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GENERAL => Suggestions => Topic started by: ophiuko on March 05, 2020, 08:10:02 PM

Title: NT Calendar
Post by: ophiuko on March 05, 2020, 08:10:02 PM
As I'm NT manager this season, I've been looking at stages from past season, and I've realized that the same pattern has been repeating since the beginning of the NT competitions, as follows:

Stage 1. Hills or flat hills. Always 25 ºC good weather.
Stage 2. Mountain or flat mountain. Always 7 ºC, cold and wind level 3.
Stage 3. Flat sprint. Always 13 ºC, good weather, wind level 1.
Stage 4. Flat TT. Always 0 ºC, cold and wind level 1.
Stage 5. Cobble-hill. Always 8 ºC and cold.
Stage 6. Always 8 ºC and cold. Stage type is variable. The stage types until now have been: flat mountain, flat TT, flat mountain, flat hills, hill TT, flat sprint and hill TT.
Stage 7. Flat cobble. Always 24 ºC and good weather.

I think the repeated weather should be a bug. It makes no sense to have four stages with could every season.

About the stage types, my suggestion is to increase the variability, not only 1 stage is random. Right now, there are specific riders who will never be able to be selected for the NT, like hill-climbers, mountain TTers, hill sprinters or mountain sprinters. Although it makes sense to have some fixed stages, like hills in the first stage or cobble/sprint, I would not make more than 2 or 3 stages fixed, increasing the chance of other types of stages to be in the calendar, and, of course, increasing the chance of other NT teams to win the championship, since some nationalities are focused on specific types of riders.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: agtxla on March 05, 2020, 08:53:30 PM
about weather:
the data don't be stored... so for the past stage you see the weather of the current season
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: ophiuko on March 05, 2020, 09:43:47 PM
Oh. Good to know, thanks. Then, my only suggestion is about the stages.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: Aurora Australis on March 05, 2020, 10:06:45 PM
about weather:
the data don't be stored... so for the past stage you see the weather of the current season
However you could see it with race previews I did for 3 season, and race previews others have done; note I haven't checked to see whether ophiuko's post is accurate, I don't think the weather part is.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: Vos on March 06, 2020, 01:58:01 AM
As I'm NT manager this season, I've been looking at stages from past season, and I've realized that the same pattern has been repeating since the beginning of the NT competitions, as follows:

( Vos note : in blue the link towards the NT races of the very first NT season in CFF3 )

Stage 1. Hills or flat hills. Always 25 ºC good weather.
https://cyclingforfun.org/smf/index.php?topic=401.msg6164#msg6164
Stage 2. Mountain or flat mountain. Always 7 ºC, cold and wind level 3.
https://cyclingforfun.org/smf/index.php?topic=401.msg6715#msg6715
Stage 3. Flat sprint. Always 13 ºC, good weather, wind level 1.
https://cyclingforfun.org/smf/index.php?topic=401.msg7201#msg7201
Stage 4. Flat TT. Always 0 ºC, cold and wind level 1.
https://cyclingforfun.org/smf/index.php?topic=401.msg7774#msg7774
Stage 5. Cobble-hill. Always 8 ºC and cold.
https://cyclingforfun.org/smf/index.php?topic=401.msg8180#msg8180
Stage 6. Always 8 ºC and cold. Stage type is variable. The stage types until now have been: flat mountain, flat TT, flat mountain, flat hills, hill TT, flat sprint and hill TT.
https://cyclingforfun.org/smf/index.php?topic=401.msg8457#msg8457
Stage 7. Flat cobble. Always 24 ºC and good weather.
https://cyclingforfun.org/smf/index.php?topic=401.msg8761#msg8761

I think the repeated weather should be a bug. It makes no sense to have four stages with could every season.

About the stage types, my suggestion is to increase the variability, not only 1 stage is random. Right now, there are specific riders who will never be able to be selected for the NT, like hill-climbers, mountain TTers, hill sprinters or mountain sprinters. Although it makes sense to have some fixed stages, like hills in the first stage or cobble/sprint, I would not make more than 2 or 3 stages fixed, increasing the chance of other types of stages to be in the calendar, and, of course, increasing the chance of other NT teams to win the championship, since some nationalities are focused on specific types of riders.

Very good detective work, ophiuko, well done !
The NT calendar should be better in CFF3, I agree.

In CFF2 it was more random than it is now, just one flat TT race (out of 10 races) was certain every season.
It is very remarkable that in the total of 7 NT seasons in CFF3 there never was a hills-climb, climb-TT, climb-sprint and hills-sprint.
Especially hills-climb and hills-sprint was very common in CFF2, climb-TT just sometimes and climb-sprint was rare, just 3 times or so in 30 seasons, among them 2 in China what is a climb-hills-sprint race.

The other (less important) subject ; the weather icons.
If that is also more or less the same everytime, it should be more random too.
But maybe that was already random, I cannot look at the previous NT seasons.
However, the weather icons of the very first NT season (= CFF3 season 2 ) are stored by an excellent Australian NT manager. :))  ;)
Below the NT race in your quote, I added the link ( in blue ) of the NT race of the very first NT season in CFF3.
Compared to the first NT season, it seems to me the weather icons are most times random.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: WinterIsComing on March 06, 2020, 06:52:04 AM
Weather icon data for NT is not stored indeed, like agtxla already said. That was already the case in CFF2. So only thd weather icons for this season show up, also in races that have been raced in other weather conditions in different seasons.

Totally agree with the variability issues in the calendar.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: ophiuko on March 06, 2020, 01:50:21 PM
OK, thanks everyone for the info. It is clear that weather is not an issue, is just that is not stored when you look at past seasons.

So then, the pattern in stages would be the next one:

Stage 1. Hills or flat hills.
Stage 2. Mountain or flat mountain.
Stage 3. Flat sprint.
Stage 4. Flat TT.
Stage 5. Cobble-hill.
Stage 6. Stage type is variable. The stage types until now have been: flat mountain, flat TT, flat mountain, flat hills, hill TT, flat sprint and hill TT.
Stage 7. Flat cobble.

I've added a poll to the topic, just informative.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: EpoGlucK on March 06, 2020, 10:40:10 PM
Totally agree about variability, there is no fun in checking the stages of the  calendar, for some of the riders there is no competition at all.

Would like to see full variable calendar ^^
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: kirin on March 07, 2020, 01:31:01 AM
I also agree with this
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: horace_vr on March 09, 2020, 11:15:39 AM
I think the title is mis-leading; the stages are variable, only the stage-type is fixed.
Otherwise I agree with the general idea expressed here, to have more variability in order to allow all riders to have a shot at glory :)
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: oscacom on March 09, 2020, 05:42:04 PM
For me perfect 100% random but for you sure I receive a lot of messages if you have a great specialist and in 3-4 years he can't race any NT race.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: Aurora Australis on March 09, 2020, 09:54:17 PM
I don't see any problem with most of the races being a set type, with just one or two variable, the issue is of the available races being in too narrow of a field each season.  It would be good if there was a possibility of sprint-hills or mount-hills every couple of seasons for instance.  Will comment more if Osca decided to change the NT calendar formula.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: EpoGlucK on March 09, 2020, 11:13:44 PM
I don't see any problem with most of the races being a set type, with just one or two variable, the issue is of the available races being in too narrow of a field each season.  It would be good if there was a possibility of sprint-hills or mount-hills every couple of seasons for instance.  Will comment more if Osca decided to change the NT calendar formula.

There are lote of kind of stages out of the calendar, not just mont-hills and sprint-hills.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: oscacom on March 10, 2020, 06:45:16 AM
I don't see any problem with most of the races being a set type, with just one or two variable, the issue is of the available races being in too narrow of a field each season.  It would be good if there was a possibility of sprint-hills or mount-hills every couple of seasons for instance.  Will comment more if Osca decided to change the NT calendar formula.

With only 7 races, difficult find fix stages to agree everybody.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: Franky on March 11, 2020, 03:09:51 PM
I'm against a totally random calendar, I think that at least we should have 4 of this 5 types mountain (pure, climb, hills), TT (pure, flat, hills), hills (pure, flat), cobb (pure, hills), sprint (pure, hills) as a fixed races and 3 totally random.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: Vos on March 11, 2020, 05:34:58 PM
I'm against a totally random calendar, I think that at least we should have 4 of this 5 types mountain (pure, flat, hills), TT (pure, flat, hills), hills (pure, flat), cobb (pure, hills), sprint (pure, hills) as a fixed races and 3 totally random.
This would be perfect and every NT calendar will be very different in this way.
Also every specialism will be on the NT calender, sooner or later. So it seems to me everyone would be happy with such a various calendar.
I totally agree with you, Franky.
In fact, to me this is the only good option for the NT calendar. Of course no problem if it will be different than this, I will adapt, but if I was the maker of the NT calendar software, for sure I would make it something like Franky mentioned.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: ophiuko on March 13, 2020, 09:43:49 AM
I'm against a totally random calendar, I think that at least we should have 4 of this 5 types mountain (pure, climb, hills), TT (pure, flat, hills), hills (pure, flat), cobb (pure, hills), sprint (pure, hills) as a fixed races and 3 totally random.
I totally agree with Franky as well. It would make possible to have mountain-hills and sprint-hills at least once every 3 seasons. The difference between what Franky said and the current calendar is that the mountain, TT and sprint fixed stages are always pure. And there are 2 fixed cobble stages, one pure and one hills.

I would even stablish the 5 types as fixed, and 2 random.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: EpoGlucK on March 13, 2020, 12:22:39 PM
What about, mount- sprint, cobble-hills-sprint, t.trial with downhill, mont-cobble, mont-hill-sptint,  t.trial flat mount... There are a lot of  top riders, that would never be able to have the chance of winning an International race ir even be selected for one.

Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: ophiuko on March 13, 2020, 01:47:34 PM
Apart from the mount sprint, which is quite common, the rest that you mentioned, Peachey, are rare. I would include mount-sprint in the sprint fixed stage, and the other as an option for the random stages. Something like this:

-Stage 1: hills (random between pure hills and flat hills stages)
-Stage 2: sprint (random between flat sprint, hill sprint and mountain sprint stages)
-Stage 3: mountain (random between pure climb, flat climb and hills climb)
-Stage 4: random all types
-Stage 5: TT (random between all TT stages available -flat, hills, mountain and mixed)
-Stage 6: random all types
-Stage 7: cobble (random between flat cobble, cobble hills and cobble sprint)
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: Vos on March 13, 2020, 02:39:49 PM
The random part is detabable, in my point of view totally random can be avoided by giving percentages in the software.
An example :
-Stage 5: TT (random between all TT stages available -flat, hills, mountain and mixed)
-Stage 5: TT (semi-random with these percentages; 50% chance flat TT, 25% hills TT, 15% mountain TT, other 10% distrubed over other TTs)

Just an example, so the percentages can be different. I did not think about the percentages thoroughly, it is just to show that in this way every rare race can be on the NT calendar sooner or later.

Also one standard flat TT race every season is fine by my (like it is now, also in CFF2 and also on the regular calendar, WC TT).
And for example in another NT stage 50% is distrubed over other kinds of TTs, and 50% is distrubed over another kind of race type.

The percentages are chances, just like picking red(50%)or black(also 50%) on the roulette table.
So it is possible it will be red for a few times in a row.
My "roulette table" of the CFF NT races would have many colours. And in every NT stage different colours. Because of the ranking/arrangement of NT races, like for example Ophiuko posted. With the addition of every kind of race and the rare ones get a very low chance percentage.
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: agtxla on March 13, 2020, 04:58:54 PM
Something like this:

-Stage 1 HILLS: random between pure-hills and flat-hills.
-Stage 2 SPRINT: random between flat-sprint and hill-sprint.
-Stage 3 MOUNTAIN: random between pure-climb and hills-climb.
-Stage 4 MIXED (or less important) type of stages: random between TT-mountain, mountain-sprint, mountain-cobble, cobble-hills-sprint and mountain-flat.
-Stage 5 TT: random between TT-flat and TT-hills.
-Stage 6 random ALL TYPE of stage.
-Stage 7 COBBLE: random between flat-cobble and cobble-hills.

I think it is very balanced and every type of cyclist will have the chance to win a race or the individual classification :)
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: EpoGlucK on March 13, 2020, 06:05:21 PM
We are all having the same idea with small differences.

I think Oska will read it and make a final "format" for the NT races with our suggestions  :D
Title: Re: NT Calendar
Post by: Aurora Australis on March 13, 2020, 09:51:10 PM
Some time ago (just because) I had drawn up what my NT schedule would be, but I feel it's best not to say X unless it's sought (I'll just say that ophiuko's isn't it).