My love for cycling has slowly started to rise again, which is great. I played PCM from 2010-13 religiously. I recently decided to watch some gameplay series on Youtube just to see how much the game had developed as I was thinking about buying the latest edition. It has been 9 years so I imagined that there would be a lot of new stuff I had to learn. I'll admit I was stunned to see what I saw.
The game has barely changed.
As far as the 3D goes, it appears to be nearly identical to PCM 13. No added stats, AI still seems to behave as headless chickens at times, and the 3D graphics are completely the same with some added animations and textures.
I don't understand how there could be so little incentive to develop the game.
As far as I understand, both the scouting system and the season planner have underwent complete overhauls, and that sounds great to me, but the overall feeling is that the game still seems very arcade-like. Therefore, I have some questions for you about some of the features that may or may not have been added since then. I'm sorry if I've simply missed some of these. But from what I've seen, the game hasn't really underwent any significant changes.
a) Have there been any improvements in terms of AI that I have missed somehow? This is in relation to 3D racing.
b) Are there any player-to-rider interactions in the game? And if so, how do they work?
c) Do riders have some sort of personality traits? I've played a lot of FM and to me, the character and personality traits are what makes these fictional worlds come to life.
d) Any developments in terms of AI squad building?
Another thing: This forum appears to me significantly less active compared to ten years ago. What happened? I haven't been able to find any other forum that has the same amount of activity that I saw here back then.
Yes, very little has changed over time. Many recent changes aren't necessarily even innovations, but simply old features that have for some reason been discontinued that are brought back. I still enjoy my time with the game, but there are certainly frustrations. To your questions:
a) It's difficult to say if you've played every year and year-to-year differences have been marginal. You can definitely still exploit the AI here and there and sometimes it behaves stupidly, but generally I would say 3D racing is enjoyable.
b) Not entirely sure what you mean by player-to-rider interactions. You don't have a way to really interact with riders from other teams while you're racing, and the only direct interactions with your own riders (other than controlling them) are during contract negotiations. Indirectly though, there's now a moral system where your actions (for instance sending a rider to their prefered races or not, not giving them enough races etc) have an impact on their motivation, which in turn can give them a boost or a malus on their race shape and I think influences contract negotiations as well. However ...
c) ... nothing differentiates riders, like being more or less demanding (other than the role you gave them in contract negotiations). No individual character traits. No idea why they haven't included that yet, seems like such a no brainer.
d) I feel like that's been okay in recent years. But I haven't played too many long term careers to really say that.
To you last point, I think it's just that forums as a means of communication have been on the decline over the entire internet. A good amount has migrated to Discord servers, but also I think people just aren't participating as much actively in online cultures anymore. Could be wrong about that, but just an observation.
Champ_Armstrong wrote:
If you are a huge fan of cycling this game is actually pretty awesome and getting slighty better every edition. AI , career . ingame etc.
We complain about it because we are passionate.
Check out some of the discords. There are plenty of activity there
I'll check out the discords. Cheers.
As I mentioned before, I played the game myself a lot. I'm well aware of how the game works. I too thought the game was pretty awesome, but after a few years it got a little dull when there wasn't much to do besides racing. The depth of the management aspect was perfect for me when I was a beginner, but once I learned how to navigate around, it quickly became a game of clicking 'next day' and racing. This is why I asked whether there had been any significant changes to the game (especially in terms of team management), and apparently it is, for the most part, the exact same game I played about 7-9 years ago. That was what baffled me.
a) It's difficult to say if you've played every year and year-to-year differences have been marginal. You can definitely still exploit the AI here and there and sometimes it behaves stupidly, but generally I would say 3D racing is enjoyable.
I understand. I remember the AI not being that very aggressive in the editions I played. I remember, on PCM 12, attacks on mountain stages were rare and often you'd have an entire group of maybe 10-20 riders reaching the finish line together, but I think it was fixed on PCM 13.
b) Not entirely sure what you mean by player-to-rider interactions. You don't have a way to really interact with riders from other teams while you're racing, and the only direct interactions with your own riders (other than controlling them) are during contract negotiations. Indirectly though, there's now a moral system where your actions (for instance sending a rider to their prefered races or not, not giving them enough races etc) have an impact on their motivation, which in turn can give them a boost or a malus on their race shape and I think influences contract negotiations as well. However ...
c) ... nothing differentiates riders, like being more or less demanding (other than the role you gave them in contract negotiations). No individual character traits. No idea why they haven't included that yet, seems like such a no brainer.
This was what I was looking for. Cheers. It's a shame there's no way to interact with your own riders other than when negotiating contracts. Obviously, it is not fair to compare PCM to the likes of Football Manager, but I love the squad dynamics that exist on FM. It takes team management to a whole other level, when you have players demanding game time or whining in the media, and how all of it can affect other players in the squad, despite how irritating it also can be. I agree that it would be great for PCM to have such dynamics incorporated. It could be a major game changer if it was to be implemented probably. Back in the days where I played the game, riders merely felt like emotionless robots that you had full control of. Such a feature could make the riders "come to live", so to speak.
To you last point, I think it's just that forums as a means of communication have been on the decline over the entire internet. A good amount has migrated to Discord servers, but also I think people just aren't participating as much actively in online cultures anymore. Could be wrong about that, but just an observation.
I think you're right about the forums as a means of communication have seen their heydays. However, I don't think online cultures are on the downfall. In fact, I'd argue the opposite when looking at Reddit, Twitter, Discord etc. But I'll take a look at the discord servers.
Overall, I don't think I'll be buying this year's edition either. It seems a bit like the game has somewhat stagnated, and I don't want to offend anyone while saying this, but having played the game myself for years, I'd say that I was somewhat baffled to see just how little the game has progressed since then. It might also be because of the fact that after having playing Football Manager, I started to realize just how much PCM was behind on the management part. PCM started to feel more like FIFA career mode than Football Manager. In terms of depth, at least. Thanks for the reply though! I appreciate it.
