Suggested

Spying system : The "best car" curse

A problem with the restricted allocation idea from Jack and Dan is that it forces even development so that there would still only be one way to design a successful car. That is, just put all the points in evenly. There is no management skills to that.

@Jack
20% points means-->
A team with 400 points VS team with 200 points both getting 15 points from Facility. both have 5 star staff.
1st race A team 50 to all B team 25 to all
2nd race A team 50 to all + 15 points at main attributes B team 25 to all + spy + facility= 115 points (use 80 to main attributes save 35 for next race) . all main attributes at 45
3rd race A team 50 to all + 30 points at main attributes B team 25 to all + 80 at main + spy + facility= 65 points + 35 from save (use 80 at main save 20 for next race) all main attributes at 65
4th race A team 50 to all + 45 points for main attributes B team 25 all + 80 + 80 at main +50 spy + facility + 20 from save ( use all at main ) all main attributes 82 - 83 points

So after 4th race we will have A team with 61 - 62 points at main attributes and B team with 82 - 83 points at main attributes.

Edit : my suggestion is this as i said here https://igpmanager.com/?url=forum-thread/6087
To set all points our own maybe will work but will need 4-5 races the lower team to catch its a solution that we have to keep up our CD and be able to have good start.
To give value to other attributes maybe could do but that will be a problem on teams with low level facility
for example if tire wear its a lot on 1 point a team that have Design facility level 1 will have to add all there to be able to run SS tires.

Better than now but not good enough i think;)
Thanks in advance

I think the more easy way to fix this is to let the managers to spend the design points at the start of the season at will. In the proposed way i think the system will force to use the same strategy all the time (like Leslie said) and there isnt even development.

@Jack: Yes! i'm with you! Looks more realistic and will be another step in the right direction. Maybe that's not enough but it's fairer.

I think the next step should be 'next season', this way we will be able to change our destiny ;)

The old spy system more or less took the average between the parts you had and what you spied on. So if you had a 50% part and spied in a 100% part, implementing it would get you to 75%. But I suppose that's more or less the case now but it's free to spend where you want instead of limited to single area.

Personally I feel it's not needed to get all cars to the same design level during the season. Getting closer seems like a good idea but making cars even in 5 races more or less renders all the levels and facilities related to it useless.

Limiting the design points that can be implemented as Jack says can be a good idea if that would be for the bonus design points from spying. Or perhaps just implement the spied design points evenly over the different area's so you can still make the difference with your normal design points.

But as said, I personally don't prefer the same designs levels idea.

Dan, the system you propose just shifts the curse from the best car to the worst cars. The lower level cars will be forced to develop all of their areas evenly and will suffer the same fate as the best cars do now.

problem can be fixed really easyyy:))))
extra desing points will be given by automat no by player and splitted for all parts or where is bigest difference
simple and easy

@Jay, for some reason best cars are the best cars. wasn't fair that after 1 race or 2, those were the worst cars because of the system. now, lower design car will still have the opportunity to close the gap but will have to work it. I think is fairer.

I am in the MJL pro, recently relegated with OMN Arrows. Each race I pick up a handful of design points from studying Alex's car, however I lose 1 point in gains with each race (there was one exception to this). I started the season well, winning the first 3 races but have been falling further back each race as lower teams spend their mass of development gains on acceleration, braking, downforce and handling. I estimate that it will be about 3-4 races before I max these out myself; assuming nothing major happens to my rivals I will have lost the lead in the championships by then. Once I max out these attributes, I imagine I will start to catch other teams back up.
Conclusion: Spy system worked, teams have caught up and there is a larger variety of winners. On the other hand, it has failed because other teams (us and to a greater extent, OMN Arrows) have lost out because of our masses of design points in less important aspects of development from the start.

I appreciate that is a biased response as I am one of the teams negatively effected by this.

As I mentioned earlier the system has worked very well in my league. One relegated team from Elite is the front runner, one hold over from last season is second, and one promoted team from rookie is third. All three of those teams have won at least two races. The races are close with very tight finishes, actually Great races. The SINGLE drawback is the "best" car can't compete. I don't think any major changes need to be made that affect the function of the system. Simply allowing the best car to allocate a reasonable percentage of their initial design points themselves would solve this problem. In Elite if they had 400 points and 200 were allocated by the game but 200 were allocated by the player then this would correct most of the problems. Only one player would be affected by this per tier and the current system would continue to do what we hoped it would.

@Jack & Dan : These are good ideas but I doubt that will work for the main reason the problem is managers will still be able to spend a huge amount of extra points in the main areas, for example with a cap at 10 & 20 respectively they will be able to spend 40 to 80 design points in the "big 4" in a single race !

Just for information inside the top 4 there is not really a better attribute than others and this is often more interesting to spend points in 2 attributes rather than to put all points in only 1 stat, I also noticed all tracks are differents and a couple of 2 stats will be better than any other couple for that race and then that will be another couple of 2 stats in the next race and so on ..

So for managers mainly focussing on acceleration I can tell you this is not the best approach and acceleration is not even in the best couple of attributes for a good number of tracks where for example the couples "handling-braking" or "downforce-handling" are superiors than any other couple including acceleration.

Those 2 last paragraphs were important to explain why the cap at 10 or 20 points per race won't change much and I think the original idea I posted in this thread is the best, I have to add I was not the first to have that idea and we are a good amount of managers thinking this is the best solution for now. Indeed if we automatically distribute extra points equally among all attributes we don't allow players to gain an unfair advantage but we still allow them to improve the car race after race reaching the original goal of 5 races to catch up on design.

I think automatically assigning design points is a really bad idea. It takes the management out of the process and just improves the team evenly. Therefore if your not competitive from the start you will be equally uncompetietive untill every car is maxed, then it just a case of whos the best driver, again no management here!!

Maybe a system like the old system, pick a part u want to improve and pick team to spy on. If there part is better than yours u get design points to spent on that part (reverse engineering) and if its not better u get nothing. or pick a team to spy on and get get points based on their best component vs your equivilent conponent, so if their best componants are handling maxed and u already near maxed it u get very little but if there best is cooling say 100points and youve got cooling only 10points then u gain massiely. That way there is managemrnt involved and a bit of luck and involves people trying to figure out who has what developed to best try improve there own cars

@Paul : As I said in my previous post : "this is the best solution for now" and if you find it a bad solution keep in mind this is only a temporary solution and that the current situation is pretty bad, I have to add that earning free design points after a race requires no management and having 2 or 3 times more points to spend is not really fair against others managers.

I agree with you that we need a much more complex system in the future but for now we're a lot to think that we need a quick solution to the current system in order to stop what is happening in all leagues : slower cars becoming faster in no time and then dominating races giving no chance for others who don't earn a good amount of extra points.

To finish, little off topic not directly regarding the spying system itself but the design at the start of the season before Australia : I heard an interesting suggestion in which the CD would be able to place let's say 50% of the points (with strength/weakness) and then the remaining would be to place by ourselves. That would be 50/50, 70/30 or any other ratio maybe with liminations : for example no more than 20 points in a stat and 10 points in a weakness.

Im already for selecting the team you want to spy on and assign the design points automatically on attributes the spied car is better than your car.

So if the spied car is best in fuel economy you cant use this design points to increase your accleration etc.

Also the strength and weaknesses of your CD already take a role.

This system would already give teams with a less design more additional design points, than the teams with the best car, but even the best car could get some extra design points by spying. Also you cant get a better car through spying only. So if you have the best car at start of the season, its never a disadvantage while the season progresses.

@Joey, i think you were right but, maybe now it will actually work better because of this new changes:
<a href="https://igpmanager.com/?url=forum-thread/6165">https://igpmanager.com/?url=forum-thread/6165</a>

in any case, it's worth a shot ;)

yes yes, that's what i thought.
now using spied dps in those special parts won't have that huge impact it had before this last change. ;)
i think it's great news

I would say that letting the managers put the points at the beginning of season the way they want would be the first thing to do, that would more or less put people on "even ground", giving the best team the actual advantage they deserve and not taking it away instantly. Second best option would be to automatically distribute the spied points (or 80% of spied points), either dividing them equally among all the attributes or dividing them to 2-4 attributes that are lowest in comparison to the best team.