Forum topic: Driver Salaries

But of course, signing new staff kills the team synergy, especially as you try to figure out who's good and who's not...

Did Frank change it so that putting juniors into position no longer impacts team synergy? I remember seeing that somewhere (although it should have been that way originally?).

I'm free to make any changes I like at the moment as my synergy can't get any worse

#7 by Tim Watts
This would mean it would be an exact science on what to expect and more experience and success means more to pay.
You could also do a similar thing with main staff and jnr staff.

It's a good idea, but I kind of feel that it is too much of a science. What to do then with the different personalities of the persons, how does it impact how much extra is added to their expectations, etc.
Right now half the market value makes up the expected salary, and the other half is purely the market value of similarly ranked persons. It is like this because I like the free market, but with some regulations (the market value). If people start offering less and if they don't negotiate with persons when their power position is rocket high, then persons will have to start accepting lower offers.
I think a big part of the "oh my god this person is asking for XXXXXXX,-" comes from the fact that it's not clear to people (my fault, that'll be adjusted soon) that it's not because the person is open for negotiations that (s)he will want to sign anything. If their power position is high enough, they will only and only be tempted by ridiculous high offers. I will be making some adjustments today to how fast they're willing to negotiate (as it's a bit too much now, signing a contract for season 8 when season 5 is still running is too much). And I will also make it more clear what the expected range of the person is in my "a more transparent Pitwall"-'reforms'.

#8 by Tim Watts
It could really reopen up the old finding a random driver who has great stats and getting him for a reasonable bargain.
You can then bask in your own glory of knowing you found a real gem but know the next negotiation he will know he is worth more and ask for more due to his success.

As much as that's possible in football, or other very accessible sports, I do feel that this would be very unrealistic in the current world of F1. It never happens that a team goes like "oh hey look, we found a guy in a bush in Siberia and he's amazing". The only one that gets close to that would be Kimi Raikkonen who started relatively unknown with very few experience. They did get him for cheap then probably, but that was over after 1 season if I remember correctly.
Everyone knows who's the next coming big shot nowadays, and thus I don't feel it should be possible to do this.

#12 by James Ford
Did Frank change it so that putting juniors into position no longer impacts team synergy? I remember seeing that somewhere (although it should have been that way originally?).

It was always supposed to be like this. I know I made some fixes in the area, but I don't think it was related to this. Only the main drivers and the head staff cause the synergy to drop.

#13 by Frank Van Laere
I will be making some adjustments today to how fast they're willing to negotiate (as it's a bit too much now, signing a contract for season 8 when season 5 is still running is too much). And I will also make it more clear what the expected range of the person is in my "a more transparent Pitwall"-'reforms'.

Agree with that. I have also found that the power position doesn't really drop until the last 4-5 weeks of the contract. Surely it should start to drop slowly from the start of the last season as that person knows they have to perform that season to get a new contract and are perhaps more willing to take less in a deal to secure their future. At the moment I think it is too late towards the end and it isn't low enough during that period. It will usually drop big once the contract has ended.

Thanks for replying Frank.
Sounds more than fair enough.

Frank it might also be worth looking at the reaction and how values behave after an offer is made.

I can't understand how offering a staff member a wage they are happy with, but not the bonus is totally messed up when you then up the bonus and suddenly the wage is no good.

The stepping tier of things follows no pattern and does seem to make offers get exponentially higher.

ie, I had a guy happy with a 65k wage and bonuses needing to be increased. Increased the bonuses, then he wasn't happy with the wage. Upped the wage, then the bonuses were not sufficient. This went on and on until he wage doubled from what he was happy with. I gave up.

This makes no sense and is probably assisting with randomly inflated wages, is it not?

It's also weird when your offer is 'a good offer' yet if you add another 10k whilst happy, they are suddenly not happy.

By adding 10k, he refused all further offers until nearly everything else went up by near on 100k.

That follows no logic!

The first problem I see with contracts is you only get feedback on your offer, so you have to decide completely what amounts to initially set. And this I think is where half the problem lies. People start playing the game and immediately look at F1 and think that drivers and staff need to be paid in the millions per week, when it simply isn't possible to run a team in pitwall doing that, we don't make enough money.

That means that these overpaid drivers and staff push the average wage WAY too high to begin with, and everyone else in the game feels the impact, because now since their drivers aren't making absurd money, they are annoyed and want new deals and stupidly inflated levels.

If a driver/staff member wants a new deal, it would be great if they put their own terms on paper for you. These of course wouldn't be the lowest they'd sign for, but a slightly inflated deal in their favour, but it would let us all know a) just how greedy these people are and b) just how silly some of our competitors are because they are paying these demands.

Second major problem I see with the way these contracts increase because of the average, is that the average they are happy with at hour X won't be the amount they are happy with at hour X+1 because Jo Bloggs just signed an inflated deal, pushing the average another y pitwall dollars higher.

With every single contract signed, that average inflates more and more. And coupled with that, we as teams DON'T make any extra income, as sponsors aren't going to increase their payments season after season. If you get a great Section 5 sponsor now, you might make 4mil a week, but in 15 seasons you'll still only be able to get 4 mil, but because the game has been going 10 more seasons, and contracts keep going up and up, no one's going to be able to pay those sorts of wages anymore.

It's going to lead to a lot of frustrated players, and many of those will simply just stop playing.

I know I play devil's advocate a lot, and always seem to be pointing out problems, but someone has to right?

I raised this issue many seasons ago. We are causing the driver price war because a variable is used against other salaries, is it not?

If we all paid 1m salaries, even the shittest driver will probably have his demand expectations raised.

This is silly.

In a game without inflation, the average wage should not rise, something needs to change...

Great point!!!!!!!!!!!