It could be fun to have a thread where you can talk about the longest career you have had.
Question you can ask in your post could be ...:
Which year were you in?
Highligts for your team
Screenshots of your team, best riders in MO, HIL, CO, TT, SP
Any record breaks?
Greatest talents
Tour de France champions
Other champions
Why did your career stop?
And other things.
I will write something later, I think.
So tell us about your longest career.
Hmm difficult question.
I think I lasted until 2018 once, in PCM 13, with Rabo Development Team I believe. Can't remember much more. Most of my careers stop within a season due to motivational problems, though
Don't think I have any screens left. I remember using a lot of regens, because that's what I like best, searching and developing regens.
It could be fun to have a thread where you can talk about the longest career you have had.
Question you can ask in your post could be ...:
Which year were you in?
Highligts for your team
Screenshots of your team, best riders in MO, HIL, CO, TT, SP
Any record breaks?
Greatest talents
Tour de France champions
Other champions
Why did your career stop?
And other things.
I will write something later, I think.
So tell us about your longest career.
Hmm difficult question.
I think I lasted until 2018 once, in PCM 13, with Rabo Development Team I believe. Can't remember much more. Most of my careers stop within a season due to motivational problems, though
Don't think I have any screens left. I remember using a lot of regens, because that's what I like best, searching and developing regens.
I think it deserves its own thread because it is an opportunity to take a look back.
This is more specialized than general career discussion because it has a purpose. And in here it will "drown" in posts where users tells about the career they have now and gives updates. And that was not what the idea was meant to be.
Edited by Maddox on 11-01-2015 16:08
Perhaps not in the PCM14 sections but it's certainly had it's own thread in the past, breifly. My only comment being that for most members it probably hasn't changed since then and if it has with PCM14 then it might as well be discussed in this thread
Got a quick question about riders potentials. I believe that a star in the training section counts for an evolution of the attribute by 1-2 points?
So for example, if I have a rider who has 80 in Mountain with one star, his Mountain stat could go up to 82.
My question is, is it possible that if you have 5 stars, you could have an evolution of more than 10 points?
In my current career, I am scouting for regens and my scouts have found some promising/future great riders but their physical stats (Stamina, Resistance, Recuperation) are extremely poor. Obviously I know the scouts can get it wrong but I am struggling to find regens with physical stats over 60, which would mean that if they have 5 stars potential, then they would reach the 70's and would make them better riders.
I haven't got any screenshots as I'm at work, but my scout found this climber with pretty good stats but his physical stats are extremely poor. Between 54 and 58 if I remember correctly. So even if he has 5 stars potential for all physical stats (which is unlikely), he won't go as high as 68 which doesn't make it worth signing him as I won't be able to count on him on stage races.
@gargatouf, yes: 1 star usually means 2 points BUT it may happen that you're rider has got 84 and a star left: well, that does'nt mean he will go up to 86! He will just probably (probably because you've to make him train in a decent way), get an 85 rider. Also if you've got 5 stars left, it definitely means that your young rider can get 10 points more in that specific stat.
For the second point... well, that's pcm development, you can't fix it with xmls either.
matt17br wrote:
@gargatouf
For the second point... well, that's pcm development, you can't fix it with xmls either.
Is that not what the young rider xml files do? Set the starting stats of young riders and the potential they'll have in that stat for each potential level and speciality?
If you know how the files work you should be able to change it however from what I remember they can be quite complicated and because they work with the amount of regens developed by the game (set by region in the .cdb) to balance future seasons then in can be hard to get the numbers right across the board.
gargatouf wrote:
Got a quick question about riders potentials. I believe that a star in the training section counts for an evolution of the attribute by 1-2 points?
So for example, if I have a rider who has 80 in Mountain with one star, his Mountain stat could go up to 82.
My question is, is it possible that if you have 5 stars, you could have an evolution of more than 10 points?
In my current career, I am scouting for regens and my scouts have found some promising/future great riders but their physical stats (Stamina, Resistance, Recuperation) are extremely poor. Obviously I know the scouts can get it wrong but I am struggling to find regens with physical stats over 60, which would mean that if they have 5 stars potential, then they would reach the 70's and would make them better riders.
I haven't got any screenshots as I'm at work, but my scout found this climber with pretty good stats but his physical stats are extremely poor. Between 54 and 58 if I remember correctly. So even if he has 5 stars potential for all physical stats (which is unlikely), he won't go as high as 68 which doesn't make it worth signing him as I won't be able to count on him on stage races.
You can only have 6 stars in a stat. So even if the rider is 53 is REC, he will develop around 18-24 statpoint in REC.
matt17br wrote:
@gargatouf
For the second point... well, that's pcm development, you can't fix it with xmls either.
Is that not what the young rider xml files do? Set the starting stats of young riders and the potential they'll have in that stat for each potential level and speciality?
If you know how the files work you should be able to change it however from what I remember they can be quite complicated and because they work with the amount of regens developed by the game (set by region in the .cdb) to balance future seasons then in can be hard to get the numbers right across the board.
That's what I thought before PCM 14 was out...
Even with the well made and the -theoretically- perfect Kentaurus' xmls the regens become unrealistically overpowered (but with outstandingly low backup stats) after a few years.
That's basically the reason why I just can't play a proper career.
Edited by matt17br on 12-01-2015 15:19
Unfortunately I don't have access to my pc with all my pcm stuff on it anymore so can't check the files but I thought the regent were still faiy close to how I understood the files to be. It's just with how complicated they are you don't have to be out by much to get something that looks really wrong.
And I always thought the problem was balancing the regens against how good the real young talents become as my careers always seems to end when the real riders were dominant over regens that should have been able to challenge them but couldn't due to how strong the real riders had become in comparison as they normally start from a better point then the best regens got created at.
sammyt93 wrote:
@matt, (don't want to quote all that on my iPod)
Unfortunately I don't have access to my pc with all my pcm stuff on it anymore so can't check the files but I thought the regent were still faiy close to how I understood the files to be. It's just with how complicated they are you don't have to be out by much to get something that looks really wrong.
And I always thought the problem was balancing the regens against how good the real young talents become as my careers always seems to end when the real riders were dominant over regens that should have been able to challenge them but couldn't due to how strong the real riders had become in comparison as they normally start from a better point then the best regens got created at.
The bold part totally reflects the reasons why I've stopped the careers I've played with the previous games. Nevertheless, it seems that it's gotten contrarwise with PCM 14: now regens get too strong in few years and all the other riders can't keep up, even with a bigly noticeable stat inflation that even touches the rl riders.
I've never found newgens to be stronger than existing riders. Every career i've played it takes years and years before the newgens start to impact on the WT. 7 Years into my Sky campaign and the only competition newgens impact is the U25 jerseys and maybe an outside Top10 GC finish. Certainly no WT wins in 7 years because they just can't compete with Sagan, Quintana, Yates, Yates, Pinot, Aru, Demare, Bouhanni etc etc etc
On my Europcar career the oldest regens were 27 and yet couldn't compete with any real riders. I think that's 5 years in and only the sprinters could get top 10's on stages, the real riders were far too strong and had developed to a point beyond what the regens could naturally reach.
Guys like contador and cav had dropped away from the top but there were plenty of guys stepping up to block out the regens, even guys like boivan, krasnov were on 80Sp or more, and Boonen was down to 78Cob but was still out doing the best regens in the classics.
I think part of the problem is the the talents that are real riders like wellens, the Yates brothers, Konrad, Mohoric etc. start on higher stats then the regens generate with and have a high potential. Guys like Herklotz and Mohoric probably should be the benchmark for what stats the regens of the same age and potential generate in with if you want parity between them when they are older.
Maddox wrote:
You can only have 6 stars in a stat. So even if the rider is 53 is REC, he will develop around 18-24 statpoint in REC.
The most I've seen is always 5 stars.
So you're saying that stars can count for an improvement of 3 or 4 points? I always thought the max was 2 points. So taking your example, if a regen has 53 REC with 5 stars, he could only go up to 63 and not between 71 and 77.
Maddox wrote:
You can only have 6 stars in a stat. So even if the rider is 53 is REC, he will develop around 18-24 statpoint in REC.
The most I've seen is always 5 stars.
So you're saying that stars can count for an improvement of 3 or 4 points? I always thought the max was 2 points. So taking your example, if a regen has 53 REC with 5 stars, he could only go up to 63 and not between 71 and 77.
6 is the max of stars but it doesn't mean that the max of points a rider can develop is 12! He can have 6 stars left, but a 16-18 points potential. A star is always 2 points as i explained before:
1 star usually means 2 points BUT it may happen that you're rider has got 84 and a star left: well, that does'nt mean he will go up to 86! He will just probably (probably because you've to make him train in a decent way), get an 85 rider. Also if you've got 5 stars left, it definitely means that your young rider can get 10 points more in that specific stat.
With the full 5 stars you just don't know if the limit is 10 points higher or 20 points higher - it won't go down to 4 stars until he's getting closer to his limit - within 8 points.
You can check the actual potential of all riders with Lachi's Editor. For example, I have a rider who's got 71 in acc and 5 stars, his actual limit is 84, so still 13 points higher. But he has 62 in hills and 4 stars and indeed his limit is 70, so 8 points higher. 55 for mountains and 3 stars, but his actual potential is just 60. Similar for TT, 60 and 2 stars, but his limit is 63.
So altogether it goes like this:
1 star: 1 or 2 more points
2 stars: 3 or 4 more points
3 stars: 5 or 6 more points
4 stars: 7 or 8 more points
5 stars: At least 9 more points, but you have no idea how many
Looking at the youngest riders in my current career (year 2019), I for example see a rider with a current ability of just 57 in mountains though his limit is 84 - so a whopping 27 points of room for improvement. Would still only show up as 5 stars. Doubtful he'll ever reach his potential.
So, basically, gargatouf... I think scouting is a waste of time. No matter how much potential a rider has if it takes him 10 years to become competitive, he's wasting a spot on your roster. The guy I just picked out: He's got a general potential of 7/8, but he's currently rated at 57 average... he's not going to be useful for a very long time.
Check out my thread about starting with a 1 star team and picking up a load of U23 riders. Generally, as you seem to agree, you want riders that are useful right away or at least within the foreseeable future. Thus current ability is more important than "future great". Especially since seemingly less talented riders (less general potential) can become very strong anyway. At least in my DB Betancur is only rated 5/8 and yet he's got an 83 average and wins lots of races. Majka and Intxausti aren't half bad either, both made it to just below 80 average with their potential of just 4/8.
Your best bet for U23 riders without cheating is to simply pick those dominating the current U23 rankings. If you want to cheat a little: Make a backup of your save game and hire a whole bunch of U23 riders. Unless they are sponsored by somebody else, they will agree immediately and you can immediately see their current stats in your transfer screen. Afterwards reload and only hire who you really want. More cheating would be to load up the young riders table in Lachi's editor and then you can check their full potential, too. The best U23 I found so far already had an average rating of 75 and won races/stages for me right away!
On another note, sammyt got it right. With PCM 2009 I played over 20 seasons (long post about that in the 2009 subforum). At first the game has "too many" really good riders. And then there are younger riders in the game who will quickly catch up with them while the older ones hardly decrease for a while. But after all of them retire, generally there will be far fewer good riders around. The game generates enough young riders with potential but many never reach theirs because they start so poorly, see that 57/84 climber.
Looking with Lachi's editor at all 24 year old riders in my game without a contract and a potential of at least 7: 19 riders, one already has an average rating of 74 and three more are rated just above 70. But 4 are still rated below 60, as low as 55. That one is a... "TT specialist", at least he has the potential of reaching 85 in TT, but so far he's only at 56 - so 29 points less. At least his decline won't start until he's 32 years old. While another guy is now rated 59 at the age of 24 and starts declining at 29... well, he won't ever reach his potential, that's for sure. He'll be lucky to ever get hired. Plenty of riders, even 30 year olds, who never get hired because they never get anywhere near good enough. And this is without changing the "evolution of attributes", I kept it at 0.5.
Interesting, because like I mentioned in my previous messages, I just assumed that 5 stars would add 10 points to a particular attribute. I also understand that it doesn't automatically mean 10 points, it can be less. But knowing that they could go up to more than that makes it interesting.
I had a career where I would take the top u23 riders (1 or 2 per season) but I quickly had too many World Class riders, which meant that my career was becoming too easy (I play with 0.5 as I don't have a lot of time to play the game).
So to make things a bit more difficult, in my new career, I've decided to only have French riders in my squad, which obviously narrows down the amount of riders I can sign and scout. I check the u23 results and look at the results of French riders and scout the ones with the best results.
I like the fact that scouts can get things wrong and tell you that a rider will be a Future Great but once you sign him and train him for a few seasons, it turns out that he won't be. I think it makes it closer to reality where sometimes riders don't reach their potential.
Knowing that their attributes can go up more than 10 points makes me more willing to take a risk on signing a regen. I don't want my career to be too easy but obviously I don't want it to be too hard, by bloating my squad with average riders.
I have riders like Peraud and Voeckler in my squad that will need replacing in the next year or so and could do with a World Class puncher and maybe Time Trialist, so as I said above, I don't want to bloat my squad with riders that will be no good and miss out on one of these.
I understand, I like the idea of sticking to one nation but unfortunately I picked an Austrian team this time around and I think that's just too tough. Plus the way I started my budget still isn't exactly great (260k/year) and so I really have to pick and choose.
I also like the scouting system in general - however, it takes way too long to "discover" the current attributes plus if you wanted to scout a whole continent... how many scouts would you need? 20? So I sadly find it too inefficient. Though in my long 2009 career I by chance scouted the greatest rider ever in my first year and was so happy when I saw just how good he is and will be, that is very satisfying.
Do heed some of my advice. A scouted rider, even if he is just 19, with a current average of under 60 will take a long, long time to develop - quite possible that he'll never reach his potential, even with the best coaches.
Actually, I'll insert a question here: Does anyone know how big an influence coaches have on the progression? I've finally upped most of mine to 7/10 in the speciality. Is that worth it?
And on the other hand: Even riders with just 4/8, which won't even be called "worth watching" by your scout can turn out to be really good. The best value for money is getting U23 with good current attributes, no matter their potential. They never want more than 2.5k/month - even that sprinter who turned out to be a 75 average already. On the normal market, even as a free rider, he'd ask for more than 10k/month. And there'll be room for some improvement in all of them, too. They might not turn into leaders, but you need supporting cast, too. Plus they usually win the white jersey for your team.
So basically: Value current ability over future potential. If you have the scouting capacity, if you don't find a future great with good current stats, scout the abilities of as many other riders as you can instead of picking the best of only bad options.
Ripley wrote:
Actually, I'll insert a question here: Does anyone know how big an influence coaches have on the progression? I've finally upped most of mine to 7/10 in the speciality. Is that worth it?
From my limited experience, I'm pretty sure that the better your coaches, the quicker your riders will progress. In my old career I mentioned in my previous post, I had coaches with 10 in their respective specialities and my riders and regens stats would improve quicker than in other careers I had with less good coaches.
![imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg](https://imgur.com/KlJUqDx.jpg[/img[img]]https://imgur.com/yUygrQ.jpg)
