First of all, delete the current goals system and leader system. As regards the gameplay, they should improve cobble stages, they always finish with a sprint.
Secondly bring back the former scout zone system, the possibility to see potential of our cyclists in career (with stars like the former system and an option to accept to see or not to see) so they should make more options (possibility to see the stars of progression in each stats, choose the speed of progression with a coefficient like PCM 07-8-09....,),
Third : separate regen riders and real riders in custom team mode like the former PCM....
I'am a bit nostalgic that explains why I would like to see the come back of the former options with stars progression, scouting zone and the regen list separated
Edited by TLovfkvist on 05-09-2016 18:27
Thought about this a bit more and decided to give some more suggestions
Career/Gameplay:
Gave this some more thought, perhaps the daily form can have a higher effect on lower stats e.g a +5 day for a 60 TT rider might result in +7 TT but for an 80 TT rider only +2, max +3, since it seems there's a greater different in lower stats, it would mean we won't get weird winners too often but can still get overperformances from weak riders - could be the same for other stats too.
Also, how about a larger database of free riders (real riders or just fake ones generated at the start of the season with low (continental domestique or worse standard) stats, these riders could be used for two things 1. Starting a custom team, often I want the team to only contain riders of one nation, which is ok for major cycling countries, but when I want to play with other countries I often can't fill a whole team and have to sign riders from other nations, which loses a bit of realism value in playing, but if there was just a database of free agents I could keep that realism without having to add riders to the game. 2. National Championships wouldn't be plagued with the small pelotons issue, if you add 20-30 riders to the game of countries where the national championships don't work well, they would work much better, even if those riders aren't very good and don't stand much chance at winning (an alternative would be to fix the AI for small pelotons).
Solo
- A possibility to create a fictional stage race selecting stages from different races
- A possibility to ensure the game selects the best possible squad for all teams in a race - or that the game selects squads of a quality that you will have a great battle for the win with the best riders being of a similar quality as your leader
- Make a possibility to start the stage from a later point in the stage - so it is faster to complete a stage
Career
- I would love to see a light-version of career similar to light-version of career mode that has Football Manager. A mode where it is easier to plan, easier to simulate races, easier to get through the more boring parts of the game through the actual racing, but still keep a transfer session after the season, have a small bit of training and so on. I have way less time for actual playing nowdays, so I would really enjoy a mode where I could skip in a few minutes right into the the final kms of stages in Australia, Qatar, crucial moments of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and so on. Or if I want - then fastly simulate the season right into Giro/Tour/Vuelta or classics and then repeat in the next season so I can actually get my career some day to breaking records or only playing my favourite races in my career. Both through the interface and 3D. Majority of stages really could be played only from the second part of the race - similarly like when you watch races in TV - jump right into the action.
- Start season planning for the next season in December so you actually can get some riders into decent form in January - so it is not random results in Tour Down Under
Pro Cyclist
- I would try to copy achievment and skill points system from My Player of NBA 2K franchise and partially from FIFA franchise Online Pro as well. The mode should be way more about what you actually do in races and your skills. It should also be way easier to skip races and plan your season. The dream is to make a fast career of a rider to try to break records in TdF or classics.
Multiplayer and Ladder
- Bring back Track on the Road. It was such a great fun playing that online (PCM09?) a few years ago. Likely the best ever expierience I had while playing PCM. Probably more suited to semi-realistic cyclocross or MTB racing on 1/10 scale. Would be such a great addition and probably the reason why I would immediately buy the game.
- Online version of races. Online to be more successful really need to be less-time consuming to actually start playing. It needs to be easy to jump into a race and then the race needs to have a lenght of max 20 minutes. Why race 260km long Roubaix or Flanders when all the important stuff happens in the last 100km.
- The main part should be running majority of online races with a ladder DB. Use 22 pre-set teams in that DB and you can list all these teams by a priority system from the most likeable to the least - so you then automatically get one of teams. Then 30 seconds when you can select your team and the the loading part starts.
- The priority should be to keep it fast and fun. Only a few options for a profile of race to be run are needed: one-day race, small tour or a 'omnium tour'. One-day race = biggest classics or best stage from the year could be selected, these online versions of these classics should be re-created to suit online racing - short distance, fun to play, possibility for more ways to win. Small tours should be 3-day stage races - something like Ardennes stage race, cobble race, mini-mountain race or a race like Criterium International could be great options to play - if it would take under an hour to complete the race. And omnium tours should be either funnier online versions of races like Eneco, Qatar, Dauphine or mini-GTs wth 6 to 7 stages that could be completed in less than 2 hours. If online ever can have some mass-playing success it needs to be bigger action than right now, even if it would be less realistic.
- Instead of Armada, I think Cyanide could make a way bigger deal with copying NBA 2K's My Player. Micro-transactions into your own rider would be possible, you could buy better domestiques for your own rider. And it could be fun to use your rider from offline My Rider career in online against other players.
Gameplay
- A possibility to have more than 25 teams in a race. It would be amazing to have an option to play realistic World Championships.
- If an AI team has two/more sprinters in a team, allow all of them to participate in a sprint.
- Ensure that AI just won't give up racing in classics. It is so bad that especially in small-fielded Nat-Champs the AI just lets a few attackers to win the race.
- 50 to 99 attribute range. It both looks much better - FIFA/2K discussions if a player should be 99/90+ OVL are great for the hype of the game. And it would also allow to create a bigger difference between riders. It is just weird that 75 climber is a domestique, while 80 climber is a GT contender. The range should be bigger to allow to make a bigger differences between riders, so we can actually have more unique riders between riders.
- new attributes: consistency, determination, leadership, pace, agility
Consistency - would affect daily form - the higher the attribute is, the bigger chance for a good day, the lower it is, the bigger chance for a bad day
Determination - would affect how the rider performs when something bad happens to him - a crash, puncture, an injury, if he has bad form, if somebody drops him - the fighter attribute could change into the probability of an attack of that rider
Leadership - would affect other riders in your team - would affect how good the rider is to protect a team-mate, it could also have an affect on how organized is your team when team-chasing the breakaway and how good a rider can position himself in the group
Pace - would affect how good is a rider to keep his own pace - acceleration attribute then would only affect how fast is a rider when attacking
Agility - affect how good is the bike handling of the rider - the lower it is, the higher is the chance the rider will fall/injure and would determine how good is the rider when moving through the peloton and would affect how good is the rider when positioning for the sprint position
Track
- As one-hour record race is quite popular again, it may be fun to bring it to the game as well. Maybe something like one or five minutes runs may be more popular for a game like PCM though. Or at least time-trial to complete realistic omnium race.
- Bring back Track on the Road. It was such a great fun playing that online a few years ago. Likely the best ever expierience I had while playing PCM. Something like semi-realistic MTB/Cyclocross/Criterium on 1/10 scale with PCM-Track engine would be amazing.
Others
- A possibility to auto-complate a stage in the stage editor. It would be amazing to have an option to just load a gpx file in stage editor, then create the actual route of the race and then leave the rest of the stage to auto-complete. I always hated to create all the other roads, towns, fields, rivers, forests and so on for the stage - actually I would not care if my created stage would not look similar at all in comparison to reality with the exception of the actual profile of the stage. But the stage would look then much better than nothing at all if I would want to just to create a stage around my house I ride on my bike.
- For PCM08 Cyanide made available a download of a save after stage 19 of Giro with realistic time-gaps that were present in the race and rider form realistically set as well. I would love to see a possibility to easily create a save like that for fans - or at least a few saves per version from Cyanide. It would great to try to win that Giro against Contador as Ricco's Saunier Duval. This would bring us a possibility to re-create historic challenges for a re-play or even some fictional challenges.
Explanation: Far greater rider interaction through communication (personal, via media, via scouting, ...), unhappiness (not riding favorite/popular races, not being leader in a race), future transfers (express interest, media, manager, sponsors, impact on upcoming races), liking/disliking other riders. Basically, look at FM as a benchmark.
Why: Realism and better career experience. For a management game it's crazy that you can't interact with riders more in depth.
Explanation: With this years mountain/hill system the hill stat matters way to much on 2-8 km clibs. Riders with a high hill stat overperform in these stages with the current system. Basically I like the idea of the new system but I think it has to be modified. When it comes to clibs that are longer than 2 km the mountain stat should be much more important than the hill stat especially on steep climbs.
Why: I don't want to see Gilbert beating Bardet on a steep 3,5 km climb in the game.
Edited by LuckyLukas on 05-09-2016 13:01
^ Really what most people noticed is that the hill stat is a lot more irrelevant than how it used to be, while the mountain stat even counts in a lot shorter climbs.
matt17br wrote:
^ Really what most people noticed is that the hill stat is a lot more irrelevant than how it used to be, while the mountain stat even counts in a lot shorter climbs.
I was a bit unprecise there. I agree that the mountain stat is to relevant in the hilly classics where you have dozens of small shorter clibs. But on stages that are mostly flat with a final 2-8 km climb the classic specialists that don't have a good mountain stat perform to good. I think the new system is not really working realisticly yet.
Edited by LuckyLukas on 05-09-2016 20:24
Career/Be a pro:
More interaction between riders and staff. Maybe try and create a few events, like if you don't let a rider ride his objective, he becomes angry with you and if you don't handle him directly, he refuses to resign with the team. Or you can extend the "X is angry at being Team Mate" and create a conflict like that. Perhaps open up some more choice-based interactivity in recruiting young riders, like giving them promises.
Narrative story-telling exists in basically every other sports video game, it's about time that some of that comes to PCM. I don't think they need to focus on creating an entire narrative, like NBA 2k, but something to bring some more immersion to the game would be great. It could be as easy as making a few pop-up events like Paradox games do.
Give some way to filter when selection a jersey for Custom team. When using a DB, like the amazing Daily EP, that has added litterally hundreds if not thousands of new jerseys it is nigh on impossible to look through them!
Allow us to filter by Sponsor Nationality and/or Level (Regional, National, International, Mythique). Or allow us to view a List. Or quick skip to a letter of the alphabet. Just some way so that we don't have to click through every single damn jersey one by bloody one.
My god it would be a pretty damn small change, but it would make starting a Custom Team career roughly 100000000x easier and quicker. And that's probably and low end estimate.
More Nationalities
Believe it or not there are pro cyclists from almost every country in the world. And if not, as for Be-A-Pro i should be able to come from any nation on earth. Could it be that hard to raise the limit on Nationalities so that we could be who we really want to be!
More Regions
To go along with more nationalities, give more countries specific regions. The USA, for example, is massive and different regions will lend themselves to differeing types of rider. Plus it would just be good from a role-play aspect in Be-A-Pro.
Generate Riders for ALL Nationalities
This used to happen. You'd start a career and the game would generate a number of regens for EVERY nation. Bring this back!
Added to this every year it can add more per country. I'm sure they could code so it could generate for your teams nation if you have gone obscure. But at least make it possible to play as any nation you're offering me.
Be-A-Pro
Season Long Planning
In Team Career you plan your riders entire season of training and goals. This makes sense as you get the scale of the season and can make sure they are fresh and in form when they need to be for their races and goals. So why oh why in Be-A-Pro can it only be done in 4-week stretches?
Let us plan our fitness peaks for an entire season at once like in team career. It would just make it so much easier and more fun than having to, quite litteraly, get pen and paper and write it all down so i can reference to it as i advance the game week by week. I have to update that 52 times a year! That's 51 more times that in Team Career, and i'm only dealing with 1 rider!
Better XP System
Quite frankly this one is shocking. It's so random and has no real relation to your efforts and results. If i ride 200km solo i expect to gain some damned experience. If i lead-out a team-mate to win in a sprint i want some reward. The current system offers nothing to a role player.
And actally link it to your stat gains, like in any other damn sports game. If i earn XP i want to spend it where i want so i can actually make my rider into MY rider and not one of a few presets with no flexibility.
Specialization Diversity
Sprinter, Puncher, Stage Racer etc are fine. But there's no flexibility in them. Riders in the modern era are becoming every more rounded and flexible. Look at Sagan, Yates, Degenkolb, Dumoulin, Cummings, Stybar and on and on i could go.
Let me be a "Punchy Sprinter", the FL might be lower but it comes with higher HL. "Classics Sprinter" like a Boonen so i could race Cobbles and Sprints. Give me some variety PLEASE because it's so horribly limited and really very unrealistic.
This is where an improved XP system could work, allowing me to customise my progression as i want.
____________
Basically, as i say too often, make Football Manager but with cycling. Honestly at this point Cyanide really should strip right back to basics and start over. Or call it Pro Cycling Racer and go full on in with the 3D racing mode and online.
I am so thoroughly dissapointed in PCM16 i can't quite believe it. Every year i put less and less hours into PCM. 150 into PCM13, 113 into PCM14, 47 into PCM15, and PCM16 is most likely gonna stop at 93minutes. Because i'd rather play ANY other sports or management game over this let down. QWOP is a goddamn better game!
This used to happen. You'd start a career and the game would generate a number of regens for EVERY nation. Bring this back!
Added to this every year it can add more per country. I'm sure they could code so it could generate for your teams nation if you have gone obscure. But at least make it possible to play as any nation you're offering me.
You can change this actually in sta_region gene_i_weight
This used to happen. You'd start a career and the game would generate a number of regens for EVERY nation. Bring this back!
Added to this every year it can add more per country. I'm sure they could code so it could generate for your teams nation if you have gone obscure. But at least make it possible to play as any nation you're offering me.
You can change this actually in sta_region gene_i_weight
Or Cyanide can do it for me, cause it's not like it's there job to make a good game or anything
This used to happen. You'd start a career and the game would generate a number of regens for EVERY nation. Bring this back!
Added to this every year it can add more per country. I'm sure they could code so it could generate for your teams nation if you have gone obscure. But at least make it possible to play as any nation you're offering me.
You can change this actually in sta_region gene_i_weight
Or Cyanide can do it for me, cause it's not like it's there job to make a good game or anything
Of course they can, I was just pointing it out in case you were very fussed about it
GAMEPLAY Tactics planner
Currently, the tactics planner is limited to giving each rider a role (GC leader, sprinter, free element, domestique...) and appointing helpers to each leader.
I would really love an advanced tactics planner that shows you crucial points (climbs, cobbled sections, crosswind sections etc.) on the map and profile and let you give orders in advance, before the race.
For example, giving two domestiques the order to try and get in the early breakaway, giving a rider the order to attack on e.g. the Taaienberg, give several riders the order to pace on a crosswind section etc.
In-game, you would be able to adjust these tactics according to the situation or you could still give orders manually, the same way the game works now.
Edited by MartijnVDD on 08-09-2016 14:48
Well, I'd like to make this short but it won't be easy but read through and believe me.
I've seen here great advice but i'm adding some that I don't think that have been seen but oh well just opinions. General racing: I think it would be great seeing in the grand tours the possibility of having men from outside or even in the top 10 trying to enter breaks(a bit like Aragon Formigal this year) Having also men fighting for GC trying risky attacks or deploying strategies like attacking soon to join breackaway teammates or trying to blow up the race right in the begining. The possibility of having crosswind attacks by specialist teams and even leaders(as we say froome in the TDF).
Gameplay One thing that probably everybody can agree with me, is not having the possibility to make good "sprint" trains. My suggestiong is beeing able to follow teammates and/or other team riders throughout the stage, basically a SKY TRAIN is something I would find incredibly usefull. Also seeing gc men positioning in flat stages could be a good idea.
Skills
I'm gonna try not to copy much here as i have not seen all posts but..
Adding some skills OR AT THE VERY LEAST making them a important factor in racing like agility, weather resistance and preferences, seasonal endurance, race situation abilitys(i'll explain), agressivenes,preferencial countries, however, I will explain all of these: Agility - The ability of riders avoiding crashes.. as we know sprinters have a lot of it and although they might crash the most(sprint situations) they have a lot of quality in this field.. men like Porte, Mollema, Dan Martin are not good in these situatuions as they do tend to crash a lot. Weather Reasistance and Preferences - Most riders don't like racing in the rain, but some, are just pure specialists.. the biggest examples, Rui Costa and Tim Wellens. Rui Costa as won the world championships against all ods in pouring rain race, and as won many others aswell because of that. Tim Wellens is an absolute specialist, only this year he won the Tour of Poland by over 4 minutes because of a stormy raining stage. Race situation abilities - Some teams like Movistar, FDJ and Lampre are just bad at certain race situations like crosswinds and agressive hilly races.. in Grand Tours that can prove vital(it has in 2015 tdf where quintana lost 1:30m in crosswinds). Etixx, Lotto Soudal, Orica, BMC are teams that are super agressive and specialists on that kind of racing, and some riders are well known for that. The ability of racing under pressure and positioning is enormous in real life cycling and it should be in PCM aswell. Seasonal Endurance - I think this is preety much a new and fresh idea because let's look at Valverde, he pratically spends the entire season at peak form, not many riders have this quality but it's something that in PCM would make a major diference in after-Tour calendar because it could make racing much more unpredictable and actually seeing riders saving themselves early in the season to be in good form in the final months of competition. Agressivness - Watching Contador racing is incredible, he's so unpredictable, he can attack in the final km and he can attack in km 0. Agressivness isn't necessairly positive skill but it's the think that gives cycling it's essence. Having an agressivness skill in PCM can only be good as it makes racing so much more fun and unpredictable.. and realistic because those are things that really happen and put on a great show, it also allows PCM users to race in a new world of race situations where you can really test your skills. Preferencial countries - I'm Portuguese so i'll just say it, Rui Costa races way better than usual in Switzerland, so as Simon Spilak and other cyclists in other countries.. but those two caught my attention, i mean Rui Costa as won 3 Tour of Swisse in a row, and in Romandie those two combined have countless gc podium places. But, Simon Spilak, I almost don't see him anywhere else during the season. Preferencial countries are something that makes a huge difference in some riders and is something that must be a part of PCM.
Carear Mode
Well there have been a huge number of ideas in the posts like contract realism, 2nd equipment development and many others, i'll sugest some things I haven't seen. I don't have a name for this "theory", but it's more than obvious that, i'll give an example, US continental teams are very strong in US races, I mean, those races are the main season goals for those teams and for me personally, racing like in the Tour of California and having all riders of those continental teams dangling off the back and nobody fighting for GC is kinda disapointing, and personally for me, Tour of Portugal and having the Portuguese teams absolutely destroyed by Pro Continental is also something I don't like. Having certain teams focusing a lot on certain races is a realistic and important thing to add to the game.
Well I guess that's it for now, probably i'll come up with more ideas and I hope that these will be apllyed in PCM17 aswell as many other good ideas others users are also giving.
Sry for the long post. I've got no potato.
Edited by Yellow Jersey on 08-09-2016 18:06
They really want to know...the first feature that HAS to be included if they don't want to loose another regular customer FOREVER?
Put the damn FULL REPLAY feature bck in the game...it was there on initial release but now on patch 1.5xx they decide to basically destroy it...wtf???
Second an option to have a FULL SCALE race and not just a scaled down version which is less than 1/10th scale
Improvement's on the goddam commentary, i mean how much can these licenses really cost, there is no rival cycling game on the market!!! at least not yet... How about Phill Liggott? or some other decent commentator
The racing....Why is it nobody ever attacks mid race? just mornong and then again about 2/3 rds........real riders don';t ride like that they are not robots
As well why is it even non GC riders with no GC teammate, ever want to relay with you?, if you are in the GC....I mean why would it concern then, they are out to do the best for them not to help the race leader or best placed AI team/rider
Why does the game always try to make it that your water is low at the end of a stage even if you refilled virtually as late as you can?
1st persom View ...and make the actual riding more important to the race ie brakes...racing line etc
Another attribute.......Riders skill in wet conditions this could be applied cumultively with downhilling etc.....and change the chances of a fall...and ability on flat mountain etc
This one would be too much too ask but a multiplayer mode where you race 1 rider in a stage of a major race of up to a full quota of competitos made up of human and AI ...though potential for as many human riders as possible
Keep pro cyclist mode but Enhance it...it is a very good feature of the game with great potential
Capability to have a fukk relay..where all a teams riders would contribute
DID I MENTION THAT THE GAME IS IN DESPERATE NEED OF A FULLY FUNCTIONAL REPLAY FEATURE?
If i find out that next years game is AGAIN without a replay feature, i will not be making any purchase of that and any subsequent PCM games
How about fixing some of the stuff that is still incredibly bad?
For example, why is it that when I go in to view my team can I not actually sort on the number of wins?
What is this rubbish with the trainers? I'm sorry, but it simply isn't realistic in any way. I get bored with having to change riders around because they don't like my "modern" trainer, or whatever.
Sort out race planning and season planning. All they keep doing is come up with different methods that are useless. I just started a new season and one of my riders had a bunch of goals that were races my team can't compete in (and aren't in). When I go to season goals they should be focused on the races I'm entered in. I should be able to modify them (so if my team gets a wildcard for the Tour I can then adjust). This rubbish of having to set them by a certain date is stupid and that is not how it works in the real world. On the goal planning is it so difficult to have the races my team is entered in highlighted in some way?
When I offer contracts to riders why do I offer them what they are asking for, then they come back saying they are hesitating, so ask for what I've already offered them. They then come back again saying they are hesitating, I offer them more than they want, but they still hesitate. Football manager has this done well - you offer terms and they agree. Simple as that.
When I offer riders contracts I should be able to offer more than I have a budget for. Then once it is finally accepted I have a certain date before which I must finalise it. That way I can work to agree terms with multiple riders (which is what real-world teams will do) at the same time. Currently you just go through all this hesistating stupidity and then when they finally say no everyone else that is half decent has already signed for other teams.
If I am a continental team and I go to the World Rankings page it should default to the continental rankings, not World Tour. It is a small thing I know, but clearly not obvious enough to Cyanide.
If a form of the current rider race scheduling is retained it should be a single slideable screen, rather than one where I have to hit plus or minus to move between months.
Implement a roster generator or auto-planner, however you want to call it. After selecting rider goals and fixing their training schedules it is a tedious task to plan them all in for every race.
A nice function would be a auto-generator, kinda like the 'quick pick' in FM 2016.
The auto planner selects the best in form riders, taking into account their main goals and their best abillities to generate realistic rosters.
Since this is already done for the AI, it should not be a big deal to make something similar for the human teams.
Idea: Give directors and staff attributes the same way riders have them (but different ones obviously) and let those attributes determine how effective staff is at training, scouting, in-race strategy, people management, logistics, attract sponsors, receive invites for races, etc.. Include for staff specific experience they've gathered as a rider (e.g. Riis, Hoffmann). When a rider retires, provide the option for the rider to become staff.
Why: Realism. Again, benchmark FM. The level of depth of current staff system is a joke with the few attributes there are absolutely based on nothing: traditional, modern, ground-breaking and/or reputatation local, national, international,...??? - why would in real life those have any impact on a rider or a team????
1: Probably been suggested already but the possibility to change captains for the season planning.
2: Register riders for an upcoming race a few days race in advance so you get a possibility to plan and see which competitors that is attending.
3: Make older declining riders to drop in the winter season, sick of seeing people like Purito and Gerrans who drop their HIL stat with -1 or -2 even before the ardennes start. Makes stat making so much harder and it's more common in real life that they drop in their off season.
4: Make transfers more realistic for AI when it comes to country, balance of rider types and so on.
5: Make the movements when passing riders more smooth (intelligent), i seem to always get stuck behind riders when trying get past them or attack, that often ruin stages.
Edited by Naxela on 13-09-2016 13:52
New York Knicks - Bardiani CFS - AG2R - Millwall FC - Le Havre AC
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
