I'll start with the version of the game. I can't speak to PCM15, my experiences only span the two and a half season, so keep that in mind.
I'm also a bit biased, since my season has been pretty terrific so far. So when I say that I've been enjoying the PCM20 experience, I know that comes with a caveat. And all this evaluation is to a good extent anecdotal, I don't have every single race in my head. Still, I think there are some pretty positive things about the game.
The cobbles AI for one has been stellar, and hilly classics I think for the most part, too. I also enjoyed many mountain stage races. Some good aggressive racing, and stuff like Dombrowski getting the better of Herklotz for even a stage in the Giro, or Kudus being able to beat Lecuisinier in Colombia. I feel like there's more upset potential, but nothing completely absurd and for the most part, the guys who should win, win. There's some funky stuff (like Iino winning Catalunya), but you always have that occasionally, I think. And some underperformances (like Pluchkin in Colombia or Quintana in virtually every race he enters ...), but that is more of a database thing, I think.
Prologues seem to be very random for sure, but so they were in PCM18, no? I have to say that I haven't paid much attention to time trials yet, but they weren't super solid in PCM18 either. Again, this is anecdotal, but iirc, when Vlatos won the opening TT of the Tour last year (or the year before?), it was a relief because he *finally* made use of his potential after underperforming pretty consistently compared to his stats. But like I said, I can't speak to PCM20 in that regard too much.
Stage races for pure puncheurs are a concern, since pure puncheur stages so rarely give time gaps when they're designed to not favor climber/puncheur hybrids. But I think there are approaches to this. It might be an option to give bonus seconds for the Top 10 similar to sprinter stage races. Or the race calendar can get adjusted with more classics to make sure those guys still have enough point scoring opportunities.
That said, I wouldn't be super opposed to a switch back to 18 either. Generally though, I very much agree with the notion that whatever game we land on, we should definetely stick with that for a while and until a PCM comes out that very significantly and undoubtedly improves the AI - which, as Ollfardh points out, I'm not at all confident in.
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Sprints of course are a huge issue. But I don't agree with TMM that there's nothing we can do about it. I have a few ideas, although admittedly, they'd have to be tested first (and possibly require a good bit of work).
a) We saw in the Giro that sprinters high in the GC can actually sprint IF they are not considered GC contenders because of the type of stage race. I would like to try what happens if we simply added one or two mountain stages to the stage files, obviously without actually riding them. For points calculation, it doesn't change anything if we simply take the result files from after the final flat stage. The mountain stages also wouldn't have to show up in the profiles threads, so no damage to the role playing factor. But of course, we would need to test that theory (I might have some time over the next few days), if that is something that would be generally acceptable.
b) I'm not sure if this is possible and if so, how much work this would be. But we've also straightened all finishing stretches before, which is partly where I got this idea from, so who knows:
It might be possible to fix or at least mitigate the trains/wheel sucking problem if we introduced a negative slope on finishing stretches. Obviously we would have to test the numbers, and we could vary them a bit, too. But if a finishing stretch is, say, at -3 or -4%, riders would have to spend less red bar to get to the line/the red bar would empty more slowly. The guys who run out at 300 or 400m from the line might only run out at 100m (again, specifics would need to be tested). I'm not sure if it's viable from a pure effort perspective, or even possible in general, since I know nothing about stage editing. But I at least wanted to put it out there.
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With regards to divisions, having just two divisions sounds really stale. If there's no relegation in PCT, at best half the teams would have anything to play for halfway through the season, I imagine. I haven't fully thought this through, but at first glance, I'd much rather prefer e.g. a 20 team PCT, or filling CT with amateur teams similar to two (?) years ago. Not sure how that would affect the race calendar, admittedly.
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Lastly, I want to throw something out there that is probably controversial: I would like to allow reporters to re-run races if they're completely messed up. I want to make clear that this would only apply to extreme cases - not in a "oh, this was a bit boring, let's try again" way. But if something like this year's Milano-San Remo happens where the AI just straightup doesn't work, I would have no qualms whatsoever if the reporter would just close the game and start again. Obviously this means extra work for the reporter (so it would be optionally anyway), but speaking personally, I'd much rather invest another hour or two than having the discussion thread revolving solely about how trash the AI behaved. No one benefits from that, in my opinion.
cunego59 wrote:
Sprints of course are a huge issue. But I don't agree with TMM that there's nothing we can do about it. I have a few ideas, although admittedly, they'd have to be tested first (and possibly require a good bit of work).
a) We saw in the Giro that sprinters high in the GC can actually sprint IF they are not considered GC contenders because of the type of stage race. I would like to try what happens if we simply added one or two mountain stages to the stage files, obviously without actually riding them. For points calculation, it doesn't change anything if we simply take the result files from after the final flat stage. The mountain stages also wouldn't have to show up in the profiles threads, so no damage to the role playing factor. But of course, we would need to test that theory (I might have some time over the next few days), if that is something that would be generally acceptable.
Firstly, Point B could work? At least i understand the theory behind it. Certainly it's something that at least can be tested before saying Yes/No.
Back to Point A.
I thought about this as well. But for me, it introduces other AI influences that will still impact on the race even if we didn't count the final stage in the results.
As an example, if your team doesn't have a sprinter (or the sprinter you have is too weak compared to rest of the startlist) then you can get given the "breakaway" tag and will send riders down the road. However, now if you happened to also have the best climber, you will get a "GC Team" tag which can restrict your teams willingness to attack, can restrict your weak sprinters ability to sprint even more, and even make your team work to chase the breakaway alongside the sprint teams.
It could also impact upon the games ordering of the sprinters. A flat only sprinter (e.g. Ricki Nelson famously bad on climbs, but fine in other areas) now goes from a potential outsider, to no hoper in the AI eyes. And the reverse, a climbing sprinter (e.g. Van Stayen, Kump, even a Yates/Ponzi type!) could get bumped way up the favourites order.
This kind of changes will grow more in TT/Sprint races or CB/Sprint races, as it now factors even more types of stat and rider into it's calculations.
You're right that in a "normal" stage race this works out much better. But parts of that are also due to a much lower inflation influence as less sprinters turn up to begin with.
I'd also be concerned, that like in normal stage races, the chances of a breakaway win go up as the AI potentially starts to save energy for the final tougher stage. Good for excitement, bad for sprinters.
This kind of change is different to once a few years ago to re-order stage races to fix what was then poor Stage 1 AI, as this didn't change the actual type of race, so the same favourites were favourites, breakaway teams were breakaway teams etc.
Hopefully that makes some sense. Happy to be wrong on any of the above as well, because then we have another option to explore.
I agree that AI behavior could be tricky in that case, and it would have to be tested extensively and with varied startlists. But if the choice is between slightly weird breakaway behavior and "wrong" teams pulling at the front of the peloton or something like that, and Top 3 sprinters simply not sprinting, I'd still pick the former (that is, if we stick with PCM20, of course).
Something else I'd thought about was editing the GC after the first stage with something like putting the three control riders at the top of the GC. Now, obviously that potentially invites a host of AI issues as well, but it doesn't have to. I can remember plenty of races where the breakaway was caught easily despite the yellow jersey team not working a single second, for instance.
Again, if I have some time over the next few weeks (or if anyone else does and is interested), I'll do some testing, as both pro and con are at this point still theoretical
quadsas wrote:
I have eyes, I look at rankings, sprinters look fine.
Yes, you've expressed that before ... but this is not purely about a wage-to-point ratio (even if that does play a role). Like, does it not bother you at all that a sprinter winning despite having a leadout is celebrated as an incredibly rare occurence? Or that it is generally accepted that gaining the GC lead in a sprinter stage race is a bad thing? (I know you've argued against that before, but I don't think you have many arguments in your favor.)
And I mean, you can argue that this is predictable - I certainly benefited from planning around the way sprints work. But even then, it's not desirable from a role playing perspective I don't think.
I like the wildcards the way they are because I use them to develop my riders, not "steal" points from PT. I don't wanna be in a situation where I can't develop my riders because I can't find loans etc.
Maybe there can be some subtle changes like wildcards being more expensive to buy or riders in PCT having separate wildcard RDs not counting against their normal RDs based on their OVL so they don't go to too many PT races. Maybe the PTHC division can be further expanded, but it's already at a pretty decent number.
@Cunego
I agree with you that the game is not nearly as bad as some people are suggesting and at the same time not that much different from PCM18 in terms of the mechanics. If anything I would say the racing PCM20 is more interesting even if the end result stays largely the same. Certainly that can be more enjoyable from a reporter's POV.
TTs seems to be just about as random or not random as last year. Not sure if it's possible to completely remove wind in those stages, but other than that not sure what else can be done there.
Regarding the pure puncheur vs mo/hi riders I think the races that were meant for one type and the other have gone the way they should. We can look at the balance at the end of the season when all the results are in and see if we need to adjust it. Perhaps adding an additional one day race since those tend to always work better AI wise.
Sprints are an issue indeed when it comes to the leader and perhaps other high placed riders not sprinting.
a) I'd like to test that as well if you can provide a cdb with an altered sprint race like Barbados f.e. I'm not good at those things.
b) I think even -1% makes a huge difference, but I don't think that editing all the flat stages should be the way to go. Not to mention I can't see who would do all that.
The rerunning of stages that are bugged is pretty obvious to me. But given the lack of reporters we currently have I can completely understand how someone wouldn't be motivated to put in all that extra work. Also I'm pretty sure this discussion will show that people have very different ideas on what is good/bad AI.
cunego59 wrote:
I agree that AI behavior could be tricky in that case, and it would have to be tested extensively and with varied startlists. But if the choice is between slightly weird breakaway behavior and "wrong" teams pulling at the front of the peloton or something like that, and Top 3 sprinters simply not sprinting, I'd still pick the former (that is, if we stick with PCM20, of course).
Something else I'd thought about was editing the GC after the first stage with something like putting the three control riders at the top of the GC. Now, obviously that potentially invites a host of AI issues as well, but it doesn't have to. I can remember plenty of races where the breakaway was caught easily despite the yellow jersey team not working a single second, for instance.
Again, if I have some time over the next few weeks (or if anyone else does and is interested), I'll do some testing, as both pro and con are at this point still theoretical
quadsas wrote:
I have eyes, I look at rankings, sprinters look fine.
Yes, you've expressed that before ... but this is not purely about a wage-to-point ratio (even if that does play a role). Like, does it not bother you at all that a sprinter winning despite having a leadout is celebrated as an incredibly rare occurence? Or that it is generally accepted that gaining the GC lead in a sprinter stage race is a bad thing? (I know you've argued against that before, but I don't think you have many arguments in your favor.)
And I mean, you can argue that this is predictable - I certainly benefited from planning around the way sprints work. But even then, it's not desirable from a role playing perspective I don't think.
GC lead thing has been disproven once, that means it's not a 'feature' of a game. You don't need two arguments, you just need one.
And yes, I do understand the frustration. I think PCM20 is a very stage-reliant game so to speak. Even playing the game yourself you can see that some stages are designed well for the game, and some that really do not work. But adjusting every sprint stage to the game is not feasible. I mean sure, reporters can take note of stages that were 'good' and maybe could be used in some other tours as a safety net so to speak. But I've said for two years now, the fundamental issue is just not there. Good riders generally score more than worse ones. Some overperform, some underperform, some are exactly where they 'should' be. If there were massive issues on that front, then yes, I would also be at arms. But it's not the case.
I like the wildcards the way they are because I use them to develop my riders, not "steal" points from PT. I don't wanna be in a situation where I can't develop my riders because I can't find loans etc.
That's what other teams have to do
And if there wasn't wildcards, but rather an amount of racedays at PT level, the RD development issue could be tweaked to match it.
I dislike the part where riders ride without benefit. And even more so do I hate to see the likes of Pluchkin having 70 racedays or so, when similar PT riders have 40.
I like the wildcards the way they are because I use them to develop my riders, not "steal" points from PT. I don't wanna be in a situation where I can't develop my riders because I can't find loans etc.
That's what other teams have to do
And if there wasn't wildcards, but rather an amount of racedays at PT level, the RD development issue could be tweaked to match it.
I dislike the part where riders ride without benefit. And even more so do I hate to see the likes of Pluchkin having 70 racedays or so, when similar PT riders have 40.
There are very strange things happening in this version, the sprints look even worse than before as well some weird results in the (shorter?) time - trials. It's frustrating when a top sprinter doesn't deliver despite having the best train, but again I think this is due to MG trains being weak and leaving the sprinter in the wind before the optimal moment doubled by the weak secondary stats by a lot of the top sprinters, which makes them run out of energy quick.
But I also think this game provided some very good and exciting racing and the best example for this is Il Giro. Dombrowski looking like he could actually challenge for pink after that great stage win only to lose time in all the remaining stages and close to even lose second place.
I think the bad AI is intensified by some people's unrealistic expectations of some riders: looking just at main stats and ignoring secondary stats or ignore how that rider historically performs in the MG world despite no clear weakness in his stats. Might not be the best example, but a few posts above, TMM called Nelson a fine sprinter. Sorry, but he is not. Not with that awful resistence. You shouldn't expect a rider like that to deliver consistently neither as a sprinter nor as a lead-out. For me, a rider like that is a hit or miss. Might get a good result here and there, but there's no surprise when doesn't deliver what you expect looking only at his sprint and flat stat.
alexkr00 wrote:
I think the bad AI is intensified by some people's unrealistic expectations of some riders: looking just at main stats and ignoring secondary stats or ignore how that rider historically performs in the MG world despite no clear weakness in his stats. Might not be the best example, but a few posts above, TMM called Nelson a fine sprinter. Sorry, but he is not. Not with that awful resistence. You shouldn't expect a rider like that to deliver consistently neither as a sprinter nor as a lead-out. For me, a rider like that is a hit or miss. Might get a good result here and there, but there's no surprise when doesn't deliver what you expect looking only at his sprint and flat stat.
Ricki Nelson, multiple stage winner in the PCT!
Not the point i was making as i was in no way talking about RES, but about a sprinters climbing ability, which Ricki also lacked horribly.
You could put, idk, Reinhardt (ok-ish sprinter, can grab a win in the right race but never going to be a favourite in the PCT) in the same example. In a race like Juarez or Qatar (basically pan flat races), if you added a Mountain stage to remove the GC Tag from sprinters, you risk turning these possible outsiders into "support our GC rider" domestiques for a stage that doesn't exist in our MG world.
Because most of the high end OVL sprinters do have MO/HL to survive most stages i'm trying to avoid those Tier 2 sprinters that could back a shock (as Ricki did on a few occasions) being taken out of the equation entirely by our changes.
Hopefully that clears up my response to Cunegos +a stage idea I'm not that blinded to argue Ricki was ever a brilliant sprinter, there's a reason his wage was only ~150k and OVL allowed a lot of racing.
alexkr00 wrote:
I know, I said it wasn't the best example, but you did make it sound like climbing was his only issue and I wanted to point out that it wasn't
So, to get back to your point. We couldn't tell for sure it would be the low mountain stat that would affect him or another one of his shortcomings.
Tbf Nelson's biggest issue was not being Caleb Ewan! Maybe i'm being too cautious on the +a stage concept (which is weird coming from radical, lets re-set the game TMM), but i'd at least want to see it tested before bringing it into the game.
Unfortunately attribute stats can't explain the GC Leader bug.
But as i said last year, we can at least tackle the Stats explanation with a re-work of the OVL formula to give a boost to FL & RES. Because if you're correct, then we should easily be able to recognise Silvestres +3FL & Manninens +4 RES and re-distribute wages and RD to accurately match expectations in the game.
Which, to be clear, is my primary recommendation to help sprinting. We made a nice start last off-season and can continue to refine those key formulas this season.
[and to be clear, i can safely talk about Wages & RD without a "Ewan bias", because ain't no way i am affording him in the CT]
I honestly don't care about the precise version that much, I guess we can get used to any of them. It's just super frustrating to have a rider working really well in one version and doing almost nothing in the other one. Or did everyone expect Reinhardt to be so sh*t this year, sometimes in the very same races against no stronger competition than last season? I honestly expected rather the opposite, given that his OVL took a big jump...
Anyway, with sprints being so broken that sometimes even a 77 sprinter can win PT stages while 83+ sprinters don't even care about sprinting (and with having so many flat races/stages), luck will be a major part of the game anyway, which is what I hate. Or you have to be truly lucky and get yourself a Silvestre or Jakobsen who virtually always deliver without being any better than others (stat-wise) ^^ And no, I obviously won't compare them to Reinhardt, as I perfectly know about his flaws.
I agree that mountain races were pretty fine so far. But for me there were some issues as well. For example Pluchkin being horrible in Colombia. Why? Or Quintana being bad in virtually every race (yeah, he's not perfect by any means as well), beaten by people who have either lower Flat, lower Acc, lower Hi and definitely lower Mo (so what's wrong then?). Or the ever disappointing Reis.
But in general there seem to be more rider the AI pretty consistently treats well, so chances are higher you get one of those. What are the criteria to be "approved by PCM AI" though? Would love to know ^^
Concerning hilly stage races, awarding F1 bonus seconds on uphill finishes could be worth a try. Gaps would be slightly larger (+5s for the winner compared to "normal" bonus seconds iirc), and all Top10 finishers would be rewarded. Doesn't solve the "no gaps" issue, though, but not sure how to solve it for good.
But well, finally I guess I don't care about next season's version anyway. Just too disappointed by the current season to continue. So I hope you'll get to a conclusion that suits most, and that you'll continue to have fun with MG.
Just reading the posts here.
I've been a big supporter of keeping the game moving forward.
I've voted PCM20. I have hope that Cyandie will figure out the AI at some point, and things will be better. Sprints ofc being at the top of that list, with breakaways being a close second.
alexkr00 wrote:
I know, I said it wasn't the best example, but you did make it sound like climbing was his only issue and I wanted to point out that it wasn't
So, to get back to your point. We couldn't tell for sure it would be the low mountain stat that would affect him or another one of his shortcomings.
Tbf Nelson's biggest issue was not being Caleb Ewan! Maybe i'm being too cautious on the +a stage concept (which is weird coming from radical, lets re-set the game TMM), but i'd at least want to see it tested before bringing it into the game.
Unfortunately attribute stats can't explain the GC Leader bug.
Oh, I definitely agree it needs testing, but it's something worth looking into. My point is that even testing wouldn't give us a certain result though as there are more things that should be considered when judging results.
About the GC leader bug. I agree it looks fishy. I took a quick look at some flat races this year and the results definitely seem to suggest it. But, from what I can see there were other sprinters also not sprinting in all of these scenarios. And because of this while the evidence looks overwhelming towards the bug, I'm not sure if there's really a bug or a whole awful lot of coincidences.
Spoiler
Race
Stage
Leader
Sprinted
Was the only big sprinter missing?
Tour of Qatar
3
Gaviria
Yes
Tour of Qatar
4
Gaviria
No
No
Tour of Qatar
5
Gaviria
No
No
Tour of Qatar
6
Gaviria
Kind of (top 10 finish)
Baltic Chain Tour
2
Saber
No
No
Baltic Chain Tour
3
Silvestre
No
No
Baltic Chain Tour
4
Van Aesbroeck
No
No
Baltic Chain Tour
5
Jakobsen
No
No
Circulo de Juarez
3
Maninen
No
No
Circulo de Juarez
4
Bouhanni
No
No
Circulo de Juarez
5
Howard
No
No
Barbados
2
Silvestre
No*
No
Barbados
3
Ewan
No*
No
Barbados
4
Bonifazio
No*
No
* seemed to be there when the trains were made but did not seem to get involved
I am with hillis in that I would like for the game to move forward rather than backwards in terms of the Editions used. Hopefully in a few years, 21 or 22 is a really solid version that can be used into the longer future.
We’ve seen a recent example of a sprint train working in Nakhon where a favourite did win so hopefully we see more of that during the rest of the 21 Season. It does appear that the game puts the sprinter on the end of the train in the lead way too early and they run out of puff. Gradient change would be interesting to see.
The GC issue is a tough one to fix. I don’t believe that adding the stages would be beneficial as that may leave sprinters unprotected which could bring new issues. I suppose it makes sense that the focus of the team is for the GC leader not to lose time during the stage to the breakaway so the sprint at the end is an after thought. However, it’s definitely frustrating.
I also know Jakobsen has done very well in HC and C1 races but it’ll be interesting to see how he fares as a favourite in C2 and C2HC races.
Mountains seem to put out correct results the majority of the time. Stage Races with TTs make the impact that they should and it’s nice to see the well-rounded riders perform well.
Hill Classics seem solid enough. If too many riders around the same HIL stat that are all 2nd tier favourites, it becomes a bit hit and miss but that is to be expected.
Hill Stage Races like Pologne are well received although I understand the point of limited gaps on actual HIL rated stages.
TTs and Prologues are inconsistent with those around the 7km mark looking the weirdest of them. If wind is indeed the impact then I suppose that could be fixed. The form does seem to make a massive difference too.
Cobbles AI usually really good from what I’ve seen and reported. Cheshire the exception but there are fixes that can be made to a race like that.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
