.. _value-indexes:

A Discussion on Value Indexes
=============================

A value index is a number that attempts to capture the value of an athlete.
Of course, a lot depends on the purpose of the evaluation, since athletes
may be important for different reasons: one may be badly needed to be
competitive, or be a good prospect for heavy training and later selling, or
be a over-50 recordman. Indexes here are mostly performance oriented.

Three indexes derive from an old idea of mine, after some discussion on the
MT forums. They use the importance of a stat/skill (such as Form or
Strengh) as stated by the guide. It ranges from - (zero) to ++++ (four)
[#]_. The indexes attempt to give a meaning to those ++++. So they are a
linear combination of stats/skills and weights derived from the ++++.

Here are the value indexes currently computed by GoMaxi!:

Base Value Index (BVI) (Italian: SVB):
   computed excluding specialty skills. It applies to any athlete,
   even if not specialized yet. Please note that the :ref:`gomaxi-ff`
   has a slighlty different definition of BVI.

General Value Index (GVI) (Italian: SVG):
   computed including specialty skills.

Current Value Index (CVI) (Italian: SVA):
   computed including varying stats, such as Mood and Form. This a
   performance index. It tells you how good an athlete is supposed to perform,
   at the moment.  BVI and GVI do not depend on either Form or Mood, thus are
   more general indexes about the value of an athlete.

Test Average (AVG):
   based on the average performance in weekly tests. It is computed as a
   percentage: take the average performance, compute the race points according
   to MT formulas, and compute the ratio with the average points of the best
   ten performances in the same race in a chosen event.

BVI, GVI, CVI are quite imprecise. I've changed them to take into account
that ++++ may mean different values for different races. Also, when you use
them to choose which race is the best for an athlete, it happens that some
races are harder than others, and a lower value doesn't necessarily mean
that the athlete is weaker in that race. Overall, these indexes are useful,
but not that precise. Recently I started changing the formulas, but the
work is largely incomplete. BVI and GVI are currently barely usable.
Personally I use only AVG.

The reference event used for AVG it must be one with all the 44 races.
For now, it's fixed in the source (although it's one line change only,
look for variable REF_MAN_ID in gui.py) but I plan to make it
user-configurable sooner or later. The reference competition is
currenly set at the Italian National Championship for season 14. 

Footnotes
---------

.. [#] This has changed recenly. Now it ranges from -(zero) to +++++(five),
   but I haven't changed the formulas, yet.