Cycling Manager Italia intervista Cyanide su PCM 14

[emmea90]

Per la serie "meglio tardi che mai", Cyanide ha risposto alla nostra intervista sulla prossima edizione del gioco. Ecco la risposta di Cyanide (se qualcuno me la traduce la pubblico sotto, purtroppo ho poco tempo ora, ma mi pare si capisca)
 
Testo originale

Career
1. In the PCM Daily interview you notified all the new features about equipment and contracts. We want to start focusing on the iteraction aspect. Can you provide us more details on this part? For example, in the past, when you offered a contract renewed to the rider and he accepts he was automatically signed – you can’t manage simultaneous offers from your riders saying “I want to keep this rider A only if B refuse my offer”. Are there any improvement in this part?

Yes that’s one of the interest of the new contracts/transfert system. Unlike the previous system you can wait several answers for some days before making a choice, so you can manage simultaneous offers.

2. Is the part of national team management pretty the same? Actually we can select cyclist without knowing how the form would be for the WC date. Also cyclist usually refuse to race a track who can feat their profile – so, what you can say about improvements, if any, in this part?
The national team management will be pretty the same. You can know his form by checking the results of the big races in September, so it favors the manager who are watchful to the details. Obviously it could be nice if you could ask the rider if he’ll pick the race as a goal or not but that’s not in the plans.

About the second part of the question : In the game it should not be common that a rider refuse to race a circuit where he can get a good result. There is already an AI (since several PCMs) that make the rider decide if he’ll race or not depending on : his characteristics vs the race’s profile ; his nationality (more chances a rider wants to ride the Worlds if the circuit doesn’t favour him but the race is at home).

3. “Personal” management: will be possibile like in the past to change your team during the career sending/accepting offers by other teams, for example?

That’s not in the plans for this year.

4. Is there more you want to tell us about career innovations?
I think most have been showed or said in the last twitch event, so nothing specific to add.

 

Multiplayer
1. What’s the direction of the multiplayer development for this edition? Stability of the game (actually crashes at stage loading happened) or new features?
As probably said recently, it’s mostly about having the possibility to play without having the ports opened and the stability.

2. About the stability – in the past PCM editions there were the possibility for players who crashed to re-enter in the game and end their road race while host waiting them pausing the game – a feature commuity uses mainly for their tournament and the World Cup. Will this feature came back in PCM?
No that’s not a feature which will come back, at least not for short term, because it’s a complicated feature.

3. About modding – actually the only possibility to play a custom stage, for example, a variant, is that all players should substitute the stage over an original stage. Are there any – actual or planned -improvements on this part to let players play, almost in friendly games, with their stages and not only the originals?
Yes that’s something we had in mind. We have to see if we can add this in an update.

4. About armada “ladder” mode – what’s the balance of this two year for Cyanide point of view? Did the number of players increased? Did it match what you expect to be?
On the first year it was obvious for us that the number increased but last year it was a bit less obvious (but still good).
It matched what we were expecting but we are also aware that some hardcore players wants more than that, so we have to see what are the next steps for this mode.

5. What will be the impact of “auto” mode for your riders on multiplayer games? There may be the “danger” of players who can obtain points simply leaving the ia playing for them?
I’d be very surprised if auto mode beats the players on multiplayer games. Those who plays in multiplayer are often the best players. If this is really the case then our auto mode goes beyond what we expected and that would be a very good point. In this case, we would do something for multiplayer games.

 

Gameplay
1. Escape gameplay: in PCM 2013 when you are in an escape with other favourites those never helps you relaying but when you are dropped they collaborate. Also it seems that usually all teams are against of you when you try to escape but they usually let the first morning attackers without you go. Also with the new system it can happen that a man that you designed for the morning escape starts from the back of the group so it’s “blocked” and when it reaches the top usually escape is gone. Are those situation – and the escape system in general - improved? What you can said us about that?

Such a system where AI play against the player only simply doesn’t exist. We are not in an AI which has been built like that. In some other video games you can do it that way but not in a cycling game with +/- 20 teams competiting together.
If a rider is too dangerous for the AI they don’t want to give him freedom otherwise it’d be too easy for the player.
I think it’s a particular discussion that would need more details to be checked because it’s not the same if you talk about a classic/a stage race / a late/early breakaway, a flat/hill/mountain/cobbled stage, etc...

2. Secondary values (REC, RES, END) seems to be inactive. For example we can’t see difference in rec: riders with >80 MO during final stages of a Grand Tour seems the same and we can’t see differences in RES in long races. What you can said us about that?

That’s not very fair. We heard about the Resitance problem and now you’re talking about REC, RES, END 
For Endurance and Recuperation (Recovery) there were no problem. Those caracteristics will stay the same.
Endurance is an attribute that works with the distance. On very short stages this has very few or no effects while on long stages it can be decisive. After a certain distance your power is affected and you become to fade.
For PCM2014 Endurance’s attribute will be more affected by “Daily Sensations” so a big leader can be very affected if he has a bad day on a classic as you see this situations happens IRL (so maybe he’ll be only good on the 200-220 first kms and then fade in the finale while on a normal day he would fly...
Recovery has a lot of effects on tour or during two days in career (if you race 2 classics in 2 days for instance). A rider with a low recovery can’t recover properly his freshness while a good REC can help.
With a low freshness remember that your energy bars are lower when you start the stage so it’s harder to get a good overall classification in a big stage race if you don’t have a high REC attribute
For the third (RES) there were something not exactly working the way it should in PCM2013. For PCM2014, we have modify that and it’ll be a modification on your yellow bar. A high Resistance caracteristic means you can maintain an high effort for a longer time.
As for Endurance, in PCM2014 this caracteristic will be also more affected (than normal caracteristics) by the daily sensations.

3. What about the weather influences on riders? We have just seen during the season, for example, that Sky riders does not like water. Overall, it seemed most a scenographic effect than a real impact of riders behaviour also if sometimes is indicated in their characteristic. Are there any improvement in this feature?

Does Ian Stannard does not like water ? I’m not sure if you look at his performance under the rain
By the way, the weather will have more influence this year because it’ll modify more the way you can get a bad or a good day and those bad/good days will also have more influence in PCM2014!
I think you can’t say : this rider doesn’t like the rain, he’ll be the worst rider ever every time it’ll rain. Lots of riders don’t like the rain and perform bad on such conditions but sometimes you can win a big classic even on conditions you dislike a lot.
So you have to be careful when you design the attributes and the way they work. If it’s too mechinal or too visible it's not good.

4. KOM Fight: some users from our community said that the fight for KOM jersey is “too easy”. For example aI caught you only if you escape near the climb top, not before. Also it happens that if 2nd or 3rd try to escape from far in a mountain stages, the 1st does not react. Are there any improvement in this part?

That was not a big priority this year. We had made minor modifications and fixes on that but don’t expect much changes on that.

5. Is there more you want to tell us about gameplay innovations?

We also made a lot of modifications to improve the general gameplay and AI.
For instance the cobbled stages in the tours will be more interesting and there are lots of little adjustments for hilly stages in the tour (to make the attacks from outsider and leaders more realistic).

 

Other
1. Are there any changement in track mode or will be the same of every year?

No changes are planned for the track mode

[gimox97]

Sulle squadre nazionali: ma che risposta è? La preselezione mica la devo fare a Settembre, ma prima...

[Stylus]

Dunque dunque dunque.

 

Alcune buone notizie dal I.A. che almeno, secondo quanto detto è stata ritoccata (interessante il punto dove parla delle tappe intermedie dei GT)

 

Ma:

 

Sulla nazionalità non ha risposto.

 

Sui valori secondari ci siamo presi quasi degli stupidi rifacendoci spiegare la pappardella di come influiscono, di un anno fa. Forse non era chiara la domanda forse sono stati furbi. Fatto sta che nessuno ha messo in dubbio il valore di Recupero sul player, non sono scemo, l'ho notata benissimo la barra diminuita nelle gare successive. Ma avevo il dubbio, e ce l'ho ancora che sia lo stesso per l'IA: su due ciclisti identici, se quello dell'IA ha il 55 in recupero e voi 85, vedrete che competerà con voi sino all'ultima tappa.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Stylus

[Noris85]

Dunque dunque dunque.

 

Alcune buone notizie dal I.A. che almeno, secondo quanto detto è stata ritoccata (interessante il punto dove parla delle tappe intermedie dei GT)

 

Ma:

 

Sulla nazionalità non ha risposto.

 

Sui valori secondari ci siamo presi quasi degli stupidi rifacendoci spiegare la pappardella di come influiscono, di un anno fa. Forse non era chiara la domanda forse sono stati furbi. Fatto sta che nessuno ha messo in dubbio il valore di Recupero sul player, non sono scemo, l'ho notata benissimo la barra diminuita nelle gare successive. Ma avevo il dubbio, e ce l'ho ancora che sia lo stesso per l'IA: su due ciclisti identici, se quello dell'IA ha il 55 in recupero e voi 85, vedrete che competerà con voi sino all'ultima tappa.

 

Siamo d'accordo sulle barre influenzate dal valore REC ma questo incideva pochissimo! Ho fatto il Giro con Anton (REC 71 mi sembra) ed ho corso quasi l'intera corsa a tappe con le barre piene! Spero che influisca di più in questa edizione del gioco.

Interessante il discorso sulle tappe intermedie anche perché il valore COL influisce in maniera poco realistica nelle corse a tappe. Forse sarebbe opportuno creare un valore aggiuntivo per le tappe di Media Montagna.

[Sexybank]

Per quanto riguarda il discorso di trovarsi in fuga con altri uomini di classifica, mi sa che il sistema rimarrà uguale, però spero tanto che la forma giornaliera conti davvero, così avremo delle corse più avvincenti e imprevedibili. rileggendo le domande, ci siamo dimenticati di chiedere se ci sarà un miglioramento dell'AI nelle cronoscalate.

Edited June 13, 2014 by Sexybank

[novaranelcuore]

Per quanto riguarda il discorso di trovarsi in fuga con altri uomini di classifica, mi sa che il sistema rimarrà uguale, però spero tanto che la forma giornaliera conti davvero, così avremo delle corse più avvincenti e imprevedibili

Beh, la forma giornaliera a quanto so è sempre contata. Quando avevo il +5 andavo nettamente meglio di quando avevo un -5

[markzx95]

A mio avviso la forma giornaliera non dovrebbe contare così tanto. E poi non capisco se questa è casuale o dipende da sforzi fatti nei giorni precedenti, ecc...
Oppure se è un INDICE di quanto sta informa IN BASE ai valori che ha (ad esempio uno con 85 Recupero avrà un +3/+5 a fine giro perchè si riprende) oppure è da aggiungere a questi valori.

E' un discorso davvero complicato, ci sono centinaia di fattori che influiscono.

[gimox97]

C'è il tutorial per giocatori esperti che lo dice: dipende dal tempo meteorologico (e quindi se piace o no al corridore in questione), dalla temperatura (vedi prima) e da come il ciclista si alza al mattino (la variabilità). Secondo me è giusto che influisca, tutti hanno giornate nere o giornate di grazia, poi è ovvio che le differenze enormi le vedi se tu hai un +5 ed il tuo avversario ha un -5 (caso rarissimo).

[markzx95]

Sono d'accordo, nella realtà ci sono le cosiddette "forme giornaliere", ma devono davvero contare così tanto come ci stanno dicendo? (Non ho il gioco tra le mani, parlo per sentito dire).
Per farti un esempio, ho letto da un utente su questo forum che un Nibali -1 fa fatica a stare a ruota ad un Fulgsang +3.
Nibali -1 = E' mediamente una giornata delle tante, forse leggermente peggio.

Fulgsang +3 = E' piuttosto in forma, tutto qui.
Ti farebbe strano sentire che addirittura Nibali FATICA a stare a ruota di Fulgsang,  o no? Si parla dei valori sul gioco ovviamente.

[Noris85]

A mio modo di vedere la forbice dovrebbe essere più piccola...tipo da un minimo di -3 ad un massimo di +3

 

L'esempio di Nibali e Fuglsang va anche in base ai valori, nel db che ho usato Nibali aveva 80 mon, Fuglsang 78, quindi ci può stare. Se ne sono viste di situazioni nelle quali i gregari hanno dovuto fare il ritmo per il proprio leader (ed è un pò quello che è successo nella tappa che ho giocato).

[Sauber96]

considerate però che non è un semplice random da -5 a +5, i valori più vicino allo 0 sono molto più probabili, quindi mediamente le differenze sono basse, poi ci sarà qualche giornata dove la differenza sarà più alta