For this devblog, we won't be focusing on just one area but rather on a range of changes made to enhance and streamline the experience when using the various game modes.
So, let's start right away with the Pro Team and Pro Leader modes. This year, our goal was to give you more flexibility in these modes. To achieve this, we added new settings that you can adjust when you create a new game. You can choose your starting budget independently of the difficulty selected so you can progress faster or slower according to your preference.
In Pro Leader mode, two new options have been added. The first allows you to adjust the level of teammates assigned at the start of the game. So, you can start with a strong team from the very first season or with a weaker team for a harder challenge.
The second option sets an age limit so you can create a team composed of U25 riders only. As well as these new starting settings, you now have the option to change the difficulty of races before the start of each event. So, there's no longer any need to restart a season if you feel you chose the wrong difficulty.
Following the addition of the Medium Mountain rating, a new series of objectives has been added to the existing ones to improve Pro Leader mode. However, even though the Downhill rating has been replaced by the Agility rating (see devblog 1), this doesn't mean there are new career objectives. We decided to set Agility to maximum for all new riders. We thought it was more fun to be able to catch up during downhill stretches at the beginning of your career rather than fall behind at the top of the first hills.
We have also made some visual changes for these modes with refreshed jerseys when creating your team and a new distinctive jersey added for the leader of the Pro Cycling ranking. Finally, for these modes, the way the variant stages* work has also been changed so that they are only offered if you have already competed in the race. Therefore, the Tour de France route won't change from the second season; only when you have completed it for the first time.
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Now let's take a look at the Race and My Tour modes. Like the Pro Team and Pro Leader modes, we wanted to streamline certain areas. First, we removed the experience (XP) system. Although it worked well a few years ago when the game was focused on the Tour de France and a few "bonus" races, with the new events and modes now in the game, unlocking the same races every year no longer made any sense. All the game's content is available at launch. Whether it's races, stages, Legend difficulty or the team of legends (which gains three new champions this year), it is all available right from the start.
In terms of content, the World Championships can now take place on four different types of routes (flat, hill, medium mountain, mountain) instead of three. Three new teams have also been added to the World Championships: Denmark, the United States and Switzerland. The "Open Tour" race, which is only found in the Race mode, has new rules: only U25 riders (25 years old and under) can take part in this event.
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We have used a little artistic licence by adding mountain rankings to the Monuments. Don't worry! It doesn't ruin these events because it "only" displays the profile of hill climbs such as the Roche-au-Faucon, the Poggio and the Mur de Sormano. However, if you create a My Tour that includes a classic, such as Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the climbs will grant points for the best climber classification, which provides greater consistency in a stage race. Note that in stage races, a summary of the various winners and jersey wearers will be displayed at the end of the event, so you can track how the race unfolded. Each event will have its own kit of distinctive jerseys to make a clearer separation between them.
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To further improve the seamlessness of the game experience, several interfaces have been redesigned. Some of them now have a navigation shortcut to move to the next page quicker (when creating a customized Tour and the calendar page of the Pro Team / Pro Leader modes), while others are now clearer and therefore more user friendly (Transfers, Online Ladders, Team Composition, Fast-Forward pages).
A final devblog is planned before the game releases. It will focus on new features and changes to races.
* Variant stages are stages that replace the official stages so that an event's route isn't exactly the same from season to season.
Tour de France 2023 sera disponible le 8 Juin 2023.
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