Daijhi
Registered: 16.03.2007
Location: Germany
Posts: 36
29.11.2015 16:10:12
|
PROPOSED CHANGES FOR 2016
|
Many congratulations to Schumacher, Scooperman, Revolux, Maxwell, Maverick and Gakra Motors for your success and achievements in the main events this season. I think Schumacher must rank as the overall best player for all round sucesses. Well done to you all.
However we all know that our great game is in trouble. The statistics are alarming:
In 2008 there were 5608 teams and 893 players in the competition.
In 2015 there were 2704 teams and 424 players of which less than 250 actually participated in the last few races.
In short the game is shrinking at an alarming rate and will die out unless changes are made.
Since joining in 2007 I have encouraged nearly 20 players to join the game. Today only 6 remain active - and most of them are thinking of dropping out next season.
The main reasons given to me by those leaving are:
1. The valuation changes are incomprehensible to ordinary players and therefore appear unfair.
2. The value differences between components do not reflect the points they earn.
3. The value differences between components are often too great to allow much choice with the budgets available (for example the difference between Mercedes Customer Engine and the next choice upwards)
4. The limitation of increased values allowed to teams buudgets prevents players from ever achieving their dream team.
5. Particular components are always good value (like Mercedes team manager and Mercedes customer Engine) whilst others are always bad value (like Honda Factory Engine, Renault Factory Engine, Hamilton, Grosjean and Verstappen)
6. These problems have continued unchanged for several seasons.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
To encourage more participation, better flexibility for players, easier understanding and above all more fun I suggest the following adjustments:
Every player has at least 6 teams so....
1. No single component (except tyres) can be selected in any team more that 6 times and each tyre must be used at least 6 times.This will force greater component usage and more tactical game play.
2. Team changes should be increased to 6 for all races. This will allow players full potential to reconstruct their teams.
3. After race 3, component values should always reflect the points actually won. This will allow players to understand easily the value changes that occur.
4. The tyre price difference should widen to 6-2 and even 7-1 according to a published scale of points difference. This will ecourage more use of the weaker tyre to allow the use of funds elsewhere.
5. All value increases should be kept without penalty as before. This will bring back the fun of the game by encouraging gambling for value increase rather than points accumulation and so make the dream team a realistic objective. Thats the whole point of the game.
I think these changes would encourage more players to stay and play - it doesn't really matter who wins as long as the game itself is always fun - and full of choices to make it simple but challenging.
Greetings to everyone
Daijhi
|
Maverick
Registered: 10.01.2004
Location: Austria
Posts: 1132
14.12.2015 22:37:23
|
|
Hello Richard!
I really appreciate your contribution and I ask for your understanding that I have sometimes a different point of view.
The realization of your proposed limitation on component usage would be an enormous technically effort for me. (The system has to check and display the number of usages, has to prevent an exceedance, and I must implement automatically component changes for inactive players, and so on).
These things lead to more complexity and probably will confuse new players. Even the simple tyre rule was criticised by some players in the past (the usage of primes or options at least 5 times a year).
That's why I think that this suggestion wouldn't improve the game play.
On the one hand you want to limit the usage of some components, but on the other hand you suggest to double the number of free component changes. The realization of 6 changes per race wouldn't be a technically problem, but this is a long-used and well-tried rule. On Pro or Expert level you are able to rebuild your team anyway (ok, you have to give up some points).
So, I am not convinced that this change would be good for the game.
I am sorry that I do not intend to implement these two suggestions for the next season, but please don't stop to contribute your ideas.
Kind regards
Maverick
|
Daijhi
Registered: 16.03.2007
Location: Germany
Posts: 36
13.12.2015 18:46:13
|
Thanks
|
Hi Maverick and everyone....
Thanks for reading through and considering some changes...
I think your proposed engine changes are great and should help. But will that be enough?
I know that new blood might be more difficult to get under the restricted promotion circumstances - but in truth we are losing players who have been here for several years and a good proportion are not actually playing at the end of the season. It is to 'stop the rot' that I thought rather bigger changes were needed.
I take your point about unrestricted budget growth benefiting the stronger players...
but I firmly believe the proposded limitation on element usage (ie one can only use each element (except tyres) a maximum of 6 times a season in any one team) would greatly add to the fairness and interest of the game. There are still richer players - as indeed there should be - but if they are forced to use less advantageous elements against others who have yet to use their quota of better elements, the game will benefit from a greater degree of strategy requirement.
And I feel again the richer players would have a smaller advantage if every player was allowed 6 changes each race - in other words full flexibility. This again would lessen the difficulty for weaker players and encourage greater game strategy...
Is it not possible to try these two things out for a season?
Best wishes from Berlin
Richard (alias Daijhi)
|
KatzevonSwish
Registered: 07.03.2010
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 56
08.12.2015 01:10:16
|
sounds good
|
Thanks, Maverick. I think that change to the engine component will help a lot. It'll be interesting to see how the initial costs come out. Understand your point about the tests being late and potentially unrepresentative.
Thanks again for all your hard work ~ K
|
Maverick
Registered: 10.01.2004
Location: Austria
Posts: 1132
07.12.2015 10:43:07
|
|
Hello Daijhi
Thank you very much for your detailed feedback.
I know that the number of players is decreasing (817 players who created a least one team in 2015).
After the trademark issue I had to rename the site and I made the decision not to use the Formula 1 trademarks anymore. That's why the site can't be found on a prominent search engine ranking. The popularity of Formula 1 has been suffering for the last few years. The user fluctuation was always near 50%, but the new user rate went downwards dramatically.
The game play obviously not designed for the mass market. Many players prefer a tipping game or a set and forget competition. Maybe the game is too complex, but the amateur level is really easy to handle. A few players quit because of the extraordinary adjustments of costs or because of lack of time.
So the question is, how can we bring new players to the game? It is very difficult for me as a one man show to promote the game properly.
I am afraid that your proposed rule changes won't bring any increase in number of players. If I would implement your suggestion,
'3. After race 3, component values should always reflect the points actually won.'
the game play would be destroyed completely. We would see good teams with budgets of 120 Mio. and bad teams with budgets of 60 Mio. after race 3. I would quit the game, if I would have a team which is 60 Mio. short. Around race 10 the power players would have teams with budgets around 160-180 Mio. The challenge of the game is to work with tight budgets. Such high budgets would scare away the power players.
Preview to next season:
Reformed engine component:
Factory and Customer engines won't be split into 2 price groups anymore. At least 8 different engine components will be available:
Mercedes (Factory engine) - Mercedes
Ferrari (Factory engine) - Ferrari
Tag Heuer (Customer engine) – Red Bull
Mercedes (Customer engine) – Williams, Force India, Manor
Ferrari (Customer engine 2015) – Toro Rosso
Renault (Factory engine) - Renault
Honda (Factory engine) – McLaren
Ferrari (Customer engine 2016) – Sauber, Haas
Initial component values:
I also try to avoid an extraordinary adjustment of costs after race 3. That's why I am going to offer a new page in the pre-season where every player can suggest it's own values for the components. The average of the suggestions will be used for the initial component prices.
|
Maverick
Registered: 10.01.2004
Location: Austria
Posts: 1132
07.12.2015 10:42:26
|
|
@Kat
Thank you very much for your contribution.
Initial component values:
The pre-season tests are scheduled quite late (22-25.02.2016 and 01-04-03-2016 in Barcelona) and it is not guaranteed that every team shows up with the new car. The new season starts on 20.03.2016. In my opinion is the time window between the last test session and the season opener too small. That's the reason why I intend to involve the players.
The engine component will be reformed. At least 8 different engines will be available. No price groups anymore.
Your approach to optimise the "number of races remaining" factor is quite interesting. But I have to be careful. There is always a certain risk of side effects. But I have to check this and I must simulate a whole season virtually.
I agree the rules are quite extensive. I'll think about to integrate a 'For new players' section. But that won't be an easy job.
|
Maverick
Registered: 10.01.2004
Location: Austria
Posts: 1132
07.12.2015 10:41:55
|
|
@MariaFan
Thank you for your feedback
The philosophy of the game is not to allow to hide the team components in general. That's the way I like the fantasy game.
But on Pro and Expert level you have an option to hide your selections. Ok, it costs you 1 Mio. per race, but can be useful in certain races.
The third driver section is required for substitute drivers. Most of the time they don't drive (just costing money like in reality). But you should take this component into consideration, when a Formula 1 team announces a replacement driver for a Grand Prix.
|
KatzevonSwish
Registered: 07.03.2010
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 56
06.12.2015 02:01:32
|
Additional thoughts
|
I've had a bit of time to think more on this...
I suspect we all agree with Daijhi's central point that the decline in active participants is worrying and something that we should attempt to address. The problem is that without understanding the reasons for this decline, we may end up making at best unnecessary changes and at worse changes that compound the problem.
I'd suggest there are at least two factors that may be contributing to the contraction of the game that have nothing to do with the current rules. First, the long RBR-Merc period of dominance is reducing the allure of F1 to the casual motorsports fan. Second, free fantasy games over a huge range of sports have proliferated over the last few years. Thus those who like to play such games have many other options, most of which are on platforms (Yahoo, ESPN...) with much higher visibility than PFRL.
An additional consideration is that one of the appeals of this game to those of us who have played it for a while is its increased complexity, notably at the "E" level. I think the introduction of the A/P/E levels was an excellent move by Maverick to cater to a broader range of players. To some extent the issue we face is to attract new "A" players, then ensure the game is sufficiently entertaining to pull them up to "E" if they so choose, or at least retain them.
It's clear that over the last couple of years the extraordinary cost adjustment has caused a lot of frustration. However, I don't think any of us can say to what extent this has led to players dropping out. It never bothered me because I am somewhat obsessive and thus read the rules of the game before playing it. The fundamental problem is that in certain years the initial component costs can form an extremely inefficient market. Mav's idea to set the initial costs using input from players is the natural way to iron out such market inefficiencies, although I also like the idea of using data from pre-season tests.
A few technical observations. I have carried out some modeling of cost adjustments and scoring and my main conclusion is that I have no idea how Maverick came up with such a clever structure. My view of how costs and scoring should work is that the combination should provide the largest number of viable component combinations that produce both good scoring and budget growth. The current system is pretty damn good at doing this.
That said, I agree with Daijhi that the engine component isn't perfect at the moment. Given that the team principal component currently follows a different cost adjustment algorithm than the other components, I'm wondering if the engine component also need a different algorithm? As we've discussed, the issue is that within the factory and customer sub-groups there aren't many components, thus they never get far "out of place" for cost adjustments to kick in.
Second, the "number of races remaining" factor in the cost adjustment algorithm could be modified. This tends to lead to very slow initial changes and large, spiky ones towards the end of the season. Mav has smoothed this out with the "last 3 races" factor, but I'd suggest it could still do with a bit more smoothing. For example, one could just set N=10 initially and let it drop by 1 every 3 races or something. (This would require some tuning of the other factors, but hopefully the idea is clear.)
A final point on attracting and retaining players. The rules of this game as presented are pretty intimidating. I hate to create work for others, but I think one way of making this user friendly would be to start out the rules with a "For new players" section that provides a simplified explanation for the game-play when in "A" mode. Links to the complexities of the game could be embedded in this text.
Okay that's all for now. Sorry it's so long.
~ Kat
|
MariaFan
Registered: 12.03.2013
Location: USA
Posts: 34
02.12.2015 01:17:24
|
|
I would feel more "In Control" if nobody could see my teams until after the paddock is closed.
Remember the old "Copy KERS" thing?
Do real F1 teams get to see what their competitors are running before the race?
Not really.
Oh, and what's the point of 3 drivers when you rarely get to use the 3rd driver?
Just my thoughts.....
|
KatzevonSwish
Registered: 07.03.2010
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 56
30.11.2015 01:45:46
|
quick reaction
|
I like the way you're approaching this, but I think limiting the number of times per team a component can be selected will create exactly the kind of response you are trying to avoid. My feeling is players want to feel in total control of their selections and this is precisely why the extraordinary cost adjustment creates problems.
Will think more on your ideas.
~ Kat
|
