Vanilla Balance Mod Beta - Testers Wanted

[TheFlamingRed]

http://www.racedepartment.com/downloads/motorsport-manager-balance-mod-part-1.12965/

Make sure you down load all the parts!​

This mod has now been released. All the changes are listed in the above link. If a Forum Admin is reading this, if you could remove the "Testers Wanted" and change it to "Development Discussion" thread, it would be appreciated.

UPDATED TO WORK WITH 1.3​

Note: In attempts to fix the interviews and dilemmas, I have temporarily removed all non English languages from those two files. I hope to reinsert them into a later version (but when I do, they'll still be the vanilla text as I am unable to translate in any other language).

 

[Schortnagel]

Hi FlamingRed,

I've been playing with your mod for a few weeks now and I'm loving it. It has definitely given the game a new lease of life for me. The changes to the chassis were especially good and I like the sound of your upcoming changes.

So thank you very much for all your hard work! It's much appreciated.

I have run into two minor issues though.

1. Your fan base fix has only partially worked partially for me. There's still a very clear downwards trajectory. After the first race of a new career with Krüger, my fan base dropped from 0.9 million to 0.6 million despite getting a great result. Two races later it increased to 0.7 million and kind of stayed there for the rest of the season. That pattern repeated itself twice more and I'm now bouncing back and forth between 0.1 and 0.2 million fans. All despite getting consistently good results and moving up into the WMC.

You've clearly made some progress, because I don't think that little bounce ever existed in Vanilla, but there must be some other problem.

2. You've reintroduced the pre 1.1 vanilla bug where the player's financial skill is frozen and the loyalty only goes down.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Hi FlamingRed,

I've been playing with your mod for a few weeks now and I'm loving it. It has definitely given the game a new lease of life for me. The changes to the chassis were especially good and I like the sound of your upcoming changes.

So thank you very much for all your hard work! It's much appreciated.

I have run into two minor issues though.

1. Your fan base fix has only partially worked partially for me. There's still a very clear downwards trajectory. After the first race of a new career with Krüger, my fan base dropped from 0.9 million to 0.6 million despite getting a great result. Two races later it increased to 0.7 million and kind of stayed there for the rest of the season. That pattern repeated itself twice more and I'm now bouncing back and forth between 0.1 and 0.2 million fans. All despite getting consistently good results and moving up into the WMC.

You've clearly made some progress, because I don't think that little bounce ever existed in Vanilla, but there must be some other problem.

2. You've reintroduced the pre 1.1 vanilla bug where the player's financial skill is frozen and the loyalty only goes down.

1. Thanks for the information. It might be being adjusted in more then the one way which always caused it to drop. I do know it's linked to marketability too. I ask that throughout your next season, if you could record your marketability, race results and fan base after the races. It would be useful to help me identify how the value is changing.

This applies to anyone else who wants to help provide information on fanbase too.

2. I don't believe I could have introduced the vanilla bug. All I've done about this value is to reduce the increase rate at at which both stats go up. It's about 1 per season - penalties (and penalties can be quite big). Loyalty is easy to drop, but really slow to increase. Finance should be going up slowly.

Could others check their Player Stats and confirm this bug still happens.

 

[Beynasuh]

1- Okey. 4. Season (4 Race at the moment) and will keep eye on the Fan Base this year.

2- Not frozen but the changes are smaller for positive effects and bigger for negative effects.

 

[Schortnagel]

Sure! I'll start keeping a log and report back. For what it's worth, Krüger's Team Marketability has steadily increased from 60% at the start of my career to 94% right now (6th race of the third season). So if marketability plays a part there should be an upwards trajectory.

As for the vanilla bug, I'm sorry. I jumped the gun there. I double checked by starting a new career and my financial stat has increased after all. Those penalties must be huge though. I've only been in debt for a week or two in total and my stat is only at 2.6 (up from 2.0).

 

[BrianUK]

I'm 11 seasons in and I've barely scraped 3 in Loyalty That's even with having drivers and staff on 3 year contracts. Maybe loyalty could do with a small growth speed buff?

EDIT: And can confirm, the negative affects on fanbase outweigh the positive. Scuderia went up to 3.5m from 3.3m, now they are down at 2.5m desptie finishing 2nd in the constructors for the 10th year in a row. Even Steinmann has lost some, and they've had 10 consecutive constructors titles and 8 of the last 10 drivers titles.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

I'll see if I can reduce the loyalty drop. I think it's triggering whenever staff leaves, as opposed to just firing them. I'll have another check of the math

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Observation Day:

1. Did you know there was actually only two pitlane speed limits slow and fast.... I thought there was 3 :S..... So now there is a really slow speed, and a really fast one.
   
2. There is another rule regarding number of allotted tyres... At the moment it stands as 12 and 15. 15 is enough for almost anything you want to do... and so is 12. I've never run even remotely low on tyres, unless it rains for all three sessions. So I am considering keeping the 15 options, but changing the 12 option to 9 - so that tyre management (and choice) becomes important. I am testing how the AI is handling it.
3. I did calculate the loyalty / finance growth wrong. Thanks for spotting it. it's been corrected. I've moved RaceManagement to be inline with this too, as it was still growing better then the other two. They now increase by about 1 per season.
   1. RaceManagement. Increases/Decreased by 10% a race, depending on your position. This means that if you have a good season, its going to increase by ~1 per season (10 races) to ~1.6 (16 races).
   2. FinanceManagement increases by 2% per week. It therefore increases by ~1 per season (52 weeks). It will go down 2% any week you are in the red.
   3. LoyalityManagement increases by 3% per week. It therefore increases by ~1.5 per season (52 weeks). It will decrease by 50% if you change teams - which is fair. By default. it goes down by 20% for any firing you commit. As the penalties are big, it is expected that the ~1.5 increase a season will pan out to be an average of 1. Let me know how it all works out.

I'll have one more look at the fanbase, but without more data I am not sure I'll find out what its doing. Otherwise, I think we are close to release.

I am getting annoyed that I'm making lots of changes, but I cannot change the 'descriptions' which are locked within graphics files. Most of the things I am changing require me to change the graphics files labled "PSG_1000XXXX" (for example, PSG_10006375 is the one which handles the description of having 12 tyres available, which I'd want to change to 9). I don't suppose anyone is working on graphics and knows how to find/edit these? I would really like my changes to also be reflected in the games text.

 

[Schortnagel]

Sounds great! Thanks!

I kept a log of my fan base last night and while I haven't got anything conclusive for you there was at least one very interesting blip.

My fan base jumped from 0.2 mln to 0.4 mln after I signed a new driver. She had 100% marketability while the guy she replaced had 74%. The change was almost immediate. I only needed to advance time by a day before the fan base updated.

Once I noticed that I also swapped my other main driver for my highly marketable reserve (24% vs 100%), but that didn't have any effect.

Quick Update: I just continued my save and the fan base dropped from 0.4 mln to 0.3 mln in between races. I reloaded the save multiple times to see if I could figure out why and it always dropped the day after my newest driver picked up a new trait.

It looks like she's scripted to get a new trait sometime that week and while the trait itself appears to be random (I've had investment portfolio, racing touringcars, feeling blue etc.) the fan base drops invariably.

Here's the complete log for last night:

Before S03 R06: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in the championship, chairman is expecting 7th, Team Marketability is at 94%, overall marketability is 71%.

After S03 R06: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in championship, finished 7th, no change to marketability.

S03 R07: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in championship, finished 8th, -0.33 marketability.

I changed driver in between these races.

S03 R08: 0.4 mln fans, 9th in championship, finished 9th, -0.67 marketability.

S03 R09: 0.4 mln fans, 9th in championship, finished 7th, no change to marketability.

 

[Beynasuh]

Hello everyone. Want to share and ask something. Shouldn't this traits opposite (as logical I mean).

If not then it must be hard to not wanting something as a driver in F1.

 

[weegeebored]

If not then it must be hard to not wanting something as a driver in F1.

Maybe Sackler's dream job is to be a mechanic. I think what we're seeing based on this thread is that the devs had a nice core game mostly intended for the mobile audience. I think that many of PC gamers want to see MM more as a serious management sim then just a fun little game. Obviously there are some logic errors that have not been corrected as there is no way those two traits can logically coexist for the same driver so assigned traits must be completely random.

However, we have wonderful modders like TheFlamingRed to help move MM closer to a great sim.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Sounds great! Thanks!

I kept a log of my fan base last night and while I haven't got anything conclusive for you there was at least one very interesting blip.

My fan base jumped from 0.2 mln to 0.4 mln after I signed a new driver. She had 100% marketability while the guy she replaced had 74%. The change was almost immediate. I only needed to advance time by a day before the fan base updated.

Once I noticed that I also swapped my other main driver for my highly marketable reserve (24% vs 100%), but that didn't have any effect.

Quick Update: I just continued my save and the fan base dropped from 0.4 mln to 0.3 mln in between races. I reloaded the save multiple times to see if I could figure out why and it always dropped the day after my newest driver picked up a new trait.

It looks like she's scripted to get a new trait sometime that week and while the trait itself appears to be random (I've had investment portfolio, racing touringcars, feeling blue etc.) the fan base drops invariably.

Here's the complete log for last night:

Before S03 R06: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in the championship, chairman is expecting 7th, Team Marketability is at 94%, overall marketability is 71%.

After S03 R06: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in championship, finished 7th, no change to marketability.

S03 R07: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in championship, finished 8th, -0.33 marketability.

I changed driver in between these races.

S03 R08: 0.4 mln fans, 9th in championship, finished 9th, -0.67 marketability.

S03 R09: 0.4 mln fans, 9th in championship, finished 7th, no change to marketability.

Ah, wells there's something I didn't realise. I thought it was just updating after each race. But now it looks like it's updating weekly, or daily, or after other events such as signing.

Which means the formula I fixed does more then what I thought, or there's a second formula doing things. Either way, it's given me a lead on what I'm looking for. Thanks.

Hello everyone. Want to share and ask something. Shouldn't this traits opposite (as logical I mean).

If not then it must be hard to not wanting something as a driver in F1.

View attachment 168400

Her dream is to just be in P3. And chokes under the pressure of being in the front 2 (I think hates chasing is only if you're in p2 and chasing the lead, as opposed to chasing anyone) If you look at it like that, it kinda makes sense. She chokes under pressure of being P1 & P2 -which is maybe why they're not set to be mutually exclusive,

Maybe Sackler's dream job is to be a mechanic. I think what we're seeing based on this thread is that the devs had a nice core game mostly intended for the mobile audience. I think that many of PC gamers want to see MM more as a serious management sim then just a fun little game. Obviously there are some logic errors that have not been corrected as there is no way those two traits can logically coexist for the same driver so assigned traits must be completely random.

However, we have wonderful modders like TheFlamingRed to help move MM closer to a great sim.

Assigned traits are partly random. But They have assigned probabilities, prerequisite conditions, mutually exclusiveness for contradicting traits, and even event trees (Secret Affair can directly lead to Affair Exposed or another trait I cannot remember).

I think we'll see a lot of these errors whic I have fixed also fixed in the game. Which means I can take the fixes out of my mod. As for the gameplay being for the causal fans, I think you're correct. But I do expect that we will be presented with ore challenges soon...

On the mobile game, there were 4 challenge mods. One where you could only use drivers from a youth program, one where sponsorship money was halved, one which gave you no setup feedback and made the differences between good and bad setup huge, and the final one had all 3.

These challenges weren't in the original release, and instead added later. I assume MM will be doing the same thing, providing difficulty through challenges which effect player only, not unlike how I have made Tech Decay, or given the AI cost reductions.

One day, this mod maybe completely redundant

 

[Beynasuh]

Here is some feedback for Fan Base



Note: Before the last race I got a Dilemma. Tried all choices but Fan Base didn't changed. Maybe because had already 100% Team Marketability (not Overall Marketability). In the end choose middle response.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Fanbase:

This is:

• Updated Daily
• Based on "Expected Race Position" of the "Team" - Championship Position of the Team
• Based on Expected Race Position of a Driver - RacePosition for the Driver
• Based on Expected Race Position of second Driver - RacePosition for the second Driver
• So If you're expected to be 5th in the constructors but are actually 2nd, it goes "5-2=3" and that Positive 3 is used to increase your fanbase per day.

for (int i = 0; i < championshipEntry.races; i++)
{
int num3 = championshipEntry.GetExpectedRacePositionForEvent(i) - championshipEntry.GetChampionshipPositionForEvent(i);
num += (float)num3 / 10f * this.marketability;
if (championshipEntry2 == null || championshipEntry3 == null)
{
flag = false;
}
else
{
int num4 = championshipEntry2.GetExpectedRacePositionForEvent(i) - championshipEntry2.GetRacePositionForEvent(i);
int num5 = championshipEntry3.GetExpectedRacePositionForEvent(i) - championshipEntry3.GetRacePositionForEvent(i);
num2 += (float)num4 * this.GetDriver(0).GetDriverStats().marketability / 5f + (float)num5 * this.GetDriver(1).GetDriverStats().marketability / 5f;
}
}
if (championshipEntry.races > 0)
{
num /= (float)championshipEntry.races;
if (flag)
{
num2 /= (float)championshipEntry.races;
}
}
float num6;
if (flag)
{
num6 = num2 + num;
}
else
{
num6 = num;
}
this.fanBase = Mathf.Clamp(this.initialTotalFanBase + this.initialTotalFanBase * num6 * (this.marketability / 5f), 0.1f, 500f);
}
}


So: So long as your team is in a better position then expected, and your drivers are in better positions than expected, this makes num3, num4 and num5 positive. (if any of these are worse, then they become negative). And so long as theyre positive the fanbase should be going up (and the rate of increase should be reflecting marketability, and how high or low your your drivers / team are from their expected position. .

But some of you are reporting it does not. Which makes me wonder which section isn't working.

A Potential Avenues is: "GetExpectedRacePositionForEvent(i)" is used for both the Team and the Drivers... But obviously, if the Team is expected to be 5th, then the drivers are meant to be 9th and 10th. But if its being read wrong, and suggesting that bthe team should be 5th, and so should both drivers... it could lead to your fanbase going down - despite your drivers doing well. .

So: I need Championship positions of your teams/drivers (and expected finishes) too.

Before S03 R06: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in the championship, chairman is expecting 7th, Team Marketability is at 94%, overall marketability is 71%.

After S03 R06: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in championship, finished 7th, no change to marketability.

S03 R07: 0.2 mln fans, 8th in championship, finished 8th, -0.33 marketability.

I changed driver in between these races.

S03 R08: 0.4 mln fans, 9th in championship, finished 9th, -0.67 marketability.

S03 R09: 0.4 mln fans, 9th in championship, finished 7th, no change to marketability.

It makes sense that you are losing fans. If you're expected to be finishing 7th, but your 8th/9th - then your fanbase should be decreasing.

Here is some feedback for Fan Base

View attachment 168435

Note: Before the last race I got a Dilemma. Tried all choices but Fan Base didn't changed. Maybe because had already 100% Team Marketability (not Overall Marketability). In the end choose middle response.

View attachment 168436

Yours isn't moving so its hard to say. This could be because its going up a tiny amount daily (maybe 100), and hasn't broken the 100,000 lower cap yet. You maybe standing on 140,000 but it would still report 0.1 million.But even then I would have expected some increase.

Whats your Car, and Driver championship standings (alongside the expected positions for all)

 

[Beynasuh]

The Statistics are from 4th Season. So at the end (after last race before getting prize money) it was like this



Expected Positons after last race was 5th for Driver 1 / 11th for Driver 2 and 4th for Team is thats what you mean.

Also I have been choosen MotS and Driver 2 was choosen DotS.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

The Statistics are from 4th Season. So at the end (after last race before getting prize money) it was like this

View attachment 168443 View attachment 168444

Expected Positons after last race was 5th for Driver 1 / 11th for Driver 2 and 4th for Team is thats what you mean.

How have you determined the Expected Positions?

If your Team's expected position is 4th, then your expected driver positions should be 7th and 8th.

Finishing 3rd as a team suggests you get a small fanbase increase from that section of the code.
Finishing 7th with one driver means that that section of fanbase should be the same.
Finishing 13th with the other driver means that that section of the code is decreasing the fanbase.

Therefore, I expect this is why you're not seeing an increase.

 

[Beynasuh]

Isn't Team expectations chosen by the start of the season? Where you been asked by your chairmen. If so then I choose 4th.

As for drivers: it's says here 5th position

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Isn't Team expectations chosen by the start of the season? Where you been asked by your chairmen. If so then I choose 4th.

As for drivers: it's says here 5th position
View attachment 168445

Wow.... I never ever noticed that Expected Position was there! That changes things, I don't know if they're using that value or the logical one tied with team position.

I wonder if the interviews use that value too.

 

[Beynasuh]

Always thought that's what the game uses for expectations for the drivers. Make more sense this way. I mean it should go up or down with the car getting better or worse and not stand still for the whole season.

 

[TheFlamingRed]

Always thought that's what the game uses for expectations for the drivers. Make more sense this way. I mean it should go up or down with the car getting better or worse and not stand still for the whole season.

It might well do. I thought it was a "start of the season" expectations for the drivers. I had no idea it altered as that Expected to finish position is extremely well hidden. It only appears there in that tooltip, in the smallest and greyest text. Its an important stat which is practically hidden!

I estimate at least 50% of users never noticed it was there.

 

[Beynasuh]

It's also on the starting page after sponsor choice.

Quick Edit: If you switch drivers between cars or change parts then it changes too. Try it.