understand.
it will also make it more fun for niewbies that they have a rider with a good potential to see him grow and eventually become a much better rider then other riders.

[Schizm]

Well with v2 of peloton they made us wait longer to discover the talents (FA only makes a difference above 7) as a consequence we all train some cyclists now on skills on which they absolutely have no talent.
I must admit I liked the old system better (and I am not talking about the Transfervalue-trick) where you would gradually find out how talented your cyclist is (by waiting for his next pop/or by sorting cyclists every week).
But a function to spot talent right away would just spoil the fun for me.
For me the ideal solution would be to make top level divisions more competitive and the the lower divisions less. But then you get people who want to demote because competition is easier there (and in that way making the competition harder again for the newer teams).

[Il Padrino]

Schizm, could you elaborate a bit on the last part you wrote, please? How would you make the competition less in the lower divisions?

[Schizm]

Well I think you are already doing some fine things with keeping the number of teams per division low and sorting the divisions on joindate. But that should not apply to higher divisions, more teams per division are needed there and the promoting of the top teams should have been done faster. Only now you start to see a decent number of divisions where the difference between the top team(s) and the rest isn't huge. Still there are alot of divisions where this still isn't the case, very demotivating for most of the others.

To avoid deliberate demoting :
- Automatic renogation of contracts when demoting (talented cyclists would like to stay racing at the higher level so they must be convinced to stay with a higher salary or will have a lesser mood).
- automatic adjusting sponsorcontracts to the new divisions when demoting or promoting

Too make the highest division interesting
- introduction of a newsticker in the site who not only show the winners of the last race/tour of teh own division but also those of division 1.1
- a special icon next to the teamname of former division 1.1 winners
- and ofcourse a significant difference in price money.

In general by making strong top divisions you already make the lower divisions more competitive.

[Schizm]

Maybe even the national divisions can be reintroduced (with ontop a world 1.1) Countries with less then 16 (or what ever number is required ?) teams that were active during a whole season should be put together.

[Il Padrino]

Mood change for promoting/demoting teams is a good suggestion, simple and logical. I'll see about adding this for the next season.

Sponsorcontracts is something that the managers should take into account themselves. There's a reason why some contracts are 4 seasons long This could something for demoting teams only, I'll have to think about it

The suggestions for the higher divisions are good, and I think this can be done for the most part by adding trophies, which is already high on my to-do list.

[rarau]

Jun 17, 2012 12:38:49 GMT 1 Schizm said:

Maybe even the national divisions can be reintroduced (with ontop a world 1.1) Countries with less then 16 (or what ever number is required ?) teams that were active during a whole season should be put together.

very good suggestion

[Il Padrino]

You mean grouping countries per team in a subdivision, within the World division?

[Genomico]

I love the international aspect of the game.

[Quatannens]

Me too... I would't like to be in a full Belgian division again.

[eboese]

Fully agree with Genomico and Quatannens. I didn't like the national divisions in version 1, grouping all countries together when we did the restart was an excellent decision. National division makes no sense according to me, especially for a game with less than 1.000 players.

[Schizm]

I also like international divisions better but I think being the top, a top 5, or a top 10 of a nation works better as a motivator as being among the best 2nd division teams. SO that is why I suggested reimplementing them somehow.

[Quatannens]

Yes, I agree there should be a possibility to split the divisions again. The biggest countries could have there own competition, but as eboese says we just don't have enough players to do so. Right now, you don't even have to pick the country you live in. I don't think it's motivating to play every season against the same teams, or to be the best of 20 teams every season again. If we stay at 1000 teams, one competition is enough I think. Otherwise being a champion of a competition isn't really exclusive...