My thoughts, such as they are.
Quote:
I would go further and add to Mart's idea. (this is dependent if it is possible for Mark to make these sort of changes and these are changes to the flat league game ONLY)
- an auto save at the end of each racing year and at the same time the previous year save is over ridden. This is to stop 'some' trainers saving a game, playing another 20 or more seasons, noting down all the guns then re-installing their save and buying up/breeding all the guns. A yearly save is there for if a player's pc crashes and they can save their game and at worse they only lose one year of game play.
There is no way to buy them all up, and breeding with them is something you can do anyway when/if they turn out to be guns second time around. But does anyone actually do this?. I think your reading something into this, an advantage that is not there. The most common outcome for breeding with any good game horse, is a low potential dud, the second most common outcome, is a multi G1 winner in game who looks just like the horse from your side of the pairing who is about 20 lengths off the pace in the CK due to the game side of the pairing. Furthermore the line is a total bust and always will be generation after generation of great in game shite in the CK, make note of the name and avoid. Game horses might be the key, but trust me you have to find the sodding door first.
I wind the clock back on my game for one reason only and that is to 'Geld' them for export but still be able to breed them, mostly on the NH. I can do this with a roll back of only one day. I choose to do it over a few seasons since I trial 3 years in one hit.
Quote:
- league mode is a skeleton of the non league game. No customization at all besides silks, stable name etc - so no short seasons to wizz through to speed up your game. No customized race tracks. Every player who clicks on league mode must work their way through a full season, every season.
Do this anyway so no arguement from me. I use only one mod, the one that allows you to see the incrementations on the bars. But note every league race runner has customised tracks, I know I don't remove them once they are uploaded from dropbox, they are whatever Gray puts out at the start of the season.
Quote:
- I would re-explore showing all stat bars and only showing stat bars that are relevant to the league only.
I would be ok with this, but it is a lesser evil than the CK game misalignment. And they are all relevant I think, including the phantom hidden stats (cough, crap CK code)
Quote:
- If a ck is needed then maybe explore a limited amount of save slots - there would need to be enough room for players to return aged horses each season plus save and trial x-amount of horses each season.
I would say it is needed, and you can guess how much I would hate being forced to play in a manner that suits someone else. Some folks have more time than others, some folks make time, those people will do better if you cannot do the same unlucky ducky. Forcing someone to play your way is a little on the draconain side.
Quote:
- I would re-explore the schedule to see if it can be cut back to 30 races per week.
Fine, but history got us here, in a effort to add more balance, back to thirty will probably open old wounds.
Quote:
- I would explore the option of having just a Europe/America season that alternates with a 'rest of the world' season - that may help returning to 30 races per week. If this change puts us under 30 races per week then we could add more G3 and G2 races and/or add key Euro/USA G1 races - Triple Crown, English Derby, The Arc etc to every season.
Interesting, but could see people skipping seasons and then leave us with even less total players.
Quote:
- everyone using the racekit must be up to date at the start of the season so all the proper silks are shown. ALSO no clashing silks. Senior trainer gets priority with their choice of silks and the newer trainer gets issued a new set of silks they are happy with by Gray or a small group of 'League Stewards'
Think most are, same place you get the updated tracks each year.
Quote:
- We need to make the league as easy to run as possible. Hopefully the RK handicapping for next season is successful. I think it's better to have trainers moaning about 'The VAR Handicapper' than a volunteer copping a serving.
Seems fine.
Quote:
The League needs to reward trainers who spend more time playing and breeding for the league but also throw up breeding surprises for casual players.
It does, but those wonder horses are really rare, sort of unicorn rare so casual play may not uncover them (make it more common and then frequent play will get loads and you have even wider gaps) and they seem to be easy to miss alos since they don't look like it and may not be one in game (Belladona, Season 19, Random breed from basically two game horses, never repeated, won nothing in game, looks awful potential wise etc, never breed her like again)
And it is not just breeding though is it, whilst the CK and game are not in synch it is also trialing which for the league right now is as much part of the game as breeding it, previously you wanted to handicap that?. So if you do remove the CK your again forcing folk to play your way and breed only a number of horses that can be reasonably worked out in pre league exhibitions. I am all for no CK, but do it before the game is aligned to it at our peril. What really needs to happen here is people need to get over the fact the league takes a shite load of work to be successful and will do for as long as there is one person willing to do that work.
Quote:
I think the serious trainer will be more analytical than a casual player and they will have more ongoing Group racing success and have far stronger stables.
Depends how much you handicap them along the way. Honestly stop believing the science, it is just luck and time, the 'science' is mostly a myth or at best is shifting probabilities by tiny fractions. Eventually everyone will be the same level as one by one the top tier slam into the wall and stop progressing.
Quote:
What needs to be rubbed out is 'game or file manipulation' and the only way you get ahead is through playing the game more often and being smart with breeding.
Don't think we have any file manipulation?. Game manuiplation like multiple copies of the same game, or playing without saving backing up saves etc happens, but that's almost impossible to overcome for as a long as a game can be crashed.
Quote:
All loop holes that are identified need to be closed as quickly as possible.
Which will likely mean less are identified in the first place.
Quote:
The betterment or 'good of the game' must over ride any short term loss to any and all trainers.
Minefield.............avoid this one Josh.
Quote:
The retainment of new trainers and growth of the league is paramount.
Agreed, need to retain the old timers too.
Quote:
Trial and error will be ongoing until we find that 'sweet spot'.
When has it ever been otherwise.