My mail problem with these sort of things are, that they are not communicated well enough. It should never be, that the race reporters have access to settings that the rest does not. I can't stress that enough...
When I plan my season I primarily plan according to experience. What happened last season (most important) and what usually happens. So when things are deliberately changed I expect to be able to read it clearly and very visible. It could (and probably should) be a post called "Changes for the 2016 season". Also inhere people (if willing to do so) could also tell which changes the game as standard setting have met.
Of course stage racers are more of a gamble, and the market makes GC riders expensive - BUT mind you, that riders like Spilak is worth 1mio. Not because of the market, but because of his previous results. The same goes for Schleck and Pluchkin, and several others. So when changing the amount of crashes you really dont give the market any chance to play its game.
And like Dubbeldekker says. Do we really want the game to be about heavy risk vs. slim risk? I mean: people said last season that I took the chicken/pussy way out by putting Spilak in one week Gc races and that they missed the biggest stars in the GT's. Well, if we want the biggest stars present at the GT's then we should probably do something to change it.
One way could be plantning first half of the season first, and then use the game experience to plan the second half after that - and when a rider crashed out of a race he would be given that amount of racedays back to ride another race. If fx Pluchkin crash out of the Giro after stage 5 then he would be getting 16 racedays in the later half. I know this needs more thought, but we see top riders crash IRL too, but unlike here they can make new season goals instead of just writing the season off entirely. Doing a split planner would also make a more challenging PT instead of now Where we really dont have a whole lot of tactical play to do, compared to CT and PCT.
The latter part of this post is all about thinking ahead, the first part is the most important, and what I believe should be always done.
A cycling based Management Game without a realistic crash frequency wouldn't be fun imo. What do you all mean about "it's not about risk"? It's quite much actually about taking risks sending your leader to a stage race, cause everything can happen, and as in Tour de France and other GT's have shown us, there will be crashes, a lot of them, and leaders will be hindered. I think it's a lovely feature that crazy things happen in the game even though sometimes I'm hit by it. You also need having luck finding that decisive breakaway. Of course there will be risk involved, and there SHOULD be. Imagine playing football manager, and your newly bought super striker gets injured the next two months. It's a pain in the ass when it happens to you, but it's realistic and it's a good thing.
I wouldn't enjoy playing Football Manager without injuries or Pro Cycling Manager without crashes or daily form, then it's just about stats and nothing else.
My main problem with these sort of things are, that they are not communicated well enough. It should never be, that the race reporters have access to settings that the rest does not. I can't stress that enough...
When I plan my season I primarily plan according to experience. What happened last season (most important) and what usually happens. So when things are deliberately changed I expect to be able to read it clearly and very visible. It could (and probably should) be a post called "Changes for the 2016 season". Also inhere people (if willing to do so) could also tell which changes the game as standard setting have met.
Can you make any examples besides this - that as I explained in the Tirreno thread is not much of an example, considering the value that was set is the default one, and everyone thought it would be the same as PCM 14.
You often bring up the renewals process of this year but that didn't change compared to 2015 - and when it did last year it was very clearly announced.
SotD wrote:
My mail problem with these sort of things are, that they are not communicated well enough. It should never be, that the race reporters have access to settings that the rest does not. I can't stress that enough...
They don't, stage files and the in-game DB file (with all the other stats) aren't collated until after renewals in my experience.
Indeed SotD, no reporter had any advantage as all planning is done before any stage files and other stuff is shared.
So no idea where you always get the idea of something like this...as matt said, there simply were no changes this year in the renewals neither in the crash frequency.
SN and I were the only with early stage access for obvious reasons and I still had no idea about exact ratios.
And also your idea about writing down general pcm changes in a thread is a nice theory only. In the end many of us share this problem. Due to reporting pcm14 long after pcm15 was released I also wasn't much aware of changes. As this is a pcm forum though, a lot of changes can still be found everywhere. In especially in early pcm release threads.
And last but not least, I plan the season same as you. Experience of last year. So if a new pcm is only change, this is a bit of a question mark but definitely nothing too big as is the usual one.
Due to the actual crash experience a new discussion for next season surely is possible and might see a different result then. But still opinions are spread in both directions even now.
Main problem is constant jumping from one game version to another. When it combines with worse job from Cyanide year after year, managers that are not very deep into PCM general section of this forum or those who are not playing new versions enough are left blind when it comes to changes in stats, ratios and other things.
One year ACC is useless, another one it is the most important stat. One year the secondary stats are not even working, other one they are important...stamina is not fully documented stat even after years of testing.
Sadly even after many years of my commnets on this topic and idea that we should sty with same version at least for few years, nobody cares and probably thinks "another rant from Avin".
To the point that mayn things are only happening behind the scenes, that is something i adress for years, but it seems it is only mine and SotDs illusion given the cooments of others. Fact is, that we got some thread with poll or questions about changes here and there, but only reporters know what actually happened aftzer that.
Seeing as how the mt/hl stat matrix has been changed, maybe PCM15 will be really here to stay for a while, who knows?
100% is definitely the default setting. And I agree very much with bjartne, the mg world has become a bit tougher with the higher crash rate but also more exciting. If anything, it just adds another special aspect to the racing because crashes have never been much of a concern in PCM before, imo (not sure how it has been over all those years in mg history tho)
"It’s a little bit scary when Contador attacks." - Tommy V
Shonak wrote:
Seeing as how the mt/hl stat matrix has been changed, maybe PCM15 will be really here to stay for a while, who knows?
I hope so, because that PCM16 new mt/hl mechanic would need stat overhaul imo.
This I feel like MG is in a good position stat wise already and we can risk hurting a lot of people's teams by revamping stats. Personally as someone looking to enter MG next season it wouldn't really have any influence on me but I feel like it could screw over the transfer season for existing teams a lot. Although I am not in MG(yet ) and my PCM knowledge isnt up to scratch, this is my two cents.
Shonak wrote:
Seeing as how the mt/hl stat matrix has been changed, maybe PCM15 will be really here to stay for a while, who knows?
I hope so, because that PCM16 new mt/hl mechanic would need stat overhaul imo.
This I feel like MG is in a good position stat wise already and we can risk hurting a lot of people's teams by revamping stats. Personally as someone looking to enter MG next season it wouldn't really have any influence on me but I feel like it could screw over the transfer season for existing teams a lot. Although I am not in MG(yet ) and my PCM knowledge isnt up to scratch, this is my two cents.
Thing is, that in MG we have some extreme differencies between the MO and HILL stats for many top riders, like Pluchkin and Schleck, who are 85/75. Another part of the story is Gesink, who is 83/81, or Spilak with 85/82. You hardly see it in majority of databases, that someone has 10 point differential between hill and mountain...
I guess nobody knows, what effect this could have on full AI driven race with new mtn/hill methodics for PCM16?
I would certainly require an immense amount of testing. Then you would have to weight up if its worth swapping to PCM16 from PCM15. Personally I do not own a copy of 15 so can't really tell the differences in the new system from the old one.
To the point that mayn things are only happening behind the scenes, that is something i adress for years, but it seems it is only mine and SotDs illusion given the cooments of others. Fact is, that we got some thread with poll or questions about changes here and there, but only reporters know what actually happened aftzer that.
Look we know a lot less than you think okay, not much was announced behind the scenes about changes that were going to be made. And you know why? Because no changes were made!
I guess nobody knows, what effect this could have on full AI driven race with new mtn/hill methodics for PCM16?
We're definitely not moving to PCM 16, it's a too different mechanism and would need tons of adjusting that would please no one.
) and my PCM knowledge isnt up to scratch, this is my two cents.
