FFGSC Season 1

[Aidan Keranen]

Well somethings to look at then:

• Penalties for missing markets, the 50/50 strat was very strong and there were more than a few results that came after teams/drivers missed the marketplace. We're all about an equal and fair grid, but it sort of defeats the purpose when someone wins who maybe wasn't really here (please note this is not having a go at anyone at all, just an observation).
• 80 skill/16 HP increase in setup bank. How high do we need to go? giving more creates more room but can also stifle true strategy, less means that races may be closer and strategy more varied but ultimately not enough to actually create different winning strategies. 200 skill/30HP might be a start? Is this too far, not far enough?
  
• Connected with above, a reduction of driver variation will also mean that drivers who take a certain path are going to be more consistently about where they should be in pace. No point in someone who went full quali having a better race pace from variation than someone going full race setup.
• I purposefully didn't include this in season 1, but should there be a lock on round setups instead of race setups? Suddenly having a round that was a race strong track and a quali strong track could well create a true difference for the round. Will teams focus on one race or try to get the best of both worlds with a 50/50? With an increased amount of skill this could make more sense, and would likely mean that which race in which round would have to be randomised.
  
• Rewards will clearly need to be balanced a bit more, just like the balancing issues that 'plagued' FFG S1. Quali rewards likely to be hit a bit, I think that relatively speaking team rewards may need have the cap reduced a little. Will also have to look into maybe extending the rewards to roughly top 10, it's a tricky one because you want to promote teams differentiating from each other, but you also want to not see one or two teams being the only ones getting said rewards.
• We've had a nice season where a few times we saw 3 car teams have three in the top ten. It's fun, but it's clear that we need to be having additional reasons for there being 3+ car teams, or even a single car team. This maybe could be via special rewards or even a sponsors system, maybe with a special setup bank that isn't applied to each car.. point is that we should be seeing a true positive negative for having a larger or smaller team, because currently it's just novelty.

• Big question - do we want to continue the buffing of teams doing well, or take a British Touring Car Championship concept and handicap those that do well..?

But it's not all doom and gloom!
Positives this season is that we've seen every driver score, the lowest being 15. In just 10 races compared to 17 for FFG. Numerous drivers were mere points from going up or down a few positions which is great. Every team scored a podium which is near unheard of in most motorsport series, so that's nice, while 5 different teams won a race. 8 different pole winners, 9 fastest lap setters, 8 race winners, 15 different competitors that were rewarded with a statistic. If you include podiums, then this rises to 19 drivers who had something that can be argued to be success. And one of those three that didn't ended top ten in the standings overall.
Which is just what we wanted. 5* weeks long and shares the love all around. FFG takes between 5 and 12 weeks longer and doesn't guarantee that level of fairness for everyone. So that needs to be maintained no matter what, that's what the aim was and that's what was achieved. Obviously changes will probably reduce that but that's not the worst thing.

Also great to see the fantastic liveries, with such small seasons I hardly suggest changing the car every season except for driver or number changes naturally.

 

[Benutzername]

Three car finish could give a small bonus which can be used when the team had a bad weekend and got less than amount x.

Id also like to see some kind of progression, like beeing able to keep 50% of the earnings permamently (or a different value). One could add, that these have to applied permanently aswell.

I think it also would be benefitial to now knownthe choices of the opponents so tgat nobody sees a winning combination.

 

[Azabadaza]

I purposefully didn't include this in season 1, but should there be a lock on round setups instead of race setups? Suddenly having a round that was a race strong track and a quali strong track could well create a true difference for the round. Will teams focus on one race or try to get the best of both worlds with a 50/50? With an increased amount of skill this could make more sense, and would likely mean that which race in which round would have to be randomised.

I reckon this would be awesome - it would really promote differing strategies, between teams, in turn promoting open racing. Also I did this all rounds bar 1 anyway, so everyone should be handicapped like I did to my team xD

 

[Matt]

• Big question - do we want to continue the buffing of teams doing well, or take a British Touring Car Championship concept and handicap those that do well..?

I like the BTCC concept

 

[Márk Lintner]

I like the BTCC concept

Yeah It could be interesting

 

[Smartbean]

Skill bank and rewards
Had a bit time to think and agree with Tobi, the skill/hp bank and rewards offer too little difference to the outcome of the next rounds quali and race sessions, I would suggest a blanket x3 increase of the bank and rewards, so 240 skill / 48HP so teams and drivers have room for a variety of tactics.

CoF
I think that should be left alone, same value across the board and without increase/descrease have so far have not resulted in races with abnormally high number of retirees due to technical failure.

Driver variation
I think that should be left alone for now as well, same value across the board again without increase of descrease allows for enough mistakes/consistency on track.

Round based setups vs race base setup
This could be an alternative to the increase in skill/rewards, but not in conjuction with, that would shake up the system too much at this point imo.

Penalties for not submitting setups in time
I think they need to start with base values, and with a skill increase the penalty for not submitting setups in time will impact you more severly for that round. Maybe even give them less banked skill for the following round as well (say 200 skill as opposed to 240), but that would only makes sense if the calender was longer and we had maybe 10 rounds / 20 races. Active people get rewarded more by being active in the series, whilst the absent people would actually feel the loss.

Calender
As the point above suggests, increasing rounds from 5 to (eventually) 10 would make the seasons more open to challenge for both Driver and Contructors Championships.

3 car teams
This seemed to have worked pretty well this season, and with the current rules for them I don't think any change is needed.

Progression
This would be nice, though would complicate things. With the skill bank values and rewards of season 1 there would be little to no point in offering progression as the impact of the values would be negligable, after an increase it might end up too much of bonus to offer progression and would skew the field away from the close competition we seek. An increase in races/rounds would also skew the balance too much into drivers accumulating progression, with a low number of races/rounds as this season progression is not meaningful enough either.

Handycapping front runners
It could work, but also couldn't. In the current set up of the series it does not make sense just yet. If anything with the bank/rewards as they are now there's no point in handicapping the top 3 or top 5. Maybe an idea for the future if other measures turn out to skew the level playing field too much in either direction.

Don't think that was too bad, I don't need to order you some cough mixture, or do I Aidan?

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Don't think that was too bad, I don't need to order you some cough mixture, or do I Aidan?

I've always got a bit of time for your feedback, I'll give a few of my own reasonings here.

CoF
I think that should be left alone, same value across the board and without increase/descrease have so far have not resulted in races with abnormally high number of retirees due to technical failure.

Not changing, no issue here.

Round based setups vs race base setup
This could be an alternative to the increase in skill/rewards, but not in conjuction with, that would shake up the system too much at this point imo.

Which would you go and why?

Penalties for not submitting setups in time
I think they need to start with base values, and with a skill increase the penalty for not submitting setups in time will impact you more severly for that round. Maybe even give them less banked skill for the following round as well (say 200 skill as opposed to 240), but that would only makes sense if the calender was longer and we had maybe 10 rounds / 20 races. Active people get rewarded more by being active in the series, whilst the absent people would actually feel the loss.

Calender
As the point above suggests, increasing rounds from 5 to (eventually) 10 would make the seasons more open to challenge for both Driver and Contructors Championships.

I'll keep these together. We're not changing from 5 rounds/10 races. If we want 10 rounds, we'll have FFG instead
The penalties in that regard would need to be a lot more instantaneous, yet also reflect a simple method of calculation. It may just be that competitors are given a nominal value regardless of how much they have in bonuses.

3 car teams
This seemed to have worked pretty well this season, and with the current rules for them I don't think any change is needed.

Probably a good point that no changes should come through, if the range of positions that get bonuses increase then we'll see some extra benefits of large teams I'm sure. How or if we need to give more for smaller teams will be noticeable later on I guess.

Handycapping front runners
It could work, but also couldn't. In the current set up of the series it does not make sense just yet. If anything with the bank/rewards as they are now there's no point in handicapping the top 3 or top 5. Maybe an idea for the future if other measures turn out to skew the level playing field too much in either direction.

Don't think that was too bad, I don't need to order you some cough mixture, or do I Aidan?

Maybe this would have been a good way to penalise people who were AFK, they'd get hit instantly with maximum 'ballast'. In any case this is something that'll we have to watch, whether we want a quick season that will create a result, or a season that will be incredibly even.. probably too even tbh.

Three car finish could give a small bonus which can be used when the team had a bad weekend and got less than amount x.

Id also like to see some kind of progression, like beeing able to keep 50% of the earnings permamently (or a different value). One could add, that these have to applied permanently aswell.

I think it also would be benefitial to now knownthe choices of the opponents so tgat nobody sees a winning combination.

Also some good discussion provoking from Ben here, the third point could be interesting but.. well it starts to feel very much like FFG. But then again once we get extra race directors then we'd probably have to go down this path or just be very organised.
3 car we might be okay but that's an option. Progression is a bit meh.

 

[Lesley Buurlage]

I had a thought about setups/upgrades and although it may be hard to keep track on i think it would allow for more strategies: how about a big buff to the rewards (multiply them by both or something, so the maximum bonus you can get is 8), included in there is a permanent upgrade of a few bhp (like 2-3) but this is capped to a maximum of hp you can have. Lets say the base hp is 800hp and the cap will be placed at 825, teams can freely use their rewards, but the maximum hp they can get (including their rewards) is 825, this would allow teams to use different strategies, but never put them on such a big disadvantage that they could never catch up again. If for example the base bank values remain at 16, you could run an 810/806 setup, someone who used their permanent upgrade on race bhp could run an 800/819 setup, this could potentially give them enough overspeed to make up for a poor quallifying performance, but if they don't others can possibly catch up with the permanent upgrades to 1 valuetree leveling the teams out again. The calendar is too short so no team will end up with 825/825 at the end, but my guess is this would spice up the strategy department pretty well

 

[kedy89]

Penalties for missing markets, the 50/50 strat was very strong and there were more than a few results that came after teams/drivers missed the marketplace. We're all about an equal and fair grid, but it sort of defeats the purpose when someone wins who maybe wasn't really here (please note this is not having a go at anyone at all, just an observation).

Missing market should mean no upgrades applied tbh, just the base perfs.

80 skill/16 HP increase in setup bank. How high do we need to go? giving more creates more room but can also stifle true strategy, less means that races may be closer and strategy more varied but ultimately not enough to actually create different winning strategies. 200 skill/30HP might be a start? Is this too far, not far enough?

I think HP doesn't need as much an increase as skill. As said, 50 boost pretty much never made a difference, 100 neither.

Connected with above, a reduction of driver variation will also mean that drivers who take a certain path are going to be more consistently about where they should be in pace. No point in someone who went full quali having a better race pace from variation than someone going full race setup.

Don't know where it's at now, but obviously has to be taken into account. 200 right now can very often make skill usage completely pointless, low var for someone with lots rs, high for someone with little rs, you get the point I guess. Still shouldn't be at 0.

I purposefully didn't include this in season 1, but should there be a lock on round setups instead of race setups? Suddenly having a round that was a race strong track and a quali strong track could well create a true difference for the round. Will teams focus on one race or try to get the best of both worlds with a 50/50? With an increased amount of skill this could make more sense, and would likely mean that which race in which round would have to be randomised.

Didn't I favour that already before you opened the thread? Might mix up results more, especially when you have 2 tracks with different character making up a round.

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Missing market should mean no upgrades applied tbh, just the base perfs.


I think HP doesn't need as much an increase as skill. As said, 50 boost pretty much never made a difference, 100 neither.


Don't know where it's at now, but obviously has to be taken into account. 200 right now can very often make skill usage completely pointless, low var for someone with lots rs, high for someone with little rs, you get the point I guess. Still shouldn't be at 0.


Didn't I favour that already before you opened the thread? Might mix up results more, especially when you have 2 tracks with different character making up a round.

So going on those:
- Base perf would be fine, could still get a result especially in early rounds. If no one minds, then we'll just go with the base perf option.
- So if we went for a straight double to 160/32, would that be enough or push for a 200-240/32-40?
- We'd never go to 0. All a balancing act to find the right level of "anything is possible" versus "how did I get out raced by someone with no race skill against my full?!?"
- As I said, I purposefully left it out this season to get a feel for how the rounds would go down and for everyone to learn the new series. I think it's the easiest and most straightforward change, especially as now everyone has a good idea of the concept.

 

[Smartbean]

Which would you go and why?

I would opt for tripling the bank/rewards, creates a lot more breathing space for a variety of tactics to be used by team and drivers alike. Making the setups round based, though more carefully considered they might be it decreases oppotunity to differentiate tactics even further.

I'll keep these together. We're not changing from 5 rounds/10 races. If we want 10 rounds, we'll have FFG instead
The penalties in that regard would need to be a lot more instantaneous, yet also reflect a simple method of calculation. It may just be that competitors are given a nominal value regardless of how much they have in bonuses.

Maybe this would have been a good way to penalise people who were AFK, they'd get hit instantly with maximum 'ballast'. In any case this is something that'll we have to watch, whether we want a quick season that will create a result, or a season that will be incredibly even.. probably too even tbh.

Taking these 2 together as well. If the series remain 5 Rounds / 10 Races then just using the base perf for AFK'ers / late submissions is enough punishment...if the bank skill increases (enough).

Also some good discussion provoking from Ben here, the third point could be interesting but.. well it starts to feel very much like FFG. But then again once we get extra race directors then we'd probably have to go down this path or just be very organised.
3 car we might be okay but that's an option. Progression is a bit meh.

Point well made, this series should stand out from FFG, therefore the 3 cars and standardised banked skill across the board (allbeit with rewards) is making this series stand out. The progression over a full series of FFG makes that stand out, both series offer something else, which is ace.

So going on those:
- Base perf would be fine, could still get a result especially in early rounds. If no one minds, then we'll just go with the base perf option.

As mentioned in earlier point If the skill bank gets increased enough the AFK'ers / late submitters will feel the brunt of being AFK or submitting late or not at all.

- So if we went for a straight double to 160/32, would that be enough or push for a 200-240/32-40?

I say triple the values, yes triple them... x3... creates enough room for customization on the drivers end and teams end, creates enough of a penalty for AFK'ers and if it turns out to be too much, tweak in down in further season(s).

- We'd never go to 0. All a balancing act to find the right level of "anything is possible" versus "how did I get out raced by someone with no race skill against my full?!?"
- As I said, I purposefully left it out this season to get a feel for how the rounds would go down and for everyone to learn the new series. I think it's the easiest and most straightforward change, especially as now everyone has a good idea of the concept.

The variation (and CoF) should be left untocuhed for these series, a standard value across the board should be fair for any one driver or car to make mistakes or develop technical faults as well as an equal chance to be consistent, or not. Maybe, just maybe this can come into play once the series has settled in and the sweet spot for the skill bank and rewards has been determined.

 

[Aidan Keranen]

The variation (and CoF) should be left untocuhed for these series, a standard value across the board should be fair for any one driver or car to make mistakes or develop technical faults as well as an equal chance to be consistent, or not. Maybe, just maybe this can come into play once the series has settled in and the sweet spot for the skill bank and rewards has been determined.

I think you might be misunderstanding me, no one will be able to change their variation or CoF compared to anyone else, they will remain standard. The question is what is the standard that is kept. I feel it might be too high, but an increase in the setup bank could help that greatly and it might be fine.

 

[Aidan Keranen]

by all means @ME9Swe let me know what you're thinking

 

[ME9Swe]

i would agree with a penalty for people missing marketplace setups, as I was quite bad on this part of the championship.

 

[Jimlaad43]

If you miss the market, your bonus buys should either just not be spent, or maybe it's a max 50% spend split evenly between everything if we're increasing the variation values.

Maybe it might be worth awarding points to the top 5 drivers in qualifying if we're planning to increase the amount of BHP and/or driver skill available. The risk with increasing the amount you can give out is that if it goes too far, then we could get a lot of Hunsley Season 2 moments where cars qualify at the back and still reliably end up on the podium. Points in qualifying or more bonus skill for good qualifying results should be considered if we accidentally go too far.

 

[Aidan Keranen]

If you miss the market, your bonus buys should either just not be spent, or maybe it's a max 50% spend split evenly between everything if we're increasing the variation values.

Maybe it might be worth awarding points to the top 5 drivers in qualifying if we're planning to increase the amount of BHP and/or driver skill available. The risk with increasing the amount you can give out is that if it goes too far, then we could get a lot of Hunsley Season 2 moments where cars qualify at the back and still reliably end up on the podium. Points in qualifying or more bonus skill for good qualifying results should be considered if we accidentally go too far.

Yeah but it's risky because it's known well enough that qualifying is overpowered in GP4, that overtaking isn't guaranteed. Thus rewarding qualifying is de facto rewarding race as well.

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Hey guys, we'll wrap this up and present the Season 2 changes at the end of the week!

 

[Lesley Buurlage]

Welp, time to go and think of a new livery then, as champions we're allowed to run the #1 if wanted right?

 

[Aidan Keranen]

Yep, champion driver can have #1

 

[Lesley Buurlage]

@Joseph Wright what ya think? You want some champion spark with the #1 on your car?