Suggestions for the 2013 season

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.

Glad you like it. It's main effect will be to mean it's not necessary, although it may well be desirable sometimes, to pick cheap DSs. You'd have an average of 10 points per DS, way higher than nearly anyone uses most of the time at the mo. You'd also have to make more of a choice between the best star riders rather than being able to have 3 high scoring stars. This would make the pick of riders more even across the value element rather than being biased towards the expensive and cheap ends of the scale.

The 175 idea is not so good but might have some of the same effect in some races where it's worth having some cheaper stars thus freeing up credit for a more varied pick of DSs. I only suggested it as I don't know how difficult it would be to program the split idea or get it across to people.

Gkam84 wrote:

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.

Well, I must be, but like I said above, I would only keep the Star Rider distinction for Grand Tours and only limit the amount of GC guys you can have on your team...

I'm pretty sure we could always adjust the split, as I explained above, to 2/7 or 3/6, which would force different teams.

And most of all the guys on that list, except for Boonen, Gerrans, Sagan and Boassen Hagen, would probably be Top 10 or 15 in any Grand Tour they participate in...

All other races I would do away with the Star Rider/DS distinction. Anyways, I like limiting the Star Riders idea more than alloting a particular part of your budget to Stars or DS's... It sounds too complicated...

Dave Atkinson wrote:

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?

Ok, it isn't complicated... I guess I just like the simplicity of this year of one value for the whole year...

I still think, taking this year's Grand Tours as an example, that we have too many Star Riders in the Grand Tours. I counted 45 Riders as Star Riders in the Vuelta, 58 in the Tour and 47 in the Giro, of which we could only choose 4 at a time.

I just think we have too many Star Riders, way too many! Maybe we should just list Star Riders just for the Grand Tours, and maybe just the GC guys as Stars... I mean, 45 to 58 Riders out of the 200 or so in a Tour are Stars? I think that's alot! Just a thought... I'd like to bring that number down... A lot!...

I guess from what you wrote there's a possibility a rider could be a Star Rider for the Classics, but not for a Grand Tour, am I right?

I like your logic Gkam. Besides, 45 stars in a grand tour is not much at all. Almost any team (at least the ProTour ones) have at least two stars (whether its a GC guy and a sprinter, or two protected GC guys, or a TT guy and a GC guy etc.). But many of them have 3 or even 4 protected riders for the various stages you get in a grand tour. And if you have 22 teams with at least two stars each, then you'll have at least 44 star riders. And its normal for that number to increase in the TdF, since that's where every important rider wants to be...

Gkam84 wrote:

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

Not really... If I had to guess, I'd say the odds are less than 1/22, because the way you're looking at it, you could only choose 22 different teams of 9 - to cover all 198 riders... One team would have bibs 1-9, another team another nine riders, but in reality there are more than 22 different combinations, many more, so I figure the odds are less than 1/22... I may be wrong, but I wish we had a statistician on the forum...

Gkam84 wrote:

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

I wonder if the statistics is right in this... Could it be right to think that the odds would be 1/198 + 1/197 + 1/196 + 1/195 + 1/194 + 1/193 + 1/192 + 1/191 + 1/190, more or less 4.7%, slightly less than 1/20, so very close to your 1/22... I have nothing else to do, obviously...

TERatcliffe26 wrote:

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

that's addressed for 2013; the star riders are the most expensive ones for any given tour.

I dont like the idea of a lesser penalty as it makes the using any penalty points a tough decision and quite tactical. It would make tactical decisions a lot easier with less of a penalty and I am not convinced.
Getting it right from the start is something that is part and parcel of the game but I am with you in that it can leave alot of players stranded in a three week competition right from the start. With only one wild card per season it gives everyone one chance only to change this, it also does not only benefit those left behind but can be an advantage to everyone if used cleverly and I believe a good option for all players which is a must to be implemented.And as it can only be used once in a season it makes it all the more reasonable ,in my mind anyway.

drheaton wrote:

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'm not sure it would: all it would stop you doing is spunking all your budget on the four/five best stars and then filling up with no-hopers. there'd just be a maximum spend on stars; it wouldn't stop you from picking all DSs if you wanted to. the idea being that you'd need to think harder about your whole team. like i said before, the people that end up at the top will have teams that are essentially the same. that's inevitable.

cgipryan wrote:

... 45 stars in a grand tour is not much... Almost any team... have at least two stars... its normal for that number to increase in the TdF...

These were the Star Riders in the Tour. I miscounted and there's 60, if I'm correct. The points that appear are their total points for the Tour:

1 Peter Sagan 550
2 Bradley Wiggins 475
3 Christopher Froome 367
4 Matthew Goss 326
5 Vicenzo Nibali 304
6 Tejay van Garderen 301
7 Andre Greipel 295
8 Thomas Voeckler 293
9 Cadel Evans 288
10 Edvald Boasson Hagen 270
11 Mark Cavendish 245
12 Pierre Rolland 204
13 Fredrik Kessiakoff 201
14 Jurgen van den Broeck 191
15 Chris Anker Sorensen 162
16 Luis Leon Sanchez 161
17 Peter Velits 130
18 Alejandro Valverde 124
19 Haimar Zubeldia 122
20 Denis Menchov 122
21 Nicolas Roche 101
22 Philippe Gilbert 100
23 Janez Brajkovic 97
24 Sebastien Hinault 96
25 Rein Taaramae 94
26 Juan Jose Haedo 90
27 Samuel Dumoulin 82
28 Michele Scarponi 81
29 Daniel Martin 78
30 Alexandre Vinokourov 76
31 David Millar 75
32 Steven Kruijswijk 73
33 Dries Devenyns 72
34 Jean-Christophe Peraud 70
35 Tyler Farrar 68
36 Andreas Kloden 63
37 Gregory Henderson 61
38 Jeremy Roy 56
39 Borut Bozic 56
40 Maxime Monfort 51
41 Bernhard Eisel 51
42 Laurens ten Dam 50
43 Chris Horner 49
44 Michael Rogers 46
45 Ivan Basso 44
46 Karsten Kroon 39
47 Christian Knees 39
48 Rui Alberto Faria Da Costa 38
49 Jurgen Roelandts 38
50 Marco Marcato 35
51 Jelle Vanendert 31
52 Daniel Oss 28
53 Sebastian Langeveld 20
54 Rafael Valls Ferri 16
55 Levi Leipheimer 13
56 Juan Jose Cobo 11
57 Simon Gerrans 10
58 Nick Nuyens 9
59 Johnny Hoogerland 6
60 George Hincapie 3

I still think that's too much... I still think that, hard as it may be, there shouldn't be more than 20 Stars per Grand Tour. I'd be ok with the Top 20 on this list to have been the only Stars.

Maybe what's most important is, if we keep the splits, is that the Star Rider quantity (4, or whatever it becomes) becomes the MAXIMUM number of "Stars" you can have, NOT a requirement per se to be obligated to HAVE (!) 4 Star Riders all the time.

Meaning I can have UP TO 4 Stars, NOT MORE than 4, BUT (!), if I choose, I can field a team with NO Stars, 1 Star, 2 stars, 3 Stars or 4.... but not 5... The important thing is that I not have more than 4 Stars at any given time, which, frankly, could be achieved just by budget limitations, if the values are high enough for Stars... So I can see where Rider Values will be key to this discussion...

Going back to the split, if we play that way, with the Star rider quantity not be obligatory but just a limit, then maybe the 4/5 split can be revised to 2/7 or 3/6...

Just thinking and sharing my ideas...

drheaton wrote:

I'd ... like to see fewer restrictions and see the 4/5 split go all-together...

Me too...

drheaton wrote:

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.

Frankly, I'd like to see set values stay, just like with the Pros. I don't see them changing salaries mid-season, so if you get a deal, you stick with it till your contract is up. Are rider salaries public knowledge so you can achor the game salaries to real life salaries?

drheaton wrote:

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.

the whole squad/draft thing we're not really considering, for two reasons:

1) it's very different to what we're doing now and a lot of work to implement
2) cycling's not like football; people dip in and out over the course of a season. the game needs to reflect that in order to be inclusive. i know everyone on this thread will most likely be getting stuck in from the tour down under onwards, but the majority don't sign up until at least the spring classics. any game structure that requires doing anything at the start of the season is out, as far as we're concerned, for the main game. no reason it couldn't be done as a forum game though.

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.

Like I said above, I'd rather you create a 2 or 3 Star Rider limit, making it a 2/7 or 3/6 split, rather than alloting a part of your budget to just Stars or DS's. And! make the Star Riders JUST (!) GC guys... That way I can have as many Sprinters, AR's and DS's as I want and it forces teams not to be the same...

For races other than Grand Tours, and maybe one-week events like the Dauphine, the Tour de Suisse, Paris-Nice and Tirreno Adriatico, I'm all up for eliminating the Star Rider limitations completely. Just let it all be sorted out by budget limitations...

Gkam84 wrote:

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.

You're right, but I'd still like set values, maybe based or anchored around UCI or IG points for 2012. That way they don't change from competition to competition. I guess it makes sense to me that guys like Boonen, Rodriguez, etc... be high priced and the others be less priced. I don't think they should shift from race to race. It's too complicated and I kind of like that a rider who's a nobody this year and next year is great can be had for a low price.

If it was up to me, if we were to keep the 4/5 system, I would designate as Star Riders only the Top 20 in the WorldTour points system. So for next year the list would maybe just consist of:

1 Joaquim Rodriguez
2 Bradley Wiggins
3 Tom Boonen
4 Vincenzo Nibali
5 Alejandro Valverde
6 Simon Gerrans
7 Chris Froome
8 Peter Sagan
9 Samuel Sanchez
10 Rui Da Costa
11 Alberto Contador
12 Edvald Boasson Hagen
13 Ryder Hesjedal
14 Jurgen Van Den Broeck
15 Rigoberto Uran
16 Michael Rogers
17 Bauke Mollema
18 Sergio Henao
19 Roman Kreuziger
20 Damiano Cunego

This would be pretty cool because there wouldn't be a glut of Star Riders and these pretty much are your GC guys for the Grand Tours, anyways.

At any rate, I've always thought we have too many riders as Star Riders and I think this would be a good solution...

Here's some other ideas:

Maybe another way would be to just have the 4/5 split for Grand Tours, not for any other races.

Or maybe the Star Riders for Grand Tours should only be the Top 10 in GC from the previous year...

Or that Star Riders should be limited just to the teams's appointed GC guys, 1 guy per team, for a total of 20 or 21 Star Riders at each Grand Tour... And maybe limit it so you can only choose 2 or 3, not 4... You could have all the Sprinters you want on your team, but only 2 or 3 guys for GC...

I kind of like that, too, since the reason we all have similar teams at the end of a Grand Tour is that those riders are getting Finish Line Points, GC points and KM points and sometimes PC points... limiting those riders to 2 or 3 would substantially force different teams, maybe!

A wilder idea? Do away with budget points all together and just have the 2/7, 3/6, or 4/5 split...

Gkam84 wrote:

Chances of picking the winner

1 in 22

How do you get to this number?...

nickobec wrote:

... I do not want to see a change to only bank transfers for one day or lose them. It has caused me problems in the past and will in the future, but it makes you study the race route and plan ahead...

I do want to see a change. I like the flexiblity of using them when you want to, after they've been earmed. I do like the way we accrue them, I just think once you earn them, they should be used at will...

nickobec wrote:

... Not a fan of the 2 riders per team limitation, but see it as necessary evil for TTTs.

I'd be ok with removing this rule. I mean, you have to deal with the consequences of having them in your roster later... Why not go up to 3 per team?...

TERatcliffe26 wrote:

... regarding the 4 star/5 DS split... I guess its not so much the rule, its more if you have that rule then you shouldnt have an overlap in values...

I do think it's the rule... I think there comes a point in every Grand Tour when your Stars won't be the guys scoring the most points and to have to choose 4 Stars hampers you and may prevent you from catching up to the competition leaders, who may be playing it safe at that point in the Tour...

Sometimes you have to resort to picking someone who will provide you with the certainty of GC points, for example, because you have to have 4 Stars... but as TER says above, you'd have gladly put in a DS...

I wish, again, that if it's going to be a requirement to have Stars, that the requirement be brought down to 3 Stars or even 2, but I still prefer the flexibility of having the Star restriction be an upper limit and not a requirement...

Dave Atkinson wrote:

... that's addressed for 2013; the star riders are the most expensive ones for any given tour.

Dave, what are your thoughts on the number of Stars for next year? Are you inclined to keep the 4 Star requirement? Can you drop it down to 3 Star Riders, if they're going to be required to be filled? ...

Dave Atkinson wrote:

Next year a rider's designation (as a star or otherwise) will change depending on his past form.

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.

enrique wrote:

the reason we all have similar teams at the end of a Grand Tour is that those riders are getting Finish Line Points, GC points and KM points and sometimes PC points...

the reason we all have similar teams at the end of a Grand Tour is that we pick the set of riders who are going to score most highly within the constraints of the rules. changing the rules might change which riders you pick but it won't change the fact that teams converge. it's inevitable.

enrique wrote:

Gkam84 wrote:

Chances of picking the winner

1 in 22

How do you get to this number?...

Simple maths, you have to pick 9 riders, so 198/9 = 22

Thats without having the 4/5 split

enrique wrote:

Dave, what are your thoughts on the number of Stars for next year? Are you inclined to keep the 4 Star requirement? Can you drop it down to 3 Star Riders, if they're going to be required to be filled? ...

i'm inclined to drop the split altogether and let everyone pick who they like. the new rider values system will give a more even spread of values so i think more flexibility in who you pick will be necessary. also looking at upping the riders from a single team from 2 to 3

drheaton wrote:

Any plans on releasing an API so someone could pull the scores directly off the net through the API and feed them into an external site or program? Either that or any way of making the scores available in a format that's easier to just drop into a spreadsheet? Just one sheet, a list of riders down the rows (with a unique id) and stages across the top, that'd make it much easier. Or even just adding a 'rider id' to the stages pages might help.

mebbe. we can chat about that...

Gkam84 wrote:

Simple maths, you have to pick 9 riders, so 198/9 = 22

I'd say your chance of choosing the winner would always be 1/198... Since there's no guarantee of the winner being a Star, or a DS and much less of the winner being in the nine you pick...

I'm not sure we should keep the splits, but if we do, I'd rather they remain as upper limits, as I explained above, NOT, as it is now, a REQUIREMENT to have 4 Stars (or whatever number is set) on every team at all times, but more of a limit that you can't go over... So you could have between 0 to 4 Stars on a team, but you can't have MORE than 4 Stars... I guess I would want more flexibility and NOT the requirement that 4 Stars should be present at all times...

Dave Atkinson wrote:

enrique wrote:

the reason we all have similar teams at the end of a Grand Tour is that those riders are getting Finish Line Points, GC points and KM points and sometimes PC points...

the reason we all have similar teams at the end of a Grand Tour is that we pick the set of riders who are going to score most highly within the constraints of the rules. changing the rules might change which riders you pick but it won't change the fact that teams converge. it's inevitable.

Another one of the skills is knowing when to dump guaranteed GC/KOM/Sprint/Young points for possible break points.For example in the latter part of the Tour De France I believe Voeckler and Kessiakoff were up there in terms of popularity with Wiggo,Froome and Nibali?

drheaton wrote:

dave_atkinson wrote:

the whole squad/draft thing we're not really considering, for two reasons:

1) it's very different to what we're doing now and a lot of work to implement
2) cycling's not like football; people dip in and out over the course of a season. the game needs to reflect that in order to be inclusive. i know everyone on this thread will most likely be getting stuck in from the tour down under onwards, but the majority don't sign up until at least the spring classics. any game structure that requires doing anything at the start of the season is out, as far as we're concerned, for the main game. no reason it couldn't be done as a forum game though.

Yeah, I can imagine it'd be a huge project. I'm not suggesting it really as something to run alongside the main game for the kinds of people who'll just compete in the TdF, but I can see it being a fun addition for those people who want to compete all year in as many races as they can ie those players who sign up for the premium game.

That would be my only bugbear actually, that the premium game is just a few extra races that, for me at least, aren't as fun as the ones we get for free. Adding some extra features just for premium users which don't unbalance the game would make me sign up for premium membership gladly next year rather than being the only way to have a chance at the bike Just extra league types, race types or something like that, something for the more involved player, would make it a bargain at £10 a year.

I'd happily run a squad based game as a forum game but it'd be a massive amount of work to manage 10+ 25 man squads, make sure no-one uses riders they don't have 'under contract' and keep to the rules. The variable rider values would make it complicated too as they wouldn't be 'set' at the start of the year as they are now. In theory the game engine as it stands would do a lot of the work but the 150 credit cap would heavily impact on the rules you'd have to run the game on.

Any plans on releasing an API so someone could pull the scores directly off the net through the API and feed them into an external site or program? Either that or any way of making the scores available in a format that's easier to just drop into a spreadsheet? Just one sheet, a list of riders down the rows (with a unique id) and stages across the top, that'd make it much easier. Or even just adding a 'rider id' to the stages pages might help.

Im likely to have some time on my hands to at least be able to assist in some forum type game like that. Ive found stuff ok to do when its about 10 teams, however was a lot of hard work when it got up to 20 odd for one of the week races. But like you said any form of assistance Dave could add would help

jimmythecuckoo wrote:

+1 for the idea of picking a squad at the start of the season and then having to work with it throughout the year.

Maybe a budget of 200 to get 20 riders.

Would be a true test of covering the classics and tours (standard and premium) for those of us who don't want to make lots of changes lots of times.

I have always tried to manage a group of riders and tweak between races. More realistic in my eyes, but I can see that isn't the way to play and win.

It's a kind of middle ground between full and purists.

I have pushed in the past for a purist team to be able to run alongside your regular team under one account. So taking the idea mentioned above here are my 2 penny's worth for next year:

1) Have 2 transfers per day as usual but have the ability to save them up. If you don't use them you get to keep them either for that race/tour or maybee even the season. So if you don't make a transfer at the start of Le Tour for 5 days you will have 10 transfers banked.

2) For the purist team I like the idea of the squad idea. Pick say 25 riders at the start of the year (or whenever you sign up to play) and then you can only select from that squad for your purist team for each race/tour.

3) I don't like the idea of a split budget for Stars and DS. My preference is to still have riders identified as one or the other but be able to pick your 9 riders based on value alone.