I would still like some sort of training discount for real homegrown talent whos overall is below a certain threshold. It will make no sense for me to spend tons of cash on mediocre riders, even though my goal is to Make Lithuania Great Again
Idea 2: Either remove OTL, or Change RD cost for Sprinters to attend
Throwing out some more, maybe slightly radical, ideas.
Other General Points Idead 3: Re-balance the Divisions
Currently operating a 22-26-XX system (XX being CT which changes year to year). I suggest a simple 22-22-XX system. Why? Mostly to help try and boost the CT in size and keep it relevant as a division and less reliant on PT-Dev teams. We already know CT ranking goals are bit of a problem given the smaller division size, and that is has the highest manager drop-out rate in the game. This idea i hope would help cement it again as a proper and competitive division as it was when i joined. How? I am not saying we relegate more PCT teams, just that as teams disband in PT+PCT we don't auto-promote from the CT for a year or two until we balance the numbers.
Idea 4: WildCards earn Points
Radical suggestion yes, but not stupid. We know money during transfers can be rather circular (the Tax helps but i still think too much flows up to training in the PT), if a PT WC can earn you Points as well as XP this might encourage more PCT teams to go for them. To see Pluchkin or Summerhill miss most of the PT races is a huge shame, but if these appearences can earn points, and some good points at that, i think we could improve the overall competitiveness of the game. This can be balanced against increasing the cost of a WildCard, or maybe having them cost RD. It would also feel better overall to know these PCT teams arn't just taking your Points for no reason, but actually using them.
Idea 5: Any FA stat increase MUST have an equal FA stat decrease
I've been shouting this one for years! If any FA rider gets a stat increase we have to lower another FA by an equal amount!
I'm not going to run through my usual bit on inflation, go read the last 3 or 4 suggestion threads. But this is such a basic concept that will be incredibly easy to do and make a real difference to the rate of inflation.
Idea 6: Setting the PCT a Fixed Calendar like PT & CT
Simple idea, replace the HC Bands with a fixed HC calendar similar to C2HC for CT and PT for PT. PCT teams will still have band selection for PTHC, same as PT teams do, and C1/C2 selection remains for both PCT and CT.
Why? Just kind of to bring PCT into line with both PT & CT in having a fixed central calendar. CT teams must race all C2HC and PT must race all PT, so to have PCT race all HC makes sense to me. Still got choice of PTHC and C1/C2 and PT WildCards to maintain the most flexible calendar in the game.
Now this would only work with a reduction in PCT division size, but i suggested that too. Spare HC spaces left in a 22 team division could go to CT teams in the same way spare PT spaces go to PCT teams (also providing a good incentive for CT teams to hold a bit more money for themselves).
Tamijo wrote:
In general PCM will need riders with better MO of all types, to get a stronger pack and reduce the number of riders to abandon. As mountain will play into (almost) any stage.
2 > 3, 3>4, 4 > Max
All types of development all levels MO+1 (+3 MO), unless of course they already get more, this will reduce the need to go mountain on a rider, unless you actually want to make a climber, getting more varied lower level riders.
The same could really be said for Flat as well... I think that is the biggest thing plaguing sprints right now as well, too many bad flats riders, really struggle to catch up to breakaways when they should.
Yes I agree, MO and Fl are basic and we need to have as few riders too low in those two as possible, will still be some youngster and we should avoid fully developed rider being low in those.
So also Free Riders (fully developed) could get a minimum value in those two
roturn wrote:
I will look into stat gain stuff as well.
But one point must be kept in mind. For special riders, which breakaway riders clearly are, there might not be a single stat gain training but a combination of 2-3.
e.g. a combination of mo/flat is wanted, than a combination of climber v1, stage racer, hill, fighter, classics could be used from level 1 to level 4 to actually reach that kind of rider.
I will test a few new options with mountain and flat in one training option, but not sure, this will work out better really.
I guess the problem is that bouncing between completely different options has always felt like you're not really maximizing your riders potential, in backup stats and such too. But that was based on a man game that valued main stats above all, so maybe this will naturally change.
I still think that there is almost no reason to pick the fighter category right now as it is. Take Krigbaum of mine for example. Here's him two years back.
Last
First
Flat
Mtn
Hill
TT
Sta
Res
Rec
Cob
Spr
Acc
Fig
Dwn
Pro
XP Level
XP Points
Age
Potential
Krigbaum
Mathias
73
65
68
68
69
69
67
62
65
63
69
69
67
1
0
22
3
He's potential 3, so I know there's not a ton of room for growth. What should I maximize? Well off the bat, he's a solid all round with no 50's in stats or anything. But his standout is obviously flat. So my initial thought was to use fighter to maximize his flat, creating a powerhouse and a good all around domestique.
Well, this is what he looks like if I had taken him as a fighter:
Last
First
Flat
Mtn
Hill
TT
Sta
Res
Rec
Cob
Spr
Acc
Fig
Dwn
Pro
XP Level
XP Points
Age
Potential
Krigbaum
Mathias
80
65
69
68
72
73
68
63
68
68
74
70
67
4
100
26
3
I mean, his flat looks nice, but not much else. And since we know having a high powered flat guy will not increase your odds at getting a sprint train, he is basically useless. If he had some small climbing buffs, it might be worth it. but as it is, especially in PCM 18, he is basically a useless rider, despite being the exact type of rider you'd expect to take this trajectory. He won't survive on climbs enough to do any domestique work and won't guarantee anything on flat.
So instead, I went TT:
Last
First
Flat
Mtn
Hill
TT
Sta
Res
Rec
Cob
Spr
Acc
Fig
Dwn
Pro
XP Level
XP Points
Age
Potential
Krigbaum
Mathias
78
65
69
75
74
74
72
62
65
63
72
69
74
4
100
26
3
Now, it's obvious that he does not become a good time trialist with this training, maxing at 75 with 74 pro. But the benefit still far outweighs the drawbacks in my opinion. He has -2 Flat, but +7 TT/Pro more than compensate. But where I think we really see the issue is in the other stats. TT gives us the same mountain and hill, but with better backup stats. +2 Sta, +1 Res, +4 recovery. He loses -1 cob, -3 spr, and -5 acc, but his job is as a domestique, so those aren't a big deal anyway. He even only loses -2 fighter, fi that actually matters.
So I chose TT, cause at least now he will be capable in TTT's as well. Plus, I don't think he's actually any worse of a domestique/breakaway guy with TT development. To me, for a rider like Krigbaum, it would almost be debatable whether to send him down fighter or TT even regardless of the TT gains, cause the other stat tradeoffs aren't even that one sided for a domestique type. And Kribgaum is the exact type of guy you would consider taking down fighter right now. So if it's not him, who's doing it?
I think if fighter was buffed to have a few points in climbing - say Krigbaum gains +2 mtn and +3 hill by going fighter>TT from 1->Max - it would be a much harder choice and I would have created a rider that is both more well rounded and stronger in his role - as a domestique.
And because of the breadth>depth in the category, I still think you would not get future leaders going down that path and becoming OP at all. Rather, you'd just get more well rounded domestiques, which I think the game needs to encourage, and could indriectly help with breakaway/sprint problems.
RIP Exxon Duke, David Veilleux, Double Feature, and Monster Energy
Really appreciate all the suggestions so far, keep them coming! Going through the proposals one by one, I have the following thoughts:
jandal and bbl:
With the Classics training I'm not sure how much of a change is needed with PCM 18, though we'll need to look into that further. The potential for reshaping Fighter training is definitely worth developing further - perhaps into a training type that gives +1 in each of the core stats, with FL, STA, RES, ACC and FTR being the main points of difference between potentials and levels?
Tamijo and Kentaurus:
We're aware of the issues with riders having too low Flat and Mountain stats for PCM 18 to function well, and it's something Croatia and I have focused quite heavily upon when working on new rider additions so far. As a general rule I've tried to avoid adding riders with sub-65 Flat and sub-55 Mountain (though that may go up to 60), but any insight you can give into whether that's likely to be enough is appreciated, as is any wider input into statting new additions.
quadsas:
There's a discussion to be had about this, but in the past the approach has been to reward commitment to focusing on less common areas by gradually adding stronger talents from those areas each year - that is how teams such as Rakuten, Sauber, Indosat, Evonik and Valio have been helped to develop to name just a few. But with that said, I wouldn't be opposed to making it easier to train homegrown riders up to a certain level (perhaps around 75 in their main stat) - would be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this.
TMM:
I agree with your first idea about the Points Jersey scales in GTs - it would be good to bring them into line with their real life equivalents. However, if we were to do that I'm not sure if we would then adjust the RD cost for GTs as well. This is something to consider within the wider debate about how low a mountain stat is too low for PCM 18 though.
In terms of divisional rebalancing I can see the logic, although it depends on disbandments to make it practical. As it currently stands I'm not certain that we will have enough disbandments to go to a 22 team PCT without an effect on promotion, but we can always wait and see. I don't particularly like the idea of giving wildcards points, although I can completely understand the rationale behind it.
We've avoided stat decreases in the past for FAs due to not wanting to make riders with a history in the Man-Game "disappear", but weaker FAs have tended to be removed. One thing I've been looking at is potentially changing the stats of some unmaxed FA riders to bring them closer to reality by raising their XP levels, achieving the same effect as you suggest but taking a couple of seasons to come into effect.
Finally, on point 6 I'd be more inclined to go the other way personally, though it may not be practical. The C2HC fixed calendar was put into place as we aimed to make the season run quicker, and as the CT was declining in size. I'd actually quite like to be able to reintroduce that element to the game, although it depends on the number of teams and our capabilities from an organising and reporting perspective.
jph27 wrote:
be enough is appreciated, as is any wider input into statting new additions.
quadsas:
There's a discussion to be had about this, but in the past the approach has been to reward commitment to focusing on less common areas by gradually adding stronger talents from those areas each year - that is how teams such as Rakuten, Sauber, Indosat, Evonik and Valio have been helped to develop to name just a few. But with that said, I wouldn't be opposed to making it easier to train homegrown riders up to a certain level (perhaps around 75 in their main stat) - would be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this.
you see its more of issue specifically in my case as the only decent riders in Navardauskas and Siskevicius will be declining way before the next crop comes up. Sure, I could just keep Lithuanian youngsters and all the 'real' riders could be foreigners, but since this is not real life some other options would be welcomed.Some guys who couldve been improved during offseason like Lasinis and Gembeckas are not anywhere close to being usable, and the only actually decent prospect in Beniusis is YEARS away from training. If I could take some of weak FA riders who are available to train for cheap I at least would have a choice to spend money on them.
I agree with your first idea about the Points Jersey scales in GTs - it would be good to bring them into line with their real life equivalents. However, if we were to do that I'm not sure if we would then adjust the RD cost for GTs as well. This is something to consider within the wider debate about how low a mountain stat is too low for PCM 18 though.
The RD cost change is more to offer a balance for the sprinters risk of a GT vs a climbers risk. Without crashes any mountain capable rider is 100% guaranteed to finish the race, but a weak climbing sprinter (aka most sprinters) are not. So to spend 21RD for them is a hugely more risky move for significantly less reward. So as we see year to year, the best sprinters tend to avoid the GT's, and by doing so have enough RD to compete in every other suitable race.
An alternative for this balance would be to force more Sprint race clashes, to get more sprinters with remaining RD to try and target a GT. But again, with a strong risk of OTL in a GT vs 3 1-week races i'll still go for the short tours over a GT.
Or bring back crashes so climb focused teams face this same tough choice. But i know that won't happen.
In terms of divisional rebalancing I can see the logic, although it depends on disbandments to make it practical. As it currently stands I'm not certain that we will have enough disbandments to go to a 22 team PCT without an effect on promotion, but we can always wait and see. I don't particularly like the idea of giving wildcards points, although I can completely understand the rationale behind it.
Rebalance i know might need to take two seasons. Or we could get 20 new applications and the idea won't be needed at all, although unlikely. Drop two teams this season and two next, that's not beyond reason.
Points scoring for WildCards, think about it. Opens a world of choices for PCT managers to make with some big rewards if you get it right.
We've avoided stat decreases in the past for FAs due to not wanting to make riders with a history in the Man-Game "disappear", but weaker FAs have tended to be removed. One thing I've been looking at is potentially changing the stats of some unmaxed FA riders to bring them closer to reality by raising their XP levels, achieving the same effect as you suggest but taking a couple of seasons to come into effect.
Never understood why we can boost a rider, ignoring their history, but can't change one down, because of their history. Surely the logic is the same in both cases?
I talked about the damage of inflation in the AI discussion thread. My real suggestions to tackle it go a lot further but i know wouldn't be agreed, but an equal +1/-1 on FA changes would be a real simple, real easy, thing to do that would make an immediate and notable impact for the benefit of all.
Finally, on point 6 I'd be more inclined to go the other way personally, though it may not be practical. The C2HC fixed calendar was put into place as we aimed to make the season run quicker, and as the CT was declining in size. I'd actually quite like to be able to reintroduce that element to the game, although it depends on the number of teams and our capabilities from an organising and reporting perspective.
I do remember when PCT and CT were 100% free choice divisions, and that was much better. But we know we are a good few reporters away from bringing that back. Until then to have 2 divisions (PT + CT) run one system and PCT run another is just a bit odd. Equally if we wanted to change C2HC from it's fixed set to a band system like HC, leaving PT as the only fixed calendar division, i would support that too. It would be much closer to irl with the fixed WT but open choices in lower tiers.
And then with some rebalancing of the divisions to guarantee good sized pelotons
There's a discussion to be had about this, but in the past the approach has been to reward commitment to focusing on less common areas by gradually adding stronger talents from those areas each year - that is how teams such as Rakuten, Sauber, Indosat, Evonik and Valio have been helped to develop to name just a few. But with that said, I wouldn't be opposed to making it easier to train homegrown riders up to a certain level (perhaps around 75 in their main stat) - would be interested to hear the thoughts of others on this.
So as someone running a narrow focus team in a non-obscure area (US) I have been struck by how everyone admires that focus but there are no particular advantages and the big disadvantage of reducing your rider pool. Not having much history the introduction of better young riders isn't something I have witnessed, but sounds nice. Not sure if that applies to the USA. But also once those riders are introduced what stops other teams from signing them? So the home nation may end up paying more than they otherwise would if they weren't focused on a specific country. Particularly if someone else happens to bid quicker.
So my suggestion is that a home nation team can win a bid by just matching the bid of a non-home nation team for an FA (maybe only up to bids of $Xk). For riders at $50k this would be a big advantage as the rider gets more expensive it doesn't matter much. This way teams would have an advantage in signing moderately priced riders and minor talents in their home country. Which is also sensible - is a $50k Lithuanian rider going to sign with their home team all else equal - probably. I have a few details on how to make this work but will save those.
One other aside - not sure that bumping flat will help reduce breakaway success. It also makes the breakaway riders better after all. The DB I run in my game on PCM18 has very healthy flat and if anything breaks are more of a problem than the man game.
Training Age
As a still relative newbie can I ask: The point of needing a maxed year before training is to stop people training too young and becoming too good too fast right? Or is there another reason?
If there isn't, well then why is it still around for 27-28 year olds being maxed? Why isn't it an age thing? I propose we make it either they must be a certain age, or more likely that they must have a maxed year OR be, say, 27-28. To take my team as an example: Jordan Schleck, if I didn't screw up development, could have maxed at 23. He could have been trained starting at 24. He could have had SIX years of training. Not saying it's too many (it probably is). But him playing by the rules of a late bloomer in Mekseb Debesay, who gets only two years, seems weird. And yes I know it's not Debesay being added late that caused his short time training eligible in this case. However it also wasn't my fault he got screwed developing
Basically the new rule would read Riders must be 4.100 and x (27/28, whatever the final ruling is) years old OR have a year at 4.100 to be training eligible." - This works assuming we will keep up the pattern of designing riders to have their first possible maxed season at 25 and becoming training eligible at 26 minimum.
And you may say "jandal just wants to make Debesay 83COB the cheeky bastard" and yes, I do But my argument still applies - hell, make it just for newly added riders, or everyone except Xero for a year, so that Debesay can't do it if you feel I have an ulterior motive here
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." [PT] Xero Racing
jph27 wrote:
The potential for reshaping Fighter training is definitely worth developing further - perhaps into a training type that gives +1 in each of the core stats, with FL, STA, RES, ACC and FTR being the main points of difference between potentials and levels?
Sounds like a good idea. Just one observation: STA seems most important for one day classics riders, where breaks rarely make it. Breakaways are most successful in tours, especially grand tours. And those don't have that many 200km+ stages. I'd say REC might be more important for fighters. They put in so much effort that many fizzle out near the end of tours.
I am not a fan of the PTHC band system at all. I guess for the HC bands it worked kind of well, because teams will only miss out on a lower priority band. For the PTHC races this is much worse. This season I am affected by this, as I got my 4th choice (least preferred) band. That means I am forced to ride 20 race days in races that are not fitting for my team at all instead of ones that would be very well fitting. That's a huge disadvantage. I understand that not everyone can take part in all races he wants to but having to spend more than 10% of race days in terrible suiting races for the team, while others got their top choices in PTHC races is just unfair.
I guess the best way would be to remove the bands and require PT and PCT teams to ride a certain number of PTHC race days by selecting the races. Then, handling oversubscriptions could be handled much fairer. Also I guess it would be better to have the races not planned to have the maximum of 24 teams participating.
Honestly, I'd drop the C2HC classification as well and redistribute the races to the C1 and C2 categories. The mandatory 60 RD C2HC races for CT teams will be instead transformed into a minimal requirement for CT teams to participate in 60 RD of C2 races. This will eliminate the meaningless races for some CT teams that are required to compete in due to the C2HC system.
Rethink the Amateur division concept by turning it into developmental division for U23 riders with 3-5 slots for riders over the age of 23 to serve as "mentors"
It's rather drastic, but I would like to post my idea about compensating Hill riders again. Beijing was a disaster for the pure hill riders and guys with low MO are in trouble now in slightly hilly races. This would be a free update, but imo it's needed to keep some riders viable:
If the gap between MO and HILL is 1-5, no changes
If the gap between MO and HILL is 6-10, add 1 MO
If the gap between MO and HILL is 11-15, add 2 MO
If the gap between MO and HILL is 15+ add 3 MO
In my opinion, it would also make the MG DB more realistic, and the more realistic, the better it should work with any version the game.
As seen from my previous posts i would agree to any MO/HI related upgrade.
Simply not possible to make very fair hilly races if puncher are in the 55-65 region.
Unless we want 100's of stages with flat and just one final 2-3 km uphill finish.
Even with the above upgrade many top punchers will suffer a lot.
Tamijo wrote:
Even with the above upgrade many top punchers will suffer a lot.
Yes, but for a free update this is about as good as it should get. Changing the average formula for a lower wage and normal training are other ways to fix this.
As I said before, these onedimentional, unrealistic riders shouldn't be as good as they were in the past, but what I'm seeing this season is horrible as well. We'll need to find some middle ground.
I agree there should be an OVL change for these riders and lower wages also. There can also be an extended version of the exemption training similar to the above table. I would also be in favour of changing their development paths, for example change one of their "Hills" stat gains for a "Climber v1" or "Stage race" to make them better climbers/allround riders.
I don't like the idea of giving free stats to any rider. Maybe puncheurs were in some ways the best riders before, because they mainly needed only one good stat to perform and are now the most effected. I think most riders should be better rounded to perform well on a more consistant basis.
Also I don't think all puncheurs are useless. There are still one day races like Wallonie, Nantahala probably others and some stage races like Down Under, Southland etc. where the one dimensional puncheurs have done well. Gone are (mostly) the days where a puncheur would gain 2 mins on a climber and 4 mins on a good TTer on a hill stage. But is that so bad?
Puncheurs are now probably more like cobblers. They are mostly classics riders now. Some changes to the calendar to provide enough one day and specific stage races along with proper planning and the above changes is in my opinion a better way to handle the problem.
I don't know if this is already in effect for the upcoming season thanks to the "less corners in the final flat kilometres" initiative, but I would like to suggest only using prologues with limited cornering as well since those bunch up the results a lot and therefore might randomize them too much.
From my experience in PCM18/19, short prologues with many corners (let's say 4+ corners on ~5k) can easily see the favorites spread out anywhere from first to 50th without a logical explanation.
If we can't reduce that randomness everywhere (which, to be fair, is to some extent obviously inherent to prologues), I would suggest to at least add the prologue route to the race profile thread so teams can plan accordingly and know the risk.
- Yes I definately agree, because at the moment there is a tendency for managers to quickly close their transfers, which is obviously their choice to make, but doesn't exactly enhance a positive dialogue for the remaining managers. I believe I saw 15-20 managers claiming "transfers is over" well before deadline. I could even see a rule against that being a good thing. Obviously we can't make a rule to avoid people from being happy with their teams, but the public announciations is not positive for the game. It invites others to play it safe and accept their current status (possible even a sense of Status Quo almost from the gun), which again make others jump aboard and claim their transfers closed.
- I fully understand the reasoning behind making the transferseason shorter, because we saw a very uneventful period towards the end, but as others claim, it doesn't really make a difference. The season takes aproximately 1 year, while the part where we can really make a difference takes a week and a half. The DB work can easily be made during the transfers, and the final couple of days doesn't tip the workamount much.
I do believe that a solid 2 week transfers would be ideal, as it would also make it less likely that people would be struck out by vacation for the entirety. But I do believe we should make a rule against pointing out that their transferseason is over to avoid activating a big number of those posts.
2) Keeping PCM 18, tweaking stages
- Yes. I don't think we are ready to make a new game-jump. We have to conclude from this years transition, that testing was not thorough enough. We don't want to make the same mistake again.
I believe we need to make it visable what degree a stage is HI/MO if we begin to tinker with that. Also the sprint stages need to be somewhat concluded by the end, to make adjustments here and there.
3) OVL re-calculating
- Yes somewhat. Not much, but I definately see TT'ers getting a nod back again. They got an increase in OVL an wage up to this season, we should aim to claw that back! Also we should probably aim to set back sprinters too, as it is now much more random, and creating functioning trains isn't setup the same way.
4) Less RD usage for sprinters in GT's.
- Yes. I believe I have also made that suggestion earlier - or atleast commented upon it. I believe it makes a very interesting idea if we say that every sprinter with eg. 81-82SPR can ride a GT and use 2/3 of the racedays in order to make the sprints contested by better sprinter. Maybe make it a 1 use pr. season, so if the sprinter wants to attend 2 GT's it would cost 14+21 so it isn't overexagerrated. For many of the 80-81 sprinter racedays isn't really an issue, so I believe we need to make a decent cut somewhere. F.e. I have had Stauff in one and Petit in another. The only sprinter in my team where the gamble isn't worth it is Coquard.
I'll try to comment on more as we go along, these was where I made it for now
