I should mention df_Trek's Strade Bianche variant completely fixes that issue, makes for an actually hard race that can very easily finish in a solo/small group attack.
Test have shown a couple if times that low Mo high Hi are indeed not worse in races like Fleche Wallonne. They are however worse in races more prone to the mountain stat, which should be like this
Also, a very radical proposal: scrap 2/3 GTs and most of the boring 1-week races like TdS, Dauphine. The PT calender is incredibly boring, imo following PCT and CT is a lot more fun than PT eventhough I'm riding PT. Bring in more hybrid races, fantasy races, some sort of more choice.
At this point in the game i think it's fair to see that the amount of teams won't be increased to have a proper third division without having to do the trick of Amateur teams. I've made a count, and we have 66 teams between all 3 divisions that could continue in 2019 seasons (not counting Amateurs or roturn's "second team" ).
How would this work?
PT of 24 teams.
PCT (or CT, whether you want to call it) of 36 teams. So max of 60 teams in the game. I think we all can think of 6 teams that aren't active and will disband at the end of this season.
Why this composition?
Because of PTHC. Max teams in a band is 24, so we could fill bands in a way that PT teams ride 3 bands for CT teams riding 2, with PTHC having 5 bands (or a multiple of 5)
How does this affects overall calendar?
I've already read some comments about how large the calendar is. We would get rid of C2HC (72RDs) and C2 (65RDs), so it would be a huge less number of races in the calendar (137 less RD's). And while we should use some of those RD's to increase the calendar for the two remaining divisions, we could reduce by a good amount the overall RD's
What happens with PT wildcards?
Obviously they would disappear, which is something most PT teams would like, and i don't really see the point of teams from other division "molesting" you in "your" races without them gaining points/spending RD's. The XP gains system would need to be adjusted for CT teams to gain the XP they gained until now with wildcards
Promotion/relegation
With 24 teams in the first division and 36 in the second, i think there should be 8 spots of promotion/relegation in each division, to avoid CT being a very static division in terms of teams
Budget depending on team standings
Without the risk of relegation, i'm quite sure some teams that don't feel like they can make a promotion charge would rather tank and sign young promising riders in order to be good in the future (The Proccess). This is clearly a low-risk high-reward tactic, as whether you end up 12th or 34th it won't matter next season. Whether it would be salary cap or team budget the one affected, some sort of "penalty/reward" to all teams depending on their finishing position in the previous season should be important, in order to motivate the teams to compete for finishing as high as possible, not the opposite
HC Bands
36 teams with 24 teams riding in each band. That means that every team would have to be in 2/3 total bands. Maybe something like 9 bands where you choose 6, or maybe something like 7/11 (so there's lesser chance of having to compete in bands you didn't want to)
Change of salary cap
PT salary cap should be raised to 4M, while PCT could remain at 2.5M. Also, there should be a hard cap during renewals, with the exception of relegating teams, that could have a "softer" cap, that would allow them to go over their new cap by 10% of it (in this case their hard cap would be 2.75M)
Surely there are more things related to this change, but those are the principals that came to my mind
Does pcm18 have big crashes where riders retire or is it more just lots of smaller crashes where riders chase back on? If we do change games and bring back crashes that woukd make a difference depending on which one it is.
At this point in the game i think it's fair to see that the amount of teams won't be increased to have a proper third division without having to do the trick of Amateur teams. I've made a count, and we have 66 teams between all 3 divisions that could continue in 2019 seasons (not counting Amateurs or roturn's "second team" ).
How would this work?
PT of 24 teams.
PCT (or CT, whether you want to call it) of 36 teams. So max of 60 teams in the game. I think we all can think of 6 teams that aren't active and will disband at the end of this season.
...
Change of salary cap
PT salary cap should be raised to 4M, while PCT could remain at 2.5M. Also, there should be a hard cap during renewals, with the exception of relegating teams, that could have a "softer" cap, that would allow them to go over their new cap by 10% of it (in this case their hard cap would be 2.75M)
I've been thinking about this for a while, and it's really unfortunate that we've gotten to the point where this may be necessary. That being said, contraction is a lot more difficult than expansion in terms of fitting with our established database continuity. Cutting more teams and having only two divisions would making stat inflation even worse, at least short term. Also requires restructuring of pretty much everything, as you've gone into.
I've been advocating for a higher PT salary cap for a while now. The level of competition in PT and PCT has been way too similar for too long imo. Of course, with PTHC in the game now, that might be advantageous for competitiveness's sake. But I think it's kind of silly to have so many world beating leaders in lower divisions, as we have had the past few years.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
sammyt93 wrote:
Does pcm18 have big crashes where riders retire or is it more just lots of smaller crashes where riders chase back on? If we do change games and bring back crashes that woukd make a difference depending on which one it is.
In PCM18 (riding with .7 crash ratio) I have seen both smaller and huge crashes it is very mixed, sometimes riders retire from race but mostly they just loose time and quite often get back if not a very late crash, often to get the "expected" outcome.
A single time I have seen a huge number retire.
A few riders will continue with some injuries leaving them weak for some days.
Really not a fan of the move back to two divisions but obviously may be necessary if we lose a good chunk more teams.
PT salary cap going up is interesting. Could possibly go with Croatia's idea of some big calendar changes as PT snap up more leaders for more types of races.
As for Croatia's idea, not agreeing with going that overboard but making more interesting races instead of the standard ones would make it more fun I'm sure. Should be up to the PT managers to a degree though
Tamijo's idea of narrow roads: really not a fan of narrow roads in PCM15 and from my experience in 18 as well, though I have a feeling it may have improved? Worth testing but probably not. Especially if we stay with PCM15, we have basically eradicated them all so no reason to go back
Mre's idea for different prices for training in the different divisions is intriguing as well, would like to hear more opinion on it as it seems good.
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Narrow roads are part of the game, as in to races. There is no point of narrow roads being prohibited as they offer a real life matter and better high flat riders
Salary Caps
The salary cap structure changing to 4m, 2.5m and 1.2m sounds good to me. I would even advocate PCT and CT salary caps being brought down instead of raising the PT the salary cap to control some of the inflated wages that are thrown around. Something like 3.6m, 2.3m and 1m would also work for me. The change should be a gradual one over at least two seasons, and not a one shot change for the 2019 season.
Team Sizes
I do believe there is a need to have different team sizes for each division. 15 riders (plus the 2 rider draft, if it stays) for CT seems perfect. PCT and PT teams shouldn't have the same team sizes.
- If budgets of PCT and CT are decreased, the team sizes should become 20, 18 and 15 (+2) for PT, PCT and CT respectively.
- If the budget of PT is increased to 4m, the team sizes should change to 22, 20 and 15 (+2) for PT, PCT and CT respectively.
Division Changes
I'm not a fan of going back to two divisions even if the number of teams reduces further and goes to say 60, like Aquarius mentioned. PT and PCT would run smoothly with 20 teams each, with the rest making up the CT division. I don't think 2/6 lesser teams will change the race dynamics hugely. The amateur teams already exist for CT, so no reason to scrap them if the respective managers are willing to continue. They can continue to be filled in by the draft method as followed this season.
Startlist Size
Is it time to look at 7 riders per team in races as in real life? Will moving from 176 riders plus a control team to 154 riders plus a control team (in PT) have much impact in terms of the racing?
Could we update the xmls to make points jerseys at least possible for sprinters to win in stage races - not in Andorra etc. but in GTs, Suisse, Vancouver etc?
24/02/21 - kandesbunzler said “I don't drink famous people."
15/08/22 - SotD said "Your [jandal's] humour is overrated"
11/06/24 - knockout said "Winning is fine I guess. Truth be told this felt completely unimportant." [ICL] Santos-Euskadi | [PT] Xero Racing
Tamijo's idea of narrow roads: really not a fan of narrow roads in PCM15 and from my experience in 18 as well, though I have a feeling it may have improved? Worth testing but probably not. Especially if we stay with PCM15, we have basically eradicated them all so no reason to go back
Well if they dont show up often why ban them, in case they should pop up once in a while. Im not asking for them, just want to ignore them in the situations where they do sneak in.
I have created a few races in 2018, often with narrow roads where they belong.
Have seen no unreal results.
Originally wanted to post a proper analysis with numbers but havent found the time yet so just a quick post:
I'd like to see the update to the OVR formula / renewals wage formula from last season taken back a bit.
1. Sprinters seem to be too highly rated. I'm not speaking about PT leaders but rather those with 76-79 SP. It's especially notably for riders with solid (like 72) HI, CB or great ACC (80+) stats. Guys like Tobyn Horton, Janis Dakteris, Wouter Wippert, Dan McLay, Kristian Sbaragli, Heiko Redecker or Mustafa Carsi. I felt like most seemed to realize it last season as those kind of riders often got released or sold for very little even when the managers previously liked those riders.
Spoiler
I also dislike it at the top with Van Stayen having an higher OVR than Gesink, Schleck, Herklotz or Dombo and Kump being far too close to Grosu and above someone like Alarcon or Lutsenko (but personally I'd rather have it fixed for the majority of riders and have some team leaders be of too good/bad value than the other way round)
I'd have to speculate a bit but perhaps there were effects due to a rouleur category (to raise the wages of Stoltz ) that raised the sprinters wages too much since those often have quite similar stats like FL or ACC?
2. Wage Inflation: Last season we've got a big increase to the average overall due to a changed update. I feel like the wage demands didnt reflect that as basically every (super) domestique above min wage levels demanded more than the average rise of OVR would have demanded. Maybe a small reduction would be good?
While theoretically it would have been possible for all teams to receive at worst their 3rd choice, this was not possible following the guidelines of "If a choice is over subscribed, then the earliest PMs will get it." Hence, it is the case that some of the later returners do receive their 4th choice, unfortunately.
I'd like to see this changed. Time of submission should be less important than the Xth choice they would get. I struggle to word this understandably so here is an example:
Exactly one of the following changes is necessary:
Team A could go from 2nd choice to 3rd choice
Team B could go from 2nd choice to 3rd choice
Team C could go from 2nd choice to 4th choice
Order of submission: 1.A -- 2.B -- 3.C
In this scenario I'd like to see B moved to their third choice since C should have priority over A and B due to not being able to get into their 3rd choice either and A has priority over B due to earlier time of submission.
Croatia14 wrote:
Narrow roads are part of the game, as in to races. There is no point of narrow roads being prohibited as they offer a real life matter and better high flat riders
Late response but better now than never. More might follow, once I have more time to check all the suggestions.
That`s something that isn`t really correct imo.
Yes in real life it belongs to cycling and can give advantage to flat riders.
In PCM though flat riders might still be at the end of the peloton for no reason at all and once on the narrow roads they get blocked and dropped. Even their high flat doesn`t necessarily help them then to get back soon.
When playing yourself it might be an advantage. When being AI controlled, it`s pure luck if your team is placed well or not, so nothing that ideally works in an AI controlled Man Game and hence something that imo should be avoided.
If we are leaning towards going to PCM18 the any calculation should be revised, as with the latest one we very much focussed on tackling PCM15 flaws. With PCM18, some of these won't be there, results will change at least a little, and thus the avg formula should have a little less PCM15 emphasis again (acc/res bias,...). Also knockouts post on wages should be taken a look at.
Also I'd like some slightly lower wages in general. Thats for the reason that more money would be available in off-season to model the teams. I think this year that's a good idea due to the shift to PCM18, as this may open the best opportunity to rebuild with a different approach and take gambles that have even more risk (with rider behavior) but also more reward.
I would like to advocate for not changing for another season. For me, planning ahead is key, and to have a new platform thrown at you after the talents have been “trained” seems like a bad decision.
IMO changing version should be announced MORE than one season ahead, so it can be planned 2 off seasons before. That way signing riders, training etc. can be planned.
Also I think info should be given. What stats are important compared to before. Eg. will Herklotz now be the 10th best GT rider, rather than the 3-4th?
Will sprinters need higher HI, FL, RES than before?
For a manager such as myself, who put hours into numbers it is REALLY important to know all the basis stuff well ahead!
We have been on PCM15 for 3-4 years now. I don`t think moving on to a newer version is a problem with planning ahead.
a) At one time it is normal to move on
b) it`s same for all managers
c) it`s not like PCM18 is totally different to PCM15. Most things remain similar
d) earlier there were a lot more PCM changes without much problem neither
Problem with your points:
More than one season ahead: Hard to do as new game first must be released, then tested etc. Iirc last off season was already talked about moving to PCM18. It wasn`t done last season but obviously was already spoilered to plan things like this for the upcoming off season.
Statwise: Same riders will still be on top. Herklotz should still be one of the top3-4 in your example.
From my own experience with PCM18 (non MG stats) sprinters will still do similar AI controlled. No matter if PCM15 or PCM18. Differences are how they organize themselves, also team wise. But result wise not a lot would change imo. (This is for regular sprinters, not having checked yet regarding special ones such as Thorsen, Kip etc.)
I understand your concern to know it as soon as possible. But it`s difficult to find the right time for this. Some might say, yes it`s still 2018 season, early enough. Next might say, end of 2017 season is early enough for 2019 plannings etc.
The real pre-planning you and some others are doing, should still work with a newer version though. It`s not like it`s a totally different game as said above.
That all said, while we are working on PCM18 tests at the moment, it`s not guaranteed yet neither.
roturn wrote:
We have been on PCM15 for 3-4 years now. I don`t think moving on to a newer version is a problem with planning ahead.
a) At one time it is normal to move on
b) it`s same for all managers
c) it`s not like PCM18 is totally different to PCM15. Most things remain similar
d) earlier there were a lot more PCM changes without much problem neither
Problem with your points:
More than one season ahead: Hard to do as new game first must be released, then tested etc. Iirc last off season was already talked about moving to PCM18. It wasn`t done last season but obviously was already spoilered to plan things like this for the upcoming off season.
Statwise: Same riders will still be on top. Herklotz should still be one of the top3-4 in your example.
From my own experience with PCM18 (non MG stats) sprinters will still do similar AI controlled. No matter if PCM15 or PCM18. Differences are how they organize themselves, also team wise. But result wise not a lot would change imo. (This is for regular sprinters, not having checked yet regarding special ones such as Thorsen, Kip etc.)
I understand your concern to know it as soon as possible. But it`s difficult to find the right time for this. Some might say, yes it`s still 2018 season, early enough. Next might say, end of 2017 season is early enough for 2019 plannings etc.
The real pre-planning you and some others are doing, should still work with a newer version though. It`s not like it`s a totally different game as said above.
That all said, while we are working on PCM18 tests at the moment, it`s not guaranteed yet neither.
I disagree... For numerous reasons:
a) Absolutely. Nothing wrong with moving on. Only timing and announcation can be an issue. I don't have anything negative to say about either version of the game, as I haven't played them. But they differ, some more than others. And hence we need to take differences into account. This can be done by advertising a change well ahead.
b) It is, but that isn't the same as it being the same outcome for everyone. Some riders will react better and others worse, hence the "same for everyone" clearly doesn't apply. The game is the same not the outcome.
c) I can't tell, because I don't know - And that is some of the things I advocate for/against. I have absolutely no idea which differences there are, and hence have been training (and signing) my riders for the purpose of what I know. If I am told the differences then I can adjust and adapt. I can't unless I know.
d) Basically the same point as c).
To the "Problems with my points"-part:
A game has to be released - Well obviously. But there has been several additions since the current version. The current version works very well with the setup we have. And I see no reason to not be able to tell now that going into season 2020 we will take on the PCM 18 version. But saying now (2 PT races before) that the 2019 season will take on the PCM 18 version is a bit off imo.
Statwise: Same riders will still be on top. Herklotz should still be one of the top3-4 in your example.
How can I tell?
I'm probably not one that is hit the worst, but I could see a team like Puma be. They have a marvellous season going on, so are already being hit in the head with super high wages, and need to cut their team in half - like I have had to do for the past 3 seasons. And now they have to do it semi-blindfolded because they have no clue whether or not their riders work similar, better or worse.
Is it a mistake to let Kelderman go, because 72ACC is even worse than this season? Or will Herklotz struggle to win GT's because 83MO, 77HI and 74TT isn't really much of a big deal as his 76ACC is not valued even remotely as high as it has been with this season?
Will Dominik Nerz become much better than he has been now? He has 68ACC, but other than that pretty good stats. Same goes for Bongiorno. Will Jasha Sütterlin be worth more now? Or less? Is the TT even more/less of a gamble?
Will Demare be able to contest flat sprints as a favorite with just Wackerman and Anton Martin as leadouts? Or will he lose every single time due to shabby leadouts?
How should Cavagna and Ganna be trained?
So for me - and others especially I think - this short of a notice (and we haven't gotten a notice yet I guess) is causing more of a problem than a solution.
I don't want to be a dick, but I think it's necessary to give 1 season notice so people who wants an advantage (not this, but next season) actually have that opportunity. For people in a transition stage that is very valuable. For me, I guess I just got lucky that I took my transition this season. I'm pretty confident that the stats of Lecuisinier, Koretzky, Daniel and Coquard will work basically the way they always did +/- 100 points, so I'm not hit particularly hard. Also the riders I have signed for the future are pretty one-dimensional and easy to plan.
I heavily disagree with you SotD. This opportunity, not exactly knowing how riders will react to the change, makes me a lot more curious about the new season. Knowning what to exactly expect and calculate from your riders gets boring. Having to do some sort of guessing game makes it a lot more fun. Also it offers more of a chance for rebuilding team, as as stated, you have a higher risk/higher reward system with changing your team, which should be a good driver for the managers and game dynamics and will make transfer season even more fun.
That's why I am also heavily against revealing any sort of statistical testing of races (also for Mo/Hill Ratios and stuff, you gotta guess that from profiles). It's part of the managerial skill to adapt to updated conditions, and I hope we keep as many of this skill tasks and don't try to be as statistical as possible in our approaches.
That's why we should change to PCM18 no matter how any testing result looks like. Change is part of the game. Dealing with change is a managerial quality, no matter whether you guess the change would benefit you or not.
So for me - and others especially I think - this short of a notice (and we haven't gotten a notice yet I guess) is causing more of a problem than a solution.
To the timing issues: There were thoughts about changing for 2 years, I know for sure as I always have been heavily in favor, so this can't hit any manager by surprise. While building a squad for a game that has a newer version every year you HAVE to plan for newer versions. In fact, when I was new to the game I was very surprised that we didn't constantly change to the newer version, as this would add some dimension to the game I expected to be present anyway.
