Forum topic: What do you like about Pitwall the most?

The title says it all really.

In order to be able to exploit the strengths of the game and work on the weaknesses, it is best to know what is the best part of the game to push it more to users, including in the beginner's guide and all around.

So the question is, What do you like about Pitwall the most?

Cool idea for a post! For me i like the story it creates. It's a complex enough model that you're not the exact same speed every week and watching that play out over a season to create a story of fighting for survival at the back end of the grid, or a close title fight is really fun. This is my second season in division 2.2 and it's brutally close but watching it unfold has been really interesting.

Strengths:
- Realism (but there is a risk that focusing too much on this could upset the balance of game mechanics and competitiveness between players).

- Roleplaying and the ability to create potential rivalry between teams (fake or real) using press releases. At least one press release per week should be free to encourage engagement.

- Huge unexpressed potential: The game has the basis to be deeper and more complex in a positive way, but unfortunately, the current state is like a beta version of what the game could be. For example, I would like to see a more complex tyre behaviour with more variables involved to increase strategic variability, as well as the ability to hire and manage a larger workforce to perform certain tasks, and to micromanage and optimise things, and so on.

- No time-consuming for casual gamers: 30 minutes per week is enough to play, but if you want to succeed, you have to put in the effort to test and understand the game.


Weaknesses:
- I love following live races, but players who participate in live races have an advantage over offline players, which could discourage new players from staying.
Maybe a solution where players can make some decisions before the race would be more interesting for many people, with options such as "If X happens during the race, do Y".

I am returning to the game for about the 4th or 5th time (I played Pitwall 1.0), because I think there is a fundamentally enjoyable game here - the things that get so frustrating and make me move away is that some things just feel really unfinished in parts and saturated.

I would honestly like a few of the key featured just polished up to be the best they can be, rather than good enough.

For example - going through the starting process again, the sheer volume of staff and drivers is crazy, the length of time to reveal potential is far too long and the ratings are just broken - I looked at a member of staff that had a rating higher than their potential.

If I took a punt on a young driver and gave them a couple of significant lap tests, i should know what I have on my hands. It should not take seasons to get a definitive read on someone's talent and ability. I am happy for that information to be broadly known to other teams too - in theory they have TV's and You Tube they can watch right?

Strengths
Complexity - I like the different components - suppliers, contracts, research testing, analysis etc
Difficulty - I like that 2 weeks of gameplay does not equal a Division 1 challenger, you have to persist, evolve etc.
Community - Community is key - but it is a lot smaller now....

Areas to Sharpen

Staff
If a driver or member of staff has not had an offer in 2 seasons, remove them fromt he game - the staff screen is full of names of awful staff and drivers - in real life they would consider a new career!

We need staff to retire - so many incredibly old staff - they should be retiring within a certain age window - again to help clear out the rubbish.

Every season - those leaving as above, should have an equivalent number of new gens

Cap the total number of staff so the lists are not endless. Adjust if the play base increases.


Scouting

Allow a trial option to run a young driver in your test sessions?

Reveal potential and ability level far quicker


Competition

Division 3 is dead, but still could be revelant - from next season if possible, at LEAST halve the number of divisions

Divisions 1 (4 down)

Division 2 x 2 (2 up, 4 down per division)

Division 3 x 8 (Champions to Division 2)

The key for this is it is people that make that game thrive, wasting 13 weeks on my own in a division simply completing races to collect prize money is so dull.


That is it for now - 3 key feature polishes that could make a really big difference - no 20 point plan. Everything is here, it just needs polishing.

Just a quick check this morning - there are 39 and a half pages of available staff aged between 85 and 89....

welcome back Phil. nice suggestions from you.

just 1 point about rating reveal and maximum potential reveal, where i disagree: now that you have only 5 spots for your staff members, you can't have enough scouts to see people's ratings. this will be completely different and not a problem when you will have your facilities upgraded. in fact when you will have 3-4-5 scouts you will see every staff and drivers very easily, you just need to wait few seasons, so it's not a real issue imho.

the issue is that upgrading facilities takes too long, time needed should be halved at least.
if you don't have patient to wait, you can take over an existing team with already better facilities.

btw i don't like that the potential is completely revealed, it should be hided at least until a driver or a staff member is on a main role for a couple seasons.

in the way on how it is now, it's only a matter of time to have a lot of drivers with 90+ rating and that will flatten the manager role of the players, plus is not realistic to have 10 verstappen in the same generation lol

oh another thing: i agree about clear out the rubbish people on the market, but i don't like the newgen people added by the system. teams have the academy system and i like to see a market driven by players who generate new people overtime, deciding the role and 1 people max per week, like it is now

Welcome back Phil. I'm also a returner - although I hadn't meaningfully returned since 1.0.

Agreed with your whole post - and well summarised. Strongly agree on your areas to sharpen - the fact that someone could be in Div2 and competing against a recently relegated Div1 team after only 6 weeks, with 5 staff of uncertain ratings is very disheartening. Pieter from Div2.2 this year was very engaged, understood everything but appears to have dropped off due to being guaranteed a relegation (even though 2.3 is empty!). Meaningful competition and deserved promotion from Div3 would be much better. I think when I started in 1.0 I was in a Division 4!

The lack of scouting ability initially (given only 5 staff slots) is the biggest issue for me. I don't have an opinion whether full potential should be revealed, but if I wanted to hire someone (driver/staff member etc) in real-life then they would have to demonstrate some level of ability through a test or competency-based interview. This doesn't happen when you have 0 scouting ability at the start. And this causes a bigger issue with player retention - in order achieve buy-in from new players you really need assurance that you're on the right path and when all stats are invisible or your bet on a Designer actually proves entirely wrong it's very easy to become disillusioned and give up.

I know we have spoken about fan income, redesigning Development etc, but for me - increasing the number of players staying around for a week or more is absolutely vital to increasing the health of the game.

Strongly agree with Matteo that taking over a competent team is a much quicker way to enjoying the game - but that begs the question why isn't this (i.e. making it fun) the default...

Thanks guys - I agree with your point about revealing maximum potential too soon - but a relative guide as Dan put, that you have some idea that you are on the right path, would be ace.

Staff ability could have a determining factor - average staff could get a good idea, but the best staff will see their true upper potential?

Thinking out loud, perhaps that might be an idea? An average staff member can see potential to a point, but the best ones unlock the upper limits?

I had forgotten about the Academy draft system, which i quite like. If there was something hard coded in the background that limits how many of a particular employee type, could avoid the 10 Verstappens problem. I.e. there can only be, for example - 40 drivers with a potential ability of between 90 and 100 - or as many as realistic to populate both senior and junior categories. Perhaps 2 per age range? 2 x 3 year olds, 2 x 4 year olds etc

Some realistic retirment ages, clean out the dead wood and then have the Academy pull system naturally refresh the database - when a new gen gets drafted a random old one (dedigner for designer or mechanic for mechanic) gets removed from the game based upon set criteria (Not worked for 2 seasons / age / low potential ability etc).

Just to throw my opinions in on this quick;

-I have no strong opinions about the quantity of staff, or their ages. Is it silly? Sure, but i also find it kind of funny to think about a bunch of pensioners running my whole teams except for the drivers. I also think too many staff is far preferable to too few, unless it's affecting the games performance.

-I kinda disagree on the scouting opinions mostly, if it was made any easier i think it would kind of completely destroy the scouting feature of the game, the scouts and scouting points would also mostly be pointless. It does kind of suck as a new player not really knowing, but you can hire people on short contracts and start to replace them season by season as you find new ones. I think the reputation rating is hardly perfect, but good enough to (mostly) find staff who aren't the worst.

-I fully agree on the idea to restructure divisions. I would personally have;
1x Division 1 (With only 2 relegations now)
2x Division 2s (1 promotion each and 2 relegations)
4x Division 3s (also 1 promotion and 2 relegations each
8x Division 4s (1 promotion each).
(But honestly any restructuring i would support, even something crazy like halve the number of division 3s and double the number of teams would work)

Like Dan said, we had a new player in 2.2 this season and they were a full 1.5-2s a lap off the pace, never stood a chance against the 8 existing teams we have here. A season in division 3 against some bots and the few others who'd been relegated from the 2 division 2s, and unlikely to be dropping back down to division 4 and i feel like there's more chance he would have stayed. I also think smaller numbers of promotions/relegations would cause each individual division to be a bit more of a "community", getting to know the people there etc, rather than nearly half leaving each season.



Just to finish positive, i feel like the last 3/4 seasons of 2.2 have been exactly why i like this game. I've had close races, fought to avoid relegation, my first points, podium and even a surprise win (I accept no allegation i sabotaged RSA's cars ). I've had great fun chatting to those here and am a little sad at the end of each season to see someone (or more than 1) leave. I enjoy theorizing about race strategies and seeing them play out on a sunday.