Here is a new set of XMLs, as I was playing with them I made quite a bit of adjustments to give a more realistic feel to riders.
These are currently different from the old 2013 expansion and the current 2014 expansion. And are still in a testing phase. For those willing to help with testing please read the below spoiler.
Spoiler
Here is my thoughts on testing and evaluation:
Start a new career with the XMLs. Instructions on how to install the XMLs are included.
1: Check the young riders and see if you like the overall feel for how stats are distributed. If not, the XMLS need changed.
2: Check to see if you think there are too many or too few elite riders in one stat compared to another, if there is the XMLs need changed.
3: Determine if there are too many or two few quality riders, adjust STA_region to correct for this. May require several seasons of simulation to see how young riders are filling in for retiring riders.
I have done both steps 1 and 2 for this, and I am happy with how riders look. I don't think these XMLs are much stronger (if any) than my previous ones (which is done on purpose to keep the current riders from getting insanely high stats) so it is likely we need to up the chance of higher potential riders to be created.
I urge the gamers to download these files and give some feedback on the results - the more, the better files and thus more realistic rider development in future releases
Allright.
I haven't had a good look at the limits yet, but I can already comment on the starting stats for now.
At first, I must say they look very good, but of course I'm going to give some feedback, to make them even better
Here are 2 'development teams' I've made, composed of regens(of course mainly picking the good ones)
- DH starting stats are too high. More than half of the riders has 69+ DH, at least for the 'promising' & 'future great' guys. A good DH should be reserved for an 'elite' group, not for half of the riders.
- Future great guys are way too allround. This is mainly for TT, cobblers and sprinters. They sometimes can climb well, can TT well & can sprint well, while also being decent cobblers f.e., which is too much for me, especially if there are a lot of guys like that, not everyone should be allowed to be allround.
This applies for fighters as well, and in some rare cases, also for the other specialisations.
Good examples from my teams are the Moldovian, Lauri, the Swiss from team 1, and from team 2: The Luxembourgian(he's really bad, lowest stat = 68), Raag, and to some extend, the Mexican.
- Sprinters often have 64+ climbing. This again mainly applies to future greats, but still, there should only be a handful of sprinters that can climb well each year.
- Climbers with 68 SP right from the start(and a lower ACC than that) is just a bit weird. Pointing at that Colombian here, but of course, it might be a rare exception.
Hope this helps. Will look into the limits later on.
Again, this looks really good
Edited by Jesleyh on 26-02-2014 11:01
As a general note, the way I have it set up, young riders likely will be decent all around (stats in the mid 60s) but for most of them, many of their stats will not improve much over their careers.
Also DH is a stat I decided to make indifferent to potential values. As in real life it seems to me that how good a rider is downhill has little relevance to how elite the rider is overall. Also because you cannot train the stat, it can be very difficult to raise it up.
I guess the main thing I have on this, just because the stats seem balanced now, don't assume the development of the rider will mirror their current stats.
Edited by Kentaurus on 26-02-2014 11:55
Sure, but riders like that Luxembourgian & Moldavian are really too all-around for me.
And those DH stats are definitely too high for me. If half of the riders hsve high DH(with everyone having space for development, so it'd get worse), then a good DH rider , like Nibali, can never use that strength, because half of the peloton can follow.
I will check the limits later today.
Also, don't see this as criticism at all. The XMLs are good and I'll be using this one for my PCM, but I guessed feedback would be useful
At first, I noticed this guy(6 potential), who seems a bit OP for a starting rider.
Spoiler
His limits won't make him less allround than he is either, as you can see.
I'm sure he isn't the only one. 75 FL as possible start seems a bit too high for me.
For the real riders, the limits seem really good!
Not a lot of guys have a limit above 80, which means that the DB won't be overpowered in the future, especially considering that not everyone will reach their limits.
Only minor problem I noticed is that Tony Martin was able to grow to 84-85 TT in both my careers, while others couldn't come close to that(81/82 max), but that should be hard to fix, so it's not a problem.
What is a problem(to me) is the DH limits. Just like with the regens, the DH limits are way too high. There are 15 guys on 85 DH limit, around 25 on 84 DH limit, and it gets even worse at 78-83. While as I said, just like in the original DB, a exceptional DH should be reserved for an elite group, not for half of the riders. I just went to the half of the DB, and the median(that's proper English, right?) of the DH limits is 73, so the cyclist in the middle(if I sort on DH limits) has 73 DH.
Here's a pic, though the second career I started even had 23 guys on 85 DH.
Spoiler
Of course, the fact that it's DH, which trains slowly, is good, since it's less of a problem then.
Though still, in the end, you'll get an incredible amount of Downhillers.
So to me, that one should be priority if you want to fix something
Now on to the regen limits:
The same DH issue is there, but I won't talk about it again, it's the same as what I just mentioned
But something else:
There are a lot of climbers(and punchers, but I can live with that) who have 72-75 SP. I don't like that, tbh, since I cannot recall any pure climber being that fast, that they could win bunch sprints on flat stages.
Also, potential 8 seems OP.
There were 2 guys with potential 8 in one of the careers, one of which a 'sprinter', who had 85 FL, 83SP, 84ACC, 80(!)HI, 74MO, 76COB and 78RES.
No high DH though
Sure, potential 8 guys are special, but they're not supposed to be the new Merckx
Oh, and at last, something else.
There was also a potential 9 guy, which is really weird. Limits of a potential 1 guy, I think, but still, it was weird.
Anyway, hope this all was useful
Edited by Jesleyh on 26-02-2014 14:46
Bah I wish I'd seen this thread yesterday, I've been making my own XML's and after finally creating one for each rider specialisation I started editing them yesterday. I think I'm too far along to just bin it so I will finish them, a reply from Kent letting me know it wasn't needed would have been nice as i wouldn't have bothered then, but no harm done. When I'm finished and happy I will likely try and release them, though first I will have to work out how.
I won't download these ones till I'm done but I suspect there are some similarities, looking at Jesleyh's teams and issues I see a lot of stuff from mine, though I have been fine tuning to make the all-rounders a little less common. The DH stat is rather high on mine at the minute as well for much the same reason.
Still I would ask Jesleyh to look at the stats of the riders of those types in the DB, I know he helped work on some of the stats, look at the top guys for all seven rider types, you will see a lot of all-round talents, I used those riders as a point of comparison as in theory those should be the product of the potential 8, 7 and 6 riders in a few years time, not all work out that way of course, but if the XML files are incapable of replicating those riders at a similar frequency, then they aren't accurate.
Ideally also the best riders would start with less strong stats and develop, but given one issue with the previous files was that low starting stats, combined with poor development on CPU teams, meant that high potential riders weren't developing to meet that potential.
Is it possible to alter the way the game decides the age of decline of the regen's?
Oh, and at last, something else.
There was also a potential 9 guy, which is really weird. Limits of a potential 1 guy, I think, but still, it was weird.
Anyway, hope this all was useful
I got that from the XML's that came with both previous PCMDB's, not sure why it happens but 1-2 riders can pop up with that, and are awful.
[url]Though still, in the end, you'll get an incredible amount of Downhillers.
So to me, that one should be priority if you want to fix something [/url]
Um not really, only if they're all trained the same, wich is very unlikely. Since it's different from different training programmes, how much the DH stat evolves, I'm sure that won't happen. But let's see, when you've got far enough
Surely, short-term it isn't much of an issue. I think it is long-term though.
But allright, I'll try to simulate a few seasons.
Edited by Jesleyh on 26-02-2014 15:07
Downhill isn't included in any training plan, that is, there's no plan that develops DH with bonus; thus every rider develops DH in the similar speed (considering training plan - of course, there are other factors such as current stat or the random factor of development speed each season).
Maddrengen wrote:
Well, it should be included in climber...
IMO it should be a stat for sprinters aswell. These guys often are flying on the descends just to make it to the finish within the time frame.
EDIT:
I don't want to do a double post, so here you go:
Kentaurus, I've started a career with your xml and took 10 of the best talents i could find (starting AVG was between 68 and 72). I found out that each of these riders has no stat below 60 (not even FTR, DH, or COB). This is something that seems to be highly unrealistic imo, because all of my climbers (I've got 2-3) are at about the same level as Hesjedal when it comes to cobbling.
One of the climbers is really scary. When i chose him, i thought "well, his level is pretty good for a neo-pro, and his SP is absolutely great for a climber". But when I saw his potential, i was like "wtf?"....well, see it for yourself:
(Editor says his potential is 7, MO limit is 83, HL limit is 79, SP limit is 77 and ACC limit is 80)
I'm sorry, but I can't imagine a rider who is 176 cm tall and weighs 58 kg and is as good in sprinting as Theo Bos, Tom Boonen or Tyler Farrar.
But apart of the things I've mentioned above I'm pretty happy with the potentials and limits. Maybe there are a little too many potential 8 riders per year but this probably depends on your taste.
And I'm absolutely fine with having allrounders such as EBH or Tony Gallopin, but it'd be very scary to have a lightweight climber who can easily win mass sprints in Giro or Vuelta.
To sum it all up: Please take another look on the distribution of COB and FTR stats, and try to not make allrounders being the best in the world in CL and SP
PS: I forgot to mention that this was with the "old" PCM Daily DB, dl'ed and installed the new one, but forgot to go to the settings and to change the db there, before i started the career. However, your .xml was included already.
Edited by Thinktank on 27-02-2014 17:39
Thinktank wrote:
I'm sorry, but I can't imagine a rider who is 176 cm tall and weighs 58 kg and is as good in sprinting as Theo Bos, Tom Boonen or Tyler Farrar.
Why?
(But I agree the combination of 80+MO and 77SP is silly)
Edited by issoisso on 27-02-2014 19:01
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
Jesleyh wrote:
I told you that the riders were too allround
Jesleyh wrote:
one of which a 'sprinter', who had 85 FL, 83SP, 84ACC, 80(!)HI, 74MO, 76COB and 78RES.
No high DH though
Sure, potential 8 guys are special, but they're not supposed to be the new Merckx
That's not even close to Merckx.
Guys like that show up once every 10 years or so, a Merckx or Hinault shows up a couple times in a life
The preceding post is ISSO 9001 certified
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
"I love him, I think he's great. He's transformed the sport in so many ways. Every person in cycling has benefitted from Lance Armstrong, perhaps not financially but in some sense" - Bradley Wiggins on Lance Armstrong
issoisso wrote:
I'd say the problem in that case is too many 8s
If you have too many 8's it's not Kent's fault, that comes from the STA_region table in the DB and is set very low in any of the PCMDaily DBs, unless you have edited it yourself
Thinktank wrote:
I'm sorry, but I can't imagine a rider who is 176 cm tall and weighs 58 kg and is as good in sprinting as Theo Bos, Tom Boonen or Tyler Farrar.
Why?
(But I agree the combination of 80+MO and 77SP is silly)
Just think of the W/kg ratios.
Imagine him in a sprint, where his peak power would be 1600w. This would be a W/kg ratio of 27,59. Cav (who is already one of the lighter sprinters) par example would be able to put in 1900w with the same W/kg ratio. This is a large difference when it comes to sprinting.
At the same time our rider has 83 MO. This means he could easily climb together with Contador, Froome and Purito. That would mean that he might have a W/kg ratio of above 6 (FTP-wise).
This would mean that we have someone who is as good as Cav and in the same time as strong as Contador. This would be like having one of the best marathon-runners in the world running the 100m in less than 10.00.