Ian Butler wrote:
Okay so after testing out the Be a Pro mode with several careers, some going into 2021, others just briefly, I think it's safe to say the mode is more than playable. Some annoyances, sure, AI is not always perfect. But overall, it's very enjoyable in the long term.
So now I'm thinking to get a career going and play every race. The career will take several months but I think it might be great to actually play every single stage. (maybe after a few seasons I'll occasionally switch to a quick-sim here and there, but it's the thought that counts!). Maybe even do two careers at once (to avoid getting bored, playing months with one type of rider only), so I'm thinking:
1. A successful classic specialist. Type Boonen, Sagan, Benoot... Great on cobbles, maybe good in the hills (though not as well as Sagan, but better than Boonen), amazing on the flat and a good sprint, so good enough for stages in a Grand Tour, maybe a Green Jersey with only if fought very hard for, maybe a World Championship on a course that suits him really well. Seems like fun to play with because the cobbles are always good fun and those stats would create some nice challenges not immediately reached (green jersey, WC, milan san remo...)
2. on the side, play with a rider based on my own skills (but then a bit better ), so starting as a climber, but reducing the starting stats even further and slowing down progression deliberately. A slow rise to the not-top, but hoping to develop into a decent climber. Never played with this kind of rider before and it will be nice to actually have the ultimate goal of just starting in the Tour de France or maybe winning a KoM/stage in a Grand Tour. Though depending on how long I can take the slow progression, might up it a bit and make him a wee bit stronger to challenge for lower division mountain finishes or even some GCs.
Here, too, I'll probably switch to quick-simming flat stages fairly soon, but the idea remains play every stage. Even if I don't
Okay so in the end I opted for neither of those careers Went with the middle ground. Something I've never really done in PCM, too. A puncher, Gilbert type.
So far it's actually a whole lot of fun. training as a fighter mostly so progressing slowly but steadily and working on all stats equally, almost.
Playing every single stage is actually a lot more fun than I would have expected. In a normal career I start to quick sim more and more until I end up simulating everyhing eventually. Now I'm playing each stage, attacking or working for the team, whatever.
Hope to keep this career interesting for a long time and I think I can. Obvious goals are the Ardennes classics. But there are other goals, too, that can take much longer to achieve so to keep things interested: stage wins in Grand tours, points jersey in the Giro/Vuelta (Tour is impossible without being a top sprinter), San Remo, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Lombardia, Plouay, Paris - Tours, Omloop het Nieuwsblad, World Championships, Strade Bianchi, win a mountain stage in the Tour (obviously not uphill finish but like the stage that Hushovd won).
As you hear, planning to be a good puncher but with good back-up stats to play on all kinds of terrain.
At present in my 4th season I am at level 22 and rating 81 flat lands, 80 mountains, 85 hills, 73 TT and Prologue, 79 sprint, 82 acceleration, 82 downhill, 79 cobbles, stamina and resistance of 83. My last 2 levels have seen my stamina, flat lands, cobbles and hills around 1 point each to get me to be a beast!!!!! Hopefully I can challenge for Robaix this year and get Flanders again (and some revenge in Amsil Gold).
How the hell did you manage that? I have two riders past that level and stats nowhere near that.
At present in my 4th season I am at level 22 and rating 81 flat lands, 80 mountains, 85 hills, 73 TT and Prologue, 79 sprint, 82 acceleration, 82 downhill, 79 cobbles, stamina and resistance of 83. My last 2 levels have seen my stamina, flat lands, cobbles and hills around 1 point each to get me to be a beast!!!!! Hopefully I can challenge for Robaix this year and get Flanders again (and some revenge in Amsil Gold).
How the hell did you manage that? I have two riders past that level and stats nowhere near that.
Yeah, i dont get it either.
Sport freak. Mostly interested in Football (Liverpool, Rosenborg with more), increasing interest in cycling.
Also big Formula 1 fan. Ferrari <3
At present in my 4th season I am at level 22 and rating 81 flat lands, 80 mountains, 85 hills, 73 TT and Prologue, 79 sprint, 82 acceleration, 82 downhill, 79 cobbles, stamina and resistance of 83. My last 2 levels have seen my stamina, flat lands, cobbles and hills around 1 point each to get me to be a beast!!!!! Hopefully I can challenge for Robaix this year and get Flanders again (and some revenge in Amsil Gold).
How the hell did you manage that? I have two riders past that level and stats nowhere near that.
Yeah, i dont get it either.
I don't think this is something you want to achieve, really. A cyclist reaches his peak at 32, not 23. This is like Hormones, CERA, EPO and Blood bags together.
At present in my 4th season I am at level 22 and rating 81 flat lands, 80 mountains, 85 hills, 73 TT and Prologue, 79 sprint, 82 acceleration, 82 downhill, 79 cobbles, stamina and resistance of 83. My last 2 levels have seen my stamina, flat lands, cobbles and hills around 1 point each to get me to be a beast!!!!! Hopefully I can challenge for Robaix this year and get Flanders again (and some revenge in Amsil Gold).
How the hell did you manage that? I have two riders past that level and stats nowhere near that.
Yeah, i dont get it either.
I don't think this is something you want to achieve, really. A cyclist reaches his peak at 32, not 23. This is like Hormones, CERA, EPO and Blood bags together.
Yeah, im really happy with my stats atm. I guess he might have used an editor or something?
Sport freak. Mostly interested in Football (Liverpool, Rosenborg with more), increasing interest in cycling.
Also big Formula 1 fan. Ferrari <3
Yeah, personally i'm fine with the stat progression as it is. Maybe i'm just not very good at the game, but my riders generally turn into one of the best in the world at around 25 years old, but don't get so good it makes the game dull.
well if SlickMongoose stats were edited I have no complains
I just hope a rider wount be able to get anywere near 80 in ALL stats.. Like a stageracer should not be able to get more than 70ish at max, and a sprinter the same in his mountain stats
There is stat limits so you shouldnt. I have checked mine and saw that mountain was somwhere in the 60s and hill was around 74 or something. Cant remember exact though.
Sport freak. Mostly interested in Football (Liverpool, Rosenborg with more), increasing interest in cycling.
Also big Formula 1 fan. Ferrari <3
phillipsos wrote:
At present in my 4th season I am at level 22 and rating 81 flat lands, 80 mountains, 85 hills, 73 TT and Prologue, 79 sprint, 82 acceleration, 82 downhill, 79 cobbles, stamina and resistance of 83. My last 2 levels have seen my stamina, flat lands, cobbles and hills around 1 point each to get me to be a beast!!!!! Hopefully I can challenge for Robaix this year and get Flanders again (and some revenge in Amsil Gold).
!
THIS!!! Right here! Is THE reason I dont want to buy this game.. Yet anyway.
Look at those stats! Such high stats in that age! And not only that. High stats in every category. That is just plain stupid and not realistic at all.
Can you really enjoy the game, when you practically are superman on wheels?
I would not let this discourage you from getting the game!!!
I failed to mentioned that although I started off as a hilly specialist I added several points in Lachis editor to downhill ability straight away and a couple of points to stamina, resistance, acceleration and sprint.
I also edited the maximum potential allowed for sprint, flat lands, cobbles and moutains.
The mods I did at the start perhaps reflect about 4 months of progress and reflect that I wanted to make sure i could have decent downhill ability which I have found in other games to be hard to develop in. I also modded my age to be 18 years old and not 19 as I wanted a longer career. At 19 you start off with stats of 65 average. My rider had I think 69 average at the start and I finished the first year with I think 76-77 average.
I like to be able to challenge for points wins fairly early on but never dominant in sprints only close to the top guys. I wanted a mini Sagan but who could develop to become a better mountain climber than him so I could get closer to winning stage races (like how he won Tour of California with a hard fought win and a top 5 place on the mountain stage).
My rider never wins mountain stages. with clever stamina usage and high stamina already by choosing not to go with the attacks of riders too good for me I tended to lose 2-3 minutes on mountain stages in my second year when I placed 5th in the Tour but won the points comp. I like to play in a way to fight as hard as I can on mountains to stay close and then recover a bit on the downhiils and I did not want issues that if I got left in a dropped group that I would have no one willing to work in it and just loose heaps of time of the rest of the stage.
The rider I have developed in the game is not possible in the game. It reflects my playing style only! By cheating I accelerated my progress in being able to get extra experience from stage race wins.
I saw the potential limits the game gave me for a hilly rider and I was not happy that I would not be really ever able to challenge for Flanders or Robaix or be in the top 5 sometimes in sprints. I wanted to make time like a Gilbert in hilly stages but have recovery ability (my recovery is now around 82).
I think Sagan in the game has a potential of 7. If I am going to be a mini Sagan/ Kweatkowski but with a potential of 8 I wanted stat potentials that would allow that. My FTG rating and TT is crap because I do not enjoy TT races, I just sim those races.
At the end Tour de France in third season I had a hill climbing of 83 which is basically around where my top rivals of Bardet and Kweatkowski, Tim Wellens are. I trained fighter and northern races for levels 20 and 21 and that gave me faster progress to 85 in hills than what I expected. I think I was at 84 hills for only 1 level although that level did take me about 3-4 months to train and get the EXP for while winning every stage stage I entered. I would have like to have waiting another season or so to get level 85 in hills as now I am too powerful in hills and there is nothing to grow towards there. And due to game balancing I would say people are rewards with too much time gaps by being that great in hills.
With all that said I was ecstatic to win the WC in first as I still had to fight extremely hard to win that. I probably would have placed 3rd without my cheats that race or not have been in the final group of 11 or so riders.
I was very happy to win San Remo in second year as I had to work extremely hard in that race and in Paris-Nice and Oman just to be able to get there. I had concentrated my rider to be the best in exactly this race (stronger than the sprinters in uphill and downhill).
I was over the moon to win Rhonde van Vlanderen in my 3rd year by steadily training for 18 months and over 50 hours of game time just for that result.
although my rider is strong and a beast he is not guarantee for a win in any cobble stone race (I think I only won Flanders that year). Last season (third season) my 5th position was the best of the 3 group on the road with about 2 minutes behind Dekonkob, Venmarke and Bennot the leaders and a minute behind Van Avermat. Most of this races I lose to Kristoff or Dekonkob like Gent, E3 Harlebeke. I have never won any hilly classics race by more than a very small margin expect for Quebec and Lombardy which was closer to 1 minute (but the race also developed in a way that was particularly beneficial to me then and I was rated 84 hills by that stage).
When I did the Tour de France in my second season with mountain of I think 75 ability I thought I could place somewhere between 10 and 15 overall if I fought hard (my hills then were about 80). I got 5th and I think about 7 minutes behind the leaders. Second Tour in my third season with 80 mountains and 83 hills then I won by over 10-15 minutes.
At this stage it is looking like the Tour in my 4 year will be easy! Which is a little disappointing. The most I have my rider to grow in mountains in 81 which is over powered admittedly for a level 8 Sagan type but I think a level 7 Sagan should have mountain rating of at least 73-74 considering what he did at California (and that he is still a young rider with room to develop) so I think a level 8 Sagan type would be okay to have potential of 78-79 in moutains considering the best guys have 84 or 85.
My riders is essentially now a fighter (but with terrible FTR rating of just 65). he is an all rounder. He is probably too over power now in stage races in his flat lands ability.
I will probably alter his flats each CYA stage race in my next season to be no higher than 79.
The biggest issue for me now is team AI. I wanted a team that works well together. In previous version I would build a team that could get several of them in the top 7 positions in each grand tour by my best few guys attacking together and working together at crucial times. I do not have a team as strong as I did for GC in previous versions but within 1 to 2 season i would hope to have. The steam is strong but they are doing silly things for there own energy levels in some races this year with Watmart.
I am happy they are working hard just for me, that is okay. But sometimes they are working way too hard on the climbs and the guys that should he a free element and looking after themselves (like a Rickie Porte for Froom and Sky type) are working way too hard and using themselves up. I wanted a 2 to three pronged attack like with the Shleck brothers or a Nibali/Fulsang ....Froome/Porte....Contador/Kruezinger combination like in real life.
It seems that the AI is not strong enough and the ability to direct on the road is not great enough to make this dream a reality.
Now that I have Sagan in my team I really wanted to coordinate with him in San Remo! for me to lead the attack on the final climb and him to be in position and hold my wheel. Instead he went to fetch water!!!
I want to be able to partial direct other strong riders on my team to coordinate better together but not as much as each individual control. Like in Football Manager where you have 'shouts' from the sidelines!
The thing that will ruin my interest in the game in the rest of this season and the next is if my team does not work well together, if the computer manger keeps putting crap riders in my team (registered selections) in races which I have to change in Lachis editor often.
I think the game AI needs to make other GC contenders and there teams fight for GC harder. In stage races where Froome and I are both in he will be lucky to get a 5th or 7th position and Nibali is usually not in the top 10. In race like Torino-Adriatico that I did not enter like or Giro or Vuelta those top GC guys do well when the PC sims it. When they race me those they do overly poorly and that is disappointing that guys like Contador and Froome do not put fear into me. I played normal manager mode in PCM12 and 13 and Froome scared me a lot. I had to be hyper vigilant about him. Now in this game I barely notice him. I notice Bardet, Kweatkowski and Quintana in stage races only from season 2 and 3. It is disappointing to not have more rivals like I do with Kristoff and Dekenkob and Venmarke in cobbles.
To make the next season more enjoyable for me I will need to wind the clock back on Gilbert, Boonen, Cancellara and Valverde. I want to fear those guys in the classics which I do not do now. I do not want just year after year of just 2-3 of the same rivals. I want to be challenging the greats when they were at there best.
For next Season I will think to lower my mountain ability to if this year becomes as easy to win the tour as it did for me in season 3.
The game balance and progression is reasonably fine (look at the progression and ability of a Caleb Ewan for instance at just 19).
The game developers need to improve AI of team ordination, GC rivals.
Balance of progress is fine my me. Most normal people would not play the game 15 hours a day like me. it would take them several weeks if not months to progress like I have but doing as many races. Most people after several weeks of playing will want to be challenging for major wins in the best races.
A level 8 potential riders does not have to be realistic to me. I want to challenge in hills, in points and close in cobble and sprints and GC. I do not want to have just a classics hill/cobble specialist. I want to make my interest in GC for stages interesting my having somewhat okay recovery and mountains and TT which classics guys do not have generally.
the game is fine for me.
Who wants to have 2-3 separate careers in pro mode going at once!!! Not me. Too much time and too many other games to play in these holidays....
Holy shit what a huge post. And that as second post.
Applause for you.
Some good points too, although what should be taken into account, of course, is that the mode is very new, gamemodes always need some finetuning, example would be Fifa Ultimate Team which wasn't great at the start either, I think Cya did a good job here.
Yeah I'll probably edit the savegame, too.
The mode is really good but, as noted by many, the progression is a bit too fast still.
And especially that you're maxed out at around 24 - 25 years old if you start at 19 years old. So I'll probably edit it so that I progress a bit slower but keep editing the stats a bit until the age of 27 or 28.
I think the current progression would be fine if there were other options to chose from. I guess many players enjoy being competitive even in the grand tours at 21 or 22 already. What we need is what ruben already said, the possibility to adjust the potential.
Add to that some sort of development curve (quick start, earlier decrease; slower start, longer career; slightly lower peak but being able to maintain it longer; stuff like that) plus maybe the degree of specialisation (for instance, a puncheur with maximum specialisation has a HIL limit of 84 or 85 but limits in sprint, cobbles or mountain at somewhere around 74-76, while a more flexible rider maybe has a HIL limit of 82 or 83 but can develop cobble or sprint stats of around 80), and most people should be able to create the rider and career type most suited for them without having to edit the savegame.
Edited by cunego59 on 27-06-2015 11:10
Hello guys, having fun with this new mode but i have a question concerning a problem about form/training.
Problem is that my rider keeps on having the same (bad )form.
Maybe I should give you a bit more info to help you:
- Changed last season of team.
- Didn't go over 50 percent tiredness last year.
- I quick sim alot.
pics:
Spoiler
EDIT: solved now, after some days I jumped from bad form to great form.Edited by flw on 27-06-2015 13:43
I'm starting my 4th season right now and have no stats higher than 77 (besides 79 resistance) and that includes 3 gained levels before the patch that slowed down progression.
To experience slower evolution it helps to train your weaker stats. Get everything up to 65 first before specialising. Additionally, I you can try and "avoid" XPs from long brakeaways or KOM jerseys and such.
If your rider behaves like a normal young rider (staying in the peloton most of the time, heloing teammates, etc.) you'll progress at a more normal rate. If you go berserk hunting KOMs and stage wins every time like almost no rider ever does, you'll get an abnormal progression. I think it's actually quite well balanced, but the initial stats might be a little bit too high.
My wins so far can be traced back to playing on "normal" or the usual AI-hickups every now and then.
@cunego59:
Great to see you around
I remember that your story about Nerz, even though I unfortunately never commented, got me interested in stories and the site in general and showed me that this site doesn't only offer awesome databases.
So I want to thank you for that and hope that you'll have the time to be around a bit more often in the near future
Sorry for being off-topic but I haven't got PCM15 yet, so I can't contribute to this discussion.
The game looks good though compared to last years.
), so starting as a climber, but reducing the starting stats even further and slowing down progression deliberately. A slow rise to the not-top, but hoping to develop into a decent climber. Never played with this kind of rider before and it will be nice to actually have the ultimate goal of just starting in the Tour de France or maybe winning a KoM/stage in a Grand Tour. Though depending on how long I can take the slow progression, might up it a bit and make him a wee bit stronger to challenge for lower division mountain finishes or even some GCs.
