Hey all,
Out of all available power-ups, I think we can agree that the Ghost power-up is the most useless power-up there is. In theory it is a good one to promote attacks, but the duration massively limits its impact (10s).
Simply prolonging the power-up time, for example by doubling the duration time, might result in making it too easy for breakaways to form. For example in a smaller race if one rider has a Ghost power-up and uses it, he/she could get away with only a small acceleration. In a large field, 20s won’t also be enough for the Ghost power-up to be useful.
I would like to see more use cases for the Ghost power-up. Therefore, I propose to tie the duration of the Ghost power-up to the effort that is being put in while the power-up is active. For example: you activate the Ghost, and while pushing out watts above a certain threshold, the timer is paused. This threshold could be tied to producing orange numbers (which are needed if you want to attack). An absolute limit could still be set on the duration to limit its impact in the high-end races, as you can imagine that the strongest riders could produce orange numbers for multiple minutes. However, most riders can not produce orange numbers for longer than 45-60 seconds (think of a Leg Snapper climb) and allowing people to use the Ghost for this period could see some fun race dynamics. The rider who attacked might have a 10-20s gap after producing orange numbers for 45-60seconds, while the pack is fresh and might be able to close the gap quickly if the rider went too hard.
What do you think about this improvement of the Ghost power-up and do you have any other suggestions to make the Ghost power-up more useful?
Cheers,
Mick