SotD wrote:
I am with you here DD - I would also vote B. I hope the sprint thing can be atleast somewhat fixed though and maybe proven well before the off season so people know what to expect - same applies for hills I guess.
For cobbles I have no clue why Maxime Daniel is performing so horrible, but I haven't really looked that much into numbers yet, so there could be an easy solution for it and maybe even a trainable solution.
I do however think we need to make it possible for riders with below 60 MO/HI to get a quick fix. Not for free of course, but we need to make it possible for riders that are completely broken get up to some standard.
It could be as simple as the current rule, but up to +5 stats pr. season instead of +2 in those segments.
This would mean I could purchase Vlatos from 52 MO to 57 in one season. If the same fee rule applies as usual that would cost: 100K + 200K + 400K + 800K + 1600K = 3,1mio, which is obviously too much, but maybe one could say:
1st training 100K
2nd-5th training x 1,5 (Cummulative)
So 100 + 150 + 225 + 338 + 507 = 1.320K
It may look like a HUGE upgrade, but really it's about getting riders up to what they could before. Several riders are hurt by a very low MO stat - this could help those become atleast somewhat usefull.
as Ive said before for low MO punchers you should be given an option to reduce HL stat and use the money that wouldve been spent to get there to upgrade mountain stat
That's actually an interesting idea. Might be an easy and fair way to fix certain puncheurs without giving them stats for free.
Indeed. If things are worked around well enough it could be interesting, but there surely need to be a limit to it, otherwise you'll end up with riders such as Eduard Beltran being able to shuffle stats to make him 81MO / 79HI or from my point of perspective to make Koretzky 74MO / 78HI and then train him back up to 80HI immidiately.
5) Sprinters. The main issue AI wise.
Basically testing needed here with level 3 and better level 4 roads and close to 0 stuff on final 10km such as corners, roundabouts etc. Hopefully this can already cut lots of issues.
Already did change some of those stages so can do test, strangely enough most results are "fine" already this year but would be interesting to see if removing those late curves (3-4 wide) in lets say barbedos will result in more top 3 riders:
Coquard - Swift - Degenkolb
making more solid top 5 results every day.
If you want can do a series of 3D test - (10?) and see what we get?
As a team that have a huge sprint priority that would be highly welcomed!
NEW TRAINING RULE:
(this is an additional rule/option does not replace Rider Average Exemption
LOW STATUS TRAINING
(only fully developed riders as usual)
The maximum a stat can be raised to using this method is 73.
This can only be used on Flat-Mountain-Res
A stat can only be raised by 5 points/year
Cost:
73 600,000
72 500,000
71 400,000
70 350,000
69 300,000
68 250,000
67 200,000
66 150,000
≤65 100,000
(no extra cost for 2 update ect.)
This could help unbalanced MO/HI
This could make a more valid peloton (breakaway hunting)
This could help sprinter survive the 21 day in GT
Maybe this could make better trains (not so sure about that)
Comments: I understand why we had the “fear” of lifting the lower skill too much in PCM15, as there was this fear of status inflation, but in PCM18 the engine works best without too many 50-60 flat/mountain riders and if it is limited to 73 will never become top riders unless you put another 7+ millions on top something that will never happen.
I think this needs some rethinking, because as I see it, this will benefit the top tier riders more than others. I haven't looked into ages, but your suggestion opens up to these:
Edvald Boasson Hagen 70 > 72 MO
Sam Bewley 69 > 72 MO
Angel Madrazo 68 > 71 FL
Michael van Stayen 64 > 71 FL
Justo Tenorio 68 > 70 FL
Arnaud Demare 67 > 70 MO
Bryan Coquard 58 > 70 MO
The less strong riders are, the worse because of the +10 stat rule. For example, can Viennet "only" become 65 MO because of his OVL. A rider like Jaroslaw Marycz can only become 63 MO etc.
So while I agree with your thoughts this need to be recalculated to ensure the strongest riders won't benefit from it. That is probably why 67 was the top end before while 73 to me seems too high. I have riders with 73 MO that works brilliantly as breakaway riders - so to enhance riders with a very high OVL to take advantage of their substats like that isn't good imo.
There is no +10 stat rule - everyone no matter who can use this on MO-FL-RES up to 73, just only 5 skill a season, this is not as "Rider Average Exemption" it is a new rule without restrictions others that what is in my text.
Not saying it is perfect but my thinking was that it should help "weak" riders become useful, not mainly top riders, top riders would (sometimes) benefit from using the "Rider Average Exemption" due to their high avg, weak rider could use this instead.
73 may be to high or maybe price to low 700.000 - 800.000 ?
Edited by Tamijo on 23-04-2020 08:51
Getting in on this was something I tried to avoid, however guess I have to voice my opinion on the proposed training rule up to stat 73 for fairly little money. Sure it would benefit the DB on a short term, however I do fear it would a base of a new, large stat inflation, mainly in the CT market. Not immediately of course, but after 2 or 3 seasons these riders will inevitably end up down there, and in my personal opinion that is something to be avoided at all cost. I would say people will just have to adjust, just like the stage design, and the steps taken against names inflation should be continued as they were.
Manager of Team Popo4Ever p/b Morshynska in the PCM.Daily Man-Game
There is no +10 stat rule - everyone no matter who can use this on MO-FL-RES up to 73, just only 5 skill a season, this is not as "Rider Average Exemption" it is a new rule without restrictions others that what is in my text.
Not saying it is perfect but my thinking was that it should help "weak" riders become useful, not mainly top riders, top riders would (sometimes) benefit from using the "Rider Average Exemption" due to their high avg, weak rider could use this instead.
73 may be to high or maybe price to low 700.000 - 800.000 ?
This is, however, what I expect will happen... Managers with top riders that get to upgrade their star cheaply will do so, rather than making a previously useful but now not rider move up to previous strength. Atleast that is what history tell us.
So I think we need to find some way around it - Because we don't want it to become impossible for Coquard to get to 64 MO, but we also don't want riders with 68MO that isn't affected become 73MO. Atleast that is how I see it. Riders who are in general very strong doesn't need to become even better - we need to find a solution to where riders who aren't as wellrounded will atleast have a fighting chance - not necessarily at the level they were before. So I might not think 73MO/FL/RS is a good thing as some riders will HUGELY benefit from that. Great riders with 68-69FL will become very strong with 73FL. I don't think many good riders have RS below 73 so to me that isn't a big deal. Same applies for riders with 68MO can be very very strong with 73MO. For my own concerns I think Koretkzy at 71MO is pretty usefull as it is. For me to make him go to 73MO for almost nothing would make me benefit a lot...
Most top puncheurs are 71-74 currently - Do we really want to take away that difference? Riders like Bobridge, Claeys, Di Maggio, McCarthy, Schreurs have always struggled against the likes of van Garderen, Bakelants and even Koretzky. Do we want them to become same level?
A young superstar like Mohoric is 71MO - do we need to freewheel him to the level of Bakelants, Sagan and Ponzi or should that cost something?
Also - sprinters with 73 MO stat just seems wrong. And I fear it will be a quick fix that will come back and bite us in the ass in later editions. Riders like Bewley and van Garderen already managed to ride top 20GC in a GT a couple of years ago IRC.
If we begin to see riders like Grosu have 73FL, 73MO and 73HI I suspect they will be riding to possibly win week long GC races rather than being a punchy sprinter. Maybe not in PCM 19, but then in the next version - or the next again. Arnaud Demare at 73MO... He would beast the shit out of everyone.
IMO 67 or maybe 68 is a much better place to be at. Bewley doesn't seem to be affected with his 69MO. He's still the best sprinter probably.
So we definately need to figure out how to do this properly - and if it's a matter of making 5-10 riders work like they used to, then I'm against it. I'm much more open for a general rescue of riders with REALLY poor backup stats, than I'm for helping riders with 70MO become 73MO.
I don't think we should do any adjustions to the db regarding the stats. Instead, learn and adapt with the wages paid and the averages given. Make the puncheurs f.e. have a lot less wage demands, according to the points they scored. Reduce the cost of top class punchy sprinters and sprinters. Increase the cost of pure mountain riders with fewer acc again (look at Denifl, Kritskiy,... that are on FAR too low wages due to the adjustments I warned the community before the season). Increase the wages of mediocre sprinters and breakaway specialists.
It's simple as that: Don't interfere with riders that aren't top riders anymore (eventhough it hurts me saying this with Mohoric f.e. being hit as one of the hardest of all, especially long-term). Just cut their wages down to what they are able to do in the new game, and raise the wages for the ones that benefitted.
I agree with you Croatia (and many others), we shouldn't do anything to the current stats, and just try to adopt to the situation. Hopefully we can do some adjustments otherwise to minimize some of the other "flaws".
Not so sure about the training up to 73/74 or so. For me it could be a good chance to train Wisniowski's hill stat for example, so it would have to come with some limitations to prevent it being cheap training for some of the better riders.
Croatia14 wrote:
I don't think we should do any adjustions to the db regarding the stats. Instead, learn and adapt with the wages paid and the averages given. Make the puncheurs f.e. have a lot less wage demands, according to the points they scored. Reduce the cost of top class punchy sprinters and sprinters. Increase the cost of pure mountain riders with fewer acc again (look at Denifl, Kritskiy,... that are on FAR too low wages due to the adjustments I warned the community before the season). Increase the wages of mediocre sprinters and breakaway specialists.
It's simple as that: Don't interfere with riders that aren't top riders anymore (eventhough it hurts me saying this with Mohoric f.e. being hit as one of the hardest of all, especially long-term). Just cut their wages down to what they are able to do in the new game, and raise the wages for the ones that benefitted.
While I do agree on most points, I find that some stats are simply too low and too lengthly to change - EG sprinters with below 60 MO stats. I really do think we need to allow them to get to +5 in one season if the manager wishes to spend the money needed in order to have them competitive atleast. Same goes for TT'ers and cobblers who are no longer GC riders like they used to, because of horrendous MO stats. They wouldn't become better riders in perspective by having 65MO rather than 58 - they would only have the ability to survive regular stages. I do think that is needed - atleast as an opportunity.
Would still be impossible to really make one-dimensional riders stronger in depth.
But at the same time can help sprinters to get acceptable mountain for example.
Wage + OVL adjustments i agree are a more suitable solution than changing trainings relating to the MO issue (especially as SotD says there are strong opportunities for the changes to be used in an unintended way, and Wage and OVL changes if done wrong are easily fxed after a season, when we can't reset stats between seasons).
This would also go a way to helping make building a leadout more worthwhile if it didn't cost much to have those riders. And again it would help balance sprinters in the new version.
I like roturns post on things to be looked at. Made me go and have a look at those hilly tt's and yep, that's a good spot to change as well.
Any chance we can know whether we'll stick with 18 next season or move to 19?
Stage design will definitely make a huge difference now we know the way PCM18 behaves. I've just raced South Africa, Hanko and Colombo and seen first hand how certain types of finishes influence the way the AI acts. While I can't give away spoilers, what I can say is that in each case where the AI acted in a slightly bizarre way in sprints and hilly stages, there was an identifiable reason looking at the stage design. And in truth, playing PCM18 for the first time I was pretty impressed with the massive improvement in the AI from PCM15.
On the topic of raising/lowering stats, I share many of the concerns raised above. What I would suggest firstly is that we need to reconsider how we do stat gains to begin with - perhaps by getting rid of the strict stat gain categories and instead allowing stat increases to spread as managers please (with limits on how much you can increase a certain stat/group of stats). This would allow for more varied rider types, as well as the prioritisation of key backup stats during the rider development process. I could draft up a potential outline of how this would work if people would be interested?
Then, I would suggest introducing a re-training program for maxed riders. This would work by offering managers the opportunity to decline stats in exchange for money to increase other stats (albeit it at a slight premium).
For example, I could chose to decline McCarthy to 80 HIL, raising 1.4 million. Then I would spend this on increasing his MO to 71MO - 925k cost, plus a 50% increase tax taking it to just short of 1.4 million. I'd need to drill into this idea deeper to uncover any potential loopholes, but I'd welcome any thoughts on it people may have.
TheManxMissile wrote:
I like roturns post on things to be looked at. Made me go and have a look at those hilly tt's and yep, that's a good spot to change as well.
Any chance we can know whether we'll stick with 18 next season or move to 19?
Isn`t PCM19 just PCM18 with a database update?
AI wise 100% same or am I wrong?
If so, staying with 18 is better as reporters have the game, which is not necessarily the case for 19.
Ollfardh wrote:
I remember for EPIC, at some point we switched from PCM12 to 13 or something and the earlier version had no working RES stat. It was there, but it didn't influence the game. No one had trained it so far because it had no effect, so I gave everyone a small boost. Maybe we can do something similar? If the gap between MO and Hi is 6-10, add 1MO, 11-15 add 2, 15+ add 3.
I said this on page 1, could still work for balancing.
Then, I would suggest introducing a re-training program for maxed riders. This would work by offering managers the opportunity to decline stats in exchange for money to increase other stats (albeit it at a slight premium).
For example, I could chose to decline McCarthy to 80 HIL, raising 1.4 million. Then I would spend this on increasing his MO to 71MO - 925k cost, plus a 50% increase tax taking it to just short of 1.4 million. I'd need to drill into this idea deeper to uncover any potential loopholes, but I'd welcome any thoughts on it people may have.
I like the idea, but how do you come up with those figures? McCarthy is "just" 67MO. To shuffle -1HI for +4MO seems like something that can only go wrong I think... You would gain 3 stats overall which normally would cost way more than getting the extra HI stat back.
I like the idea of maybe reshuffling a bit - I do however worry that it will not lead to more versatility in the DB but rather would result in top (and subtop) riders becoming more similar.
Then, I would suggest introducing a re-training program for maxed riders. This would work by offering managers the opportunity to decline stats in exchange for money to increase other stats (albeit it at a slight premium).
For example, I could chose to decline McCarthy to 80 HIL, raising 1.4 million. Then I would spend this on increasing his MO to 71MO - 925k cost, plus a 50% increase tax taking it to just short of 1.4 million. I'd need to drill into this idea deeper to uncover any potential loopholes, but I'd welcome any thoughts on it people may have.
I like the idea, but how do you come up with those figures? McCarthy is "just" 67MO. To shuffle -1HI for +4MO seems like something that can only go wrong I think... You would gain 3 stats overall which normally would cost way more than getting the extra HI stat back.
I like the idea of maybe reshuffling a bit - I do however worry that it will not lead to more versatility in the DB but rather would result in top (and subtop) riders becoming more similar.
That's basing training cost on the stats being increased rather than based on the average - obviously it'd be more usually, but it would somewhat defeat the point if it ended up costing 1.8 million or so to get +2 MO based on a rider's average. Plus it's a case of diminishing returns. With a 50% tax, the following would be the effect of -1 HIL each time:
81 HIL -> 67 MO (starting point)
80 HIL -> 71 MO
79 HIL -> 73 MO
78 HIL -> 74 MO
77 HIL -> 75 MO
Beyond that point, further decreases one stat at a time wouldn't be sufficient to pay for increasing the Mountain stat with a 50% tax. Alternatively with a 100% tax:
81 HIL -> 67 MO (starting point)
80 HIL -> 70 MO
79 HIL -> 71 MO
And then at that point, you wouldn't be able to afford further increases one stat at a time. So it is possible to limit the amount you can increase/decrease, or to slow the rate of doing so.
I think it's the wrong idea to make any changes towards the db that makes training from let's say 58 to 65 Mo for sprinter easier. It only pushes the db further together. You need those type of riders in the MG these days. It's just that their role is slightly changed, which is not bad, but should be cheaper for the owners of such riders to keep them.
I hate the training paths that jph27 proposed tbh: Because as the previous example it cuts off unique riders. With a rider like McCarthy, nobody should think about decreasing his hill stat by 4 to make him a Pernsteiner-type rider (who is obviously awesome, but that can't be a reasonable training goal).
Also I trust in stage design to ensure we have a better year AI-wise in sprints. As cunego outlined, the results aren't really worse, in fact, I like it better that not all the best 3 sprinters have their trains each race (though I'd hate it if I have a top3 sprinter as well obviously). We really need to get rid of corners in the finale however, not only on those flat ones but also on hilly and cobbled stages.
There really isnt much of a problem with PCM18, the way I saw it PCM15 was much worse with the same few riders winning normally and it had some horrendous sprint AI where relatively strong riders were arbitrarily excluded from sprinting, not sure if this is still the case as Enger seems to suffer most races right now when compared to his strength IMO.
If problems relating to stage design can fix the AI better then do it I guess, but dont do it for all stages, leave some sprints as "technical" sprints as it provides slightly more variance which is still beneficial to the game. I feel in the past we moved far to the extreme to benefit certain rider types (e.g. with the MO/HL ratios in the past, and I hope we dont do that again)
Croatia's suggestion is the best with reworking OV's etc to make some riders more valuable but ultimately it should be "the market" that decides what a rider is worth. If you want to pump 800k wage into a rider that has under performed then go ahead - its your choice. After all this is a manager game. I'd be against retraining of riders. If you had to do it, then I'd make it very cost prohibitive.
I'm also unsure whether or not the focus on MO for punchers is that accurate, Bellis seems to be having a career year but only has 68 MO. He doesnt even have good RES either so I dont know whether its the AI that favour an aggressive second tier favourite or not. <- could be his FL stat being 75 and being the best amongst PCT punchers.
John St Ledger in Team Bunzl-Centrica and Team U25
I'm no expert, so I don't want to call my opinion definitive or especially knowledgeable or anything, but I'm not very convinced that wide, straight roads will do anything significant to help the sprinting issues. I picked PCM 18 back up recently, and wide, straight roads do not seem to be the fix for sprint trains. The trains still randomly swing across the road and get tangled up, blocking their own riders or making them lose the wheel. And they still make their sprinters launch way too early most of the time, given PCM 18's much decreased capacity for yellow (and red) in sprints it seems. Obviously I'm not playing with the MG DB, but I'd say generally if there's a problem in all DB's, the MG DB only makes it worse.
Hilly TT's I agree are something that needs to be addressed, but I'm not sure they can be. Obviously my main thoughts come from Steensen, who has instantly become useless. He was a guy that has definitely overpeformed in the past, but his unique skillset meant that with good planning he could sneak good GC results - as in Denmark a couple of years ago. Now any TT with a hill is a mountain TT, so he cracks immediately with his 59 mtn, and he's obviously not a great pure flat TTist at 77. Plus, he'll never survive a hilly stage better than a TTists with mid 60's mtn/hill combo anymore, since mountain matters so much more. So he's essentially become useless.
I'm not worried about Steensen in particular, who is set to decline regardless. But I think the hilly TT problems combined with the regular puncher issues are inevitably going to take his type of rider, these more unique hybrids, completely out of the peloton, which will make a lot of the TT oriented stages races go purely to stage racers who already score big. I don't think that's great for the game.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
TEST WITH 5 KM STRAIGHT FINISH, WIDE 3.0
Note about this race (BarBados):
Stage 1-3 pancake, stage 2-4 flat but with some climbs
The routes here often circular finish, so I general only last 5 km straight – but as the breakaway was often caught 10-6km out, would prefer a 10 km straight finish, so note to redesign better drop existing route to make 10 km straight, so avoid sprinter sitting low awaiting “break catch” having a hard time in a curve.
Gameplay:
Breakaway was always caught!
The late hill at stage 4, world often allow a minor split so a true sprinter stage best without late climbs (even small), if we do not lift low MO
Seemingly good fair sprints with a lot of room for moving and changing position, often very close photo finish.
Won’t comment on is the result better ok or whatever, so hard to say with the list of sprinters we got here.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
