Reforming the salary system

[Roessing]

The problem:

We have teams, that ride the Giro with salaries like 693k (see Demuth for example. Giro 10 o'clock). Teams like that are so monstrous and strong that other teams usually do not stand a chance. Still, those big-salary-teams do not make a big loss of profit, as they win many stages and the classement. If there are losses, they are usually minor.

Let's make an example: Team Beginner starts with a salary of 400k, while Team Bigwig starts with a salary of 693k (randomly chosen). Team Bigwig may have gotten that team not with skill but rather with the sheer amount of races he participated in. Team Beginner, though, might be a real natural but has only participated in 50 races so far. Now, the difference between both teams is roughly 300k in salary, EVERY. DAY. OF THE TOUR. Team Beginner can count itself lucky if it wins anything in the tour, while this game itself can count itself lucky if Team Beginner, a real natural and possible future contributor to this community, does not lose all his fun in the game, goes offline by the middle of the tour and never comes back. Opportunity missed!

The solution:

Work with penalties for salaries that are over 375k.

With our current salary system, Team Beginner has to come up with 25k every race to avoid making a loss. Team Bigwig has to come up with 318k every race (which is very possible when you count in the bonuses you get at the end of the tour)
With the new salary system, there is a penalty for everyone who gets over 375k and here comes the important part: The higher you are over the 375k, the exponentially higher your penalty will be!

With a factor of 1,05 the new salaries for these teams will look the following:

Team Beginner:
Old salary: 400k
First Step: 400-375 = 25
Second Step: 25^1,05 = 29,37
Third Step: 375 + 29,37 = 404,37
New salary: 404,37k

Team Beginner now has to come up with 29,37k every race to avoid making a loss, which in reality leads to no change in the choice of his team for him.

Let's try it with Team Bigwig:
Old salary: 693k
First step: 693-375 = 318
Second step: 318^1,05 = 424,18
Third step: 375 + 424,18 = 799,18
New salary: 799,18k

Team Bigwig on the other hand now has to come up with 424,18k every race which seems to be impossible, even if he wins almost every stage. What will happen? Team Bigwig will not ride with a team that has a base salary of 693k but will instead leave one or two of his more expensive riders at home.

This new salary system will bring us tighter fields everywhere that amount to more fun for everyone involved, especially for beginners.

Your thoughts?

[Pokemon Club]

You take the problem in the wrong choice I think.

The problem:

We have teams, that ride the Giro with salaries like 693k (see Demuth for example. Giro 10 o'clock).
Teams like that are so monstrous and strong that other teams usually do not stand a chance. Still, those big-salary-teams do not make a big loss of profit, as they win many stages and the classement. If there are losses, they are usually minor.

Where is the problem if Demuth takes a 693k team for the Giro ? You prefer he takes this team for Trentino ? He wants to win Giro, he invests for that, but others teams can do the same.
Anyway, he won't make necessaray financial profit of that. No sprinters = no win on flat stages = big lose. And if they are some strong climbers he clearly won't win at all all mountains stages, maybe 1 or 2 it is all. And it isn't the profit he will make at the end of Giro which will balance the 6.5M he lose for Giro.

Let's make an example: Team Beginner starts with a salary of 400k, while Team Bigwig starts with a salary of 693k (randomly chosen). Team Bigwig may have gotten that team not with skill but rather with the sheer amount of races he participated in. Team Beginner, though, might be a real natural but has only participated in 50 races so far. Now, the difference between both teams is roughly 300k in salary, EVERY. DAY. OF THE TOUR. Team Beginner can count itself lucky if it wins anything in the tour, while this game itself can count itself lucky if Team Beginner, a real natural and possible future contributor to this community, does not lose all his fun in the game, goes offline by the middle of the tour and never comes back. Opportunity missed!

So teams Beginner wants to contest the Giro with only 50 races against Team Bigwig ? Optimistic guy this Begginer. Anyway, if he feels GK is too hard for him he can just become a stage hunter for GTs. He will win a lot like that. Or at least, he can just try to win and thinks Team Bigwig was in the same situation than him for his first GTs too.

The solution:

Work with penalties for salaries that are over 375k.

With our current salary system, Team Beginner has to come up with 25k every race to avoid making a loss. Team Bigwig has to come up with 318k every race (which is very possible when you count in the bonuses you get at the end of the tour)
With the new salary system, there is a penalty for everyone who gets over 375k and here comes the important part: The higher you are over the 375k, the exponentially higher your penalty will be!

With a factor of 1,05 the new salaries for these teams will look the following:

Team Beginner:
Old salary: 400k
First Step: 400-375 = 25
Second Step: 25^1,05 = 29,37
Third Step: 375 + 29,37 = 404,37
New salary: 404,37k

Team Beginner now has to come up with 29,37k every race to avoid making a loss, which in reality leads to no change in the choice of his team for him.

Let's try it with Team Bigwig:
Old salary: 693k
First step: 693-375 = 318
Second step: 318^1,05 = 424,18
Third step: 375 + 424,18 = 799,18
New salary: 799,18k

Team Bigwig on the other hand now has to come up with 424,18k every race which seems to be impossible, even if he wins almost every stage. What will happen? Team Bigwig will not ride with a team that has a base salary of 693k but will instead leave one or two of his more expensive riders at home.

This new salary system will bring us tighter fields everywhere that amount to more fun for everyone involved, especially for beginners.

Your thoughts?

Where is the message you want send newbies ? That to have a big team to try to win big race is a bad thing ? That people who make effort to have a big teams should be punish ?
There is no sense to blame bigs teams because they looks too strong. If Team Beginner is too weak for Giro, he can just ride parallels tours like California or Belgique to develop himself.

[lesossies]

I could accept a reform too, but not for the 3 big tours or the monuments.

But we maybe could need a salary limit depending of race difficulty, race category and stage amounts by tours.

[Radunion]

I do not think that we have to penalize expensive teams. In my experience cheep teams earn much more money than expensive ones. I had my biggest earning when riding cheep without a clear leader for my team. When I had a clear leader and started expensive to have a chance to control, and win, the race I was happy not to loose money in the long run. This was especially the case when riding for a hillsprinter (if you loose the race you have hardly any income) or for a tour rider (climbing + TT, Huber), as you have little chance to win a stage and need expensive helpers.

Teams riding very expensive in Grand Tours usually loose money. They value the possible win of the race higher than to loss of the money.

[team fl]

I could accept a reform too, but not for the 3 big tours or the monuments.

But we maybe could need a salary limit depending of race difficulty, race category and stage amounts by tours.

Why? Seriously, why would you introduce an artificial salary cap for certain races? That takes away a lot of freedom and could lead to stupid situations, like low reg gets more important for one day races, because it keeps the salary low. The same counts for low TT. Both skills have no influnence whatsoever in the outcome of the race (if it's not an ITT or a TTT), but will be very important to be able to do a decent line-up for let's say a hilly race or mountain race. That means you need riders for tours and rider for mountain races especially in the future? Or you have to specialise in one of these race categories? Is that wanted?

In the end, that means that perhaps not the one who would have the best riders for a certain race can have the best line-up but the the one that has the cheapest good riders? This will lead to a lot of frustration, I am sure of that.

I very much like the other approach, that depending on the race category, more or less salary is covered. For example (for 9 riders):

One-day-races:

Cat. 1: 350k
Cat. 2: 355k
Cat. 3: 360k
Cat. 4: 380k
Cat. 5: 400k
Cat. 6: 425k

Stage races:

Cat. 1: ...
.
.
.
.


Maybe even the type of race can have an influence. Like a cat. 4 flat race (let's say Scheldeprijs) does not need as much salary covered as a cat. 4 hilly race (let's say GP Montreal). But that's just a thought. That would mean that both, race category and race type would influence the salary covered. BUT PLEASE, do not introduce a salary cap for races... Better reintroduce the -100'000 cap so that you can't register for a race, if you have more debts than that.

[Rockstar Inc]

Better reintroduce the -100'000 cap so that you can't register for a race, if you have more debts than that.

Freaking THIS and only THIS

[olmania]

I could accept a reform too, but not for the 3 big tours or the monuments.

But we maybe could need a salary limit depending of race difficulty, race category and stage amounts by tours.

Why? Seriously, why would you introduce an artificial salary cap for certain races? That takes away a lot of freedom and could lead to stupid situations, like low reg gets more important for one day races, because it keeps the salary low. The same counts for low TT. Both skills have no influnence whatsoever in the outcome of the race (if it's not an ITT or a TTT), but will be very important to be able to do a decent line-up for let's say a hilly race or mountain race. That means you need riders for tours and rider for mountain races especially in the future? Or you have to specialise in one of these race categories? Is that wanted?

In the end, that means that perhaps not the one who would have the best riders for a certain race can have the best line-up but the the one that has the cheapest good riders? This will lead to a lot of frustration, I am sure of that.

I very much like the other approach, that depending on the race category, more or less salary is covered. For example (for 9 riders):

One-day-races:

Cat. 1: 350k
Cat. 2: 355k
Cat. 3: 360k
Cat. 4: 380k
Cat. 5: 400k
Cat. 6: 425k

Stage races:

Cat. 1: ...
.
.
.
.


Maybe even the type of race can have an influence. Like a cat. 4 flat race (let's say Scheldeprijs) does not need as much salary covered as a cat. 4 hilly race (let's say GP Montreal). But that's just a thought. That would mean that both, race category and race type would influence the salary covered. BUT PLEASE, do not introduce a salary cap for races... Better reintroduce the -100'000 cap so that you can't register for a race, if you have more debts than that.

I agree with second option much more, adapt the $$$ covered according to the category of the race AND the the kind of profile (flat, mountain ..) ... this might also make change the fact that new teams tend to have sprinter team at the beginning to make money (even if it's less true with the lack of teams and no group2 anymore).
Anyway, a full competitive team on a flat race will always be cheap compared to a full competitive team in a hard race, but prices at the end are the same (and that seems logical to me (about single one-day races of course, cause in a tour, a GK team will in general gain more than a sprinter team (even with jersey and few stages)), so better adapt the $$$ covered at the beginning.

[Pokemon Club]

Need both, adapt the salary cover AND reindroduce the -100k rules (which can be a bit change on -150 or -200k IMO)

[Roessing]

I could accept a reform too, but not for the 3 big tours or the monuments.

I must admit that my suggestions were mainly targeted at the 3 big tours, but I can see sense in your limitation. If you actually manage to get a great team with the new salary system, you will be allowed to go full power in the 3 GT's and the monuments. Maybe I even like this one more.

But we maybe could need a salary limit depending of race difficulty, race category and stage amounts by tours.

Why? Seriously, why would you introduce an artificial salary cap for certain races? That takes away a lot of freedom and could lead to stupid situations, like low reg gets more important for one day races, because it keeps the salary low. The same counts for low TT. Both skills have no influnence whatsoever in the outcome of the race (if it's not an ITT or a TTT), but will be very important to be able to do a decent line-up for let's say a hilly race or mountain race. That means you need riders for tours and rider for mountain races especially in the future? Or you have to specialise in one of these race categories? Is that wanted?

I would also prefer to reform the system without any more restrictions. It just takes a bit of fun out of the game, if you are disallowed to do certain things.

[IDF]

We spoke about money and nobody called me?

[i'll answer soon]

[IDF]

1) -100 000 rule's should be back really...avoid some boys who take a hard team during xx GT and disappear just after.

2) I'm agree with a certain change according (only) to the kind of race. Classic riders are -sometimes- very expensive ( due to their values ) , climbers too.. and sprinter not. A good sprinter team spends 410k-420k for a sprint stage ( 6 flat riders + 1 launcher + 2 sprinter) , even less for some of us. But for a classic race or climber race.. we reach 475-485k so easily , even for a cat .1 - cat.2 . The problem here is the salary cap.. should be higher for classic races .. 415-420k maybe , even more.. Thanks to this salary cap , some teams could bring a good line up even for an average race, more competitive.
But i'm disagree about categories... points are already a difference between cat.1 and cat.5 ( f.e) ... the money should be not change for that.... maybe for GT's races and cat5+ races ...(already that for cat.6)

[team fl]

1) -100 000 rule's should be back really...avoid some boys who take a hard team during xx GT and disappear just after.

2) I'm agree with a certain change according (only) to the kind of race. Classic riders are -sometimes- very expensive ( due to their values ) , climbers too.. and sprinter not. A good sprinter team spends 410k-420k for a sprint stage ( 6 flat riders + 1 launcher + 2 sprinter) , even less for some of us. But for a classic race or climber race.. we reach 475-485k so easily , even for a cat .1 - cat.2 . The problem here is the salary cap.. should be higher for classic races .. 415-420k maybe , even more.. Thanks to this salary cap , some teams could bring a good line up even for an average race, more competitive.
But i'm disagree about categories... points are already a difference between cat.1 and cat.5 ( f.e) ... the money should be not change for that.... maybe for GT's races and cat5+ races ...(already that for cat.6)

ad 2) second point about the categories: That's why I'm favoring a different salary coverage for different categories and/or race types. The price money should not change.

But then again, you could argue that it's worth to have a higher salary for a competitive GT team or a team with climbers, because they usually get more points during their career out of stages races as well as money out of classements. And who said you should bring two climbers and three classic riders to a cat. 1 mountain one day race?

So in conclusion: Maybe the race type thing is a bit odd with arguments on both sides. But the category thing with different salary coverage looks interesting to me.

[Radunion]

Some thoughts about

a) different covered salary for different race types

Here you risk starting endless discussions again whether the game favors sprinter teams, classics or climber teams. I think this discussion should not influence the discussion about covered salary. If you really want to discuss it, discuss about the salary and "market value" of different rider types.

b) different covered salary for different categories

In my opinion this is not necessary either. I like to bring a strong team to races I think I could win, even if the category is low. You really need them if there is the risk that you have to control the race alone. Why do you want to force me to keep strong riders at home? For the important races many teams do not care about the money anyway, including myself.

Besides this is also a problem for new/small teams which have not enough riders to have different line-ups for different races.

[Pokemon Club]

b) different covered salary for different categories

In my opinion this is not necessary either. I like to bring a strong team to races I think I could win, even if the category is low. You really need them if there is the risk that you have to control the race alone. Why do you want to force me to keep strong riders at home?

Nobody force you to let your riders at home else if you want to make them ride. You will have less salary cover at the start it is all.

[team fl]

b) different covered salary for different categories

In my opinion this is not necessary either. I like to bring a strong team to races I think I could win, even if the category is low. You really need them if there is the risk that you have to control the race alone. Why do you want to force me to keep strong riders at home?

Nobody force you to let your riders at home else if you want to make them ride. You will have less salary cover at the start it is all.

Exactly. The thing that would make you leave strong riders at home would be a salary cap for races.

[Radunion]

Well, nobody forces me to ride cheaper when I have less salary covered, I just loose money. I had some teams in the past that had some trouble to make money, especially hillsprinter teams and teams for Hubers. Mountain sprinter (climber training sprint) were also difficult, but this rider is dead anyway under the current sprint system.

Bach to the topic. Teams that start expensive and want to win the race are not favored under the current system, but will suffer most form lower covered expenses. Teams that want/have to attack can start cheaper, teams that want to control the race cannot. I believe that we should not penalize teams that want to do something for the race and make it easier for the attackers to win in the long run. Cat 1 races are clearly less important than higher cats, but in my opinion they should not be ridden very different. Weaker teams will cause more chaos in such races and I do not think it is a good idea.

[Hansa]

New salary system -> Monster riders chances grow u dont need such a big team to win anything 1 rider is often enough and if the others cant bring big teams no chance to beat them so..

[Roessing]

New salary system -> Monster riders chances grow u dont need such a big team to win anything 1 rider is often enough and if the others cant bring big teams no chance to beat them so..

I think that's a little bit too simple as far as criticism goes.

First of all, I do not think 1 rider will be enough even with the new salary system. With a factor of 1.05, only teams that go 550k or plus will be strongly affected. The new salary of a previously-before-550k-Team would be 600k, which is not that much of a change anyway. If we stick with a 550k-example, you usually only put together a 550k-team for tours. And if you play well, the 50k+ daily might still be worth it in the end.

The cool thing about this new system is, that users will actively think if the bigger penalty might still be sensible. You take a higher risk, but you MIGHT be rewarded. If other users do not take the higher risk and start with a 450k-Team with only 1 "monster rider", I think they will still lose the tour against a 550k-Team and make less money than the 550k-Team. It just gets a little bit more challenging to make money for everyone as I think for top teams it is too easy to make money nowadays.

When setting the factor (1.05 was only an example) you have to make sure that it is not too high. If it was 1,1 for example the new salary of an 550k-Team would be (550-375)^1,1 +375 = 668k. In that case I would agree with you; monster riders are going to have a big advantage. But with a factor of 1,05, I only see tighter races and a more fun game for everyone, especially the newbies, while also be more challenging and more rewarding for the big dogs of the Rsf-world.

[Pokemon Club]

New salary system -> Monster riders chances grow u dont need such a big team to win anything 1 rider is often enough and if the others cant bring big teams no chance to beat them so..

I think that's a little bit too simple as far as criticism goes.

First of all, I do not think 1 rider will be enough even with the new salary system. With a factor of 1.05, only teams that go 550k or plus will be strongly affected. The new salary of a previously-before-550k-Team would be 600k, which is not that much of a change anyway. If we stick with a 550k-example, you usually only put together a 550k-team for tours. And if you play well, the 50k+ daily might still be worth it in the end.

The cool thing about this new system is, that users will actively think if the bigger penalty might still be sensible. You take a higher risk, but you MIGHT be rewarded. If other users do not take the higher risk and start with a 450k-Team with only 1 "monster rider", I think they will still lose the tour against a 550k-Team and make less money than the 550k-Team. It just gets a little bit more challenging to make money for everyone as I think for top teams it is too easy to make money nowadays.

When setting the factor (1.05 was only an example) you have to make sure that it is not too high. If it was 1,1 for example the new salary of an 550k-Team would be (550-375)^1,1 +375 = 668k. In that case I would agree with you; monster riders are going to have a big advantage. But with a factor of 1,05, I only see tighter races and a more fun game for everyone, especially the newbies, while also be more challenging and more rewarding for the big dogs of the Rsf-world.

On for what big teams should be affect with a salary coefficents ? 70% tax instead of 5 or 10% for newbie isn't enough ?

[Roessing]

New salary system -> Monster riders chances grow u dont need such a big team to win anything 1 rider is often enough and if the others cant bring big teams no chance to beat them so..

I think that's a little bit too simple as far as criticism goes.

First of all, I do not think 1 rider will be enough even with the new salary system. With a factor of 1.05, only teams that go 550k or plus will be strongly affected. The new salary of a previously-before-550k-Team would be 600k, which is not that much of a change anyway. If we stick with a 550k-example, you usually only put together a 550k-team for tours. And if you play well, the 50k+ daily might still be worth it in the end.

The cool thing about this new system is, that users will actively think if the bigger penalty might still be sensible. You take a higher risk, but you MIGHT be rewarded. If other users do not take the higher risk and start with a 450k-Team with only 1 "monster rider", I think they will still lose the tour against a 550k-Team and make less money than the 550k-Team. It just gets a little bit more challenging to make money for everyone as I think for top teams it is too easy to make money nowadays.

When setting the factor (1.05 was only an example) you have to make sure that it is not too high. If it was 1,1 for example the new salary of an 550k-Team would be (550-375)^1,1 +375 = 668k. In that case I would agree with you; monster riders are going to have a big advantage. But with a factor of 1,05, I only see tighter races and a more fun game for everyone, especially the newbies, while also be more challenging and more rewarding for the big dogs of the Rsf-world.

On for what big teams should be affect with a salary coefficents ? 70% tax instead of 5 or 10% for newbie isn't enough ?

I don't know. I've heard from buddies who are quite successful in this game that earning money really becomes easy once you have a big team. Of course it may not become too difficult with the new system for obvious reasons. Is it hard for you to make money in this game?

[Pokemon Club]

New salary system -> Monster riders chances grow u dont need such a big team to win anything 1 rider is often enough and if the others cant bring big teams no chance to beat them so..

I think that's a little bit too simple as far as criticism goes.

First of all, I do not think 1 rider will be enough even with the new salary system. With a factor of 1.05, only teams that go 550k or plus will be strongly affected. The new salary of a previously-before-550k-Team would be 600k, which is not that much of a change anyway. If we stick with a 550k-example, you usually only put together a 550k-team for tours. And if you play well, the 50k+ daily might still be worth it in the end.

The cool thing about this new system is, that users will actively think if the bigger penalty might still be sensible. You take a higher risk, but you MIGHT be rewarded. If other users do not take the higher risk and start with a 450k-Team with only 1 "monster rider", I think they will still lose the tour against a 550k-Team and make less money than the 550k-Team. It just gets a little bit more challenging to make money for everyone as I think for top teams it is too easy to make money nowadays.

When setting the factor (1.05 was only an example) you have to make sure that it is not too high. If it was 1,1 for example the new salary of an 550k-Team would be (550-375)^1,1 +375 = 668k. In that case I would agree with you; monster riders are going to have a big advantage. But with a factor of 1,05, I only see tighter races and a more fun game for everyone, especially the newbies, while also be more challenging and more rewarding for the big dogs of the Rsf-world.

On for what big teams should be affect with a salary coefficents ? 70% tax instead of 5 or 10% for newbie isn't enough ?

I don't know. I've heard from buddies who are quite successful in this game that earning money really becomes easy once you have a big team. Of course it may not become too difficult with the new system for obvious reasons. Is it hard for you to make money in this game?

It is easy to win money when you want to ride money, big teams or not. Anyway, "to have a big team" is different that "to ride with a big team". In fact there are very few people who ride always with such an expensive teams, without care if it is a cat 1 or 6. But when teams take their bigs lineups, and make them confront, it is senseless to penalize them again, when you can be sure that some of them will lose money.

[olmania]

Of course many things can be changed, often threads are opened and so on ... but Buh don't have lots of time and anyway, which one to do first that it would not affect other aspects of the game (cf sprint reform).

Maybe about that money thing, we just need more players ... groups would be bigger and you d need to share the money (even big teams who win often would have more probs to do p1.2&3 in a tour) more often than in these 7teams average races ?

Better come back on the trio we were talking about here : viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4130

- fixing old bugs and implementing urgent things waiting for years/months as a priority for Buh
- creating tools and structure to keep our new players
- attract a bunch of new players

Later on, we would see which reforms are really needed ? and if we still need money reform with 300 more players.


PS: It brings me back to how I concluded a post in the thread mentioned up there :

But before opening these topics, it would be really good to know who would be interested in helping, and for what, so please, people, just leave a message to let us know (something like: I am ok to help a bit for tutorials. or : if you need someone to write in that code language, I could help. or: I know a bit about video making, I could help for a video about RSF ...)

I did not really get answers for that, but still. I decided to start on my own. I started on few things for now, RFM joined me and started to write a new tutorial and we want to continue ... so, I repeat it, if you feel you could help in that project to make the basics of the game stronger to ensure its survival before launching eventual reforms and changes, let us know cause it might be an urgent need for a RSF still alive in future !

[Roessing]

Of course many things can be changed, often threads are opened and so on ... but Buh don't have lots of time and anyway, which one to do first that it would not affect other aspects of the game (cf sprint reform).
[...]

When I had the idea for the new reform I thought that changing the money a team gets after race can be changed easier that some kind of sprint techniques. Granted, I don't know much about flash but I expect there doesn't need much to be changed in the code for this to be implemented.

But...as my idea of a reform does not seem to be liked very well by the rest of you, I will give it a rest.

Anyway, when will the blue chat-color for the Div1-winner be implemented?