Mountain Stages too hard?

[SlevinStreamtSport]

Hey guys,

I play Cycling Manager since over ten years, always with the difficulty "extreme". I never had Problems on Mountain Stages, but now in PCM23 its really hard. Even if I have a +3 with a good Climber, I can not win the stage. I can battle for Top 10 but not more.

Hilly stages and flat stages with Sprints are no Problem. But hard Mountain Stages kill my riders. Do you also have this problem or is my skill my Problem? :D

[Nerhess]

this is not a skill issue, the ai just handles mountain stage better and they are not winnable in extreme

[Oggmeista]

the whole game was ramped up in difficulty as if it's existence depended on it, In the 2021, game by 3rd season i had over 25 wins and entry to all grand tours last season just 2, and close to entry for the giro.. and i'm noticing it's not even agiven to do work for 20 km etc successfully in this game had a nightmare even trying to breakaway and now this, with mountains
I want to see the dev achieve the objectives of their own game because i don't think they could.which means this game isn't balanced..more to the point it's a completely broken mess.

[SlevinStreamtSport]

I realised, its not only on mountain stages. I played a Tour de France and in last week i also had no chance at the flat stages. If I go in a breakaway, i am the first who gets dropped.

[jessed]

Well, I just started playing at a difficult level and I win with mediocre runners stages with arrival in the mountains

[Oggmeista]

Originally posted by jessed:

Well, I just started playing at a difficult level and I win with mediocre runners stages with arrival in the mountains

Originally posted by jessed:

Well, I just started playing at a difficult level and I win with mediocre runners stages with arrival in the mountains

and i think someone is talking "porkie pies" intiendes?, no? pues compuebralo si es verdad? juge este juego muchos anos, diceso a el que te lo va cre'er tio, y no hables tonterias, bueno

[Oggmeista]

I just noticed this as well Stamina was not increasing whilst coasting with less that 100 bpm
heartrate (58 effort) downhill, stamina actually reduced,, the game (pro cyclist mode) is completely broken imho

[Paul]

Originally posted by SlevinStreamtSport:

Hey guys,

I play Cycling Manager since over ten years, always with the difficulty "extreme". I never had Problems on Mountain Stages, but now in PCM23 its really hard. Even if I have a +3 with a good Climber, I can not win the stage. I can battle for Top 10 but not more.

Hilly stages and flat stages with Sprints are no Problem. But hard Mountain Stages kill my riders. Do you also have this problem or is my skill my Problem? :D

it should be exactly like this :)))

[Ethel]

Same problem here, i don't understand..

[SlevinStreamtSport]

Originally posted by Ethel:

Same problem here, i don't understand..

Yeah, thats the main problem. I dont understand why...

[Raoule]

You directly went extreme, it could play differently this year. It has to be really hard and should offer an ultimate, near impossible challenge. Or if you play with the strongest riders yourself. Did you also test lower difficulty? Maybe it plays better for you

[[AUHPF] Karl Marx]

Defend your rider throughout the entire stage. If possible, also defend the rider that you use to defend your Pro up on the last mountain. This way, he will be as fresh as possible to help you defend.

DON'T try to keep up with everybody - ride your own pace! Others will loose all energy a few km before the top (usually).

When all that is said and done - I have yet to try out the new game on "Extreme", so I don't know if there are any new bugs on this difficulty level or anything.

[Dee-Jay]

To me, the game shouldn't have a skill level setting covering the races. Having a harder challenge is trying to win races with bad riders. Also, extreme skill level (if in the game) should be really hard - so they probably just fixed it for once.

[Mr Mojo Risin]

Stamina is really low in this game. I am at 65 stamina and the last 15 in a mountain stage have 75+. I think this is the issue. Also because I get really close to winning when it is a flat stage with a mountain finish.

[Gammelfar]

Agree with the last statement. When riding pro mode the stamina is to low. So on the last climb the max health bar is much lower than the other mountain riders even though they are at maybe -5 in terms of mountain skill compared to you

[malichus]

I honestly don't believe the AI riders always use stamina and resistance. I too often see riders with significantly less of both easily stay with and ride past my riders. It feels to me that, as they have never brought the AI up to modern levels of gaming (even though most newer indy games have better AI then this one, so the "its a small team" excuse is not valid), that they've decided blatant, in-your-face cheating is the way to go to create "challenge".

Maybe its just observational bias but I've played this game for years and never seen this level of ok riders beating my good, on-form ones. While its nice from a realism point of view to not win as much as I used to (I still, overall, win more than I lose), its frustrating when the "challenge" is created by making one or a few AI riders essentially on an early 2000's doping program for the day.