Will rider values change before Vuelta?

nickobec is clearly a student of the game!!

I really like all of his suggestions as it happens so my vote goes there.

Winton

Ideas for Dave's whiteboard ie next year

+1 for rider values changing throughout next season based on performance during season. Just make sure when some riders rides rise in value, other riders decrease in value. (ie average GC rider value before Giro is 30, Contador dominates his value rises from 40 to 44, end of Giro his values stays at 44, average GC rider is still 30, even if other 20 GC rider drop 0.2)

Like the idea of same budget for everyone in Giro, TdF & Vuelta, it is about fairness. Banking points for World Tour add to complexity, which I don't really like. Plus is it really competition if your team is over 220 points competing against 175pt teams?

Banking transfers, makes it more complex. Only way I would say yes is 2 unused transfers can be banked as a single transfer. And you can only bank max of 2 transfers.

Only 2 transfers makes you plan ahead, while you all where working on your Alp D'Huez strategy, I transferring in riders for the Grenoble TT (who could climb JC Peruad anyone), that is why I finished 7th overall in TdF (brilliant TT performance, too bad I picked Spartacus instead of Tony Martin, expecting afternoon rain, but went from 13th to 7th overall that day).

Again like the simple 1 GC 1 PC 1 KM 2 AR 4 DS. 2nd choice 1 GC 1 PC 1 KM 2 AR 3 DS + 1 your choice any more adds complexity.

Other changes I would like to see:

Increased points for the classics, currently the winning rider gets 20pts if rider wins 1st day of multi day race the usually get 35pts, 20 for win, 10 for 1st in GC and 5 for leading sprint classification. Suggestion top 25 finishers in one day race get points from 25pts for 1st to 1pt for 25th. Logic, points at end of classic (325pts) roughly equal points for end of stage in multi day race with finish, GC, sprint, mountains and young rider points (310pts), Advantages nice and simple. Disadvantage 6th place in a one day race = 1st in GT stage.

Alternative 1st 30pts, 2nd 28pts, 3rd 26pts... 9th 14pts 10th 12pts, 11th 10pts, 12th 9pts ... 20th 1pt. Logic = stage + GC points.

Lantern Rouge is over valued, once a GT is on it is easy to pick the Lantern Rouge, they rarely change from stage to stage. Suggestion decrease the value of Lantern Rouge from 10pts to 5pts. Also award Lantern Rouge points for the last rider to finish a classic.

@Squiggle and abudhabiChris:
Good ideas. Major value changes after Grand Tours is the best way to handle it.
For example Contador this season: After the Giro his value would have increased. After the Tour his value would have decreased.
Very good idea.

@abudhabiChris:
Your second suggestion is not bad either. But I think its quite difficult to manage that.

My problem with the values is not the resetting but the original values and to some extent the classifications.

How did Tyler Farrar and Andre Greipel get a higher value than Mark Cavendish and Thor Hushovd. Last year or this year, it makes no sense. And together Farrar and Greipel have scored fewer points than either Cav or Thor on their own.

The other anomaly is the teams for the tours compared to what riders have been classified as. I think it was Garmin in the TDF had one rider listed as a domestique.

So I would suggest:
1. Some major resets of value at key times of year.

2. Either the same with classification OR a more free-form approach where we can go over in some categories and under in others - which is what the teams do anyway.
I certainly think that is necessary for the Classics, which don't follow the same team structure.

Having said that, I have mostly enjoyed the game and would be prefectly happy to work within the same system next year. The Classics were the only thing I felt really didn't work well. But you asked...

And there's an argument for keeping it stable. Making changes in season was not ideal this year and if you muck about now, when it is relatively stable, you may find yourselves having to make adjustments on the fly again.

In my opinion there should be no value changes at all. It just makes the game more complicated. First every rider who has been participating at the Giro got more expensive. After that the changes were just minimal and not depending on the riders performance, for example Uran who reduced his value from 15.0 to 14.9 although he has shown a solid performance. Value changes like that either made the game more complicated or were unnecessary.

I'll go with my old idea once again:

Reset scores for the big sub-contests like Giro, Tour & Vuelta. But while resetting the score, bank the difference. So that I have the banked credit available for stages outside those 3 sub-competitions while the field stays even for those playing/joining just in them.

This keeps the year long World Tour contest going on a separate leg while ensuring the fairness in 3 grand tours. Someone joining just before, say, le Tour will still be disadvantaged when San Sebastian comes around. But then how much of a chance such a player has in the World Tour anyway?

Maybe there could be a limited transfer rollover - say for 1 round only - so you have 2, you don't use them, next round you have 4. But if you don't use then in the consecutive round you lose them... so you have a maximum of 4 at any time? (except free transfer windows before GT's).

Yeah, but you don't gain anything by saving tranfers up really unless you don't usually make transfers. I think I used all but one of the available transfers during the tour. So actually if your looking to get the highest score on one stage and are confident in your predicting skills you can go for that stage. Odd, how it's like the difference from GC competetors to just winning stages.

Saving your transfers up is a sound idea, there's been a few times this year when i've only changed 1 rider or none.

I missed the first 9 / 10 stages this year and came across the game purely by accident (now addicted) so i think there has to be a fair way of rider values going up and down as people who come in late, like myself, have an even playing field. If you build up your team values to 200+ then someone starting afresh with 175 is on a loser straight away.

This is the 5th time i've typed it out and it still doesn't read write but i'm sure people get my drift.

answers are:

1) rider values only change on stage updates, so no benefit from picking early. we don't know who's riding yet, anyway

2) we will be resetting rider values and team balances for the Vuelta next week, but like nickobec's commented above the logic for adjusting rider values has changed and it's much more difficult to build up a big total of credits, so it won't have a huge effect this time around. Still, level playing field and that...

3) theoretical max increase is 6 credits but mostly rider values go up and down only a little.

Here's a question for you lot:

Next year the rider values within the game will be determined in the main by everyone's performance in this season's game. the fact that we have to reset the rider values and balances between tours, and the fact that we've adjusted the logic to stop team values rising too much, means that the value changes are kind of academic now. We might not implement the value changes next year. What does everyone think?

And the answer to your original question, from what I have seen rider values only change on the completion of a stage. So you don't get cheap riders by signing them early for the Vuelta.

As for another reset, Dave will answer that shortly. However, it is less required than before the TdF when you had established teams with 200 pts to spend, compared to 175 pts for new teams. The top team might have 177pts now, not a big advantage.

The rider value change has been adjusted as the season has evolved. During the Giro the value change was significant, I think my team got close to the 200 mark, before the reset.

For the TdF the value change was far less, I think Voeckler increase from 25 the day before he got his yellow jersey to peak at 25.4. My team performed a lot better in the TdF (top 10) than the Giro (30th) and only gained 1.4 for the TdF in total compared to over 10 in the Giro.

Prior to the TdF I saw rider values increase by over 2, for TdF 0.4 was the best I believe

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my impression is that even though rider values do change through this season, they change so negligibly that it really makes very little difference.

Having said that, my total team value seems to be only 174.9 points. Surely your credit balance should return to 175 to allow fair purchases pre the Vuelta?

Again, not that I'm hugely bothered BUT I have had a few occasions where I am just 0.1 out of credit leading me unable to make my desired purchase.

My verdict - it will all come out in the wash and much bigger chance factors determine the overall result.