edenborn

Yes, AI show booking is what I was thinking, too, though the Autobooker clearly shares some of the same bad habits. This current emphasis on singles angles could be useful if made part of a larger strategy. For example, a recent signing that the AI plans to push strongly could be given a series of interview and backstage segments before the company debuts them in the ring. Much the way the WWF would hype their new signings with a series of introductory vignettes (Ted DiBiase, Mr. Perfect, Waylon Mercy, etc.) The angle rating might not be great for the AI but it would feel like there was a logical purpose behind the booking.

Agreed, though I'd make the case that before throwing random workers together, the AI should book angles for its stables.

<p>Just to square the circle on this, how about a promise system?</p><p> </p><p> <span style="text-decoration:underline;">Booker</span>: "I need you to head over to Memphis. It's dying. Go get over, baby, and turn it around."</p><p> <span style="text-decoration:underline;">Wrestler</span>: "I'll work Memphis for 3 months. When I return, I expect a 6-match winning streak and a title shot at a primary level championship. Deal?"</p><p> </p><p> Requested promises would vary based on the wrestler in question's personality, popularity, etc. Failure to keep your promise results in a Strong Dislike from the wrestler and a significant drop in backstage morale.</p>

RIPW's Drew Danson cheated on Lucinda Lush with Moriarty Schnell. It's the first LGBT affair I've seen in a TEW game.

<p>Very much agree with this. It's strange to see an AI stable form this way. </p><p> </p><p> Unless the intent is for the manager to drop their existing client(s) and take workers in the stable as new ones. And if that's the case, more needs to be done to explain what's happening and why.</p>

Perhaps a side note: 65 is actually a much higher floor than I'd have expected. I would have imagined some workers can't get past 40. Knowing that a promising wrestler -- failing some bizarre event -- will be able to contribute at 65 popularity makes offering a long-term deal a little less chancy.

Thank you.

For better or worse, I straitjacket my booking to only what the AI is capable of doing. What I've found is that if I put together shows however I want, I'll later look to see what my AI competitors are booking and I'll feel like I've taken unreasonable advantage. I want to feel like I'm competing on a level playing field. Otherwise, the game is too easy. I get bored and restart. In practice, that means I'm often trying to squeeze my creativity into a very small box. With TEW 2016, that's taken the form of limiting the number of matches and angles, to keeping the participants in an angle down to no more than the AI would include, to always ending the show with a match instead of a main event angle, etc. Those strictures can sometimes force interesting, creative booking -- they can even hurry the process because I don't have an unlimited set of options for how to advance a storyline. Make the best of what you've got. As for strategy, though it's a tried and true formula, I really enjoy building up a monster heel, having many weeks of domination and menace, building up to my babyface champ beating them on PPV. Then that monster becomes a gatekeeper to bring other babyfaces up to main event level (where they often turn heel and feud with the champ.)

Jumping onto the bandwagon to say how much I like this idea. Before booking wins and losses in the C-verse, I need to have a clear sense of finishers. Can't count how many times I've booted up Wrestling Spirit II just to check on the "canon" description of a Stain Removal or a Full Moon Rising to see if I agree with it or I want to make a change. So much more convenient to have those editable descriptions within the TEW game itself.

I'd always figured that high Basics allowed a worker to make the best of blown spots, compensate for injuries in the ring, etc. but now Experience has eaten its lunch.

<p>I've been a loyal customer since TEW 2008, having bought every iteration of the game up through TEW 2016. Most of them at launch. </p><p> </p><p> With TEW 2020, I'm taking a "wait and see" approach. The AI and the UI are at this point works-in-progress, and before buying in I want to make sure the end product is going to be suitably immersive and fun.</p><p> </p><p> The steady stream of improvements is encouraging but more changes are needed -- there's a considerable way to go.</p>

Same here. The AI's booking has to feel plausible. Not perfect, but plausible, or else I just lose interest. There are features I like in TEW 2020 but I'm not yet sold. Adam has a good track record of implementing customer-requested changes, so I'm hopeful the AI is very much on his radar as he continues to make adjustments.

"The caps can reduce during gameplay if a young worker is particularly badly used." Does anyone happen to know what that means in game terms? Is a 10-match losing streak "particularly badly used?" A 10-match losing streak where the wrestler is dominated in each match? 20 matches? Is it allowing the worker to have an Awful gimmick for a year? What are the metrics where you can start to do long-term damage to a young prospect in TEW?

I get where you're coming from on this. However, if my favorite wrestler shows up on that list, I might decide that adding them to my roster is worth upsetting my owner.

You're not alone there. TEW games help bring it out in me. Yes, I wave it away by pretending some of that time is where the commercials are falling. Or the commentators are showing multiple replays. Not ideal. As others have said, good rant, TeemuFoundation. It's clearly a challenge to make the game understand the sort of context you're talking about but for immersion's sake it's well worth exploring.

The Hype. (a.k.a. Todd Cusson: What Might Have Been)

With the C-verse I frequently make my avatar one of the existing road agents in the company, and then add a Simmering Tension relationship with the canon booker.

We're thinking along the same lines, Eastwood.

This may not be possible, but... Given how players are frustrated with how the AI tends to break up stables at the beginning of a new game, a useful fix would see giving the mod maker the ability to keep certain stables "locked" out of that early decision making. In other words, the creator of a Monday Night Wars mod could click on the nWo stable to indicate that whatever roster changes the AI makes in that first month, don't mess with the nWo. Don't break it up, don't add or remove members, don't change dispositions, etc. Keep it locked. Less important stables can come and go, but make sure the nWo survives the opening wave of changes. Just for that first month. Just long enough to get through the initial turbulence. Then the game can go on as normal, eventually making all manner of stable changes, but not as abruptly as we're seeing in that first month of roster balancing. This month-long lock could also work for locking the disposition individual workers. In TEW 2016, as much as I enjoyed playing the WWF in a July 1994 mod, the illusion of reality would frequently break as the AI roster balanced WCW. Very often in that first month, the AI would turn Hulk Hogan heel, thereby ruining the possibility of the iconic Hogan vs. Flair showdown at Bash at the Beach. Frustrating, because a good part of the booking challenge for the WWF in that scenario is "How do I counter Hogan vs. Flair?" If the above suggestions are infeasible, and instead the onus will fall on mod makers to create mods where every roster is perfectly balanced -- where the AI won't need to make changes at all -- then, are there tools that can be given to the mod maker? For example, a "Roster Balance Check" button that a mod creator could click, where TEW 2020 would come back with useful reports: "Given the ratio of faces to heels at the top of the roster, the AI is very likely to start by dissolving at least one face stable and creating at least one new heel stable. If you don't want that to happen, here's how you can prevent it..."

It's such a minor thing that I wouldn't have expected it but I'm in the exact same boat. I've been playing since 2008, and blue has been the color to shoot for. Receiving a yellow for excellence feels a bit like the game noticed an impressive performance and gave it an indifferent shrug.

Davis Wayne Newton -> D.W. Newton Gorgon -> Syberia Hell Monkey -> Ghost Monkey Hell's Bouncer -> Samhain John Greed -> Johnny Nightmare Nelson Callum -> Nick Callow Rahmel Goode -> Mr. Goode Randy Bumfhole -> Randy Streets Roger Cage -> Carson Cage Zimmy Bumfhole -> Zimmy Streets

<p>Sometimes, TEW 2020's AI will have the losers of a match "revenge attack" the winners. It's a nice addition and much appreciated, especially for those players who enjoy seeing a show end with an angle every now and then. However, it's frustrating to see this feature as limited as it is.</p><p> </p><p> Revenge attacks are the ones that take place after a match. They're different from "set up brawls" which build heat for a match later that night. Revenge attacks use this format:</p><p> </p><p> </p><div style="text-align:center;"><p><em>Jamie Quine defeated Pariah to retain the USPW Womens title</em></p><p><em> Pariah attacked Jamie Quine</em></p></div><p></p><p> </p><p> It's always the loser(s) attacking the winner(s). You never see the winner putting the boots to the loser. And yet, that happens in wrestling with great frequency.</p><p> </p><p> <strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Suggestion #1</span></strong><strong>: Post-match attacks by the winner(s) a.k.a. beatdowns</strong> </p><p> </p><p> It would look like this:</p><p> </p><p><em> </em></p><div style="text-align:center;"><p><em>Pariah defeated Jamie Quine for the USPW Womens title</em></p><p><em> Pariah attacked Jamie Quine</em></p></div><p></p><p> </p><p> You'd want to limit this as it would be strange to see total babyfaces regularly hand their opponents post-match beatings. The AI might only offer the possibility to heel winners. Or to heel winners but also babyface winners with Dominant or Bad Ass-basis gimmicks, to simulate the post-match stunners a face Stone Cold Steve Austin might dish out. </p><p> </p><p> <strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Suggestion #2</span></strong><strong>: Post-match attacks might start feuds</strong></p><p> </p><p> This is how many feuds start, after all. The action doesn't stop after the bell, and we build up to an eventual grudge match.</p><p> </p><p> So if two wrestlers (or teams) aren't currently feuding, and if there's room in the company for another AI feud, then a post-match attack might randomly create a new feud. I would think the chance of a feud igniting might be higher when the winner/winning team delivers the post-match beatdown as opposed to the loser/losing team getting post-match revenge. Still, either one would be great for a feud.</p><p> </p><p> <strong><span style="text-decoration:underline;">Suggestion #3</span></strong><strong>: Post-match attacks by a feud opponent</strong></p><p> </p><p> If two wrestlers or teams are feuding, and one is in a match against someone else, it would make sense for the feud opponent to have a chance of delivering a post-match attack.</p><p> </p><p> For example, let's say Jamie Quine and Pariah are feuding but Quine is up against someone else tonight:</p><p> </p><p><em> </em></p><div style="text-align:center;"><p><em>Jamie Quine defeated Melody to retain the USPW Womens title</em></p><p><em> Pariah attacked Jamie Quine</em></p></div><p></p><p> </p><p> "Bah gawd, that's Pariah's music, King!" </p><p> </p><p> Right now, wrestlers in feuds only get a chance of having angles in the first two angles of a card. It would be fun (and realistic) if they could also have a chance of this kind of attack, which would function much like the existing "revenge attack" in that it could potentially be the angle that closes a show. </p><p> </p><p> If you like, a post-match feud attack could have varieties, so you could have the successful attack (where one wrestler clobbers another) distinguished from the unsuccessful post-match attack (that ends with the attacking wrestler slinking off while the potential victim of the beatdown remains standing in the ring.)</p><p> </p><p> Post-match feud attacks would help sell the idea that feuding wrestlers are interfering in each other's matches, which we take on faith for the AI but never actually see.</p><p> </p><p> Post-match feud attacks would also mesh nicely with stables -- a wrestler could be attacked not only by their feud opponent but by all that opponent's stablemates as well. (For additional stable-related angles, I have suggestions <a href="http://www.greydogsoftware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=546113" rel="external nofollow">here</a>.)</p>

<p>I played TEW 2016 with numbers, mostly, but towards the end went back to grades and found that I preferred it. Either way works for me, though. </p><p> </p><p> The color scheme is the bigger issue for me. Others have said as much but that brilliant blue gives me a feeling of satisfaction whether it's 98 or A*. Gold isn't working for me yet.</p>

<p>"Who is the mysterious Bruce The Giant? That is the question that has been on the lips of many wrestling insiders lately."</p><p> </p><p> <em>Umm... I'm Bruce The Giant. You don't remember me?</em></p><p> </p><p> "The stranger has been spotted at many shows all around the world recently..."</p><p> </p><p> <em>Yeah, not a stranger. Won World Championships in the SWF, USPW and BHOTWG. Strewth, mate, I'm a bloody Hall of Immortals inductee!</em></p><p> </p><p> Purely a cosmetic suggestion but when joining a game with an avatar who actually has a history in the game world, it would be nice to see TEW 2020 acknowledge it accordingly, making a reference to that avatar's biggest achievement to date. </p><p> </p><p> Similarly, an avatar with no history of working for wrestling companies but nevertheless with high popularity in the game world (for example, a celebrity) should trigger a different news item than a "mysterious stranger" who is completely unknown.</p><p> </p><p> Again, cosmetic. There are no doubt more important items to address first. Eventually, though, this would be an immersive addition and nice to see.</p>

I have to think that's more likely than not. These are wonderful real world mods, hope to see this happen.