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forum
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
I agree with this one! I like it alot!
Two more suggestions:
1. On the subject of graphing results, I know this would be a nightmare to program, but I would love a page where I could graph my overall score in a Grand Tour competition against other players. For example, if I wanted to see how I fared against drheaton or Gkam, I could go to a page, enter their user Id's and I could see a graph of my scores and theirs as they go up and down, each in different colors. I know it's far-fetched, but it would be so cool!
2.
This leads me to a suggestion I had posted on another thread:
Yeah alright.
Whatever.
Just leaveityeah.
Only thing is to change Mehdi Sohrabi's value for next season, after all, by then, everyone will have cottoned on to the fact that Sohrabi Subaru's GC rider, Sprinter, Climber and Classics specialist are all the same man.
MEHDI.
This is a personal thing but I'd like to be able to look at a race and see every riders cumulative score or even score broken down by stage (I like statistics...).
The current system with the points on the riders page is good but it annoys me that when a rider is removed from the race they no longer appear on there. I would like to be able to go to the rider page and see the scores for everyone who had scored in the race. I'd also then like to be able to click on a rider and see their scores per stage (in a similar way to how my teams scores are shown for each stage.
All minor personal thing but I like to be able to look at the riders after a race and see what I missed and, mainly for my purist team, see what type of riders score well throughout the whole race.
I really like this idea!
I like this one, too!
On the riders page for each competition I'd also like:
1. Maybe have sortable columns so you could sort to see which rider has had the most points during the compeition.
2. Maybe have a value column - where you could divide the rider's points by their value.
3. Like I've said before a statistic that said how many teams, not percentage of teams, out of the total pool of active teams, had that rider on their team during the last stage played.
OTHER REQUESTS:
1. On the competition individual stage team scores or the overall competition team scores, I'd also like to see sortable columns to see who gained or lost the most positions during a stage or in the competition.
2. When I click on a team score I get, for example:
The Manx Missiles : Points for stage 105
Could you add left and right arrows so we could see The Manx Missiles (in this example) team for previous stages?
I know I sound petty, but my biggest issue is not being able to bank transfers... I know it's weak, and that it's the same for everyone, so it's not unfair per se, but I'd just love the discretion to use the accrued transfers when I want and not lose them if I don't use them.
For example, I would have loved to bank the 6 transfers I had on my account after the last rest day and save them for later on in the week. Spreading them out instead of losing them would have felt like a better strategy than just letting some of them go to waste.
I do like the idea of differnt values for different competitions, though!
Though it'll probably be a pain for the game managers with all the different competitons we have now! 
I agree with previous commenters that the game works well and if it ain't broke, don't fix it. There is a danger that the 2013 comp. could end up so complex and detailed that it would become less fun to play.
Couple of points though. Have always thought that picking the winner of a stage should carry more points. Trying to predict who will win a stage is bloody hard so when you do, you should be well rewarded.
Secondly, I often wonder whether you should receive GC points for your riders. In some unpredictable stages, players go for "insurance points". Surely you should only get points for being the jersey holder? If you're 2nd, 3rd, or even 10th, why should you get any points?
I agree that the game should probably remain pretty stable, most of my suggestions were around 'adding features' to the premium side of things to make it a more attractive proposition, stuff that would be fun and not overly complex for the regulars (as premium users are unlikely to be the newbies) while adding something to an already great game.
I disagree on GC, Sprint of KoM jersey standings, I think that they work well as they are, there needs to be a reward for being high up in the GC or other standings and I think the current standings are fairly well balanced against the other points available.
For example, Rodriguez today is guaranteed 17 points (probably) but only because he's so high up in all three competitions, that doesn't mean I won't pick Degenkolb, Davis or Bennati though as they've all got the potential to outscore him. He's safe points but not enough to compete for the stage win.
Yeah, it'd be a 'no change' change with everyone for the most part just getting 18 points more per stage. The only change would be that you'd be penalised a tiny amount (2 points in the scheme of things isn't much) if you either lost a rider in a crash (which is kinda unfair) or chose to leave an abandoned rider in your team like I did with Bouhanni for a few stages.
Also, it'd work against purist players as if you are unlucky enough to lose a couple of riders mid-race you're not going to be able to swap them and would be stuck with non-scoring riders.
Can't remember whether it was the Halfords game or RCUK but.... one of those comp.'s gave you points for a rider completing a stage.
Just checked - in the Halfords game, you got 2 points for every rider that completed a stage.
I guess it would sort of make sense in the Purist league. But, in the ordinary game with transfers, it would surely just make everyone's scores higher with little effect on the result overall?
I like the points for starting and finishing a stage.
I mean, that's a pretty big effort isn't it?
Please tell me that this is tongue in cheek humour or are you on drugs.....If its not humour or drugs then please explain in detail how this would improve the game...
If you put Greipel,Sagan,Cavendish,Goss,Farrar etc into the Vuelta then Degenkolb's price is correct.
degenkolb has been dominant but there's not necessarily the history there to suggest that would be the case: half of all his points all year have been in the vuelta.
you'll still need your nous to pick the people who you think will do well in a certain race. the parameters might be a bit different. past form is not always an indicator of future success...
I admit, I do like that there are weird values throughout the season. It means that you need to have the knowledge to pick those riders.
My dad started playing during the TdF, for the Vuelta he had no idea who Bouhanni was and didn't pick him as a sprinter as he was DS and not down as a PC rider. I knew who he was and obviously had him right at the start.
The weird values are part of what makes the game harder to read unless you have some knowledge I guess, for example people who didn't know much about cycling might have picked Cobo as defending champion and as an expensive GC rider (assuming cost = likihood of success) whereas those of us who've been with the comp all year know he's not worth the price (and wouldn't be worth any price at the minute).
Also, part of what makes the game fun is trying to identify the cheap DSs who can go on and get a boat load of points. If we'd gone into the Vuelta and riders like Bouhanni and Viviani had cost 30 credits because they were going to be protected sprinters, and Degenkolb 40 as he was clearly going to be dominant, everyone would have had much similar teams restricted to a few good sprinters then random DSs likely to acheive nothing (as the prices of the ones likely acheive something would have increased...).
I like it.....we won't have the anomalies of Cobo still so expensive this late in the season and Bouhanni still so cheap for example.
Like i said, it's a work in progress
I assume pricing will be based more on past form in the upcoming event rather than past form overall? So for the uphill finishing classics where Cavendish is poo he's likely to be cheap whereas someone like Gasparatto may be more expensive?
Would that also mean that riders not racing in the upcoming event would have no value set and therefore be unavailable for selection?
it won't be based on a rider's likely standing but on their past form. it's a work in progress
we're not going to roll it back to 2011, i don't think. it was a completely different engine. but forward from now we'll try and keep everything in the game historically.
code for your sig is a good idea...
Looks like the Tour of Britain has done away with the 4/5 split
yup, email going out about that.
there's only seven 'star' riders coming, we haven't made any of the uk team riders stars as we're developing a new system for rider values next season and we kind of need to start it now
Good call Dave, not that credits will com into play, but everyone would have had similar stars anyway. I had SS and Langeveld just as I had to have stars, but now ive put in two DS's I wanted.
Interesting on how your doing that then regarding the new system
Does that mean its going to be very complicated, and also values may change based on there likely standing in the race?
My only gripe is the value of some riders which appear to be quite high for their actual standing in the sport.
Other than that it all seems to work very well.
You could borrow from fantasy football and give riders a point or two just for riding in a stage. Or a point for starting and a point for finishing.
Trust Dave and the team to make the usual PRE-season tweeks as required....Not so sure about a league of leagues....Would that stop people from gambling on stage wins in order to play a little safe at times....Just a thought...
how about a 'league of leagues' where your average league score counts?
Something like that sounds good. I suppose it would then even out that way regardless of the size of the competing leagues? I've no idea what the average league size is? Just trying to work out if a league of 50 players would have an advantage over a league of 10 players for instance, or if it would work the other way round? I think it would probably be an even playing field if you took averages, but my maths isn't that great to know for sure.
This is my first season doing fantasy cycling after being invited to join by a regular. I have to say I've loved it and it's increased my road racing knowledge no end. A big thanks to all those involved in running it. Whether I've enjoyed watching cycling more I'm not so sure as I've got a bit obsessive about the added fantasy aspect
So as for changes to the game from this season ? - my feeling is... if it ain't broke don't fix it.
I would very much welcome an inter league competition though. The small league I'm a part of is competitive but friendly. We're genuinely pleased for each other when any of us does well and it would be great if we could each contribute our scores to our own league team too and compete against other leagues. Not quite sure how would be the best way to work it though or if it would just be too hard to administer?
Hmm.
I agree.
Did we ever sort out that thing where people were picking unlisted riders to save credits for more expensive ones?
next year the rider values will work on a different basis and a rider's value will change between competitions, rather than being set at the start of the year. also, there'll be a more consistent base value for DSs
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